Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon is a 2015 American documentary film directed by Douglas Tirola. The film is about National Lampoon magazine, and how the magazine and its empire of spin-offs changed the course of comedy and humor.

Synopsis
The film features new interviews with National Lampoon staff members and other notable figures who were fans of the magazine, as well as much never-before seen archival material and illustrations from the magazine, many of which have been animated. The film was shown at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival and at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on 16 April. The premiere was at the IFC Center in Greenwich Village, New York City, on the evening of September 25, 2015.

The title of the film is very similar to the title of a 2010 book about National Lampoon: Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Writers and Artists who made National Lampoon Insanely Great by Rick Meyerowitz. The film refers to some of the same material, and features work from some of the same contributors, but the film is not actually based on the book.

Poster
Both of the two posters for the film were drawn by Rick Meyerowitz. One is deliberately reminiscent of the original poster that Meyerowitz drew for the 1978 comedy Animal House, more correctly known as National Lampoon's Animal House, starring John Belushi. In the new film poster, instead of the fictional Delta Tau Chi House, the building portrayed is the National Lampoon magazine's headquarters, which were at 635 Madison Avenue in Manhattan.

Another poster shows  Rick Meyerowitz's piece, "Mona Gorilla", a parody of the Mona Lisa.

Alternate advertising artwork features a reproduction of the famous but controversial cover of the January 1973 "Death" issue of the National Lampoon.  Retaining the photo of the man holding a gun to a dog's head, the words "Buy This Magazine" in the original caption "If You Don't Buy This Magazine, We'll Kill This Dog" has been changed to "See This Documentary".  The cover is also referenced in the above-mentioned poster by an illustration of the dog.  However, in this case, the dog is holding a gun to its own head while holding a sign saying "At the end of my trope", a pun on the saying "At the end of my rope".

Cast
The film is "bursting with glimpses of the magazine's contents". The film also features numerous new interviews, including those with Chevy Chase, John Landis, Judd Apatow, Kevin Bacon, Tim Matheson, John Goodman, Billy Bob Thornton, Meat Loaf, Christopher Buckley, Henry Beard, Matty Simmons, Tony Hendra, P. J. O'Rourke, Chris Miller, Anne Beatts, Mike Reiss, Sean Kelly, Brian McConnachie, Michael Gross, Janis Hirsch, Chris Cerf, Peter Kleinman, Judith Belushi Pisano, Rick Meyerowitz, Ivan Reitman, Bruce McCall, Al Jean, Beverly D'Angelo, Ed Subitzky, Sam Gross, Jerry Taylor, and many others, as well as archival footage of staffers and Lampoon performers, including John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Doug Kenney and Michael O'Donoghue.

Reception

Ben Kenigsberg of Variety reviewed the film positively, calling it "generous and briskly entertaining" and "a real non-fiction crowdpleaser". He also commented that director Douglas Tirola "pulls it off with style [...] skillfully presenting a huge amount of material, including animations rendered after the style of Lampoon artwork."

John DeFore of The Hollywood Reporter called it "a lively, very entertaining look at the Lampoons unlikely empire".

Paula Bernstein of Indiewire interviewed the director, Douglas Tirola, who commented, "What I liked about the Lampoon was there was no 'going too far'."

See also
A Futile and Stupid Gesture

References

External links

2015 films
2015 documentary films
American documentary films
National Lampoon films
Documentary films about comedy and comedians
Documentary films about the media
2010s English-language films
2010s American films

Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead (film)


This article lists the most visited art museums in the world. This list of 100 is based on an attendance survey compiled by The Art Newspaper published in April 2013.

The country with the highest number of visitors in the top 100 is the United Kingdom. The country with the most museums appearing in the list is the United States.

The list also includes exhibition centers organizing temporary art displays. Several major art museums, such as the Palace Museum in Beijing, which annually draw close to 12 million visitors, the Museo del Prado in Madrid, with 2,800,000 visitors in 2012, and the National Museum of Anthropology of Mexico City, with 1,767,092 visitors in 2011, were not included.

Annual fluctuations occur due to the popularity of special exhibitions and improved collections. For example, the National Gallery of Victoria 2,800,000 visitors in 2017, placing it well into the top 20.

References

Art museums
Lists of museums

List of most visited art museums in the world


Hoch or Höch is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:

Adolf Hoch (1910–1992), Austrian architect
August Hoch (1868–1919), Swiss-born American psychiatrist
Beverly Hoch (born 1951), American opera singer
Daniel Hoch (born 1979), Swedish soccer player
Daniel K. Hoch (1866-1960), American politician
Danny Hoch (born 1970), American actor and writer
Edward D. Hoch (1930–2008), American writer
Edward W. Hoch (1849–1925), American politician
Eva-Maria Hoch (born 1984), Austrian tennis player
Gottfried Höch (1800–1872), German official
Hannah Höch (1889–1978), German artist
Harry Hoch (1887–1981), American baseball player
Heinrich Theodor Höch (1845–1905), German businessman
Homer Hoch (1879–1949), American politician
James Hoch, microbiologist
James Hoch (poet), American poet
Johann Otto Hoch (1855–1906), German-born American murderer
Joseph Hoch (1815–1874), German lawyer
Lambert Anthony Hoch (1903–1990), American bishop
Matthew Hoch (born 1975), American academic
Preben Hoch (1925–2014), Danish rower
Scott Hoch (born 1955), American golfer
Winton C. Hoch (1905–1979), American cinematographer
Robert Maxwell (1923–1991), Czechoslovakian-born British media proprietor and politician, born Ján Ludvík Hyman Binyamin Hoch

See also
 Hock (disambiguation)
 Hooch (disambiguation)

Hoch


Shachtmanism is the form of Marxism associated with Max Shachtman (1904–1972). It has two major components: a bureaucratic collectivist analysis of the Soviet Union and a third camp approach to world politics. Shachtmanites believe that the Stalinist rulers of proclaimed socialist countries are a new ruling class distinct from the workers and reject Trotsky's description of Stalinist Russia as a "degenerated workers' state".

Origin
Shachtmanism originated as a tendency within the US Socialist Workers Party in 1939, as Shachtman's supporters left that group to form the Workers Party in 1940. The tensions that led to the split extended as far back as 1931. However, the theory of "bureaucratic collectivism," the idea that the USSR was ruled by a new bureaucratic class and was not capitalist, did not originate with Shachtman, but seems to have originated within the Trotskyist movement with Yvan Craipeau, a member of the French Section of the Fourth International, and Bruno Rizzi.

Although the Shachtman group's resignation from the SWP was not only over the defence of the Soviet Union, rather than the class nature of the state itself, that was a major point in the internal polemics of the time.

Currents influenced by Shachtman
Regardless of its origins in the American SWP, Shachtmanism's core belief is opposition to the American SWP's defence of the Soviet Union. This originated not with Shachtman but Joseph Carter (1910–1970) and James Burnham (1905–1987), who proposed this at the founding of the SWP in 1938. C. L. R. James (1901–1989) referred to the implied theory, from which he dissented, as Carter's little liver pill. The theory was never fully developed by anybody in the Workers Party and Shachtman's book, published many years later in 1961, consists earlier articles from the pages of New International with some political conclusions reversed. Ted Grant (1913–2006) has alleged that some Trotskyist thinkers, including Tony Cliff (1917–2000), who have described such societies as "state capitalist" share an implicit theoretical agreement with some elements of Shachtmanism. Cliff, who published a critique of Shachtmanism in the late 1940s, would have rejected this allegation.

Left Shachtmanism
Left Shachtmanism, influenced by Max Shachtman's work of the 1940s, sees Stalinist nations as being potentially imperialist and does not offer any support to their leadership. This has been crudely described as seeing the Stalinist and capitalist countries as being equally bad, although it would be more accurate to say that neither is seen as occupying a more progressive stage in the global class struggle.

A more current term for Left Shachtmanism is Third Camp Trotskyism, the Third Camp being differentiated from capitalism and Stalinism. Prominent Third Camp groupings include the Workers' Liberty grouping in Australia and the United Kingdom and by the International Socialist predecessor of Solidarity.

The foremost left Shachtmanite was Hal Draper (1914–1990), an independent scholar who worked as a librarian at the University of California, Berkeley, where he organized the Independent Socialist Club and became influential with left-wing students during the Free Speech Movement. Julius Jacobson (1922–2003) and the New Politics journal continued to develop and apply this political tradition.

Social democratic Shachtmanism
Social democratic Shachtmanism, later developed by Shachtman and associated with some members of the Social Democrats, USA, holds Soviet Communist states to be so repressive that communism must be contained and, when possible, defeated by the collective action of the working class. Consequently, adherents support anti-communist labor unions and democracy movements around the world. Domestically, they organized in the civil rights movement and in the labor movement. Social democrats influenced by Shachtman rejected calls for an immediate cease-fire and the immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam, but rather opposed bombings in Vietnam and supported a negotiated peace that would allow pro-US labour unions and government-opposition to survive. Such social democrats helped provide funding and supplies to the US-backed Solidarity, the Polish labor union.

Libertarian Shachtmanism

Libertarian socialist tendencies developed within early Shachtmanism, leading to certain individuals and groups moving towards anarchism and libertarian Marxism. Dwight Macdonald left the Workers Party shortly after it was first established, founding the Politics magazine and becoming an anarcho-pacifist during World War II. While still within the Workers Party, the Johnson–Forest Tendency developed a form of libertarian Marxism that characterized the Soviet Union as state capitalist, while also developing a black liberationist program. The trade union activist Stan Weir was in turn inspired by the Johnsonites to reject vanguardism and traditional trade unionism, in favor of a bottom-up syndicalist model. While Murray Bookchin himself had stayed with the Cannonite Socialist Workers Party, he briefly joined a group that worked together with the Shachtmanite Workers Party, later developing towards a green anarchist philosophy - which he labelled "social ecology".

In the wake of World War II, the Independent Socialist League began to forge alliances with other "third camp" groups, holding joint conferences with such organizations as the Industrial Workers of the World, the Libertarian League and the War Resisters League. An anarchist newspaper noted that the ISL's political thought had developed greatly since its break with orthodox Trotskyism in 1939, stating that "in some respects these comrades are evolving in a generally libertarian direction." However, as Shachtman himself moved towards social democratic tendencies, the further left segments led by Hal Draper split to form the International Socialists, attracting many libertarian socialists through Draper's pamphlet Two Souls of Socialism - which advocated for a popular and democratic "socialism from below". However, due to the International Socialists' preoccupation with electoralism, revolutionary socialists split from the organization to form the Revolutionary Socialist League, which included a sizeable number of libertarian socialists. Libertarians of the RSL, led by Christopher Z. Hobson and Ron Tabor, eventually broke entirely from Trotskyism, Leninism and Marxism, becoming anarchists and forming the founding nucleus of the Love & Rage Anarchist Federation. Tabor later identified Left Shachtmanism as having provided a bridge between Trotskyism and anarchism, through the concepts of the "Third Camp", "socialism from below" and the "united front". He also criticized the International Socialists for its social democratic, centrist and reformist tendencies. Draper, in turn, has criticized anarchism as "fundamentally antidemocratic in ideology", labeling it as an elitist and authoritarian ideology.

The International Socialist Organization also established itself around Draper's conception of "socialism from below", and like the Revolutionary Socialist League before it, a number of anarchists have since left the organization after developing towards more libertarian philosophies.

References

Bibliography

Further reading
 The Fate of the Russian Revolution, Lost Texts of Critical Marxism Vol 1, edited by Sean Matgamna: Max Shachtman, Hal Draper, CLR James, Al Glotzer, Joseph Carter, Leon Trotsky, a.o [Phoenix Press, 1998]

External links
The Lubitz Trotskyana.Net - biographical sketch and selective bibliography
Collection of writings by and on Shachtman on the Workers' Liberty website
Max Shachtman Internet Archive at Marxists.org
New International Archive (1940-1946) & (1947-1958) in the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL)

Eponymous political ideologies
Shachtmanism
Types of socialism
Anti-Stalinist left

Shachtmanism


Liz James is a British art historian who studies the art of the Byzantine Empire. She is Professor of the History of Art at the University of Sussex.

Career
James is originally from Derby, East Midlands. She received an undergraduate degree at the University of Durham in Ancient History and Archaeology. She completed a master's degree in Byzantine studies at the University of Birmingham. She received her doctorate at the Courtauld Institute in London in 1989, studying under Robin Cormack. Her thesis discussed light and colour in Byzantine art and was entitled Colour Perception in Byzantium. Upon completion, she embarked on postdoctoral fellowships, notably at the Barber Institute. In 1993 she joined the University of Sussex.

James was appointed Professor in 2007. Her professorial lecture was given in 2011 and discussed the mosaics in the apse of Hagia Sophia.

Research specialism
James is known as a keen promoter of all areas of Byzantine art and Byzantine culture. She has particular interests in mosaics and in gender issues. She has written extensively on mosaics, discussing practical, iconographic and materialistic approaches to the subject. She has also established a database of Byzantine glass mosaics. In the field of gender, she has discussed Byzantine empresses, eunuchs and the way Byzantine society reacted to gender. She is also interested in the relationship between text and image, believing Byzantine texts to be of equal importance to Byzantine art. James contributed to the Royal Academy's 2008 Byzantium exhibition catalogue and gave a lecture to the academy.

Publications

Books
Empresses and Power in Early Byzantium (Leicester University Press, 2001)
Light and Colour in Byzantine Art (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1996)

Edited books
Art and Text in Byzantium (Cambridge University Press, 2007), Introduction, and paper, '"And shall these mute stones speak?" Text as image'.
Icon and Word. The power of images in Byzantium (Ashgate, 2003), editor with Antony Eastmond, and contributor, "Introduction: Icon and Word", xxix–xxxiv, and "Art and Lies: Text, image and imagination in the medieval world", 59–72.
Desire and Denial in Byzantium (Variorum, Aldershot, 1999)
Women, men and eunuchs: gender in Byzantium (Routledge, London, 1997), editor and contributor, "Introduction: Women's Studies, Gender Studies, Byzantine Studies", xi–xxiv

Other publications
 'At Church' in eds. R. Cormack and M. Vassilaki, Byzantium 330–1453 (Royal Academy, London, 2008)

'Seeing is believing but words tell no lies: captions and images in the Libri Carolini and Byzantine Iconoclasm' in eds. A. L. McClanan and J. Johnson, Negating the image: case studies in iconoclasm (Ashgate, 2005), 97–112
'Get your kit on! Issues in the depiction of clothing in Byzantium' (with Shaun Tougher) in ed. L. Cleland, M. Harlow and L. Llewellyn-Jones, The Clothed Body in the Ancient World (Oxbow, 2005), 154–161
'Good luck and good fortune to the Queen of Cities: empresses and tyches in Byzantium' in eds. E. J. Stafford and J. Herrin, Personification in the Greek world (Ashgate, 2005), 293–308
'Adorned with piety: authority, devotion and the empress in early Byzantium', in ed. M.Vassilaki, Images of the Mother of God, (Ashgate, 2005), 145–52

'Who's that girl? Personifications of the Byzantine empress' in ed. C. Entwistle, Through a Glass Brightly. Festschrift for David Buckton (Oxbow Publications, Oxford 2004), 51–6

'Dry bones and painted pictures: relics and icons in Byzantium' in ed. A. Lidov, Eastern Christian Relics (Research Centre for Eastern Christian Culture, Moscow, 2002), 45–55
'Bearing gifts from the East: imperial relic-hunters abroad' in ed. A. Eastmond, Eastern Approaches to Byzantium (Ashgate, Aldershot, 2000), 119–132
'What colours were Byzantine mosaics?' in eds. E. Borsook, F. Superbi, G. Pagliarulo, Medieval mosaics: light, color, materials (Harvard University Centre for Italian Renaissance Studies, Florence, 2000), 35–46
'As the actress said to the bishop...Byzantine women in English-language fiction', in eds. R. S. Cormack and E. Jeffreys, Through the Looking-Glass. Byzantium through British eyes (Ashgate, Aldershot 2000), 237–249
'Women and politics in the Byzantine Empire: imperial women' in ed. L. E. Mitchell, Women in Medieval Western European Culture (Garland, 1999), (with Barbara Hill), 157–178
'Goddess, whore, wife or slave? Will the real Byzantine empress please stand up' in ed. A. Duggan, Queens and Queenship in Medieval Europe (Boydell and Brewer,1997), 123–40
'"Pray not to fall into temptation and be on your guard". Antique Statues in Byzantine Constantinople', Gesta 35 (1996), 12–20

'The East Dome of San Marco: a reconsideration', Dumbarton Oaks Papers 48 (1994), (with E. J. W. Hawkins), 229–242
'Monks, monastic art and the Middle Byzantine Church' in eds. M. Mullett & A. Kirby, The Theotokos Evergetis and Eleventh Century Monasticism (Belfast Byzantine Texts and Translations, Belfast 1994), 162–175.
'Zoe. The rhythm method of imperial renewal' in ed. P.Magdalino, New Constantines (Variorum, Aldershot, 1994) (with B. Hill & D. C. Smythe), 215–230

References

Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
Academics from Derby
English art historians
Women art historians
British Byzantinists
British women historians
British classical scholars
Women classical scholars
Academics of the University of Sussex
Alumni of the University of Birmingham
Alumni of the Courtauld Institute of Art
Alumni of Van Mildert College, Durham
Historians of Byzantine art
Women Byzantinists
Women medievalists

Liz James


The Fribourg−Yverdon railway is a single-track standard-gauge line of the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) in Romandy.

The line is sometimes considered to form one of two lines that intersect at Payerne station and are referred to in French as the Ligne de la Broye (Broye line) or in German as the Broyelinien (Broye lines) or Broyetallinien (Broye valley lines). The Fribourg−Yverdon railway is considered to form the Broye transversal. The Palézieux–Lyss railway includes the Broye longitudinal (Palézieux–Payerne–Murten–Kerzers). The lines are named after the Broye river, which passes through the cantons of Vaud and Fribourg, crossing the cantonal border ten times in total.

History
The line was opened in two stages:
 25 August 1876: Payerne–Palézieux
 1 February 1877: Payerne–Yverdon.
The line was owned by the Western Swiss Railways (Chemins de fer de la Suisse Occidentale), which already operated the Jura Foot Railway via Yverdon and the Lausanne–Bern railway via Fribourg. The competition from the two established main lines and the rural character of the catchment area never allowed the Fribourg−Yverdon railway to advance beyond the status of a secondary line. Various mergers of railway companies led to the line becoming owned by the SBB at its foundation in 1903.

Most of the line was electrified in 1944–1947, late by Swiss standards and reflecting its low traffic. The Givisiez–Fribourg section had already been electrified from 1903 to 1947 for the trains of the Chemin de fer Fribourg–Morat–Anet (FMA) at 750 Volt and side-contact third rail.

Route
The line runs from Yverdon to Estavayer-le-Lac through the Grande Cariçaie wetland landscape along the shores of Lake Neuchatel, before running through the broad Broye valley. The watershed between the Broye and the Saane is climbed after Payerne on a winding ramp that climbs at up to 2.1%.

References

Footnotes

Sources

Railway lines in Switzerland
Railway lines opened in 1876
1876 establishments in Switzerland

Fribourg–Yverdon railway


The Crime of Monsieur Lange (; French: Le Crime de Monsieur Lange) is a 1936 French drama film directed by Jean Renoir about a publishing cooperative. Imbued with the spirit of the communist/socialist Popular Front, which would score a major political victory in 1936, the film is an idyllic picture of a socialist France and is both a social commentary and a romance. It was shot at the Billancourt Studios in Paris. The film's sets were designed by the art director Robert Gys. It was distributed by the French subsidiary of Warner Brothers.

Plot
M. Lange is a mild-mannered writer of Western stories for a publishing company. Batala, the salacious owner of the company, flees his creditors. When his train crashes, he takes the opportunity to fake his own death. The abandoned workers, with the help of an eccentric creditor, form a cooperative. They have great success with Lange's stories about the cowboy, Arizona Jim, whose stories parallel the real-life experiences of the cooperative. At the same time, Lange and his neighbor Valentine, an old flame of Batala's, fall in love.

When Batala resurfaces, intending to reclaim the publishing company, Lange shoots and kills him to protect the cooperative. Lange and Valentine flee the country, stopping at an inn near the Belgian frontier where Valentine tells Lange's story to a group of the inn's patrons who had recognized Lange as the murderer on the run and threatened to alert the police. After hearing the story, the men sympathize with Lange and Valentine and allow them to escape across the border to freedom.

Cast

Production

Renoir considered the film a collaboration with the agitprop theatre company the October Group. It was based on an original idea by Renoir and Jean Castanier titled Sur la cour (). Poet and screenwriter Jacques Prévert wrote the script. The shooting lasted 25 days from October to November 1935 and took place at Le Tréport and in the Paris studios of Billancourt. It was during the shooting of the film that Paul Éluard introduced Pablo Picasso to Dora Maar, who served as set photographer for the production.

Legacy

In his autobiography, Renoir claimed that the great success of The Crime of Monsieur Lange in France caused him to become strongly associated with the extreme political left wing. French communists asked him to produce overt propaganda films denouncing fascism, and he readily complied with the communists' demands, stating: "I believed that every honest man owed it to himself to resist Nazism. I am a filmmaker, and this is the only way in which I could play a part in the battle." Renoir's left-wing propaganda films of the mid-1930s, including The Crime of Monsieur Lange, along with his writings for various newspapers, placed him in danger when France entered World War II. Renoir's American friends, particularly the filmmaker Robert Flaherty, urged him to obtain a visa from the American consulate in Nice so that he may flee to the United States. He decided to do so after he claimed that Nazis had requested that he make films sympathetic to their cause.

Roger Leenhardt of Espirit called the film "all the more remarkable in that the work owes its witty style to the harmony of… two unshakably original temperaments… Prévert contributed his vivacity and mordant humor, and Renoir the resonance of his true romanticism." Peter Harcourt said that it was "in a sense the most intelligent film… Renoir ever made." François Truffaut wrote that "Mr. Lange is of all Renoir's films, the most spontaneous, the most dense set of miracles and camera, the busiest of truth and pure beauty, a film we would say touched by grace."

See also
Cinema of France
List of French language films

References

Sources
Renoir, Jean. My Life and My Films, New York: Da Capo Press, 2000.

External links

 The Crime of Monsieur Lange on Rotten Tomatoes

1936 films
1936 crime drama films
French satirical films
Films directed by Jean Renoir
French black-and-white films
1930s French-language films
Films with screenplays by Jacques Prévert
French crime drama films
Films scored by Joseph Kosma
1930s French films
Films shot at Billancourt Studios

The Crime of Monsieur Lange


Street Fighter Alpha: Generations is a 2005 Japanese anime film produced by A.P.P.P. and released by Manga Entertainment based on the Street Fighter Alpha 2 video games by Capcom. Its production is unrelated to 2000's Street Fighter Alpha: The Animation, which was produced by Group TAC. The film was produced specifically for the English-language market and was not officially released in Japan until its inclusion as a bonus feature in the DVD release of Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li.

Plot
The movie begins with Gouki (as Akuma is called in both the Japanese and English dubs of the movie) battling his master Goutetsu. Though both combatants show equal potency, in the end, Gouki is the victor, killing Goutetsu with the Raging Demon technique.

Gouken arrives in time to find the mangled body of their master Goutetsu and a no longer human-looking Gouki. Gouken scorns Gouki, telling him that his path was set for him and asking why he would do such a thing. Gouki took his master's beaded necklace and walks away completely unfazed. Sayaka, unable to reach the fight in time, falls down to her knees and vomits, a sign of her pregnancy and her connection to Gouki.

The movie then moves forward, introducing Ryu, who is visiting his master's old dojo. It is there that an apparition of Gouki comes to Ryu and challenges him. When Ryu comes to his senses, he is greeted by an old man, who says that he, too, had just witnessed what was a true demon. The old man invites Ryu to his house, where Ryu meets his granddaughter Fuka, and offers to train him. Sakura shows up and spars with him, which encourages Ryu to accept Gouki's challenge.

Ryu seeks out Akuma, and the fight begins. During their hard battle Ken confronts the old man and is easily taken down. It is here that old man tells Ken about the Satsui no Hadou. He states that the Satsui no Hadou is a mysterious evil life force that dwells within certain fighters. As this life force is exploited, it grows stronger until it consumes its possessor. Once the person is consumed by the Satsui no Hadou, they cannot be released from its hold. He states that the Satsui no Hadou is ancient, that even old warlords knew of its existence.

As Ryu and Gouki continue to fight, Ryu becomes desperate and is temporarily possessed by the Satsui no Hadou. However, he realizes that it is not the correct course of action and stops using the power. Gouki scolds Ryu, saying to him that his path to a great warrior had been clouded and that a true warrior unleashes his full potential. Seeing Ryu as no threat to him anymore, Gouki unleashes a Metsu Hadouken on him, only to have Ryu survive it. Gouki then walks away, cursing Gouken and saying that he will meet Ryu again and fight him. Gouki sees an apparition of Sayaka treating his wounds in the past before the scene shifts back to the present with Gouki demonstrating a more human appearance with normal eyes, perhaps implying that he has regained some of his humanity. Bruised from his fight, Ryu walks away, foreshadowing a possible battle in the future.

The movie ends with the old man standing, looking to the sky and addressing an old friend (Gouken). He states that he was asked by Gouken to take care of a young child (Fuka or Ryu) who was left in his care when his mother (Sayaka) died giving birth to the child and was told not to let the child take the path that the father (Gouki) had chosen, but one day, took his eyes off the child for an instant, and it was the biggest mistake he had ever made. He states that he is too old, and that his time has come. Fuka is later seen praying in tears. Ryu takes one last look at her and leaves soon after, beginning his travels again.

Cast

Reception
Street Fighter Alpha: Generations was not as successful as its predecessor, earning a 52% "rotten" score on Rotten Tomatoes.

References

External links
 Street Fighter Alpha: Generations (broken link)

2005 anime films
Japanese martial arts films
Street Fighter anime and manga
Alpha Generations
Anime films based on video games
2005 martial arts films
2005 films
ja:ストリートファイターZERO#ストリートファイターALPHAジェネレーション

Street Fighter Alpha: Generations


William Archer Porter (c. 1825 - d. 16 July 1890) was a British lawyer and educationist who served as the Principal of Government Arts College, Kumbakonam and tutor and secretary to the Maharaja of Mysore.

Early life and education

Porter was born in Drumlee, Castlewellan, Co. Down, Ireland in the year 1825, the eldest son of Rev. James Porter, Presbyterian minister, and the brother of (1) James Porter (Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge), (2) Jane Bailie Porter, who married Alexander Crum Brown, the Scottish organic chemist and (3) Margaret Archer Porter, who married Peter Tait (physicist). He was educated at Glasgow University from 1841 to 1845 and entered Trinity College, Cambridge in 1845. Migrating to Peterhouse, he graduated BA in 1849 as 3rd Wrangler and was admitted as a fellow of Peterhouse.

Career
Porter practised as a tutor from 1855 to 1856 when he joined Lincoln's Inn. Porter was called to the bar in 1859. Porter served as an equity draftsman and conveyancer from 1859 to 1863, when he moved to India to take over as headmaster of the Provincial School, Kumbakonam.

Porter served as the headmaster of the Provincial School from 1863 to 1873 and was instrumental in its elevation to graduate college. Porter is, however, best remembered for having served as the Principal of the Government Arts College, Kumbakonam from 1874 to 1878. He is considered to be the best-ever principal of the college. During this time, Porter also occasionally acted as the Principal of the Presidency College, Madras. In 1878, Porter was appointed tutor to Chamarajendra Wadiyar X, the prince of the Kingdom of Mysore and served from 1878 to 1882.

Later life and death

Porter returned to the United Kingdom in 1882 and died at Edinburgh on 16 July 1890.

Family

His sister Margaret Porter married Peter Guthrie Tait. They were parents to John Guthrie Tait, Frederick Guthrie Tait and William Archer Porter Tait.

References

1825 births
1890 deaths
Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
Irish educators
Alumni of the University of Glasgow
19th-century Irish people
Scholars from Chennai

William Archer Porter


Clogs are a type of footwear made in part or completely from wood. Used in many parts of the world, their forms can vary by culture, but often remained unchanged for centuries within a culture.

Traditional clogs remain in use as protective footwear in agriculture and in some factories and mines. Although they are sometimes negatively associated with cheap and folkloric footwear of farmers and the working class, some types are considered fashion wear today, such as Swedish träskor or Japanese geta.

Clogs are also used in several different styles of dance, where an important feature is the sound they produce against the floor. Clog dancing is one of the fundamental roots of tap dancing, but with tap shoes the taps are free to click against each other and produce a different sound from clogs.

Types

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a clog as a "thick piece of wood", and later as a "wooden soled overshoe" and a "shoe with a thick wooden sole".

Welsh traditional clog maker Trefor Owen identified three main varieties of clogs: wooden upper, wooden soled and overshoes.
 Wooden upper clogs; are made by hollowing out a lump of solid wood to make a combined upper and lower. Two main variants can be seen:
 whole foot clogs; where the wooden upper covers the whole of the foot to near the ankle, such as the Dutch klomp. They are also known as "wooden shoes".  Whole foot clogs can give sufficient protection to be used as safety footwear without additional reinforcements.
 half open clogs; where the wooden upper extends over the toes or slightly further, such as the Belgian sabots. The upper is similar in outline to a court shoe. Half open clogs may have additional covering or securing straps in some sort of fabric or leather.
 Wooden soled clogs; use wood for the sole only. Wooden soled clogs come with a variety of uppers:
 complete uppers made from leather or similar material, such as English clogs. For more protection, they may have steel toecaps and/or steel reinforcing inserts in the undersides of the soles
 open sandal type fitting. For example, Japanese geta
 toe peg styles. For example, Indian paduka
 Overshoes; are wooden soles with straps designed to be worn over other footwear for protection, commonly known as pattens. Patten style clogs are not used anymore. However the derivative galoshes are common worldwide.
These divisions are not fixed: some overshoes look more like whole foot clogs, like Spanish albarca, whilst other wooden soled clogs raise and protect clothing in the way that overshoes do, such as Japanese geta.

The type of upper determines how the clogs are worn. Whole foot clogs need to be close fitting and can be secured by curling the toes. In contrast wooden soled clogs are fastened by laces or buckles on the welt and therefore the toes are relaxed as in shoes. Half open clogs may either be secured like whole foot clogs, or have an additional strap over the top of the foot. Some sandal types, and in particular toe peg styles, are worn more like "flip-flops" and rely on the grip between the big and next toe.

Flexing the foot
As they are primarily made from wood, clogs cannot flex under the ball of the foot as softer shoes do. To allow the foot to roll forward most clogs have the bottom of the toe curved up, known as the cast. Some styles of clogs have "feet", such as Spanish albarca. The clog rotates around the front edge of the front "feet". Some Japanese and Indian clogs have "teeth" or very high pegs attached to the soles. The clog can rotate around the front edge of the front "tooth" as the wearer strides forward. Some medieval pattens were in two pieces, heel through to ball and ball to toes. Joining the two was a leather strip forming a hinge, thus allowing the shoe above to flex.  Klompen may have a carefully placed ease (space left around the foot), which allows the foot to bend, and the heel to lift within or out of the clog. Thick, springy wool socks provide flexibility in the fit.

History

The use and prevalence of wooden footwear in prehistoric and ancient times is uncertain, owing both to the ambiguity of surviving records and the difficulty of both preserving and recognizing its remains. Used clogs also tended to be repurposed as firewood.

Some ancient Greeks apparently wore kroúpezai () made of wood. These were known to the Romans as . Both the Greeks and Romans also made sandals by attaching leather straps to wooden soles in various ways.

The ancient Chinese wore wooden jī () by at least the Han dynasty, when a form decorated with colorful ribbons and designs was used by women on their wedding days. Under the Jin, a different style shaped the entire shoe from a single piece of wood and, after the Tang, the southern Chinese wore "boot clogs" (, xuējī).

The oldest wooden footwear so far recovered in Europe was found at Amsterdam and Rotterdam in the Netherlands. These date from  and  and looked very similar to the wooden shoes still worn in the area. By about this era, wooden pattens were being used as overshoes to protect the wearer's hose and indoor shoes when walking outside, particularly in inclement weather. Some shoes then began directly incorporating the wooden platform into their soles, like the Venetian chopines.

Manufacture

Since wooden footwear was a hand-made product, the shape of the footwear, as well as its production process showed great local and regional diversity in style. At the beginning of the 20th century machine-made wooden footwear was introduced. After WW2, in particular, wooden shoes disappeared from sight. They were replaced by more fashionable all-leather and synthetic footwear. At present, only the so-called Swedish clogs (wooden bottom and leather top) is still seen as a trendy fashion item, often as ladies' high-heeled boots. Nevertheless, traditional wooden footwear is still popular in several regions in Europe and in some occupations, for its practical use. Some historic local variations have recently been replaced by uniform national models.

More information on the various methods of manufacture can be found from the gallery below.

Gallery
Presented below are typical clogs from the countries where they are found. Like many folk items, the boundaries of manufacture and use are regional and therefore do not always exactly follow those of modern states. So, in some countries two or more different types can be found. It is also possible that one type can be found in bordering countries. For example, Danish, German, Dutch, Belgian and clogs from Northwest France look quite similar. The links provide access to pages dealing with the different types of clog, their design, origin and manufacture.

Traditional European clogs

Traditional Asian clogs

Fashion clogs

In the 1970s and 1980s, Swedish clogs became popular fashion accessories for both sexes. They were usually worn without socks and were considered suitable attire for the avant-garde man.

In the 1980s and 1990s, clogs based on Swedish clogs returned in fashion for women. Platform clogs or sandals, often raised as high as 6 or even 8 inches right through between sole and insole, were worn in many western countries. The large mid layer was often made of solid cork, although some were merely of plastic with a cork covering. The sole, more often than not, was made of a light sandy-colored rubber.

In 2007, Dutch designers Viktor & Rolf introduced high heeled Dutch clogs on the catwalk, with their winter collection of 2007/08.  In 2010, Swedish clogs for women returned again in Chanel's and Louis Vuitton's Spring / Summer 2010 collection.

Museums

 Bata Shoe Museum, Canada
 International Wooden Shoe Museum Eelde, Netherlands
 Bai Mi Wooden Clog Village, Taiwan
 Clitheroe Castle Museum, Lancashire, UK

Citations

General and cited references

External links

1970s fads and trends
Footwear
Folk footwear
Safety clothing
Shoes
Sandals

Clog


Inside Himalaya is a large coffee-table style book containing pictures taken by Basil Pao, who was the stills photographer on the team that made the Himalaya with Michael Palin TV program for the BBC.

Michael Palin's name is prominently displayed on the cover, and he has contributed a two-page foreword.

The rest of the book consists of Basil Pao's photographs, each with a short text indicating what the picture is about and where it was taken. Some of the pictures are displayed as impressive two-page spreads. A majority of the pictures show the local people, some as informal portraits, some showing people engaged in various activities. The rest of the pictures are beautiful landscapes, many showing the majestic mountainous scenery.

There are pictures from the following countries: Pakistan, India, Nepal, Tibet, China, Bhutan and Bangladesh.

At the end of the book, there are four pages showing 42 very small pictures that provide some insights into how the BBC film crew did their work. There is also a three-page Postscript by Basil Pao describing his very personal experiences during the Himalaya trip.

References

External links
Text and pictures can be viewed for free on Michael Palin's web site

Photographic collections and books
British travel books
2004 non-fiction books
Books about the Himalayas
Weidenfeld & Nicolson books
English non-fiction books

Inside Himalaya


Tianlong Tunbao (also spelled Tunpu) (simplified Chinese:天龙屯堡) is a historic town and tourist attraction located near Anshun city of Guizhou province in China.  The town is home to members of the Tunbao, an officially unrecognized ethnic group of Han people originally descended from members of an army sent on an expedition to Guizhou during the Hongwu reign of the Ming Dynasty.  The traditional homes and customs of the Tunbao have been preserved, including performances of the DIxi opera or "ground opera".   Located next to the town is the Tiantaishan Wulong Temple (Simplified Chinese: 天台山伍龙寺), a former stronghold of Ming Dynasty general Wu Sangui.

References

Tourist attractions in Guizhou

Tianlong Tunbao town


The side-striped jackal (Lupulella adusta) is a canine native to central and southern Africa.

Unlike the smaller and related black-backed jackal (Lupulella mesomelas), which dwells in open plains, the side-striped jackal primarily dwells in woodland and scrub areas.

Taxonomy and evolution

Carl Jakob Sundevall named the species Canis adustus in 1847. Fossil remains date to the Pliocene era. A mitochondrial DNA sequence alignment for the wolf-like canids gave a phylogenetic tree with the side-striped jackal and the black-backed jackal being the most basal members of this clade, which means that this tree is indicating an African origin for the clade.

In 2019, a workshop hosted by the IUCN/SSC Canid Specialist Group recommends that because DNA evidence shows the side-striped jackal (Canis adustus) and black-backed jackal (Canis mesomelas) to form a monophyletic lineage that sits outside of the Canis/Cuon/Lycaon clade, that they should be placed in a distinct genus, Lupulella Hilzheimer, 1906 with the names Lupulella adusta and Lupulella mesomelas.

Description
The side-striped jackal is a slender, medium-sized canid, which tends to be slightly larger on average than the black-backed jackal. Body mass ranges from , head-and-body length from  and tail length from . Shoulder height can range from . Its pelt is coloured buff-grey. The back is darker grey than the underside, and the tail is black with a grey, almost silver tip. Indistinct white stripes are present on the flanks, running from elbow to hip. The boldness of the markings varies between individuals, with those of adults being better defined than those of juveniles.

The side-striped jackal's skull is similar to that of the black-backed jackal's, but is flatter, with a longer and narrower rostrum. Its sagittal crest and zygomatic arches are also lighter in build. Due to its longer rostrum, its third upper premolar lies almost in line with the others, rather than at an angle. Its dentition is well suited to an omnivorous diet. The long, curved canines have a sharp ridge on the posterior surface, and the outer incisors are canine-like. Its carnassials are smaller than those of the more carnivorous black-backed jackal. Females have four inguinal teats.

Dietary habits
The side-striped jackal tends to be less carnivorous than other jackal species, and is a highly adaptable omnivore whose dietary preferences change in accordance to seasonal and local variation. It tends to forage solitarily, though family groups of up to 12 jackals have been observed to feed together in western Zimbabwe. In the wild, it feeds largely on invertebrates during the wet season and small mammals, such as the springhare, in the dry months. It frequently scavenges from campsites and the kills of larger predators. In the wild, fruit is taken exclusively in season, while in ruralised areas, it can account for 30% of their dietary intake. The side-striped jackal tends to be comparatively less predatory when compared to other jackal species. It typically does not target prey exceeding the size of neonatal antelopes, and one specimen was recorded to have entered a duck's pen to eat their feed, whilst ignoring the birds.

Social behaviour and reproduction

The side-striped jackal lives both solitarily and in family groups of up to seven individuals. The family unit is dominated by a breeding pair, which remains monogamous for a number of years.

The breeding season for this species depends on where they live; in Southern Africa, breeding starts in June and ends in November. The side-striped jackal has a gestation period of 57 to 70 days, with average litter of three to six young. The young reach sexual maturity at six to eight months of age, and typically begin to leave when 11 months old. The side-striped jackal is among the few mammal species that mate for life, forming monogamous pairs.

Subspecies
There are seven recognized subspecies of the side-striped jackal:
L. a. adusta (West Africa to most of Angola) – Sundevall's side-striped jackal
L. a. bweha (East Africa; Kisumu, Kenya) – Elgon side-striped jackal
L. a. centralis (Central Africa; Cameroon, near the Uham River)
L. a. grayi (North Africa; Morocco and Tunisia)
L. a. kaffensis (Kaffa, southwestern Ethiopia) – Kaffa side-striped jackal
L. a. lateralis (East Africa; Kenya, Uasin Gishu Plateau, south of Gabon)
L. a. notatus (East Africa; Kenya, Loita Plains, Rift Valley Province) – Loita side-striped jackal

See also

Wajee Nature Park

Notes

References

Further reading

External links

Lupulella
side-striped jackal
Carnivorans of Africa
Mammals of Sub-Saharan Africa
Fauna of East Africa
Mammals of Southern Africa
side-striped jackal
Least concern biota of Africa
Taxobox binomials not recognized by IUCN

Side-striped jackal


"An Experimental Enquiry Concerning the Source of the Heat which is Excited by Friction" is a scientific paper by Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, which was published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in 1798. The paper provided a substantial challenge to established theories of heat, and began the 19th century revolution in thermodynamics.

Background
Rumford was an opponent of the caloric theory of heat which held that heat is a fluid that could be neither created nor destroyed. He had further developed the view that all gases and liquids are absolute non-conductors of heat. His views were out of step with the accepted science of the time and the latter theory had particularly been attacked by John Dalton and John Leslie.

Rumford was heavily influenced by the argument from design and it is likely that he wished to grant water a privileged and providential status in the regulation of human life.

Though Rumford was to come to associate heat with motion, there is no evidence that he was committed to the kinetic theory or the principle of vis viva.

In his 1798 paper, Rumford acknowledged that he had predecessors in the notion that heat was a form of motion. Those predecessors included Francis Bacon, Robert Boyle,  Robert Hooke, John Locke, and Henry Cavendish.

Experiments
Rumford had observed the frictional heat generated by boring out cannon barrels at the arsenal in Munich. At that time, cannons were cast at the foundry with an extra section of metal forward of what would become the muzzle, and this section was removed and discarded later in the manufacturing process. Rumford took an unfinished cannon and modified this section to allow it to be enclosed by a watertight box while a blunted boring tool was used on it. He showed that water in this box could be boiled within roughly two and a half hours, and that the supply of frictional heat was seemingly inexhaustible. Rumford confirmed that no physical change had taken place in the material of the cannon by comparing the specific heats of the material machined away and that remaining were the same.

Rumford also argued that the seemingly indefinite generation of heat was incompatible with the caloric theory. He contended that the only thing communicated to the barrel was motion.

Rumford made no attempt to further quantify the heat generated or to measure the mechanical equivalent of heat.

Reception

Most established scientists, such as William Henry, as well as Thomas Thomson, believed that there was enough uncertainty in the caloric theory to allow its adaptation to account for the new results. It had certainly proved robust and adaptable up to that time.  Furthermore, Thomson, Jöns Jakob Berzelius, and Antoine César Becquerel observed that electricity could be indefinitely generated by friction. No educated scientist of the time was willing to hold that electricity was not a fluid.

Ultimately, Rumford's claim of the "inexhaustible" supply of heat was a reckless extrapolation from the study. Charles Haldat made some penetrating criticisms of the reproducibility of Rumford's results  and it is possible to see the whole experiment as somewhat tendentious.

However, the experiment inspired the work of James Prescott Joule in the 1840s. Joule's more exact measurements were pivotal in establishing the kinetic theory at the expense of caloric.

Notes

References

Citations

Sources

Bibliography

Thermodynamics literature
1798 documents
1798 in science
Physics papers
Works originally published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society


Wisdom's Light is a public sculpture located in front of the Lake Branch Library in Uniontown, Ohio. The sculpture was commissioned by the Rotary club of Lake Township to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of Rotary International.

The sculpture stands 9.5 feet tall. It consists of a stack of 18 oversized books. A typical book measures 24 inches x 20 inches x 6 inches. The "pages" of each book are encrusted with Blenko art glass. The books are hollow and are lit from within by six neon tubes. At night, the light shines out from the pages of the books.

The sculptor is Don Lundstrom. Lundstrom has previously completed sculptures for other libraries in North Canton, Ohio, Tiffin, Ohio, and Canton, Ohio.

Although the 100th anniversary of Rotary fell on February 23, 2005, the sculpture was dedicated at a ceremony on October 23, 2004. Congressman Ralph Regula was in attendance, as were three Rotary district governors: Meena Patel, Larry Warren, and Jack Polen.

The titles in the stack were chosen by benefactors from the community. The titles range from old to new. Don Quixote is the oldest novel in the sculpture. James Brady's, The Marines of Autumn is the newest novel.

External links
 http://www.mrexcel.com/rotarycent.pdf
 http://donlundstrom.com/

Outdoor sculptures in Ohio
Glass works of art
2004 sculptures

Wisdom's Light


The Bangor City Forest also known as the Rolland F. Perry City Forest is a large recreation area in Bangor, Maine. The park consists of approximately  and features close to  of hiking, cycling, and cross-country skiing trails. The trail system is well maintained and most trails are packed gravel. Although primarily a recreational area, it is technically a "working forest."

The park has a large parking and picnic area located at the end of Tripp Drive.  Additional parking is available at the end of Kittredge Road.

The entrance to the Orono Bog Boardwalk, a one-mile (1.6 km) boardwalk over the Orono Bog, is located on East Trail approximately  from the parking area.  The boardwalk is handicapped accessible.

External links
 Orono Bog Boardwalk
 Bangor City Forest Report

Geography of  Bangor, Maine
Protected areas of Penobscot County, Maine
Tourist attractions in Bangor, Maine

Bangor City Forest


Alan Cameron is a Senior Lecturer on the Faculty of Law of Victoria University of Wellington in Wellington, New Zealand.  His academic speciality is accountancy law.  Cameron is also a Juridical scholar who reflects on the nature of law in relation to the distinctives of the New Zealand legal tradition and the wider legal developments around the world.  He is a critical proponent of the Juridical philosophy developed by past professor of law at the Free University in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Dr Herman Dooyeweerd.

Dooyeweerd's overall conception is often referred to as the philosophy of the law-idea (Dutch: Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee - "WdW," a nickname pronounced "vay de vay). Although his 5-volume major work in jurisprudence is only now in the process of being published, with the appearance of Volume I of Encyclopedia of the Science of Law , the ideas Dooyeweerd taught during his professorship in jurisprudence have been in circulation in the English-speaking world since 1953, when Dooyeweerd's first volume of A New Critique of Theoretical Thought  appeared.  This broader philosophical work establishes a context for both the juridical philosophy, and the various nationally-distinctive bodies of juridical scholarship.

Dooyeweerd's colleague, professor of philosophy and co-founder with Dooyeweerd of Reformational philosophy, D. H. Th. Vollenhoven, distinguishes "three senses of 'law': structural law, inherent in the cosmos; the imposed or proclaimed law of love, as the message of the Gospel in which Christ summarizes the teaching of Moses and the Prophets; and the positive laws, enacted from out of positions of responsibility, in which a situation is given more definite form, in accordance to the norming law of love, in the context of actual geographical and historical exigencies. In this last development, history is taken in the sense of encompassing the entire cosmos. There are successive emphases here, first to 'God', then to 'Law', then to 'Cosmos'. With each step the meaning of all three is deepened," says Dr Anthony Tol.

References
Dooyeweerd, Herman. Encyclopedia of the Science of Law (English translation 2003, Mellen Press; Dutch original, 'Encyclopaedie der Rechtswetenschap' [Studentenraad, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, 1946-1967])
D, H.  A New Critique of Theoretical Thought appeared in 3 volumes (1953–57) + Index Volume; 1st reprint by Wedge Publishing Co; now in a 2nd reprint (Mellen Press)
D, H.  De Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee (1935–36)
Cameron, Alan M. article "Dooyeweerd on Law and Morality: Legal Ethics—A Test Case (1998)
C, A.  book Integrative Justice: An interdisciplinary conceptual orientation for the study of law (forthcoming 2009)

External links
Navigate to Publications, Series A, Vol 1, Excerpt.
Victoria University of Wellington School of Law

Academic staff of Victoria University of Wellington
Living people
New Zealand legal scholars
Year of birth missing (living people)

Alan Cameron (legal scholar)


The Old U.S. Post Office in Niles, Michigan is a Classical Revival building that was built in 1909.  It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.

History

By 1909, Niles had over 7000 residents, and a need for a new post office. Local congressman Edward LaRue Hamilton secured appropriations for theis building, and the cornerstone was laid in June 1909. The structure was designed by the office of the Supervising Architect of the Treasury, James Knox Taylor, and Max Stock of St. Joseph, Michigan was awarded the contract for the building's construction. A rear addition was constructed in 1937, and another addition constructed in 1956. The building served as Niles' post office until 1982, when a much larger structure was erected.

The city of Niles took ownership of the building in 1983.  In 2016 there was a proposal at the Niles City Council for the building to be renovated at cost of $800,000, in order for some of its space to be used by the Michigan secretary of state's office.  "'It's a classy looking building and will be a fine anchor for the downtown,' said one councilman. The building is being converted to apartments, with completion expected in early 2021.

Description
The Old Post Office building is a one-story, Classical Revival structure faced with buff brick and limestone. It has a full basement and a copper roof, and sits on a gently sloping lot. The structure consists of thee sections: the original portion constructed in 1909,  a rear wing added in 1937 which corresponds closely to the original building in its architectural style, and a large contemporary addition constructed in 1956.

The two older sections are of buff trick standing on granite block foundation. Exterior detailing of both sections is in limestone, including a dentil-trimmed main cornice, window surrounds, and panels above and below the windows. Bronze lighting fixtures flank the main entrance. The 1956 addition nearly doubles the size of the building, but the slight setback, reduced height, and harmonious use of materials serves to reinforce the visual importance of the original building.

References

External links
Postcards depicting the post office

Post office buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Michigan
Government buildings completed in 1909
Buildings and structures in Berrien County, Michigan
Neoclassical architecture in Michigan
National Register of Historic Places in Berrien County, Michigan

Old U.S. Post Office (Niles, Michigan)


Sikkim tea is a variety of tea grown in the state of Sikkim, India. Though Sikkim tea is not as widespread in use as the neighboring Darjeeling tea, it has recently gained more recognition from the increasing demand for organic products. The tea is mostly sold under the marketing name 'Temi tea'. After Darjeeling tea became the first Indian product to receive a GI tag, Sikkim's Temi tea has been waiting to receive the same.

History
Tea farming in Sikkim is primarily dominated by the Temi Tea Garden (owned by the Sikkim state government) and various other small tea growers. It started with the establishment of the Temi garden by the last king of Sikkim, Palden Thondup Namgyal, in an attempt to provide employment to a large number of Tibetan refugees living in the region.

Tea characteristics
The first flush of Sikkim tea is harvested during springtime and has a unique taste and aroma. The tea is golden in color and has a light floral finish. It has a slightly sweet ta Sikkim tea has a toasty and strong flavour. The third flush (also called Monsoon Flush) is full-bodied and has a mellow taste. The final flush (or Autumn Flush) of the Sikkim tea has a well-rounded taste and the slight hint of warm spices.

Production and sale
The temperate weather and altitude of the state are entirely suitable for tea cultivation and the tea is known for its distinct flavour and aroma. Sikkim produces two varieties of tea, one is the China variety and another is clone variety. Clone variety is a recent phenomenon and in the early phase was used to produce China variety only. Sikkim, with its only garden and few other small growers, produces an estimated 0.5 million kg (mkg) of tea annually. Black Tea is the usual farm produce, while a delicate white tea, which is manufactured from the buds and unfurled new leaves is also grown to order. A green tea, known for its flowery flavour; and the Oolong tea are also produced.

About 75 per cent of tea produced in Sikkim is sold via the Kolkata auction centre while the remaining is packaged for local sale. The tea is popular in the international market due to being completely organic. Major importers are Germany, United States, France, Canada, and Japan. The organic status of tea produced in the state has been certified by the Institute for Market Ecology (IMO), a member group of IMO Switzerland.

Tea estates

 Bermiok is a boutique tea garden was established in the year 2002 by Mr. Tashi Densapa. This private estate is spread over 15 acres and stands at an elevation of 2500 ft to 3200 ft in the highlands of Sikkim. It is one of the youngest gardens in tea history and is completely organic. Due to the garden being young, the liquors from here are more floral and woody with a fresh aroma. Most of the garden is planted with Chinary bushes with patches of TV1 and TV2 clonal bushes. Currently, the estate is being managed by Mr. Nikhil Pradhan and his partner Mrs. Dolka Densapa. The estate produces around 1200 kg of tea in a year.

Temi Tea Garden, founded in 1969, is the oldest and the only government run estate in the state. The estate has a plantation area of 440 acres, originating from Tendong Hill, it is a producer of certified and characteristic organic tea.
The Temi Tea garden is one such spectacle. The 100% organic tea garden was certified and recognized by the IMO control board of India in the year 2017.

Medicinal uses
Significant inhibitory activity, caused by hot water extract of black tea of Sikkim variety, has been observed against carrageenin, histamine, serotonin, and prostaglandin-induced pedal inflammation. The extract also inhibited exudative inflammation, cotton pellet-induced granuloma formation and adjuvant-induced polyarthritis. The extract has also shown significant inhibition against glucose oxidase-mediated inflammation. The observations have established the efficacy of this particular variety of black tea in the chronic phase of inflammation.

References

External links

Black tea
Green tea
Oolong tea
Indian tea
Geographical indications in Sikkim
Culture of Sikkim
Tea estates in India

Sikkim tea


In Ancient Greece, the Lykaia () was an archaic festival with a secret ritual on the slopes of Mount Lykaion ("Wolf Mountain"), the tallest peak in rustic Arcadia. The rituals and myths of this primitive rite of passage centered upon an ancient threat of cannibalism and the possibility of a werewolf transformation for the epheboi (adolescent males) who were the participants. The festival occurred yearly, probably at the beginning of May.

The epithet Lykaios ("wolf-Zeus") is assumed by Zeus only in connection with the Lykaia, which was the main Arcadian festival. Zeus had only a formal connection as patron of the ritual. In the founding myth, of Lycaon's banquet for the gods that included the flesh of a human sacrifice, perhaps one of his sons, Nyctimus or his grandson, Arcas, Zeus overturned the table and struck the house of Lycaon with a thunderbolt; his patronage at the Lykaia can have been little more than a formula. Long afterward, in the late 3rd century CE, the philosopher Porphyry reported that Theophrastus had compared the sacrifice "at the Lykaia in Arcadia" with Carthaginian sacrifices to Moloch.

The ritual was nocturnal, to judge from the name of Nyctimus (nyx, "night") that was given to the son of Lycaeus who was killed and served up as part of the feast to Zeus. Rumors of the ceremony that circulated among other Greeks revolved around the theme of human sacrifice and cannibalism: according to Plato, a particular clan would gather on the mountain to make a sacrifice every nine years to Zeus Lykaios, and a single morsel of human entrails would be intermingled with the animal's. Whoever ate the human flesh was said to turn into a wolf, and could only regain human form if he did not eat again of human flesh until the next nine-year cycle had ended. The traveller Pausanias told of an Olympic boxing champion Damarchus of Parrhasia, who had "turned into a wolf at the sacrifice to Zeus Lykaios, and changed back into a man again in the ninth year thereafter", from which Walter Burkert affirms that, for Damarchus to have successfully participated at least nine years later, the participants in the ritual feast must have been ephebes.

There were several sites. At the summit on Mount Lykaion Pausanias saw the ash-pile altar to Zeus but, as attending the rite was impossible, he was obliged to "let it be as it is and as it was from the beginning".

Near the ancient ash-heap where the sacrifices took place was a forbidden precinct in which, allegedly, no shadows were ever cast. Anyone who entered would have to be sacrificed. There was the cave of Rhea, the Kretaia, where, according to local legend, Zeus was born and was cared for by the nymphs. There were games associated with the satisfactory completion of the Lykaia, which removed in the 4th century to Megalopolis; when it was founded in 371 BCE, Megalopolis was the first urbanization in rustic Arcadia; there the major temple was dedicated to Zeus Lykaios, though the Arcadians continued to sacrifice on the mountain-top to Pausanias' day (2nd century CE).

Modern archaeologists have found no trace of human remains among the sacrificial detritus, but recent discoveries at the mountain-top ash-heap altar that Pausanias saw but was reluctant to pry into, reveal that it was much older than the Classical Greeks themselves realised. Early 20th century excavations at the site had revealed nothing earlier than ca. 700 BCE, but the Greek-American interdisciplinary Mt. Lykaion Excavation and Survey Project excavated a trench and detected ritual presence at the site at the beginning of the third millennium BCE, a thousand years before Zeus was worshiped in Greece. A Late Minoan rock crystal seal bearing the image of a bull was a notable surprise.

Apollo Lykaios
The god Apollo as worshipped in the cultic practices on Mount Lykaion was referred to as Apollo Lykaios. Much scholarly debate continues on the nature of the epithet "Lykaios" beyond its geographical and cultic significance. Assertions as to Apollo having an archaic wolf-form are speculative at best (and likely based on historically contested etymologies).

The figure of Apollo Lykaios should not be confused, however, with the famous Apollo Lyceus, the distinctive statue type of the god that was displayed in the Lyceum in Athens where Aristotle taught. This figure is completely unrelated to Apollo Lykaios. Likewise, Lycian Apollo refers to the Apollo cult in the Anatolian kingdom of Lycia, across the Aegean, and not Lykaia.

Lykaian Pan
A sanctuary of Pan was also located upon the mountain. According to tradition, Evander of Pallantium, son of Hermes, led a colony from Pallantion in Arkadia into Italy, where he built a town Pallantion on the Palatine, and introduced the cult of Pan Lýkaios and the festival of the Lykaia, which later became the major Roman festival of Lupercalia.

Modern Lykaia

In 1973, the Ano Karyes(ΑΝΩ ΚΑΡΥΕΣ) Association "O Lykaios Dias(Ο Λύκαιος Δίας)" established the modern Lykaia, which are held every four years on the same place as the ancient games.  The motto of these games is "Laurels, not prizes" (Greek: "Στεφανίτες" και όχι "Χρηματίτες"), meaning that the purpose of these games is solely the moral perfection of man and not rewarding the winners with pecuniary means. Modern Lykaia are usually held in the beginning of August.  The games begin with the lighting of the flame on the Arcadian's sacred peak. The Estiades of Mount Lykaion, making their appearance from the north, bring the Arcadian's eternal flame. The first Estiada walks slowly towards the southern pillar base (where two golden eagles were placed in ancient times) and lights the torch.  The head priestess recites the Lycean Ode by Pindarus and then gives the torch to an athlete named as torch-bearer.  The torch-bearer then runs into the stadium and lights the altar which is placed there. The closing ceremony includes cultural events, the lowering of the flag and the playing of the Greece's national anthem. The winner of each athletic event is awarded with an olive branch, a cup, a tripod, a medal or a diploma.  All the athletes who participated-regardless of their performance-receive a certificate of participation, thus justifying the Games' motto. The 9th Lykaia were held from the 29th of July to the 7th of August 2005. The 10th games took place in the summer of 2009.The 11th games took place from 27 July to the 4th of August 2013.On the last day(4 August)  the athletic events of track and field took place at the mountain stadium.The 12th Lycae games were held in the summer of 2017. The 13th celebration was held from july 31st to August 7th in 2022.

References

Sources
Potamianos, K. Mount Lykaion Throughout the Centuries. Edition of the Kotylio Association, Athens 2005.
 This year, the sacred flame of Lycaea. "Apodemon Epos" Magazine of European Art Center (EUARCE) 2st issue 1997 p.1-2
"Lykaea". '"EI" Magazine of European Art Center (EUARCE) of Greece, 3st issue 1993'
-Georgia Simopoulou, The revival of "Lykaea" - a historical route p.52-54

-Ulrich Sinn, The Sanctuary of Zeus Lykaios. p.55

"Lykaea". '"EI" Magazine of European Art Center (EUARCE) of Greece, 13st issue 1996'-"Lykaea", p.15
-"The "Lykaea" for all Hellenismus", p. 39

-Amalia  Chajianagnostou, "The Mt. Lykaeon, the Sanctuary Mount of Arcades", p.40

-Plyxeni Kasda, "The strength of the little one"'', p.41

Festivals in ancient Arcadia
Festivals of Zeus
Apollo
Pan (god)
Werewolves in Greek Myths
Lupercalia
Moloch
May observances

Lykaia


Rueben Philip Job (February 7, 1928 – January 3, 2015) was an American bishop of the United Methodist Church. Elected in 1984, he served the Iowa episcopal area and retired in 1992.

Birth and family
Job was born in Jamestown, North Dakota.  On August 20, 1953, he married Beverly Nadine Ellerbeck of George, Iowa.  They were the parents of four children:  Deborah, Ann, Philip, and David, and had seven grandchildren. Job died in Brentwood, Tennessee, a suburb of Nashville.

Education

Job earned the B.A. degree from Westmar College in 1954 (as did his wife, a member of the same class).  He earned the Bachelor of Divinity degree from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in May 1957.  Bishop Job holds honorary doctorates from Westmar College (1975), Dakota Wesleyan University (1980), Asbury Theological Seminary (1984), the University of Dubuque Theological School (1989), Rust College (1991), Simpson College (1992), and Iowa Wesleyan College (1992).

Ordained ministry

On May 24, 1952, Job received a License to Preach in the Evangelical United Brethren Church (E.U.B.) from Bishop E. W. Pretorius.  Job received a Student Appointment that summer.  He was ordained an Elder by Bishop H. R. Heininger in 1957.

Job served several pastorates in North Dakota:  Tuttle (1957–1960); Minot (1960–1961); Calvary Church, Fargo (1962–1965). In 1961–1962 he served in Europe as a chaplain in the U.S. Air Force.  He served on the staff of the General Board of Evangelism of the E.U.B. Church from 1965 to 1968, and on the general staff of the U.M. Board of Evangelism and Discipleship from 1968 to 1977, following the 1968 merger of the E.U.B. and Methodist Churches that formed the United Methodist Church.  In 1977 Job was appointed District Superintendent of the Northern District of the South Dakota Annual Conference.  He held this position until he became the World Editor of The Upper Room devotional publication, a highly popular United Methodist ministry.  For years he had also been active in the development of spiritual enrichment programs and materials, the author or co-author of numerous works.

Episcopal ministry

The 1984 North Central Jurisdictional Conference of the UMC elected Job a bishop and assigned him to the Iowa Episcopal Area.  He served on the UM General Commission on Communications as a bishop.  He was also chairperson of the Hymnal Revision Committee of the church, resulting in the 1989 United Methodist Hymnal.  Bishop Job retired from the episcopacy in 1992.

Selected writings

Three Simple Rules: A Wesleyan Way of Living
Living Fully, Dying Well
A Journey Toward Solitude and Community
A Guide to Prayer for Ministers and Other Servants
A Guide to Prayer for All Who Seek God
A Wesleyan Spiritual Reader
Spiritual Life in the Congregation
A Guide to Prayer for All God's People
How to Conduct a Spiritual Life Retreat

See also
 Wikipedia List of United Methodist bishops

References

External links
 Photo of Bishop Job

1928 births
2015 deaths
Ministers of the Evangelical United Brethren Church
American evangelicals
United Methodist bishops of the North Central Jurisdiction
People from Jamestown, North Dakota
People from Brentwood, Tennessee
Garrett–Evangelical Theological Seminary alumni
Westmar University alumni
United States Air Force chaplains

Rueben Philip Job


Social anxiety disorder is a mental health anxiety where people are scared to talk to other people, thinking that they will embarrass themselves, not know what to say, say the wrong thing,  be judged badly by another person or people or something unexpected happens that can range from something minor to something life changing in a negative way. This can cause fear to someone with this type of Anxiety, which can also affect their life if it is not treated soon.

People with Social Anxiety Disorder can also be scared to go out and talk to people even if they were good friends in the past. This can cause depression and fear of the outdoors.

References

Anxiety disorders

Phobias

Social anxiety disorder


Big Bad Wolf is a 2006 American werewolf-themed horror film about Derek Cowley, where he and his college classmates go to his stepfather's cabin to party. It won the 2007 Silver Award at WorldFest Houston in the category of Best Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror Film. The film starred Trevor Duke as Derek Cowley, and Kimberly J. Brown as Samantha Marche. It was rated R in the United States for strong violence, gore, language, and nudity.

Plot
Two men are hunting in the jungle of Cameroon when one from another group of two people calls and says that his guide is missing. Then one can hear on the radio that someone is being attacked by what sounds like a wild animal. A humanoid creature rips the leg off of one of the men. The man's brother, Charlie Crowley finds his brother dying.

Years later, Charlie's nephew Derek has been living with emotional abuse from Mitch Toblat after Mitch married his mother. In spite of this Derek is going up to his stepfather's cabin with his friend Samantha and his four other friends while Mitch is on a business trip. After spending five hours searching for the cabin, they finally find it. That night the cabin is surprisingly attacked by a werewolf, and they are more surprised to find that it talks. The werewolf kills two of Derek's friends and breaks into one of the locked rooms of the cabin where it rapes one of the girls in front of her boyfriend, before killing her. The werewolf then castrates the boyfriend and kills him too. Derek and Sam both manage to escape the werewolf and are found by police.

They tell the police they didn't get a good look at what attacked them, knowing that they wouldn't believe them. The next day, Mitch picks Derek up from the police station, and tells Derek that the deaths of his friends are on him for taking his friends to the cabin in the first place. Sam and Derek both suspect that Mitch is the werewolf. Later Charlie pays Derek a visit to see if he's alright.

Derek and Sam confide what they know to Charlie, who surprisingly believes them. Charlie explains that he shot at the werewolf that killed his brother and suspected it to be Mitch as Mitch had a crush on Derek's mother. Charlie also says they just can't accuse Mitch, and need DNA evidence to be compared to the hair sample he got from the werewolf. Meanwhile, Charlie reconnects with Derek's mother while Derek and Sam become romantically connected themselves. While searching for DNA evidence, Sam enters Mitch's room and picks hair from his comb. Mitch catches Sam in his room and forces her to perform oral sex on him, and Sam takes the semen sample as DNA. Derek finds out and it puts a strain on Sam and his relationship.

Meanwhile, Mitch has been stalking Charlie, suspecting that he is sweet on his wife. Mitch picks up a package addressed to Charlie, and learns it is the DNA results. Mitch later abducts Charlie and reveals to him that he doesn't need the moon to change, that he learned to control himself to the extent that he can transform at will. Mitch beats, tortures, mutilates and finally kills Charlie, saying it is his own fault for not minding his business. Derek later finds the DNA report and learns that Mitch has killed Charlie, Derek confronts Mitch about it. Mitch tries to justify himself but Derek shoots down his arguments. Around the same time, Derek's mother decides to leave Mitch. In retaliation, Mitch kidnaps Sam and demands Derek to meet him in the cabin that night, alone.

Derek arrives, but another group of teenagers go to the cabin to investigate the previous massacre (a running gag in the film). Mitch transforms and kills them one at a time, including raping a girl in their group. When it is down to Derek and Sam, they fight Mitch with silver knives and arrows. Eventually, they set Mitch on fire and the cabin burns down. After escaping the fire, Derek and Sam embrace, but Mitch is not dead and bites Derek, before being stabbed one last time. As he dies, Mitch says "my curse is now yours". Derek worries about his future after all he went through, but Sam promises to stick by him whatever happens, and they drive off together on her moped.

After the credits end, Mitch is shown moving his fingers slightly.

Cast
 Trevor Duke as Derek Cowley
 Kimberly J. Brown as Samantha "Sam" Marche
 Richard Tyson as Mitchell Toblat/The Beast
 Sarah Aldrich as Gwen Cowley
 David Naughton as Sheriff Ruben
 Christopher Shyer as Charlie Cowley
 Andrew Bowen as Scott Cowley
 Sarah Christine Smith as Cassie
 Robin Sydney as Melissa

References

External links
2007 Audio Interview at Your Video Store Shelf with the director of Big Bad Wolf Lance W. Dreesen

2006 films
2006 horror films
American comedy horror films
American werewolf films
American exploitation films
American splatter films
2000s English-language films
2000s American films
American black comedy films
American monster movies
American supernatural horror films

Big Bad Wolf (2006 film)


Canada Jam was a rock festival concert held at Mosport Park in Bowmanville, Ontario Canada, about 100 kilometres east of Toronto, on August 26, 1978. The festival was produced by Sandy Feldman and Leonard Stogel, who produced California Jam and California Jam II, and was sponsored by Carling O'Keefe. It attracted over 110,000 fans, making it the largest paying rock event in Canadian history at that time. The Molson Canadian Rocks for Toronto a.k.a. "SARSfest" featuring the Rolling Stones and AC/DC eclipsed that mark with an audience of 450,000 people on July 30, 2003.

Canada Jam was the second of three major music festivals held at Mosport between 1970 and 1980.  The other two were the Woodstock-esque Strawberry Fields Festival held August 7–9, 1970 and the punk and new wave themed, Heatwave Festival held August 23, 1980. Both these festivals were produced by Toronto promoter John Brower who facilitated the introduction to Mosport Park for Feldman and Stogel.

Performers
Canada Jam acts in order of appearance:

Ozark Mountain Daredevils
The Doobie Brothers
Atlanta Rhythm Section
Village People
Dave Mason
Wha-Koo
Prism
Kansas
Commodores
Triumph
The program ran for 18 hours (3 hours behind schedule) and ended with Triumph's encore at 3:35 AM.

Broadcast, telecast, and record releases
Four television specials were made from the event and broadcast across the CTV television network in Canada.  Several performances from the show were eventually released on CD and video, both in bootleg and authorized form including performances by Kansas and Triumph.  The event was hosted by CFTR-AM (AM680) in Toronto.

Approximately 350 people were treated in the medical tent for fatigue, cuts and drug and alcohol-related ailments but no major incidents or problems occurred.  Tickets for the event sold for $20.00 in advance and $30.00 on the day of the event and the event grossed an estimated 2.5 million dollars.

See also

List of historic rock festivals
List of jam band music festivals
Lenny Stogel IMDB

References

1978 music festivals
1978 in Canadian music
Clarington
Rock festivals in Canada
Music festivals in Ontario
Music festivals established in 1978
August 1978 events in Canada

Canada Jam


Deforce is a legal term, meaning to unlawfully withhold land from its true owner or from any other person who has a right to the possession of it, after one has lawfully entered and taken possession of it. See e.g. 3 Bl Comm 172.

Likewise, deforcement is a broad term for the holding of real property to which another person has a right; used especially to denote keeping out of possession one who has never had possession.   It is an abatement, an intrusion, a dissension, a discontinuance, or any other kind of wrong by which a person who has a right to the freehold is kept out of possession. See 3 Bl Comm 172; detention of dower from a widow. Authority: 25 Am J2d Dow § 1860.

See also

Land law

Legal terminology
Real property law

Deforce


Adenta is a small town and is the capital of Adenta Municipal district, a district in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana. The town is known for the West Africa Secondary School. The school is a second cycle institution. It is also known for the SSNIT (Social Security and National Insurance Trust) Housing. It is located on the Accra - Aburi Highway after Madina.

References

Populated places in the Greater Accra Region

Adenta


The Statue of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar at the Koyasan University in Wakayama Prefecture, Japan, is a public monument of Babasaheb Ambedkar. Ambedkar (1891-1956) was an Indian polymath, Dalit leader, human and civil rights activist, the architect of the Indian constitution and the founding father of republic of India. The statue was unveiled on 10 September 2015 by then Maharashtra's Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. The statue of a foreign person has been set up for the first time in Wakayama. The statue's height is 10.5 feet (3.2 m). It was established on the celebration of 1,200th year of foundation of Koyasan and the 125th birth anniversary of B. R. Ambedkar. It was established at a cost of ₹ 22.25 lakhs.

Background

As a part of cooperation in the field of tourism, the Government of Maharashtra had signed a Memorandum of Understanding in October 2013 with the Wakayama Prefecture in Japan. Japan is considered to be Buddhist country. The Japanese wanted to establish a statue of Ambedkar on the 'Koyasan' hill, which is considered sacred to Buddhists. Accordingly, the statue of Babasaheb Ambedkar was decided to be installed at Koyasan. Koyasan (Mount Kōya) is also included in the World Heritage Sites. Accordingly, the statue was raised in March 2015 by Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation (MTDC) in Koyasana. The statue of a foreign person has been set up for the first time in Wakayama. The Statue's height is 10.5
feet (3.2 m). The architect Balkrishna (Daji) Panchal had established this statue at Kudal in Sindhudurg district of Maharashtra. The work of the statue started from December 2014 and has been completed by the end of March 2015. The statue was unveiled by Chief Minister of Maharashtra Devendra Fadnavis on 10 September, 2015. The Governor of Wakayama Prefecture Yoshinobu Nisaka, Bhante Kobo Dishi, Maharashtra State Industries Minister Subhash Desai, MP Ramdas Athavale, MP Amar Sable, former State Minister Sulekha Kumbhare were also present on the occasion. In the presence of Chief Minister Fadnavis and the governor of Wakayama Yoshinobu Nisaka, A Memorandum of Understanding was signed between Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University and Koyasan University. The Vice Chancellor of both the universities was present on this occasion.

References

Statues
Japan
B. R. Ambedkar
2015 works

Statue of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar


Phocas (; ; 5475 October 610) was Byzantine emperor from 602 to 610. Initially, a middle-ranking officer in the Eastern Roman army, Phocas rose to prominence as a spokesman for dissatisfied soldiers in their disputes with the court of the Emperor Maurice. When the army revolted in 602, Phocas emerged as the natural leader of the mutiny. The revolt proved to be successful and led to the capture of Constantinople and the overthrow of Maurice on 23 November 602 with Phocas declaring himself emperor on the same day.

Phocas deeply mistrusted the uncooperative elite of Constantinople to whom he was a usurper and a provincial boor. He, therefore, attempted to base his regime on relatives whom he installed in high military and administrative positions. He immediately faced multiple challenges in domestic and foreign affairs to which he responded with little success. He dealt with domestic opposition with increasing ruthlessness which alienated even wider circles, including some members of his own household. At the same time, the Empire was threatened on multiple frontiers. Avars and Slavs renewed their destructive raids of the Balkans, and the Sassanid Empire launched a massive invasion of the eastern provinces. Finally, the Exarch of Africa, Heraclius the Elder, rebelled against Phocas and gained wide support throughout the empire. Phocas attempted to use border troops to crush the rebellion, which however only resulted in allowing the foreign invaders to break into the heartlands of the Empire. Heraclius the Elder's son, Heraclius, succeeded in taking Constantinople on 5 October 610, and executed Phocas on the same day, before declaring himself the emperor.

Surviving sources are universally extremely hostile to Phocas. He is described as an incompetent tyrant and usurper who brutally purged any real or perceived opposition and left the Empire wide open to foreign aggression. The veracity of these sources is difficult to ascertain since emperors of the Heraclian dynasty who succeeded Phocas had a vested interest in tarnishing his reputation.

Life

Early life
Phocas was probably born in 547, as he was said to be aged 55 when he became emperor. He and his family were likely of Thraco-Roman or Cappadocian origin. The life of Phocas before his usurpation of the Byzantine Empire's throne is obscure, but it is known that he served as a low-ranking officer under Emperor Maurice.

Usurpation
In 602, the Byzantine army rebelled against Emperor Maurice, largely due to exhaustion and outrage over orders to continue campaigning north of the Danube in winter as well as previous cuts in wages. The army declared Phocas, by then a centurion, to be the new emperor, raising him on a shield (the traditional method of declaring emperors). On 23 November 602, Phocas was crowned by the patriarch Cyriacus in the church of St John the Baptist at the Hebdomon. He entered Constantinople two days later, on 25 November.

Maurice fled the city with his sons, Theodosius and Tiberius, but they were soon after captured and executed. Maurice's wife and daughters were put in the monastery of Nea Metanoia and later killed.

Foreign conflict
Despite the executions of the previous emperor and his dynastic successors, Phocas remained in a precarious position, which led him to devote his energy to purging enemies and destroying conspiracies. Because of this focus, and the local resistance he faced all throughout the Byzantine Empire, he was unable to confront foreign attacks on the empire's frontiers. The Avars and Slavs launched numerous raids into the Balkan provinces of the Byzantine Empire, and the Sassanian Empire launched an invasion of the eastern provinces of the empire.

The Avars were able to take all land in the Balkans north of Thessalonica. The populations of Christian cities were slaughtered or captured. The Byzantines transferred most of their forces to the eastern front due to the threat from the Persians.

The Sassanid Persians had formerly been at peace with Maurice as a result of a treaty they made with him in 591. After Phocas usurped and killed Maurice, the Persians invaded the empire in 603.  The Sassanids rapidly occupied the eastern provinces, leading the Magister militum per Orientem, Narses, to defect to their side. Phocas swiftly dealt with him, by inviting him to Constantinople under the promise of safe conduct, then having him burnt alive when he arrived. By 607, the Sassanids had occupied Mesopotamia, Syria, and much of Asia Minor, as far as the Bosphorus.

By the time his reign ended in 610, the Persians had already crossed the Euphrates and taken Zenobia. Contemporary accounts describe the Persians as being very brutal to the occupied population. The 'miracle of St Demetrios' described the carnage:

[T]he devil raised the whirlwind of hatred in all the East, Cilicia, Asia, Palestine and all the lands from there to Constantinople: the factions, no longer content simply to spill blood in public places, attacked homes, slaughtered women, children, the aged, and the young who were sick; those whose youth and frailty impeded their escape from the massacre, [saw] their friends, acquaintances, and parents pillaged, and after all that, even set on fire so that the most wretched inhabitant was not able to escape.

Administration

Phocas was unable to control either the state or the army effectively. Due to his distrust of the bulk of Constantinople's elite, with whom he had had no connection before becoming emperor, frequently filling senior military positions with his relatives. He installed: his brother Domentziolus as Magister officiorum in 603; his nephew Domentziolus as Magister militum per Orientem in 604, giving him command over the eastern provinces; and his brother Comentiolus as Magister militum per Orientem around 610. All three remained loyal to Phocas until they were killed by Heraclius. Of the three known male blood-relatives of Phocas, all three were appointed to senior posts, two in military positions and one in an administrative position. Phocas also appointed Priscus, who was his son-in-law by way of his marriage to Phocas' daughter Domentzia, as Comes excubitorum, the captain of the Excubitors, in 603.

Italian policy
When Phocas was emperor, Byzantine Italy was under continual attack from Lombards, but the Byzantine government spent few resources to aid Italy due to troubles elsewhere. In the entirety of Phocas' reign, the only public structure built with taxes in the city of Rome was a statue of Phocas completed in 608.

When Phocas usurped Maurice, Gregory the Great was bishop of Rome and he praised Phocas as a restorer of liberty. Gregory referred to him as a pious and clement lord, and compared his wife (the new Empress) Leontia to Marcian's consort Pulcheria (whom the Council of Chalcedon called the new Helena). In May 603, portraits of the imperial couple arrived in Rome and were ordered by the pope to be placed in the oratory of St. Caesarius in the imperial palace on the Palatine.

Imperial approval was needed at that time to appoint a new pope, but the approval was delayed by a year upon the death of Pope Sabinian in 606, as Phocas was occupied with killing internal enemies that threatened his rule. He finally gave approval in 607 and Boniface III became pope. Phocas declared Rome "the head of all churches". Shortly afterwards, Phocas had a gilded statue of himself erected on a monumental column in the Roman Forum, known as the Column of Phocas.

Downfall

Despite being appointed as Comes excubitorum, Priscus was not loyal to Phocas, and in 608 he appealed to Heraclius the Elder, the Exarch of Carthage, to rebel against Phocas. Heraclius the Elder agreed, and began to prepare to invade, by cutting off the supply of grain to Constantinople and assembling a large army and navy. Heraclius the Elder launched his invasion in 609, with his nephew, Nicetas, marching troops overland to the capital, and his son, Heraclius, leading a naval invasion of Thessalonica, before marching to Constantinople. Heraclius arrived outside Constantinople on 3 October 610, and seized the city on 5 October. Heraclius was declared emperor on the same day, and swiftly had Phocas executed.

Legacy
Phocas is generally depicted as a villain by Byzantines and modern historians alike, but some of the earliest sources available about Phocas' reign were written during the reign of Heraclius. The writings that survive are not reliably neutral and the writers would have good reason to demonize him in order to strengthen the rule of Heraclius.

In the cultural sphere, the reign of Phocas is marked by the change of Imperial fashion set by Constantine the Great (). Constantine and all his successors, except Julian the Apostate (), were beardless. Phocas again introduced the wearing of the beard. This fashion lasted until the end of the Byzantine Empire.

On 19 February 607, Emperor Phocas appointed Boniface III as the new bishop of Rome, then Phocas issued an imperial decree by the Roman government, recognizing Boniface III as the "Head of all Churches" and "Universal Bishop". Phocas transferred the title of "Universal Bishop" from Diocese of Constantinople to Diocese of Rome. Boniface sought and obtained a decree from Phocas in which he restated that "the See of Blessed Peter the Apostle should be the head of all the Churches" and ensured that the title of "Universal Bishop" belonged exclusively to the Bishop of Rome. This act effectively ended the attempt by Patriarch Cyriacus of Constantinople to establish himself as "Universal Bishop".

In calling the Pope the "head of all churches", Phocas' decree has been important in discussions about papal primacy and papal supremacy. Some Protestant historicist commentators have seen the decree of Phocas (usually taken to be in 606) as having eschatological significance. For example, in his Horae Apocalypticae, Edward Bishop Elliott took the 1260 days of Revelation 11:3 to be the period between 606 and the Unification of Italy in 1866.

References

Notes

Bibliography

External links

540s births
610 deaths
600s in the Byzantine Empire
6th-century Byzantine military personnel
7th-century Byzantine emperors
7th-century executions by the Byzantine Empire
7th-century murdered monarchs
Byzantine Cappadocians
Byzantine rebels
Executed Byzantine people
Executed monarchs
Imperial Roman consuls
Leaders who took power by coup
Leaders ousted by a coup
People executed by decapitation
People of the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628
Roman-era Thracians

Phocas


Falun Gong (also known as Falun Dafa) is a spiritual discipline from China with exercises similar to Tai chi chuan. It was founded by Li Hongzhi in 1992. People who follow Falun Gong do five exercises and read books written by Li Hongzhi, the movement's founder. They believe in "Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance", and they also believe that the Falun Gong exercises can make them healthy, and make them better people. In 1999, after a big Falun Gong gathering in front of a Chinese government building, the Communist Party of China said: people cannot practice Falun Gong, it is "illegal".

The police started arresting Falun Gong followers, and according to human rights organizations, over 3000 people have been jailed and tortured to death. The Chinese government claimed that Falun Gong spread superstitions, while others have suggest that Falun Gong's popularity challenges the rule of the Chinese Communist Party. Many people and organizations outside of China have called for the Chinese government to stop jailing and killing Falun Gong people.

It is not known how many people practice Falun Gong. The Chinese government suggests there were 70 million practitioners in China in 1998. A Falun Gong website claims there are 100 million practitioners in more than 80 countries.

Reporter Ethan Gutmann said about 65,000 Falun Gong people were killed for their body parts from 2000 to 2008.

References

Other websites
 Falun Dafa Website

Politics of China
Religion in China
New religious movements

Falun Gong