Soviet democracy, or council democracy, is a political system in which the rule of the population is exercised by directly elected soviets, or workers' councils. The councils are directly responsible to their electors and bound by their instructions using a delegate model of representation. Such an imperative mandate is in contrast to a trustee model, in which the elected delegates are only responsible to their conscience. Delegates may accordingly be dismissed from their post at any time or be voted out (recall).

In a soviet democracy, voters are organized in basic units; for example, the workers of a company, the inhabitants of a district, or the soldiers of a barracks. They directly send the delegates as public functionaries, which act as legislators, government and courts in one. In contrast to earlier democratic models à la John Locke and Montesquieu, there is no separation of powers. The councils are elected on several levels: At the residential and business level, delegates are sent to the local councils in plenary assemblies. In turn, these can delegate members to the next level. The system of delegation continues to the Congress of Soviets at the state level. The electoral processes thus take place from the bottom upward. The levels are usually tied to administrative levels.

Definition
Kazuko Kawamoto writes that soviet democracy "may sound odd to many, especially in the younger generation, while to others in the older generation they may bring back memories of the 'good old' Cold War years, when they supported liberal democracy against Soviet socialist democracy, or vice versa. Many Cold War contemporaries thought that there was such a thing as soviet democratic theory, despite not believing the Soviet government's claim of the superiority of soviet democracy over liberal democracy."

The "totalitarian model" of Soviet and communist studies historiography, which was dominant during the Cold War, follows the view that soviet democracy was a farce and that "the Soviet regime was simply oppressive and totalitarian, and not democratic at all." Critics such as Zbigniew Brzezinski and Carl Joachim Friedrich often blamed the Soviet regime for "lacking liberty, which undermined the meaning of political participation." Nonetheless, "revisionist school" historians focused on the relatively autonomous institutions which might influence policy at the higher level, representing those who "insisted that the old image of the Soviet Union as a totalitarian state bent on world domination was oversimplified or just plain wrong. They tended to be interested in social history and to argue that the Communist Party leadership had had to adjust to social forces."

Some scholars have had a differing view and attributed the establishment of the one-party system in the Soviet Union to the wartime conditions imposed on the Bolshevik government and others have highlighted the initial attempts to form a coalition government with the Left Socialist Revolutionaries. Specifically, Russian historian Vadim Rogovin wrote that the Bolsheviks made strenuous efforts to preserve the Soviet parties such as the Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, and other left parties within the bounds of Soviet legality and their participation in the soviets on the condition of abandoning armed struggle against the Bolsheviks.

Kazuko writes that "the Soviet government did encourage the working people to speak out. As numerous studies have shown, Soviet citizens responded by writing letters and visiting government offices to address the authorities, even if there were limits to the realization of their demands and the effectiveness of their entreaties." According to Kazuko, these studies showed that "people demanded to be heard and the authorities responded, however insufficiently, because the ideas of democracy obligated them to do so." The reason why the process leading to the Soviet Constitution of 1936 took so long, about twenty years according to Kazuko, was "deeply rooted in the ideas of Soviet democracy. The Soviet regime was democratic in its own sense of the word and this article gives it a more democratic face than what is usually imagined, especially among Western people. However, the regime's unique democratic character seemed to make it rather difficult to function adequately."

History

In Russia and the Soviet Union
The first soviets, also called workers' councils, were formed after the 1905 Russian Revolution. Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks saw the soviet as the basic organizing unit of society in a socialist system and at first supported this form of democracy. The soviets also played a considerable role in the February and October Revolutions. At that time, they represented a variety of socialist parties in addition to Bolsheviks. According to the official Soviet historiography, the first soviet was formed in May 1905 in Ivanovo (north-east of Moscow) during the 1905 Russian Revolution (Ivanovsky Soviet). In his memoirs, the Russian anarchist Volin claims that he witnessed the beginnings of the Saint Petersburg Soviet in January 1905. The Russian workers were largely organized at the turn of the 20th century, leading to a government-sponsored trade union leadership. In 1905, as the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) increased the strain on Russian industrial production, the workers began to strike and rebel. The soviets represented an autonomous workers' movement, one that broke free from the government's oversight of workers' unions. Soviets sprang up throughout the industrial centers of Russia, usually organized at the factory level. The soviets disappeared after the Revolution of 1905, but re-emerged under socialist leadership during the Russian Revolution. Lenin argued for the destruction of the foundations of the bourgeois state and its replacement with what David Priestland described as an "ultra-democratic" dictatorship of the proletariat based on the Paris Commune's system.

In post-revolutionary Russia local workers' soviets would elect representatives that go on to form regional soviets, which in turn elect representatives that form higher soviets, and so on up to the Congress of Soviets. Later the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union would become the highest legislative body of the entire country. After Lenin's party, the Bolsheviks, only got a minority of the votes in the election to the Russian Constituent Assembly, he disbanded it by force after its first meeting, citing the refusal of the Right Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs) and Mensheviks to honor the sovereignty of soviet democracy, arguing that a system in which parliamentary democracy was sovereign could not fairly represent the workers since it was in practice dominated by the bourgeoisie, that the proportional representation did not take into account the SR split, and that the soviets (where the Bolsheviks did get a majority) more accurately represented the opinion of the people, which had changed as shown in the elections to the soviets between the time of the elections to the Assembly and the first meeting of the Assembly. He also explicitly stated that democracy did not include those considered bourgeois.

After the revolution, the Bolsheviks had to defend the newly formed government in World War I and the Russian Civil War. According to some critics, many of the effects of the wars on the new Soviet government may be part of what led to the decline of soviet democracy in Russia (due to the authority the state took on in war time) and to the emergence of the bureaucratic structure that maintained much control throughout the history of the Soviet Union. Some believe that one key blow against soviet democracy occurred as early as March 1918, when all nineteen city soviets that were elected during the spring were disbanded in a series of Bolshevik coups d'etat because workers returned Menshevik-SR majorities, or non-Bolshevik socialist majorities.

However, a key development in the course of soviet democracy in Russia occurred in March, 1921, with the Kronstadt rebellion. The outset of the year was marked by strikes and demonstrations - in both Moscow and Petrograd, as well as the countryside - due to discontent with the results of policies that made up war communism. The Bolsheviks, in response to the protests, enacted martial law and sent the Red Army to disperse the workers. This was followed up by mass arrests executed by the Cheka. Repression and minor concessions only temporarily quelled the discontent as Petrograd protests continued that year in March. This time the factory workers were joined by sailors stationed on the nearby island-fort of Kronstadt. Disappointed in the direction of the Bolshevik government, the rebels demanded a series of reforms including a reduction in Bolshevik privileges, newly elected soviet councils to include socialist and anarchist groups, economic freedom for peasants and workers, dissolution of the bureaucratic governmental organs created during the civil war, and the restoration of workers' rights for the working class. The workers and sailors of the Kronstadt rebellion were promptly crushed by Red Army forces, with a thousand rebels killed in battle and another thousand executed the following weeks, with many more fleeing abroad and to the countryside. These events coincided with the 10th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks). There, Lenin argued that the soviets and the principle of democratic centralism within the Bolshevik party still assured democracy. However, faced with support for Kronstadt within Bolshevik ranks, Lenin also issued a "temporary" ban on factions in the Russian Communist Party. This ban remained until the revolutions of 1989 and, according to some critics, made the democratic procedures within the party an empty formality, and helped Stalin to consolidate much more authority under the party. Soviets were transformed into the bureaucratic structure that existed for the rest of the history of the Soviet Union and were completely under the control of party officials and the politburo.

Russian historian Vadim Rogovin attributed the establishment of the one-party system to the conditions which were "imposed on Bolshevism by hostile political forces". Rogovin highlighted the fact that the Bolsheviks made strenuous efforts to preserve the Soviet parties such as the Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, and other left parties within the bounds of Soviet legality and their participation in the Soviets on the condition of abandoning armed struggle against the Bolsheviks. According to historian Marcel Liebman, Lenin's wartime measures such as banning opposition parties was prompted by the fact that several political parties either took up arms against the new Soviet government, or participated in sabotage, collaboration with the deposed Tsarists, or made assassination attempts against Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders. Liebman noted that opposition parties such as the Cadets and Mensheviks who were democratically elected to the Soviets in some areas, then proceeded to use their mandate to welcome in Tsarist and foreign capitalist military forces. In one incident in Baku, the British military, once invited in, proceeded to execute members of the Bolshevik Party who had peacefully stood down from the Soviet when they failed to win the elections. As a result, the Bolsheviks banned each opposition party when it turned against the Soviet government. In some cases, bans were lifted. This banning of parties did not have the same repressive character as later bans enforced under the Stalinist regime.

Other historians like Robert W. Thurston argue, while the top of the soviet system became largely bureaucratic, the local levels of society remained largely participatory. He writes "while sane, calm, and sober, no worker would have dared to say that socialism was a poor system or that Stalin was an idiot" but then goes on to argue that these bounds still allowed for citizens to have meaningful participation on their immediate situation and this local participation meant "ultimately relatively little was controlled by the government or party decree".

This is supported by some historical accounts. For example, in Pat Sloan's historical account of participating in a Soviet election, he wrote:

In Germany and the Weimar Republic

In October 1918, the constitution of the German Empire was reformed to give more powers to the elected parliament. On 29 October, rebellion broke out in Kiel among sailors. There, sailors, soldiers, and workers began electing workers' and soldiers' councils (Arbeiter und Soldatenräte) modeled after the soviets of the Russian Revolution. The revolution spread throughout Germany, and participants seized military and civil powers in individual cities.

At the time, the Socialist movement which represented mostly laborers was split among two major left-wing parties: the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD), which called for immediate peace negotiations and favored a soviet-style command economy, and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) also known as "Majority" Social Democratic Party of Germany (MSPD), which supported the war effort and favoured a parliamentary system. The rebellion caused great fear in the establishment and in the middle classes because of the revolutionary aspirations of the councils. It terrified the well-off classes as the country was on the brink of a working class revolution.

The Spartacus League, originally part of the USPD, split as a more radical group which advocated for violent proletarian revolution to establish communism. After the failed Spartacist Uprising, the Spartacist League became the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). The Communist Workers' Party of Germany (KAPD) split from the KPD as a distinct council communist tendency. Their main goal was an immediate abolition of bourgeois democracy and the constitution of a dictatorship of the proletariat through the seizure of power by the workers' councils. Communists in the KAPD formed the General Workers' Union of Germany (AAUD), who sought to form factory organizations as the basis of region wide workers' councils.

In view of the mass support for more radical reforms among the workers' councils, a coalition government called "Council of the People's Deputies" (Rat der Volksbeauftragten) was established, consisting of three MSPD and three USPD members. Led by Friedrich Ebert for the MSPD and Hugo Haase for the USPD it sought to act as a provisional cabinet of ministers. But the power question was unanswered. Although the new government was confirmed by the Berlin worker and soldier council, it was opposed by the Spartacus League. Ebert called for a "National Congress of Councils" (Reichsrätekongress), which took place from 16 to 20 December 1918, and in which the MSPD had the majority. Thus, Ebert was able to institute elections for a provisional National Assembly that would be given the task of writing a democratic constitution for parliamentary government, marginalizing the movement that called for a socialist republic.

In January, the Spartacus League and others in the streets of Berlin made more armed attempts to establish communism, known as the Spartacist uprising. Those attempts were put down by paramilitary Freikorps units consisting of volunteer soldiers. Bloody street fights culminated in the beating and shooting deaths of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht after their arrests on 15 January. With the affirmation of Ebert, those responsible were not tried before a court-martial, leading to lenient sentences, which made Ebert unpopular among radical leftists.

The National Assembly elections took place on 19 January 1919. In this time, the radical left-wing parties, including the USPD and KPD, were barely able to get themselves organised, leading to a solid majority of seats for the MSPD moderate forces. To avoid the ongoing fights in Berlin, the National Assembly convened in the city of Weimar, giving the future Republic its unofficial name. The Weimar Constitution created a republic under a semi-presidential system with the Reichstag elected by proportional representation. The parliamentary parties obtained a solid 80% of the vote.

During the debates in Weimar, fighting continued. The Bavarian Soviet Republic was declared in Munich, but was quickly put down by Freikorps and remnants of the regular army. The fall of the Munich Soviet Republic to these units, many of which were situated on the extreme right, resulted in the growth of far-right movements and organisations in Bavaria, including Organisation Consul, the Nazi Party, and societies of exiled Russian Monarchists. Sporadic fighting continued to flare up around the country. In eastern provinces, forces loyal to Germany's fallen monarchy fought the Republic, while militias of Polish nationalists fought for independence: the Greater Poland uprising in the Prussian Province of Posen and three Silesian Uprisings in Upper Silesia.

See also
Anarchist communism
Council communism
Demokratizatsiya (Soviet Union)
New Democracy
People's democracy (Marxism–Leninism)
Free soviets
List of political parties in the Soviet Union
Socialist democracy

Literature

References

Further reading

External links

Soviet and pro-Soviet works on Soviet democracy
The Soviet Constitution by Andrew Rothstein, 1923.
How the Soviets Work by H. N. Brailsford, 1927.
Soviet Communism: A New Civilisation? Volume I by Sidney and Beatrice Webb, chapter II, 1936.
Soviet Democracy by Pat Sloan, 1937.
The New Soviet Constitution: A Study in Socialist Democracy by Anna Louise Strong, 1937.
The Social and State Structure of the U.S.S.R. by Vyacheslav Karpinsky, 1952.
How the Soviet Union Is Governed by Vyacheslav Karpinsky, 1954.
The Soviet Representative System by V. Kotok, 1964.
Russia Re-Examined: The Land, the People and How They Live by William Mandel, chapter 9, 1967.
The Soviet Parliament by M. Saifulin, 1967.
The Soviet State and Law, chapter 3, by V.M. Chkhikvadze, 1969.
Soviet Democracy and how it works by Jessica Smith, 1969.
Soviet Democracy and Bourgeois Sovietology by Marat Perfilyev, 1970.
First Decrees of Soviet Power compiled by Yuri Akhapkin, 1970.
The Soviet Form of Popular Government by V.M. Chkhikvadze, 1972.
The State, Democracy and Legality in the USSR: Lenin's Ideas Today by V.M. Chkhikvadze, 1972.
People's Control in Socialist Society by Victor Turovtsev, 1973.
Soviet Deputy (Legal Status) by Anatoly Bezuglov, 1973.
Socialist Democracy: Aspects of Theory by Georgy Shakhnazarov, 1974.
Workers' Participation in the Soviet Union by Mick Costello, 1977.
Soviet Democracy: Principles and Practice by Konstantin Chernenko, 1977.
The Soviet Political System Under Developed Socialism by E. Chekharin, 1977.
Six Decades That Changed the World: The USSR After 60 Years edited by Marilyn Betchtel, David Laibman and Jessica Smith, chapter 14, 1978.
Soviet Democracy in the Period of Developed Socialism, 1979.
Is the Red Flag Flying? The Political Economy of the Soviet Union by Albert Szymanski, chapter 5, 1979.
Talks on Soviet Democracy by M.A. Krutogolov, 1980.
Human Rights and Freedoms in the USSR by Fyodor Medvedev and Gennady Kulikov, 1981.
Working Versus Talking Democracy by Mike Davidow, 1982.
On Soviet Socialist Democracy compilation of works by Lenin, 1984.
Human Rights in the Soviet Union by Albert Szymanski, chapters 5, 7 and 8, 1984.
Soviet Democracy: A Discussion by Mikhail Taratuta, 1985.
The Russians are Coming: The Politics of Anti-Sovietism by V.L. Allen, chapters 4 and 5, 1987.
Soviets of People's Deputies: Democracy and Administration by Georgi Barabashev and Konstantin Sheremet, 1989.
"Before Stalinism: A Response to Critics" by Samuel Farber, 1992
Communism
Ideology of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Politics of the Soviet Union
Russian Revolution
Soviet phraseology
Types of democracy

Soviet democracy


The William Fenderson Perry House is an historic house at 32 Main Street in Bridgton, Maine, United States.  Built in 1870 and extensively remodeled in 1874, it is a fine example of transitional Italianate-Second Empire architecture, and was owned for many years by Bridgton's most prominent businessman, mill owner William F. Perry. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.

Description and history
The Perry House stands on a hill overlooking the village of Bridgton, on the north side of Main Street (United States Route 302), at its junction with Highland Road.  It is basically a high-style interpretation of the 19th-century connected New England farmstead, with its main block connected to a carriage barn via a series of ells.  The main house has elaborate style, with projecting window bays flanking its front entrance, with an engaged porch with mini-gabled roof between.  The mansard roof is topped by a cupola, and there are hip roof dormers flush with the front facade.  Cornices over the window bays and on the roof are bracketed.  The elegant Victorian detailing is continued through the ell and to the carriage barn.

The house was built in 1870 for William Cross, a local cattle merchant, and was purchased in 1874 by William F. Perry.  The house's styling is probably the result of alterations made by Perry, who was by then already owner of Bridgton's largest textile mills.  Perry's fortune was due in part to his marriage in 1859 to Anna Maria Gibbs, daughter of the town's biggest mill owner of that period.  Perry rapidly expanded the area's mill capacity, and was able to win lucrative contracts to supply textiles to the Union Army during the American Civil War.  Perry also invented a more efficient turbine, which was manufactured in Bridgton and installed in mills across Maine.  The house is now the Clipper Merchant Tea House that opened in July, 2016.

See also
National Register of Historic Places listings in Cumberland County, Maine

References

Buildings and structures in Bridgton, Maine
Houses completed in 1870
Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Maine
Houses in Cumberland County, Maine
National Register of Historic Places in Cumberland County, Maine

William F. Perry House


Nahapet () is a 1977 Soviet Armenian-language drama film about a man who tries to rebuild his life after losing his wife and child in the Armenian genocide. It is based on a novel written by Hrachya Qochar. The film has been cited as an example of the portrayal of genocide in the film industry. The film was screened in the Un Certain Regard section of the 1978 Cannes Film Festival.

Plot
The film centres on the life of a strong-willed Armenian fighter Nahapet (Sos Sargsyan). In the horrors of the Armenian genocide, Nahapet (whose name means patriarch in Armenian) and others valiantly attempt to defend their village in Turkish Armenia from Ottoman troops but are soon overwhelmed. All his children and his wife, Manushak, are brutally beaten and killed whilst he is tied to a beam and forced to witness the destruction of his village.

Left for dead, Nahapet is able to make his way to a bleak and cold village in Aragats (filmed in Dian, Talin), a part of the new state of Soviet Armenia. He is filled with grief and feels unable to move on. With encouragement from his brother-in-law and friend Apro (Frunzik Mkrtchyan), Nahapet reluctantly begins a new relationship with a woman named Noubar (Sofik Sarkisyan). But the pair are estranged from one another from the start and the scenes from the film show candid but silent moments of the two attempting to find ways to build a new life and trying to survive with what little they have. They plant trees and labour intensively to build a house despite the harsh weather conditions of the region.

Nahapet and Noubar gradually realise that their survival and future is linked and both now come to the aid of one another. She reveals to Nahapet that she is pregnant. As Nahapet is working outside one day he hears the wailing of a newborn and rushes to his home's wooden door, collapsing on it with the tears and with the full realisation that building a new future after suffering such deprivations in life is possible. The film ends with him and the other villagers walking with their children as they all take a pledge to plant a new apple tree for each child born in the village.

Symbolism
Red apples are always seen in flashback sequences during the film, accompanied to the score of 'Dle Yaman', rolling in the hundreds into a lake.

Reception
British historian David Marshall Lang called the film 'absorbing' and it was broadcast by the BBC in Britain after it was released.

References

External links

1977 films
Armenian genocide films
Soviet-era Armenian films
Armenfilm films
1977 drama films
Soviet drama films
Films directed by Henrik Malyan
Films set in Armenia
Films set in the Ottoman Empire
Armenian drama films

Nahapet


Nolinoideae is a monocot subfamily of the family Asparagaceae in the APG III system of 2009. It used to be treated as a separate family, Ruscaceae s.l. The family name is derived from the generic name of the type genus, Nolina.

The subfamily includes genera that had been placed in a range of different families, including Ruscaceae s.s., Nolinaceae, Dracaenaceae, Convallariaceae and Eriospermaceae. Like many groups of lilioid monocots, the genera included here were once included in a wide interpretation of the family Liliaceae.

Genera
A possibly incomplete list of the genera included in the Nolinoideae is given below. The reference is to the source which places the genus in this subfamily. The genera included here have varied widely in their limits and assignment to families and subfamilies; some former family placements other than Nolinoideae (which will be found in the literature) are given below.

References

External links

 Convallariaceae, Dracaenaceae, Eriospermaceae, Nolinaceae, Ruscaceae in L. Watson and M.J. Dallwitz (1992 onwards). The families of flowering plants: descriptions, illustrations, identification, information retrieval. Version: 3 May 2006. http://delta-intkey.com
 Liliaceae in Flora of North America
 NCBI Taxonomy Browser
 links, links, links,  linkslinks at CSDL, Texas

Asparagales subfamilies

Nolinoideae


Donald Pinkston Francis (born October 24, 1942) is an American epidemiologist who worked on the Ebola outbreak in Africa in the late 1970s, and as an HIV/AIDS researcher. He retired from the U.S. Public Health Service in 1992, after 21 years of service. He lives in San Francisco, California.

Early life
Francis was born October 24, 1942, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California and grew up in Marin County. His main interest was skiing, and his mother, father and grandfather were physicians. However, he was a poor student as a child, suffering from dyslexia. Francis has said that he gravitated towards science because he had such difficulty with subjects where fluent reading ability was needed.

Francis completed his undergraduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where he was a member of the California chapter at Delta Upsilon, class of 1966. He received his M.D. from Northwestern University and his Doctor of Science in virology from Harvard. An infectious diseases fellowship at Harvard followed his internship and residency in pediatrics at the University of California Medical Center in Los Angeles. Francis helped eradicate smallpox from Sudan, India and Bangladesh before working on AIDS. He worked on the cholera epidemic in Nigeria in the early 1970s, the smallpox epidemic in Yugoslavia in 1972, and the 1976 Ebola epidemic in Sudan. In addition, Francis was an early developer of the hepatitis B vaccine in the United States and China.

Later work
Francis began his work on AIDS in 1981. He was one of the first scientists to suggest that AIDS was caused by an infectious agent. As director of the CDC's AIDS Laboratory Activities, he worked closely with the Institut Pasteur which isolated HIV.

At the time of his retirement from the CDC, he was the centers' AIDS Advisor to the State of California and Special Consultant to Mayor Art Agnos in San Francisco. In the latter capacity he served as the Chair of the Mayor's HIV Task Force.

In 1993, Francis joined Genentech, Inc., of South San Francisco to try to develop a vaccine for HIV. In 1995, Francis and fellow retro-virologist Dr. Robert Nowinski spun off Genentech's HIV vaccine unit after the company had disappointing results, and founded VaxGen, based in Brisbane, California, to continue working on vaccines. After the vaccine failed in clinical trials, Francis left VaxGen in 2004 to co-found Global Solutions for Infectious Diseases, where he serves as executive director and principal investigator.

And The Band Played On
In 1993, HBO produced And The Band Played On, an Emmy-winning movie about the AIDS crisis based on the 1987 book of the same name by San Francisco Chronicle journalist Randy Shilts. Actor Matthew Modine plays Francis, a central figure in the movie. In both the book and the film, his antagonist is Dr. Robert Gallo (portrayed in the film by Alan Alda), the discoverer of HTLV (the human T-cell leukemia virus), who cuts off assistance when he hears that Francis has shared some experimental materials with Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier (portrayed in the film by Nathalie Baye and Patrick Bauchau), the French researchers at the Pasteur Institute who were given the Nobel Prize for their discovery of the HIV virus.

References

Further reading
 Don Francis and the Ebola Virus
 Film Annotations for And the Band Played On
 Dr. Donald P. Francis Talks to Teachers About the Ebola Outbreak
 Movers & Shakers Interview (3 June 2003) - Dr. Donald Francis, President & Co-Founder, VaxGen Inc.
 The VaxGen Experiment, London Sunday Times, 3 October 1999
 Vaccine has no impact; AIDSVAX's failure a blow to treatment
 VaxGen Announces Changes to Management and Board
 [Website] Global Solutions for Infectious Diseases

American public health doctors
American virologists
University of California, Berkeley alumni
Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni
Feinberg School of Medicine alumni
1942 births
Living people

Don Francis


Mathias Fritschler Barr (December 6, 1831 in Edinburgh - December 21, 1911 in London) was a Scottish poet.

Barr's father, Fidelie Barr, was a native of Germany, who had married the Edinburgh native Margaret Mcdonald, and carried on the business of a watchmaker in that city. Barr received a liberal education at the High School and Academy of Edinburgh, then paid a brief visit to Germany, and afterwards removed to London, where he held a respectable appointment for a number of years, devoting his leisure hours to the cultivation of his literary tastes. Among his pursuits, Barr owned a music-selling and publishing establishment in London.

In 1865 his first-published volume of poems appeared, and he thereafter issued several short volumes of well-regarded verse. He was compared to Burns and Wordsworth in finding the inspiration of song in the most common objects. The simplest scenes, the homeliest incidents, the most common wild-flowers, were subjects addressed by Barr.

Sources
Alexander G. Murdoch, The Scottish Poets Recent and Living: recent and living (1883), p. 262-63.

External links

1831 births
1911 deaths
Writers from Edinburgh
Scottish poets

Matthias Barr


Carrington V.C., also known as Court Martial in the United States, is a 1954 British legal drama film directed by Anthony Asquith and starring David Niven, Margaret Leighton and Noelle Middleton. Others in the cast include Allan Cuthbertson, Victor Maddern, Raymond Francis, Michael Bates, Laurence Naismith, Geoffrey Keen and Maurice Denham. Made by Romulus Films it was distributed by the company's Independent Film Distributors and released in the United States by Kingsley-International Pictures. It was adapted for the screen by John Hunter from the play of the same name by Campbell and Dorothy Christie. It was produced by Teddy Baird.

It was shot at Shepperton Studios near London with sets designed by the art director Wilfred Shingleton. The Victoria Cross worn by Niven in the film was that awarded to Arthur Henry Cross for service in the First World War.

Plot

Major Charles 'Copper' Carrington (David Niven), who has a distinguished Second World War record and was awarded the Victoria Cross, is arrested for embezzling £125 from his unit's safe. Other charges include leaving the base and entertaining a woman officer in his room, this being forbidden by the battalion commander Colonel Henniker (Allan Cuthbertson).

Appearing in his own defence, Carrington's case at his court-martial is that he took the money openly because of back pay owed him. The Army Paymaster had failed to pay him for expenses during postings in the Far East and his wife Valerie (Margaret Leighton) was pressuring him for money. She lives in another part of the country, and has become ill and suicidal as a result of financial worries.

Carrington claims he told his superior, Colonel Henniker, about his decision to remove the money. He transferred £100 of it to his wife's account to give her relief from her financial problems. He then left the base to compete in a major horse race in which he bet the rest of the money on himself, hoping to be able to pay back the cash taken. When he fell from his horse, his friend Captain Alison Graham (Noelle Middleton) tried to return the money, but was denied access to the safe.

As for the incident in his room, it is established that Carrington was bed-ridden from his fall and that Graham was visiting him to discuss the embezzlement. She was fully dressed and sitting on a chair when Colonel Henniker stormed in, reminding them that it was against regulations for male and female officers to be together in private quarters. Henniker admits waiting for some time between seeing Graham go to Carrington's room and then entering himself.

Henniker is in fact Carrington's enemy, resenting his war record, achievements and popularity at the base. There is an element of sympathy for Carrington's actions and it is pointed out that the Major could be cleared if established that Henniker had forewarned knowledge of his intentions. He thus perjures himself at the court-martial by denying being told by Carrington of his decision to take the money from the safe. Much of Carrington's debts were due anyway to Henniker's constant delays in pursuing the Paymaster to give Carrington the money owed him.

Due to her ill-health, Carrington did not intend to call his wife Valerie as a witness, but decided that he will have to when the case goes against him following Henniker's "evidence". She resents the idea of washing their dirty linen in public but finally agrees to turn up.

Things go wrong when Valerie becomes suspicious of Carrington's relationship with Captain Graham. Under pressure, Graham admits to Valerie that she had a one-night stand with Carrington when they became stranded in a pub in the middle of a storm. But Carrington then insisted that a full affair would not be fair to anyone, and ended it. He and Graham are now just friends.

In her evidence, Valerie also perjures herself, denying her husband ever mentioned telling Colonel Henniker he planned to take the money. Carrington produces a letter she wrote to him in which she does mention his argument with Henniker. Carrington intends to only read the parts relevant to his defence, since the letter also contains embarrassing matters about the couple and Valerie's health. But when the judge insists that he and the other officials read it before it is submitted into evidence, Carrington tears it up.

The officers who are to determine his fate have seen through the lies told in court and sympathise with Carrington. But the law finds Carrington guilty on all counts, which means dismissal from the service.

All the regular soldiers at the base are near-unanimous that it is an unfair decision. One of them, Owen (Victor Maddern), was a sergeant demoted when loyalty to Carrington resulted in his failure to co-operate with the investigation. His defiance in and out of court on the subject results in his demotion again to a mere private.

Having made his grievances public, Carrington has decided not to appeal the verdict. His marriage is also over, but, with an attitude typical of him, he puts it down to the fact that Valerie is still in love with her late husband, killed during the war, and the father of her sons.

However, in the course of gossiping about the case, a telephonist at the exchange admits overhearing Carrington's phone call with his wife and what was really said. The telephonist's testimony (if heard at the court-martial) would have provided evidence that Valerie was lying under oath.

Without Carrington knowing, as he exits the court-martial building, the other soldiers rally around and display their support for him. Moved, he decides to go along with the appeal; and there is the strong possibility that when the telephonist's evidence is heard, the verdict will be quashed and Carrington acquitted.

Cast

 David Niven as Major Charles 'Copper' Carrington VC
 Margaret Leighton as Valerie Carrington
 Noelle Middleton as Captain Alison L. Graham
 Allan Cuthbertson as Colonel Henniker
 Victor Maddern as Bombardier Owen
 Raymond Francis as Major Jim Mitchell
 Geoffrey Keen as Brigadier Ayers Meadmore, President
 Newton Blick as Judge Advocate A. Tesker Terry
 Mark Dignam as Major Morse, Prosecutor
 Robert Bishop as Prosecutor's Assistant
 Maurice Denham as Lieutenant Colonel B.R. Reeve
 Laurence Naismith as Major R.E. Panton
 Clive Morton as Lieutenant Colonel T.B. Huxford
 Michael Bates as Major A.T.M. Broke-Smith
 Stuart Saunders as Sergeant Crane
 John Chandos as Adjutant John Rawlinson
 Fred Griffiths as Fred, Soldier
 Johnnie Schofield as 	Hallam
 Vivienne Martin as Pte. Smith
 John Glyn-Jones as Evans, Reporter
 Timothy Bateson as 	Soldier in Naafi
 R.S.M. Brittain as Sergeant Major

Awards and nominations
Carrington, V.C. was nominated for the BAFTA Film Award for Best British Film and Best Film from any Source. David Niven was nominated for Best British Actor, and Margaret Leighton and Noelle Middleton were both nominated for Best British Actress.

References

External links

1954 films
British drama films
British films based on plays
British legal films
Fictional recipients of the Victoria Cross
Films directed by Anthony Asquith
Military courtroom films
Films shot at Shepperton Studios
1950s English-language films
1954 drama films
British black-and-white films
1950s British films

Carrington V.C. (film)


Ari Pieti Uolevi Vatanen (; born 27 April 1952) is a Finnish rally driver turned politician and a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 1999 to 2009. Vatanen won the World Rally Championship drivers' title in 1981 and the Paris Dakar Rally four times. In addition, Vatanen won the 1997 FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies. Since 2013 Vatanen has been the President of the Estonian Autosport Union.

Racing career

His debut year in rallying was 1970, and he debuted in the World Rally Championship at the 1974 1000 Lakes Rally. In that year he won the Nortti Rally in an Opel Ascona, beating Hannu Mikkola in the process, which brought him to wider attention.  His first international rally was the 1975 Rothmans 747 Rally in Jamaica driving a Datsun 120Y. He placed 12th with co-driver Gerry Phillips. At the end of that season he was offered his first professional drive, in a Ford Escort RS1800, on the RAC Rally.  He crashed out on the second day, but by then he had impressed Ford team manager Stuart Turner sufficiently for him to be offered a seat in the team for the British Rally Championship the following year.

In the 1976 Scottish Rally (part of the British Rally Championship), the Ford works team replaced a broken differential in Ari Vatanen's Mk2 Escort RS 1800 with one they removed from a spectator's Ford Capri. It wasn't a spare carried by the service team.  Co-driver Peter Bryant took matters into his own hands by flagging down a passing 3.0-litre Capri and persuading the owner-  Ken Brown from Nottingham- to let them take out his rear diff. and put it in the rally car. Ford competition manager Peter Ashcroft simply gave Mr Brown his business card and told him to take his Capri to the nearest Ford dealer and get a new differential or back axle and send the bill to him.
Ari Vatanen didn't finish the Scottish Rally, but he duly won the championship, a feat he repeated in 1980, co-driven by David Richards, who went on to become chairman of Prodrive, the Banbury based motorsport team and one of the most influential figures in British (and worldwide) motorsport.  Between 1977 and 1980 he also competed on selected World Championship events, initially for the official Ford team and then, after its withdrawal from the sport at the end of 1979, for the semi-private Rothmans Rally Team. He took his debut win at the 1980 Acropolis Rally and became the World Rally Champion in 1981.

Vatanen and Richards parted ways for the 1982 season, and for the next few years Vatanen was co-driven by Terry Harryman.  He did not defend his world title in 1982, competing instead in the British Championship in a Ford Escort, before moving to the Opel team for 1983.  The Opel Ascona and Opel Manta were only two-wheel-drive and not fully competitive, but Vatanen still managed to win the Safari Rally.

In 1984, Vatanen signed to drive the Peugeot 205 T16 for Peugeot's factory team. From the 1984 1000 Lakes Rally to 1985 Swedish Rally, Vatanen won five world rallies in a row. He was tipped to win the 1985 world title, but at mid-season was trailing his teammate Timo Salonen after a series of accidents and mechanical problems.  He then had a serious accident on the Rally Argentina, when his car somersaulted at over 120 mph.  His seat broke, and he was thrown around inside the car, suffering severe injuries to his legs and torso and life-threatening internal bleeding.  He spent 18 months recovering first from his physical injuries, and then from severe depression. He went on to make a complete recovery and his return to motorsport in 1987 saw him go on to win the Paris-Dakar Rally four times; with Peugeot in 1987, 1989 and 1990, and with Citroën in 1991. He became the centre of controversy when his car was stolen whilst leading the same rally in 1988.

In 1997 he won the FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies with a Citroën ZX Rallye-raid alongside navigator Fred Gallagher (co-driver).

With Peugeot, Vatanen also won the Pikes Peak International Hillclimb, after Peugeot stopped participating in the World Rally Championship in 1986, due to the demise of Group B rallying. Peugeot used the lessons learnt from its 205 T16 to create the 405 T16. With at least , large aerofoils, four-wheel drive and four-wheel steering, Vatanen took the car up the hill in record time, his efforts being captured in the award-winning short film Climb Dance.

Vatanen's autobiography Every Second Counts, detailing his life and career up until that point, was published in 1988 (SAF Publishing, ) and instantly became a best seller.

Vatanen continued competing in the World Rally Championship more or less actively until the 1998 season. He drove for Mitsubishi Ralliart Europe in four events in 1989 and in five events in 1990. His best result with the Mitsubishi Galant VR-4 was second at the 1990 1000 Lakes Rally. From 1992 to 1993, he competed for Subaru in 11 events, finishing second three times, including on the debut event of the first Subaru Impreza in Finland. Vatanen briefly led the event before being overhauled by eventual winner Juha Kankkunen. Even so, he was dropped by the Subaru team at the end of the 1993 season in favour of Carlos Sainz.

The following year he returned to the wheel of a Ford, driving the Ford Escort RS Cosworth for a semi-private team, and then being co-opted into the Ford factory team where he stood in for the injured Francois Delecour. His most notable result that year was a podium finish on Rally Argentina, the first time he had contested the event since his accident there nine years previously.

The 1995 and 1996 seasons were quiet for Vatanen, whose career as a top-line driver was slowly drawing to a close. At the time there was a surplus of drivers and those late in their careers, such as Vatanen, tended to lose out in favour of younger talents. Nevertheless, he continued to contest a few events then and in subsequent years, his best result being a podium finish at the 1998 Safari Rally. He then briefly returned to a works Subaru for the season-ending Rally of Great Britain, marking his 100th World Rally Championship event.

Although he became much less active in rallying, his hunger for motorsport had not left him completely however, and Vatanen joined Nissan in the Paris-Dakar in 2003, finishing seventh. He also made an appearance at the 2003 Rally Finland with a Bozian Racing-prepared Peugeot 206 WRC, and finished eleventh. In 2004 and 2005, Vatanen drove the Dakar for Nissan as well, and in 2007 he made another attempt with Volkswagen, but retired on the seventh stage.

He currently holds the position of 'Club Patron' to the Ireland's Donegal Motor Club since 2002. He has a long association with the Donegal Motor Club and the Donegal International Rally, competing twice early in his career, 1975 and 1978.

Despite having no roots in Estonia, in January 2013 Vatanen was named as the candidate of presidency by the board of the Estonian Autosport Union to become first foreign President of the authority. Vatanen said he had always been in good relations with Estonians and he's deeply impressed by the achievements of such a small country. Rumours said that the other candidate will be Estonia's most famous former rally driver Markko Märtin. Without any rival candidate Vatanen was elected President of the Estonian Autosport Union.

In September 2008, Vatanen took part in the Colin McRae Forest Stages Rally, a round of the Scottish Rally Championship centred in Perth in Scotland. His co-driver was once again David Richards and they competed in the same Rothmans sponsored Ford Escort RS1800 that they drove in 1981. He was one of a number of ex-world champions to take part in the event in memory of McRae, who died in 2007.

Personal life
Vatanen was born and grew up in rural Tuupovaara in Eastern Finland. He is married to Rita and has four children, Kim (b. 1972), Ria (b. 1980), Tua (b. 1982) and Max (b. 1990). They have homes in Finland and France.
Kim is the manager of current WRC driver Sébastien Ogier. In 2016 Max followed his fathers footsteps by entering the British Rally Championship driving an M-Sport prepared Ford Fiesta R5.

In 1993, Vatanen settled in southern France, where he bought a farm and a winery.

Vatanen speaks fluent Finnish, English, and French.

Political career

In 1999, Vatanen was elected to the European Parliament from the list of the conservative Finnish National Coalition party although he continued to live in France. The issues on which he worked included car taxation, traffic policies, development aid and agricultural policy.

In 2004, he was re-elected, this time from the list of the conservative French Union for a Popular Movement. In the 2009 European Parliament elections. Vatanen was again a National Coalition candidate in Finland, but he did not get elected this time.

In July 2009, Vatanen declared his interest in being a candidate to stand against Max Mosley in the FIA presidential elections in October if Mosley decide to stand for another term as president. Vatanen later confirmed that he would run for the presidency. On 23 October 2009, Vatanen failed in his bid to be elected as president of the FIA, which was won by his former team boss at Peugeot, subsequently Scuderia Ferrari manager Jean Todt.

Vatanen is a signatory of the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism.

WRC victories
{|class="wikitable"
! Number
! Event
! Season
! Co-driver
! Car
|-
| 1
|  Acropolis Rally
| 1980
|rowspan=4 | David Richards
|rowspan=4 | Ford Escort RS1800
|-
| 2
|  Acropolis Rally
|rowspan=3 | 1981
|-
| 3
|  Rallye do Brasil
|-
| 4
|  1000 Lakes Rally
|-
| 5
|  Safari Rally
| 1983
|rowspan=6 | Terry Harryman
| Opel Ascona 400
|-
| 6
|  1000 Lakes Rally
|rowspan=3 | 1984
|rowspan=5 | Peugeot 205 Turbo 16
|-
| 7
|  Rallye Sanremo
|-
| 8
|  RAC Rally
|-
| 9
|  Rallye Automobile de Monte-Carlo
|rowspan=2 | 1985
|-
| 10
|  Swedish Rally
|}

WRC results

Dakar Rally results

References

External links
 Ari Vatanen's official website

 Profile at RallyBase
 http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/imported/profile-rallying-to-a-new-cause-ari-vatanen/45453.aspx (Ari Vatanen's Profile)

1952 births
Dakar Rally drivers
Dakar Rally winning drivers
Finnish rally drivers
Finnish sportsperson-politicians
Living people
MEPs for Finland 1999–2004
MEPs for South-East France 2004–2009
National Coalition Party MEPs
Off-road racing drivers
People from Tuupovaara
Union for a Popular Movement MEPs
World Rally Champions
World Rally Championship drivers
Finnish expatriates in France
Citroën Racing drivers
Peugeot Sport drivers
Volkswagen Motorsport drivers
Sportspeople from Joensuu

Ari Vatanen


A somma volcano, also known as a sommian, is a volcanic caldera that has been partially filled by a new central cone. The type is named after Mount Somma ("Summit"), a stratovolcano in southern Italy with a summit caldera in which the upper cone of Mount Vesuvius has grown. Other examples of somma volcanoes can be found on Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula and the Kuril Islands, stretching south from Kamchatka to Hokkaidō, Japan.

Some examples of somma volcanoes are the following:

 Africa
 Pico do Fogo (Fogo Island, Cape Verde)
 Teide (Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain)
 Americas
 Cosigüina (Chinandega, Nicaragua)
 Tecapa (Usulután Department, El Salvador)
 Wizard Island (Oregon, United States)
 Lava domes (Mount St. Helens, Washington, United States)
 Asia
 Ebeko (Paramushir Island, Kuril Islands, Russia)
 Gunung Baru Jari (Segara Anak caldera, Lombok, Indonesia)
 Kolokol Group: Kolokol, Berg, Borzov, Trezubetz (Urup Island, Kuril Islands, Russia)
 Anak Krakatoa (Krakatoa archipelago, Sunda Strait, Lampung, Indonesia): a partially-submerged nested somma volcano (with a central cone within a caldera which is itself within a larger caldera).
 Krenitsyn Peak (Tao-Rusyr caldera, Onekotan Island, Kuril Islands, Russia)
 Medvezhya (Iturup Island, Kuril Islands, Russia)
 Milna (Simushir Island, Kuril Islands, Russia)
 Pinatubo (Central Luzon, Philippines)
 Taal Volcano (Batangas, Philippines)
 Tengger caldera (East Java, Indonesia)
 Tondano caldera (North Sulawesi, Indonesia)
 Sakurajima (Aira caldera, Kyūshū, Japan)
 Tyatya (Kunashir Island, Kuril Islands, Russia)
 Urataman (Simushir Island, Kuril Islands, Russia)
 Zarechny (Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia)
 Europe
 Nea Kameni (Santorini caldera, Greece): a partially-submerged somma volcano
 Mount Pico (Azores, Portugal)
 Mount Vesuvius (Campania, Italy)
 Oceania
 Mount Gharat (Gaua, Vanuatu)

See also
 Crater lake

Volcanology

Somma volcano


Deni Gordon is an American-born Australian actress and performer. Originally from Boston, Massachusetts, Gordon is the daughter of African-American parents and moved to Australia in 1969 to star in the musical Hair with longtime friend and fellow cast member Marcia Hines. She appeared as a singer and dancer in the ABC sketch comedy series The Dingo Principle and had a guest role in the soap opera Sons and Daughters in 1987. She had a regular role in the fourth and fifth season of Heartbreak High, as teacher Ronnie Brooks, and has appeared as a Priestess in both the film The Matrix and the Farscape episode "Jeremiah Crichton" in 1999.

Gordon is the voice behind the "r-r-r-r-rage!" scream heard in the opening titles and breakers of the long-running ABC music video program Rage.

Gordon was interviewed by ABC Radio National in 2017 about her career.

Filmography

References

External links

Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
Actresses from Boston
Australian television actresses
Australian film actresses
American expatriates in Australia
Australian people of African-American descent
Australian actors of African descent

Deni Gordon


The Portrait of a Lady is a novel by Henry James. It was published in parts (serialization) in 1880-1881. It was published as a book in the United States by Houghton, Mifflin in 1881.

It tells the story of a rich young American woman, Isabel Archer. She is exploited by the scheming Madame Merle and her friend Gilbert Osmond. Isabel weds Osmond and finds herself in a loveless marriage.

The book was a great success. It is thought one of James's finest works. The story has been adapted to a BBC television program and to a movie starring Nicole Kidman.

Plot summary
Isabel Archer, from Albany, New York, is invited by her mother's sister, Lydia Touchett, to visit Lydia's rich husband, Mr Touchett, at his house near London, following the death of Isabel's father. There, Isabel meets her uncle, her friendly sick cousin Ralph Touchett, and the Touchetts' neighbor, Lord Warburton.

Isabel later declines Warburton's sudden proposal of marriage. She also rejects Caspar Goodwood, the son and heir of a rich Boston mill owner. Although Isabel likes both Caspar and Lord Warbuton,she likes her independence, which prevents such a marriage, which she feels would sacrifice of her freedom.

The elder Touchett grows ill and, at the request of his son, Ralph, leaves a lot of money to Isabel upon his death. With her large fortune, Isabel travels to Europe and meets an American expatriate, Gilbert Osmond, in Florence. Although Isabel had previously rejected both Warburton and Goodwood, she accepts Osmond's proposal of marriage, unaware that it has been promoted by the accomplished but untrustworthy Madame Merle, another American expatriate, whom Isabel had met at the Touchetts' house.

Isabel and Osmond live in Rome, but their marriage rapidly sours, owing to Osmond's egotism and lack of genuine affection for his wife. Isabel grows fond of Pansy, Osmond's presumed daughter by his first marriage, and wants to grant her wish to marry Edward Rosier, a young art collector.

The snobbish Osmond would prefer that Pansy accept the proposal of Warburton, who had previously proposed to Isabel. Isabel suspects, however, that Warburton may just be faking interest in Pansy to get close to Isabel again, and the conflict creates even more problems within the unhappy marriage.

Isabel then learns that Ralph is dying at his house in England and prepares to go to him for his final hours, but Osmond selfishly opposes this plan. Meanwhile, Isabel learns from her sister-in-law that Pansy is actually the daughter of Madame Merle, who had had an adulterous relationship with Osmond for several years.

Isabel pays a final visit to Pansy, who begs her to return someday, which Isabel reluctantly promises to do. She then leaves, without telling her  husband, to comfort the dying Ralph in England, where she remains until his death.

Goodwood encounters her at Ralph's estate and begs her to leave Osmond and come away with him. He passionately embraces and kisses her, but Isabel flees. Goodwood seeks her out the next day but is told she has set off again for Rome.

The ending is ambiguous, and the reader is left to imagine whether Isabel returned to Osmond to suffer out her marriage in noble tragedy (perhaps for Pansy's sake), or if she is going to rescue Pansy and leave Osmond.

1880 books
19th-century American novels
Works by Henry James

The Portrait of a Lady


Meru Twin Towers, also Meru Church Towers, or Meru Destiny Towers, is a real estate development, planned in the town of Meru, the county seat of Meru County in the Eastern part of Kenya. The mixed use twin towers are owned by the developers, the Jesus House of Praise International Church.

Location
The skyscraper would be located approximately , by road, south of the central business district of Meru Town, along the Meru–Embu–Nairobi Road. This is approximately , by road, north-east of Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya. The location sits immediately south of River Kathita, to the east of the road, as you approach Meru from Embu. The coordinates of the building are: 0°02'32.0"N, 37°39'13.0"E
(Latitude:0.042222; Longitude:37.653611).

Overview
The construction site measures approximately . The building is expected to comprise retail stores, office spaces, serviced apartments, hotels, a gymnasium and a swimming pool. Two basement floors are expected to accommodate up to 200 parked automobiles. In addition, there will be Church halls, conference facilities, meeting rooms and related facilities, including restaurants, and a supermarket.

The project has been cleared by the Water Resource Users Association (WRUA) and has been endorsed by Kevin Musiega, of Lakers Consultancy Limited, who carried out the Environmental And Social Impact Assessment Study (EASIA Study).

Construction costs
As of November 2018, construction costs are budgeted at KSh4.52 billion (US$45.2 million).

See also
 List of counties in Kenya

References

External links
 We'll bar hate leaders from using church for political gain - Bishop As at 30 June 2016.

Buildings and structures in Kenya
Meru County
Meru
Skyscraper office buildings in Kenya

Meru Twin Towers


The pine tree shilling was a type of coin minted and circulated in the Thirteen Colonies.

In 1652, the Massachusetts Bay Colony authorized Boston silversmiths John Hull and Robert Sanderson to mint coinage. Prior to 1652, the Massachusetts financial system was based on bartering and foreign coinage. The scarcity of coin currency was a problem for the growth of the New England economy. On May 27, 1652, the Massachusetts General Court appointed John Hull, a local silversmith, to be Boston's mint master without notifying or seeking permission from the British government.

Coins were issued in denominations of 3 and 6 pence and 1 shilling. The first pieces bore the letters "NE" and the denomination "III", "VI" or "XII". The coins were smaller than the equivalent sterling coins by 22.5%.
Later pieces, struck between 1652 and 1660 or 1662, bore the image of a willow tree, with an oak tree appearing on coins produced between 1660 or 1662 and c. 1667. However, the most famous design was the final one to be issued, the pine tree type, struck between ca. 1667 and 1682. The coins circulated widely in North America and the Caribbean.

The pine tree shillings nearly all bore the date "1652". This was the date of the Massachusetts Bay Colony legislation sanctioning the production of shillings by the "Hull Mint" operated by John Hull and Robert Sanderson (two Massachusetts settlers/business partners). The image of the pine tree on the later coins is thought to represent the export of tall timber, used for the mainmasts of British ships of war (among other things). The implication of respect owed to the colonies as the source of this vital war material would become sharper with the Pine Tree Flag flown during the American Revolution. The mint was closed by the English government in 1682 and the Colony's charter was revoked two years later by Charles II on the advice of colonial administrator Edward Randolph.

References

https://historyexplorer.si.edu/resource/massachusetts-pine-tree-shilling-1652-struck-1667-1674
https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_1082064

Currencies of British Overseas Territories

Pine tree shilling


Maggie Greenwald is an American filmmaker.

Most recognized as an independent writer and director, Greenwald's most notable films include Sophie and the Rising Sun (2016), starring an ensemble cast that included Margo Martindale, Julianne Nicholson, Lorraine Toussaint and Diane Ladd, Songcatcher (2000) starring Aidan Quinn and Janet McTeer and introducing Emmy Rossum, and The Ballad of Little Jo (1993), starring Suzy Amis and Ian McKellen. She also directed an adaptation of Jim Thompson's The Kill-Off featuring an ensemble cast that included Cathy Haase and the film debut of Jorja Fox.

Career
Greenwald's first feature film, Home Remedy (1987), from her original screenplay, premiered at the Munich Film Festival before screening at the London and Torino Film Festivals, and opening at the prestigious Film Forum in New York.

The next film she directed was The Kill-Off (1989), which she adapted from Jim Thompson's noir novel of the same name. Acquired by Channel 4 in Britain, and released theatrically by Palace Filmed Entertainment, the film also appeared at film festivals around the world, including: Sundance (in Dramatic Competition), Munich (opening night, American Independent section), London, Florence, Deauville, Toronto and Edinburgh, before winning the Best Director Award at the Torino Film Festival before its release in the US. The film is listed in the BFI (British Film Institute) Screen Guides as one of the 100 best American Independent Films. It established Greenwald's as a significant independent filmmaking voice.

Greenwald went on to write and direct her groundbreaking Western, The Ballad of Little Jo (1993), which was released worldwide by Fine Line Features and Polygram Filmed Entertainment. Star Suzy Amis was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award while co-star David Chung won the award for Best Supporting Actor. A great deal has been written about the film by scholars of the Western who consider The Ballad of Little Jo a landmark revisionist film within the genre. The film is also one of the primary subjects of Modleski's Old Wives Tales and Other Women's Stories, which explores "the phenomenon of female authors and performers who 'cross-dress' - women, that is, who are moving into male genres and staking out territory declared off-limits by men and by many feminists."

Subsequently, Greenwald wrote and directed Songcatcher (2000). An unconventional, naturalistic musical, the film premiered in Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival, where it garnered a Special Jury Award for Ensemble Performance. The film received the first Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Feature Film Prize, Deauville Film Festival Audience Award, two Independent Spirit Award nominations (for actors Emmy Rossum and Pat Carroll) and a GLAAD Award nomination.

Greenwald's most recent film, Sophie and the Rising Sun (2016), is based on the novel by Augusta Trobaugh. She adapted, produced and directed the film, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival 2016, Salt Lake City Gala World Premiere.

Throughout her career, Greenwald has shifted back and forth between directing feature films and directing television. Her numerous TV movies include What Makes a Family, starring Brooke Shields, Whoopi Goldberg, and Cherry Jones. It was produced by Barbra Streisand and Whoopi Goldberg, with Academy Award-winning producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron. The Lifetime Television Channel movie went on to win a prestigious GLAAD Award for Outstanding Television Movie and a Humanitas Award. Other TV movies include Get A Clue, starring Lindsay Lohan, Tempted starring Virginia Madsen, Comfort and Joy, Lifetime Television's Christmas standard, and Good Morning, Killer, starring Catherine Bell, based on April Smith's Ana Grey novel.

Recent television work includes episodes of Nashville and Madam Secretary, including the controversial episode, "Break in Democracy," which was banned in the Philippines for its portrayal of a fictional Filipino dictator.

Earlier forays in directing for episodic television expanded Greenwald's work to include children's television. For Nickelodeon she directed several episodes of The Adventures of Pete and Pete, created the look of the show The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo, for which she directed six episodes over two seasons. She also directed the non-air pilot for a show that evolved into Backyardigans and an episode of Wildfire for ABC Family (now Freeform).

Personal life
Greenwald is married (1994) to composer-musician David Mansfield, who scored many of her films. They have two daughters, Maisie (born 1997) and Lulu (born 2000).

Her siblings include author Alison Leslie Gold.

Greenwald has taught film directing and screenwriting at Sarah Lawrence College, Columbia University Graduate School of the Arts, and NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

Filmography

Film

Television

References

External links

1955 births
Screenwriters from New York (state)
American television directors
American women film directors
American women television directors
Living people
Tisch School of the Arts faculty
American women screenwriters
Film directors from New York City
Mass media people from Queens, New York

Maggie Greenwald


Njoku Ji is the guardian deity of the yam for the Igbo people of southeastern Nigeria. In parts of Igboland there are still annual rituals in honor of the yam deity known as Ifejioku. In some parts children who were dedicated to the service of the deity were named Njoku. As adults, such children were expected to become prosperous yam farmers which made them into nobility.

Ihu-ji na-ama festival
The priests of Njoku Ji performed ceremonies such as the Ihu-ji na-ama, where the priest would lead the village council of elders in roasting yams in the village square. The Ihu-ji na-ama festival acted as the beginning of the yam planting season, and in fact, no yams were allowed to be planted before this ceremony had been performed, with the consequences of planting yams early being a curse of bad luck upon the offender and his household.

See also
Ahia Njoku

References

Igbo deities
Agricultural deities

Njoku Ji


Mal.com is an Australian children's television series which premiered on 28 October 2011  on ABC3. The series which consists of 13 episodes series was produced by Susie Campbell for Animazing Productions.

Plot
Mal.com follows the adventures of a group of children who discover that one of TV's most popular hosts, Malcom Mann is actually a robot, otherwise known as a Male Artificial Life form. Television producer Holly picked him up cheap at an auction site and reprogrammed him to become the number one star on TV3, the number one TV network. The three homeless children - Jake, Daisy and the Kid - offer to keep quiet if she gives them a home, so they pretend to be his children.

Cast
 Geoff Paine as Malcom Mann
 Danielle Carter as Holly
 Luke Ledger as Jake
 Ruby Hall as Daisy
 Gwy McKenna as Kid
 George Ashforth as Chas

Allusions
In one episode a reference is made to Good Game: Spawn Point, where Mal gives a game rating of "8 rubber chickens" followed by rubber chickens being thrown at him, as Good Game SP hosts use rubber chickens to score games.
Another episode features Mal filming a program called "Mal vs. Wild" a parody of Man vs. Wild where Mal ingests insects as Bear Grylls does, and in the same episode during an awkward scene they reference Prank Patrol.

References

External links

2011 Australian television series debuts
Australian children's television series
Australian Broadcasting Corporation original programming

Mal.com


Embalming is the act of preserving a dead body, so it will not decompose.  If a human body is not embalmed, it will start to decay very quickly.  Because of this, most bodies are embalmed if they will be on display (for example, lying in state) for a funeral.

Embalming is similar to mummification, which many ancient peoples did to dead bodies.  Embalming is different from taxidermy, where only the skin is preserved.

History

Mummification

The oldest mummified corpses that have ever been found were mummified around 5000-6000 BCE.  These corpses are called the Chinchorro mummies.  These dead bodies were mummified by ancient people who lived in the Atacama desert, in what is now Chile and Peru.

The ancient Egyptians often mummified dead bodies.  They started mummifying corpses as early as 3200 BCE.  They believed that once a dead body was mummified, the body's soul could find its way back to the body and begin its journey to the afterlife.

Ancient embalming

Ancient cultures from Ethiopia, Peru, Tibet, and southern Nigeria also used embalming techniques.  So did the Guanches, the Jivaro Indians, the Aztecs, the Toltecs, and the Mayans.

In ancient Europe, embalming dead bodies was less common.  The earliest known preserved bodies in Europe are about 5000 years old.  These bodies were covered in cinnabar to preserve them.  They were found in Osorno, Spain.  Embalming dead bodies was unusual in Europe up to the time of the Roman Empire.

Archaeologists have found preserved bodies in China from the time of the Han dynasty (206 BCE – 220 ACE).  Nobody knows how these bodies were preserved.

The Middle Ages and Renaissance

By about 500 ACE, knowledge about preserving bodies had spread from ancient cultures, and embalming became much more common in Europe.   This happened partly because science and medicine were developing, and scientists needed to dissect dead bodies to learn more about the human body.  If bodies were not preserved, they would decay right away, and scientists could not dissect them or keep them for other scientists to learn from.

The 17th and 18th centuries
The English physician William Harvey created the modern method of embalming in the 17th century.  This method involves injecting chemicals into a dead body's arteries to keep the body from decaying.

Up until the middle of the 18th century, embalming was used mostly in science and medicine.  However, in the mid-18th century, the Scottish surgeon William Hunter used Harvey's methods to preserve bodies in morgues.  His brother, John Hunter, was the first to advertise embalming to regular people who wanted to see their loved ones'  bodies preserved after death.

The 19th century
In the 19th century, many people became more interested in embalming dead friends and relatives.  For example, sometimes a person might want to be buried at a far-away place.  However, first, the people who cared about them would want to see their body and pay their last respects to that person.  They could do this if the body was embalmed, because the body would not decay.

In the United States, embalming became very common during the time of the Civil War.  This happened because many people died far from home while fighting in the war.  Their bodies needed to be returned home to be buried, and embalming kept their bodies from decaying during these long trips.  When President Abraham Lincoln was killed, embalming allowed his body to be sent home to be buried.  This made people in the United States more aware about embalming.

In the past, if a person died from an infectious disease, their body would be buried very quickly to prevent the disease from spreading.  Embalming became more common as a way to keep diseases from spreading.

By the mid-19th century, people began to run businesses that provided funerals and burials.  At that time, the people who ran these businesses were called undertakers.  (Now they are called funeral directors.)  These people began to use embalming methods regularly, instead of using older methods like packing bodies in ice.

Modern history

Until the early 20th century, arsenic was often used to embalm bodies.  Eventually it was replaced by other chemicals that work better and are less poisonous.  In 1867, the German chemist August Wilhelm von Hofmann discovered formaldehyde.  Scientists soon realized that this chemical worked very well to preserve dead bodies.  Soon formaldehyde replaced other chemicals as the most common chemical used to embalm bodies.

Embalming today

In the United States and the Western world, embalming is now very common.  Usually, there are a few steps to embalming:
 The embalmer injects chemicals (called embalming fluids) into the body's blood vessels.  This causes the blood and other fluids in the body to drain out of the body, and replaces them with the chemicals.
 The embalmer breaks open the hollow organs in the body and fills them with embalming fluids.
 The embalmer may inject embalming fluid under the skin.
 The embalmer may use embalming chemicals right on the skin if the body has injuries.

Usually, embalming takes a few hours.

Embalming does not keep a body from decaying forever.  It is meant to preserve a dead person's body for a little while.  This allows people to see the body during funeral services, and allows bodies to be shipped to far-away places to be buried.  However, no matter what type of embalming is used, the body will eventually decompose.

Religious views about embalming

Different religions have many different ideas about embalming.  For example, these religious usually allow embalming:
 Buddhism
 Most branches of Christianity
 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons)
 Hinduism
 The Society of Friends (Quakers)

Some religions, like some Neopagan religions, discourage embalming, but do not forbid it.

Some religions say that embalming is never allowed.  These religions include:
 The Bahá'í Faith
 Islam and Judaism (except in places where laws say bodies must be embalmed)
 Zoroastrianism

Related pages
 Taxidermy

References

Death customs

Embalming


Vironniemi () is a destrict o Helsinki, Finland, formin the core pairt o the ceety centre, thus the central location o the Finnish govrenmental an financial decision makkin an aw, an the location o Helsinki's maist important kirkes. Vironniemi is the location o the Presidential Palace, the Palace o the Finnish Cooncil o State, the Senate Square, the Helsinki Cathedral, the Uspenski Cathedral an the main office o the Bank o Finland.

Ither important steids in the destrict include the main biggin o the University o Helsinki, the Helsinki Ceety Haw, the Helsinki Central railwey station an the Helsinki main post office. Mony banks an corporations hae their heidquarters in Vironniemi, an the Sokos an Stockmann depairtment stores an Sanomatalo, the main office o Helsingin Sanomat, Finland's lairgest newspaper, are foond thare an aw. A pairt o the core o Finland's cultural life is foond here an aw: the Naitional Library o Finland, the Finnish Naitional Theatre, Ateneum an Kiasma. The Helsinki Music Hoose is being constructit in the aurie.

History
Oreeginally, a narrae bay cried Kluuvinlahti extended sooth o Töölönlahti, reachin the steid o present-day Esplanadi. At that time, the name Vironniemi meant the aurie eastwairds o the bay mentioned abuin.

The birth o the Helsinki centre the day dates back tae 1640. At that time, the ceety centre was muivit tae Vironniemi frae its birthplace at the mooth o the Vantaa river, the location o the present-day district o Vanhakaupunki.

The ceety grew an developit. It can still be seen: Auld biggins datin back tae the 18t an 19t century form aboot a quairter o the biggins currently in the destrict. Still in the 1850s, construction o the ceety wis mainly focused in the Vironniemi aurie an sooth o it.

When the Kluuvinlahti bay was gradually filled in the 19t century, the name Vironniemi wis disuised in aw except historical contexts. Anerlie in the 1980s the name wis restored, as the name o the main destrict, when diveesion o the ceety intae main destricts wis established.

Destricts an neebourin destricts o Vironniemi
The main destrict o Vironniemi is dividit intae three individual destricts: Kruununhaka, Kluuvi an Katajanokka.

Neebourin destricts include Kaartinkaupunki in the Ullanlinna main destrict tae the sooth, Kamppi an Etu-Töölö in the Kampinmalmi main destrict tae the wast, Siltasaari athort the Pitkäsilta brig in the Kallio main destrict tae the north, an Sörnäinen to the east o the aforementioned destrict athort the mair eastren Hakaniemi brig.

Office an hame tae thoosans
Vironniemi is a vera important employer (35040 offices, as o 31 December 2003) an the hame o 11242 Helsinkians (as o early 2005) an aw. Ower 80% o the destrict's apairtments hae been built afore 1960, an a little ower 10% in the 1980s, when production o new apairtments wis being directit towards Katajanokka.

The education level o the inhabitants o the destrict is the heichest o aw main destricts in the ceety - 36.4% o the inhabitants hae a university degree. 10.6% o the destrict's inhabitants are native Swadish-speakin (as o 1 Januar 2005), which is clearly heicher than the ceety average. The unemployment rate is vera law an the income level is abuin average.

Traffic connections in the destrict are excellent. Vironniemi is the endpoint or transit point o mony tram, bus, train an ferry routes. Twa o the stations o the Helsinki metro - the Rautatientori metro station an the Kaisaniemi metro station are locatit in the aurie. Traffic routes - streets, the rail yard an the piers - hae taken up aboot 45% o the laund aurie o the core o the ceety centre.

Sources

Freemit airtins
Vironniemi as seen from a satellite

Destricts o Helsinki

Vironniemi


Media Development Investment Fund (MDIF), formerly Media Development Loan Fund, is a New York-registered non-profit 501(c)(3) organization and mission-driven investment fund that provides low-cost financing to independent news and information businesses in challenging environments, mostly in countries with a history of media oppression. As one of the United States-based groups involved in direct media development, it specializes in impact investing and provides affordable debt, equity and quasi-equity financing to help journalists build sustainable businesses around professional, responsible, quality journalism.

In 2016, MDIF was declared an "undesirable" organization by the Office of Prosecutor General of Russia using Russian undesirable organizations law and put on the List of organisations banned in Russia.

Mission and impact
According to its website "MDIF invests in independent media around the world providing the news, information and debate that people need to build free, thriving societies".

Its own impact analysis found that more than 268 million people get their news from media supported by MDIF. After five years of working with MDIF, media businesses increase their revenues by an average of 196% and their reach by an average of 169%.

History
MDIF was founded in 1995 by Saša Vučinić and Stuart Auerbach, the late Washington Post reporter and editor. According to its website, George Soros provided the initial $500,000 funding in 1995 towards what later became MDLF. The organisation was initially established to support media companies in Europe transitioning from communist systems to free markets, but has then expanded to provide financing to media businesses around the world.

Vučinić served as the CEO and Managing Director of MDLF until 31 March 2011, when he stepped down and was succeeded by Harlan Mandel.

In 2013 Media Development Loan Fund changed its name to Media Development Investment Fund. Currently, MDIF funders and investors include a wide range of organizations and individuals who share organisation's commitment to independent media.

In 2016, MDIF was declared an "undesirable" organization by the Office of Prosecutor General of Russia using Russian undesirable organizations law and put on the List of organisations banned in Russia.

Financing
According to its website, from 1996 to June 30, 2023, MDIF has provided more than $300.2 million in affordable financing, including:
 $253 million in loans and equity investments;
 Approximately $46.6 million in technical assistance and other grants;
 Earned over $70.4 million in interest, dividends and capital gains;
 Collected more than $80.7 million in recovered principal invested;
 Approximately $0.6 million through Digital Kiosk, the secure payment service for independent media.

MDIF has invested in 149 clients across 47 countries, writing off 9.86% of the total loaned and invested.

MDIF has returned $68.9 million to investors. It ended June 2023 with a portfolio allocated in 62 media businesses across 34 countries.

Other activities
MDIF is one of the founders of the European Press Prize.

Together with King Baudouin Foundation, Tinius Trust and Mediahuis, MDIF is among European media companies, foundations and impact investors who launched Pluralis, with the aim to support plurality of news across Europe.

In 1998 MDIF also founded CAMP (Centre for Advanced Media-Prague), which provided technology support to independent media in developing countries. In 2010, MDIF spun off CAMP as an independent organization, Sourcefabric, whose mission is to provide independent media outlets with the open source software, tools and support they need to produce the news.

In 2017 MDIF acquired a majority stake in South African media company Mail & Guardian. The restructured ownership saw M&G's Chief Executive Officer, Hoosain Karjieker, acquire a minority stake in the business as part of a Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) transaction. The former majority shareholder, Trevor Ncube, disposed of his equity interest in M&G.

MDIF report "Media Capture in Europe"  and an op-ed by CEO Harlan Mandel written for the EUObserver that drew attention to problem of media capture in Europe, a situation when governments and business interests collude to control and manipulate the flow of news and information, prompted a reply by Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Relations Zoltán Kovács. Harlan Mandel then published a reply to the government's reply.

References

Non-profit organizations based in New York (state)
International journalism organizations
American journalism organizations

Media Development Investment Fund


Chipwi Township (; Chibwe Township) is a township of Myitkyina District in the Kachin State of Burma. The principal town is Chipwi.

Towns and villages

Akyauk, Atang, Aukan, Awngchit, Ba-le, Bamhkam, Bamyaw, Chechin, Chiglai, Chih-ko, Chikgaw, Chiloi, Chipwi, Chu-iho, Chyangzan, Chyingtaw, Chyinhtaung, Gawlamten, Gawyawm, Hkamkawn, Hkasuhpa, Hkayazahkuso, Hkinchit, Hpala, Hpare, Hpyithpyaw, Htangprai, Htawgaw, Htawmshing, Htingra, Ichake, Kangfang, Ko-hkang, Lagut, Lagwi, La-hok, Laichupo, Lakyawn, Lamuk, Langyang, Laokam, Laotiki, Lasin, La-tai, Lauhkang, La-uho, Laukkam, Lauksauk, Launggyaung, Launghpam, Laungkaw, Lawngkyaw, Lontin, Luchang, Lukpwi, Luksang, Lungpang, Machulo, Magawng, Mang-ai, Mangpyaw, Mangtong, Mansan, Matao, Mukhkaung, Mukkaung, Mukyaw, Mum, Myauknaw, Myukhpyaw, Nahpaung, Nakyam, Nalaw, Nang-u, Napok, Nasup, Nayang, Ngamaw, Ngawagyalaw, Ngawapaka, Ngawlawngtam, Paingmaw, Pammyaw, Pangli, Pangmawjang, Pawahku, Pawngen, Pawzang, Pwisang, Pyiloi, Rgangkum, Rgangpi, Ritjaw, Ritpan, Ritsang, Rittong, Rukchaung, Sadulaw, Sanliangho, Sanyu, Saulang, Sawlaw, Sawnkyawn, Sha-an, Shachinpok, Shalaw, Sha-on, Shaotangpa, Shapok, Shapyi, Shijang, Shimao, Shitzaw, Sinhkung, Sipe-hkalaw, Taiawhtu, Talam, Tamna, Tamtu, Tangahka, Tangkyin, Tangtong, Tangtung, Taumangyang, Tawngkaw, Tawung, Theyaw, Tingram, Tsawlang, Tsonma, Tumpyaw, Tunhpaung, Valao, Wachao, Wachutaing, Wachyawn, Wakyang, Wa-na, Wanghte, Wasawng, Washawma, Wasok, Wuhpatu, Wusaohkao, Wutze, Yinchyingpa, Yindam

References

Townships of Kachin State

Chipwi Township


Hüseyin Cahit Aral (1927 – 1 November 2011) was a Turkish engineer, politician and former government minister.

Cahit Aral was born 1927 in Elazığ to primary school teacher parents Fatma and Hakkı Aral. His was named in honor of the writer and journalist Hüseyin Cahit Yalçın (1875–1957). He graduated from the Istanbul Technical University.

Cahit Aral entered politic after working some years in the industry. He was among the founders of the Motherland Party (ANAP), which was established after the 1980 Turkish coup d'état. He served as Minister of Industry of Commerce in the cabinet of Turgut Özal.

He is remembered for his message "Don't worry!" while drinking a glass of tea in front of the cameras following the Chernobyl disaster that occurred on 26 April 1986, and downplaying the disaster's possible risk effects on human health caused by radioactivity released into the environment in the Black Sea Region, where Turkey's tea plantations are located. For this reason, he was nicknamed "Bekerel Cahit" (Cahit the Becquerel).

Cahit Aral died of heart failure on 1 November 2011 in Istanbul. He was laid to rest at the Zincirlikuyu Cemetery on 3 November 2011 following a state funeral and the religious funeral service at Levent Mosque.

References

1927 births
2011 deaths
People from Elazığ
Motherland Party (Turkey) politicians
Government ministers of Turkey
Deputies of Ankara
Deputies of Elazığ
Turkish mechanical engineers
Istanbul Technical University alumni
Burials at Zincirlikuyu Cemetery

Cahit Aral


Betty Hall Jones  (January 11, 1911 – April 20, 2009), was an American boogie-woogie pianist, singer, songwriter and arranger.

Biography
She was born Cordell Elizabeth Bigbee in Topeka, Kansas. Archie Bigbee, her father, was a part-time cornetist and leader of a brass band. Music ran through her family. She learned piano from her uncle in California, where she was raised after her family moved there in 1921. She learned piano, starting at the age of five, going through her first year of college. A Las Vegas Columnist once described Betty Hall Jones as a "tiny 70-year-old black songstress-pianist who tore up the joint."

Around 1927, she married a banjoist, George Hall, and then had two children but divorced after a few years. In 1936, as Betty Hall, she got a job as a backup pianist for Buster Moten in Kansas City. She returned to Los Angeles to play with Roy Milton from 1937 through 1941, then joined Luke Jones' trio, with whom she recorded. Additionally, she was also the colluder of the Satin Dolls, a group of musicians, Dixieland. She married Jasper Jones in the early part of the decade, taking the name Betty Hall Jones. By 1942 she had joined Paul Howard's Quality Serenaders as pianist and arranger, but also led her own Betty Hall Jones Trio in clubs and hotels, mostly in southern California where she was raising her children. Her family did not approve of the type of music that she was involved in. She died in Torrance, California, in 2009, aged 98.

Career
In 1946 she wrote songs recorded by Alton Redd's band, and, with Luke Jones, recorded with Joe Alexander's Highlanders on the Atlas label. She also recorded under her own name in 1947 for Atomic Records, leading a group that included Jones and, on some recordings, saxophonist Maxwell Davis. She signed for Capitol Records in 1949, and released a string of singles on the label including "This Joint's Too Hip For Me", probably her best-known recording.  As a writer, her songs were recorded by Ray Charles ("Ain't That Fine") and Nellie Lutcher ("My New Papa's Got To Have Everything"). However, her own recordings were not chart hits. She left the Capitol label the following year, but continued to perform widely, and recorded for the Dootone and Combo labels in the early 1950s. She worked at the Hotel Sorrento in Seattle, Washington, for seven years, and became noted for the flamboyant hats which she wore while performing, switching from one to another between songs. Betty performed a large number of shows for charity. She performed charity shows for the USO and routinely performed for nursing homes.

A compilation of her recordings, The Complete Recordings 1947-1954, was issued in 2005.

She was the mother of two children, and married, then divorced, George Hal. She professed to admire Mary Lou Williams, Art Tatum, Teddy Wilson, Fats Waller,  Pete Johnson, and Duke Ellington as influences and peers.

Tours
In the 1960s and 1970s she did USO tours in East Asia and toured Australia and Mexico in addition to regular dates in nightclubs on Sunset Boulevard. She toured Sweden and England in the 1980s, and continued performing into the 1990s despite illness. In the 1950s she extended her itinerary from Canada to the Southwest.

References

Sources
Howard Rye, "Betty Hall Jones". Grove Jazz online.

American jazz singers
American jazz pianists
American women pianists
Combo Records artists
Capitol Records artists
1911 births
2009 deaths
20th-century American singers
20th-century American pianists
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American women

Betty Hall Jones


Donald Romain Davis (born February 4, 1957) is an American composer, conductor, and orchestrator known for his film and television scores. He has also composed opera, concert and chamber music.

Davis has collaborated with well-known directors including the Wachowskis, Ronny Yu, and Joe Johnston in genres ranging from horror, to action, to comedy. His best known works include music for the first three films of The Matrix franchise, and the television series Beauty and the Beast and seaQuest 2032.

Davis has been nominated for eight Primetime Emmy Awards, winning twice for Outstanding Music Composition for a Series. He has also won four BMI Film Music Awards.

Early life and education
Davis was born in Anaheim, California. He began playing trumpet and piano at the age of nine, and started writing music at twelve. As his affinity for music grew, so did his aspirations, and soon he was composing and arranging orchestral charts for local jazz ensembles that he also performed with.

After graduating from high school, Davis enrolled at UCLA. He continued his study of musical composition with tutor Henri Lazarof. Additionally, he learned orchestration from Albert Harris.

Career
During their orchestration lessons, Harris introduced Davis to the TV composer Joe Harnell, who supported Davis during his search for work—his first job was working for composer Mark Snow's TV show Hart to Hart. He has worked as an orchestrator and conductor for Michael Kamen, Alan Silvestri, James Horner, and Randy Newman.

Davis was nominated for the Emmys in 1990 for Beauty and the Beast and won in 1995 for SeaQuest DSV. He wrote scores mostly for television series up until 1995, in which he wrote a few of the cues for the animated Disney motion picture A Goofy Movie. He continued to score television series until the two then young directors, the Wachowskis, hired him to score their neo-noir film Bound. It was reasonably successful at the box office. Bound was the film which led Davis into becoming the composer for the entire Matrix trilogy. Subsequently, Davis has composed scores for films such as Universal Soldier: The Return, Jurassic Park III (recommended to the filmmakers by John Williams, the composer of the scores for the first two films in the series), House on Haunted Hill, Behind Enemy Lines, and The Unsaid. In 2004, he produced the music score for the BBC science fiction documentary series Space Odyssey: Voyage to the Planets, released as Voyage to the Planets and Beyond in the United States.

Davis' magnum opus is the Matrix franchise: The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, and The Animatrix. It was set apart from other film scores of its time for its atonality and avant garde style of composition, with influences from polytonal minimalist works by John Adams and cluster-like as well as aleatoric techniques prominent in the works of composer Witold Lutosławski.

In addition to orchestrating and conducting his own scores, Don Davis has done orchestration work for many other composers. He was the conductor for the movie Flowers in the Attic, whose score was composed by Christopher Young, and for the TV documentary Eagles: Hell Freezes Over. He arranged music for The 86th Academy Awards as well. He is also regular orchestrator for Randy Newman.

Don Davis' political opera, Río de Sangre, premiered at the Florentine Opera Company on October 22, 2010. Excerpts of the opera had previously been performed in Los Angeles with the Los Angeles Master Chorale on November 6, 2005, and the New York City Opera on May 13, 2007.

Personal life
Davis currently splits his time between Southern California and British Columbia, Canada. He has been married to Megan MacDonald since 1986, and they have two children together.

Filmography

Film

Orchestration work

Television

Television films and limited series

Other works

 Chronym I for flute (1977)
 Trio for violin, viola & cello (1978)
 12 Poems For Jonathan David Wolf for soprano & piano (1978)
 Chamber Concerto (1978)
 Timbral Spectra (1979)
 Chamber Variations (1979)
 Chronym II (1980)
 Chamber Symphony (1981)
 Chronym III (1981)
 Symphony (1982)
 Bleeding Particles (1983)
 Harsh (1988)
 Bleak (1989)
 The Eye And The Pyramid (1990)
 Going On (1991)
 Green Light (1992)
 What Is The Silence (1993)
 Afterimages (1994)
 Of The Illuminated (1995)
 Flurry (1996)
 No Exit (1996)
 The Enchanted Place Suite (1997)
 Pain (1998)
 Illicit Felicity (1999) - Excerpt from "Bound" score
 Critical Mass (2000)
 Wandering (2002)
 A Lunatic Air (On Fire) (2002)
 Río de Sangre (2005) - Opera in three acts

References

External links

 Río De Sangre

1957 births
20th-century American LGBT people
21st-century American LGBT people
Albany Records artists
American conductors (music)
American contemporary classical composers
American film score composers
American LGBT composers
American male classical composers
American male conductors (music)
American male film score composers
American opera composers
American television composers
Classical musicians from California
Composers for trombone
Concert band composers
La-La Land Records artists
LGBT classical composers
LGBT film score composers
Living people
Male opera composers
Male television composers
Musicians from Anaheim, California
University of California, Los Angeles alumni
Varèse Sarabande Records artists

Don Davis (composer)


Cryptoblepharus australis, commonly called the inland snake-eyed skink, is a species of skink in the genus Cryptoblepharus.

Pronunciation: KRIP-toe-BLEFF-ah-russ  / oss-TRAH-liss

Etymology

Cryptoblepharus: 'hidden eyelid', referring to the fused eyelids.

Australis: 'southern', or more generally referring to Australia

Introduction

A major and much-needed revision of the genus was undertaken in 2007 by Paul Horner of the Northern Territory Museum, previously splitting this species into a bunch of species each of which occupies quite a distinct range occurring over Australia.

Paul Horner (2008), says Cryptoblepharus are unique species to the Territory. A study recently has found the top end is a hot spot for snake eyed skinks with one new discovery that was very exciting for herpetologist Paul Horner (2008).

Description of species
C. australis usually has quite distinct features: 6 supraciliary scales, 24 mid-body scale rows; smooth sub digital lamellae; immaculate, acute plantar scales. They are greyish in colour and have a longitudinal aligned body pattern. Cryptoblepharus snaked-eyed skink species live on vertical surfaces of rocks, trees and buildings which are challenging habitats that demand quite different adaptions and body characteristics. These physical characteristics include a dorsally depressed body and long splayed limbs, digits which create a low centre of gravity and an intimate contact with the surface. These little skinks are as swift and sure footed vertically as they are horizontally on a plane.

Similar species include;
Metallic snake-eyed skink (Cryptoblepharus metallicus)
Adams' snake-eyed skink (Cryptoblepharus adamsi)
Fuhn's snake-eyed skink (Cryptoblepharus fuhni)
Cryptoblepharus litoralis
Cryptoblepharus virgatus, wall skink

Distribution
It is distributed across arid inland Australia, extending north to vicinity of Barkley Highway in the Northern Territory and Queensland, east to the central plains of Queensland, east to the central plains of Queensland and New South Wales, and south Eyre Peninsula in South Australia. In Western Australia, it is known from Murchison and Great Victoria Desert bioregions
For more of an idea, it is found in the interior of the state including these places; 'Binerah Downs' station, Yetman area, Armidale and Wahgunyah State Forest

Habitat
The Cryptoplepharus australis lives in; Semi-arid zone, woodland, open woodland, shrub land, grasslands, spinifex type environment

Habits
It is an arboreal (tree dwelling), rock inhabiting and diurnal (active during the day), in a natural environment they are found under bark on standing trees, and crevices in the dead timber and rocks.
Snake eyed skinks even occupy the walls of buildings well within the central business districts such as Perth and Cairns. The Crytoplepharus genus species 'Snake eyed Skink' as mentioned above thrives on vertical surfaces of rocks, trees and buildings which are challenging habitats that demand quite different adaptations.

Threats

General threats to all reptiles include:

habitat loss from land clearing
habitat degradation by introduced species such as cattle and rabbits
habitat modification caused by global climate change
death on roads
feral predators such as dogs, cats, pigs and foxes
the introduced cane toad
emerging diseases

Reproduction
It produces two eggs to a clutch.

Diet
Its diet consists of insects.

References

Further Reference
Paul Horner (2007) Systematics of the snake-eyed skinks, Cryptoblepharus Wiegmann (Reptilia: Squamata: Scincidae)– an Australian-based review

Cryptoblepharus
Skinks of Australia
Endemic fauna of Australia
Taxa named by Richard Sternfeld
Reptiles described in 1918

Cryptoblepharus australis


John Henry Belter (1804–1863) was an American cabinetmaker active in New York City.

Belter was born in Hilter near Osnabrück, Germany and was trained as a cabinetmaker's apprentice in Württemberg, specializing in German rococo carving, which later became popular during the Victorian era and is known today as the Rococo Revival style. He moved to New York in 1833, becoming an American citizen in 1839. His shop "J.H. Belter and Co." was located during the years 1846–1852 at nr. 372 Broadway. He is known for developing a technique for processing laminated rosewood in many layers to achieve thin panels that, once shaped in molds through steam heating, were finely carved. This style which became very popular in NYC, was widely copied by his competitors in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston.

Belter died in New York City and his business was carried on by his brothers-in-law, the Springmyers.

References

 John Henry Belter in the Encyclopædia Britannica

1804 births
1863 deaths
People from Osnabrück
American cabinetmakers
American furniture designers

John Henry Belter


The Fountain of Youth is a legendary spring. People talked about it for thousands of years. They thought its water could make people young and healthy. Herodotus put it in the Horn of Africa. Later stories said it was in India. A Spanish explorer, Juan Ponce de Leon, was said to have looked for it while in present-day Florida.

Mythology

Fountain of Youth