The Serge synthesizer ( Serge Modular or Serge Modular Music System) is an analogue modular synthesizer system originally developed by Serge Tcherepnin, Rich Gold and Randy Cohen at CalArts in late 1972. The first 20 Serge systems (then called "Tcherepnins") were built in 1973 in Tcherepnin's home. Tcherepnin was a professor at CalArts at the time, and desired to create something like the exclusively expensive Buchla modular synthesizers "for the people that would be both inexpensive and powerful." After building prototypes, Tcherepnin went on to develop kits for students to affordably build their own modular synthesizer, production taking place unofficially on a second floor CalArts balcony. This led to Tcherepnin leaving CalArts in order to produce synths commercially, starting in 1974.

After leaving CalArts, Serge had a small factory on Western Avenue in Hollywood.  He relocated to a three-story Victorian house on Haight Street in 1980.  While the synthesizers were inexpensive compared to Moog, Buchla, and other manufacturers, Serge Tcherepnin's emphasis was always on providing musicians with quality equipment.

While Serge synthesisers have been compared to Buchlas, their underlying philosophies are very different.  Serge modules were designed to bring many aspects of the circuits out to the front panel so modules can be patched in unusual and creative ways beyond the "normal" functions of that type of module.  In contrast, Buchla modules were optimised to do one thing very well, using different signal levels and connector types to separate "sound and structure" (audio and control).

Serge synthesizers have been used by composers such as Michael Stearns and Kevin Braheny (who owned a 15-panel system dubbed The Mighty Serge). Serge synthesizers are known for their flexibility, audio quality and relative compactness. Other well-known musicians using Serge synthesizers include Malcolm Cecil, whose studio was used in Stevie Wonder albums; Gary Chang, movie composer; Richie Hawtin; Roger Powell, keyboard player for Todd Rundgren; John Adams, composer; Ingram Marshall, composer; Ivan Tcherepnin, composer; and many experimental and electronic musicians such as Jim O'Rourke, Thomas Ankersmit, Sarah Davachi, R. Luke DuBois, Keith Fullerton Whitman, and Paolo Tofani of the italian free-jazz and experimental group Area. Cologne-based flutist Camilla Hoitenga and Estonian pianist Taavi Kerikmäe employed a rare 1970s Serge modular synthesizer that once belonged to Karlheinz Stockhausen in their project Poles, an homage to Stockhausen centered around his composition Poles (1969-70).

Commercial builds and DIY kits of Serge synthesizers are currently available under license from a number of manufacturers.

Overview
Originally, the module configuration for Serge systems could be selected by the user. 4U panels with module widths typically ranging from 1" to 3" (sometimes more in the case of sequencers), several modules could then be arranged on a 17-inch-wide panel (total of 16 inches of modules), resulting in a custom built panel. These were originally arranged by applying paper graphics to the metal panel, which became metal self-applied graphics in the early 1980s and finally graphics printed directly onto the metal panel.

Early systems could have custom graphics—or no graphics—depending upon the whims of the artist.  Serge adopted a series of geometric designs denoting signal types, input, outputs, and triggers. Colored 4 mm sockets were used for most connections – blue, black, and red jacks; blue for (unipolar) control voltages, black for bipolar signals (NOT necessarily AC coupled) and red for pulse/gate signals, although these were not rigidly enforced.  Later, other colors were introduced, e.g. yellow for triggers. By keeping output impedances low, Serge largely avoided the need for screened cables. 3.5 mm sockets were used for some audio interfacing to external equipment.

Serge modules did not separate audio signal and control voltage jacks, all signals were patched from module to module via banana patch cords. Banana cables are most flexible in electronic patching and offer quick patching with a secure connection, most banana jacks can be stacked as well. The banana leads supplied by Serge and STS are 4 mm Pomona made heavy insulated in silicone cable. With a simple ground connection made between different units cross connection/modulation can be made between units.

One of the first Serge Modular synthesizer created became the machine used on the first Greenpeace anti-whaling expedition (1975) by William (Will) Jackson, to approximate whale sounds and broadcast them to whales in the open Pacific. (A photo of this can be found in the Vancouver Sun newspaper archives May 1975.)

Business dropped off from the early 1980s, and in the early 1990s the business was transferred to Rex Probe who renamed it Sound Transform Systems (STS).  STS didn't offer kits and later ended user selectable module arrangements,  concentrating on 17" pre-configured 'Shop' panels and then the half sized 'M-Class panel. These are smaller 8" panels, allowing a user more variety than the Shop Panels but less than custom. These panels come with a black 1" center panel for power distribution.

Modules

(1973)
The first generation of modules consisted of:

 Dual voltage processor
 Dual audio mixer
 Peak and trough
 Triple bidirectional router
 Triple waveshaper
 Gate (VCA)
 Ring modulator
 Envelope generator (weird ASR)
 Oscillator (VCO with waveshaper)
 Dual negative slew
 Dual positive slew
 Triple comparator (plus Schmitt trigger)
 Voltage controlled filter (2 pole state variable. LP, HP, BP)
 Send & Return (audio interface)
 Programmer (4 stage controller, linkable for 8 / 12 stages)
 Sequencer (10 step pulse only)
 Multiple

The Negative and Positive Slews, were able to function as envelope followers, crude low pass filters, modulating waveforms, subharmonic generators, and audio oscillators.  The Programmer served as the performance interface, being a manually controllable sequencer.  It could be patched to the (pulse) sequencer - in some early systems they were hard-wired together.  These systems were essentially DIY.

(1974/5)
Serge set up SMMS in 1974 and set about extending and upgrading the range.  Systems would contain first and second generations modules, and built or DIY.  The second generation of modules included:

 Smooth and stepped function generator
 Noise generator (later incl. S&H)
 Phase shifter
 Preamp
 Reverb (spring)
 Analog shift register
 Keyboard Envelope generator (VC ADSR)

He also upgraded the mixer, dual processor, Send & Return, Oscillator etc.  The circuit boards could serve several roles, so for example the Smooth & Stepped circuit board was also used in the Random Voltage Generator, the Dual VC Slope Generator, the Rate-Controlled S&H etc.  There were probably other custom modules made during this period, but information is scarce.

As well as working on the modular range Serge worked with others.  He designed and built custom modules for Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff's TONTO system (as used on several Stevie Wonder albums), and worked with Frank Eventoff on his Sonica and Rainmaker instruments.

(1976)
Around 1976, Serge started to replace some of his old designs with a new generation of state-of-the-art designs, pioneered highly accurate 1V/Oct oscillators and high dynamic range VCAs (voltage controlled amplifiers) which enabled a new filter technology with low-noise and mixers with equal power multi-channel panning.  A new, simpler panel graphics style was also introduced, losing most of the geometric designs, just retaining a box around the outputs.

In addition to fully featured standard synthesis modules such as voltage controlled oscillators, filters, and envelope generators, the Serge system includes esoteric audio signal processors such as a Wave Multiplier, a multipurpose slew / envelope module and a very flexible touch-sensitive keyboard controller combined with a 16-stage analogue sequencer, known as the TKB.  The new modules included:

 Quad VCA
 Universal Equal Power Audio Panner
 PCO (high quality VCO)
 NTO (PCO plus waveshaping, FM, etc.)
 Variable bandwidth VCF
 Variable slope VCF
 Variable Q VCF (also extended range VCF)
 Wave multipliers
 Dual universal slope generator / Dual transient generator
 Touch activated keyboard sequencer (TKB)
 Extended ADSR
 Pitch and envelope follower (Gentle Electric boards mounted on a Serge panel)

He also extended the range of mixers and CV processors.  Many of the circuit boards could by used or combined in a variety of ways, and an exhaustive list of modules would be difficult to compile.  Filter banks were made in small numbers, but it is uncertain if any of the hex panners shown in the catalogue were ever built.  All the filters were 2 pole state variable, 12 dB/octave. (Some sources have mistakenly stated that the VCFS is 18 or 24 dB/octave.)

While some earlier modules remained in production, the new modules replaced many of the older modules.  These new designs remain at the heart of Serge Modular systems to the present day.

(1979)
Around 1979, a fourth generation of modules started to appear, complementing the 1976 modules and replacing some earlier modules.  The current Serge panel graphics style also appeared around this time.  The new modules included:

 Active processor
 Resonant equalizer
 4//6/7/8 step sequencer
 Divide/n comparator, dual comparator, Schmitt trigger
 Wilson Analog Delay
 Balanced modulator
 Quantizer
 Frequency shifter
 Quadrature oscillator
 Dual VCA
 Envelope follower / preamp
 N voice controller

Also, new electronics were designed for the audio mixer/processor/scaling/buffering modules and the VCA/panners, and the "paper face" panel graphics were replaced with metallized plastic film.  Throughout this period, systems were available built or as kits - boards supplied pre-built and tested but you wire the panels up yourself.  In 1979, Serge offered a standard module configuration - the "System 79".

The N voice controller was a polyphonic interface which worked with a modified Casio keyboard. It appeared around 1982, just before MIDI.

(early 1990s)
The 1980s were not good times for modular synthesizer manufacturers, and no further Serge modules appeared after 1983.  In the early 1990s, Sound Transform Systems took over the range and added a few of their own designs to the range.  These included:

 Pulse Divider
 Boolean Logic
 Audio Mixer (with Phase Switch)
 Balanced output module (on rear of panels)
 MIDI CV (short lived)

They also introduced new variations on existing modules such as the VC Timegen Osc/clock/dual VC clock, and were able to use better quality parts and quality control.  Affordable component quality improved massively through the 1980s, especially good quality, cheap potentiometers.

STS gradually phased out custom panels in favor of standardized "Shop Panels".  One and two panels systems were available.
 Animal - a 2 VCO complete voice panel
 Animate - voice/processing panel
 Blue Voice - 3 VCO audio panel
 Blue Control - Envelope & CV processing
 Red Fun Station - 2 VCO audio panel
 Red Control Panel -Envelope/CV/Quanstizer panel
 Sequencer Panel - Dual Sequencer plus clock and logic
 Soup Kitchen 1 - Processing panel with frequency shifter
 Soup Kitchen 2 - Processing panel with 1 VCO

Around 2010, STS introduces half-width M-Class panels.  Two panels could be mounted either side of a 1" black power distribution strip in a Serge "boat" (box).  These allowed greater customization than shop panels.   Panels include:
 Creature
 Gator
 Sequencer
 Triple Oscillator
 Quad Slope
 Wave Processor
 Audio Interface
 Klangziet
 Mayhem
Etc.

Licensing (2010s)

By the late 1990s, Serge kits were no longer produced, and with no schematics available, "support" usually meant sending panels to STS - expensive and inconvenient for customers outside the USA.  With prices high and only full panels available from STS, there was also interest in obtaining individual modules.  This led a small group of enthusiasts to research schematics to support their own instruments, which led to small scale production of DIY Serge circuit boards for their own use, particularly for early discontinued models.  Eventually Serge Tcherepnin was contacted and his interest in his synths was renewed.

From that beginning, Serge became actively involved, and Serge designs have been licensed to kit and module manufacturers such as CGS, Random*Source, ELBY Designs, Loudest Warning, and 73-75.  Some of these modules are also available in the Eurorack format. As of 2018, Serge himself is actively collaborating with Random*Source as Chief Innovation Officer and is developing new circuits.

General
Panels - Originally Serge panels had all possible hole positions punched, and the panel labels covered over unused holes.  While this was very versatile and allowed for upgrading or changing modules, it could look a bit scruffy.  Paper labels were replaced by metalised labels around 1981.  When STS took over in the early 1990s, they printed graphics directly onto their panels, giving a more solid, professional look but sacrificing the ability to change modules.  They also introduced a range of standard "shop panel" configurations.  More recently, STS introduced smaller M modules, where two narrower pre-configured panels fit each side of a center power modules.

Power - There is very little information about early Serge power supplies, but Serge soon settled upon commercial Power One supplies set for +/-12v. Some first generation modules also required a +6v supply, initially provided by a 6v regulator on the supply but as these modules became fewer the regulators were mounted near the modules before dying out completely around 1980. The n-voice controller was unique in requiring a supply with an additional 5v supply for its computer board.  At some point, Condor supplies were used instead - these were almost identical to Power One supplies. Early supplies used a 4-pin Cinch Jones type connector, but sometime in the mid/late 1970s these were superseded by 5-pin XLR connectors. Power distribution in Serge panels were never as good as it perhaps should have been, but gradual improvements were made – distribution modules being introduced in the mid 1970s and the STS black panel for m-modules in recent times.

References

Bibliography

External links
Egres - The Unofficial Serge Page
Carbon111's Serge Modular Webpages
Quadslope.com Serge user blog (invalid URL as of Feb 2018)
Serge Modular Music System. Ken Stone's page on Serge history (from archive.org)
Archival version of Ken Stone's page on DIY synthesizer building, including Serge designs
Random*Source web pages
  COA third party manufacture for custom work (invalid URL as of Feb 2018)
  Serge Users on Soundcloud
Synthesizers on the Eco Front, March/April 1977
 Muffwiggler forum for discussion of all things Serge
 Muffwiggler forum for discussing the world of SDIY (Synth Do-It-Yourself) which includes many Serge specific discussions.
ELBY Design web pages
Camille Hoitenga: Three Projects with flute and piano and/or analogue serge synthesizer

Modular synthesizers
Synthesizer manufacturing companies of the United States

Serge synthesizer


Werckmeister Harmonies (; ) is a 2000 Hungarian drama film directed by Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky, based on the 1989 novel The Melancholy of Resistance by László Krasznahorkai. Shot in black-and-white and composed of thirty-nine languidly paced shots, the film shows János and his uncle György during the communist Hungarian era. It also shows their journey among helpless citizens as a dark circus comes to town casting an eclipse over their lives.

The title refers to the baroque musical theorist Andreas Werckmeister. György Eszter, a major character in the film, gives a monologue propounding a theory that Werckmeister's harmonic principles are responsible for aesthetic and philosophical problems in all music since, and need to be undone by a new theory of tuning and harmony.

Werckmeister Harmonies opened to wide acclaim from film critics, and has come to be regarded by many critics as one of the best films of the 21st century. In the 2012 British Film Institute's decennial Sight & Sound poll, Werckmeister Harmonies ranks 171st in the critics' poll and 132nd in the directors' poll.

Plot
It is set in an anonymous, desolate, isolated small town in Hungary during Communist times.

The film starts with János Valuska, a young newspaper-delivery man, conducting a performance with drunken bar patrons about the total eclipse of the sun, which disturbs, then silences the animals. It finishes with the grand return of the warm sunlight.

János is devoted to his uncle György Eszter, a composer and musicologist, who is like a father to him. György records his observations about the imperfection and compromise of the musical scale, as defined by Andreas Werckmeister. György proposes changes to the natural scale to make its harmonies more natural.

János goes to the post office to pick up his newspapers for delivery. The workers are unsettled by the ominous signs of the circus' arrival and are disturbed by the cloud that settles over each town it visits.

A "circus" built around a huge stuffed smelly whale and its star performer, "The Prince", who is never seen, come to town in the silence and darkness of night. János sees them arrive and philosophizes about God and the whale.

György's estranged wife, Tünde, tries to leverage her political and social status by giving György a list of names to recruit for the "Clean Up the Town movement," with the blessing of the police chief, and demands that György become chairman of the movement, or else she will move back in with him that very evening. She sends her suitcase ahead of her with János. György's struggling cobbler brother, Uncle Lajos, gets the list and passes it on to the agitated throbbing masses in the town square who are unhappy with the failing public services. János is accosted by a thug in front of the open truck housing the whale. Tünde sleeps with the drunk gun-toting police chief.

The presence of the whale and the "Prince" stir up the masses. János overhears the circus master losing control of his faceless Prince, who speaks (in Slovakian) through a translator of revolutions and ruins. The circus master is afraid of consequences and disowns him. The Prince, now free, inflames the masses, and the people riot. The rioters, holding clubs, march, then run into a psychiatric hospital where dissidents opposing the regime are kept, drag them out of their beds and beat them. When the rioters finally find a helpless old naked patient, who is all skin and bones, they see their impotent, sad and powerless selves and withdraw silently.

After the riot, János comes across the diary of a rioter. It explains that the rioters did not know what they were angry with; so they were angry at everything. Then it recounts the mob's horrendous rape of two post-office girls. On his way home, he witnesses from a distance a meeting between Aunt Tünde and a military officer. They departed together on a military vehicle to reclaim the town, with soldiers and a tank behind them.

János then comes across the body of his cobbler uncle Lajos, who was killed in the riot. János is told, by Lajos's wife, to leave town at once for his own safety, as his name was on a list held by the rioters. János runs away on the railroad tracks but is intercepted by a helicopter. He finds himself committed to a mental institution with caged beds (a tool of the time for dealing with political dissidents). When his uncle György visits him in the hospital, János simply stares into the blank space and does not respond to György, who recounts to János what has happened since the riot. György is evicted from their house but gets to live in a shed in the garden whilst his wife, Tünde, with her new status as a collaborator, now occupies the big house with the police chief. György tells János, in the ward, that if he is released from the mental institution they can live contentedly together in the shed with his piano. György also mentions that he has re-tuned the piano so that is now like any other, a personal capitulation apparently abandoning any present hopes of reform. János just stares at the blank space.

The film ends with György walking through the town square and looking directly into the eye of the abandoned whale, then walking away and looking back at the now sad and disheveled whale and the "circus" destroyed by the rioters the night before. The whale's rotting carcass is slowly enveloped by the fog which gets thicker. End credits.

Production
The film is an international production whose financing it took a long time for Tarr to secure.

Cast
 Lars Rudolph as János Valuska
 Peter Fitz as György Eszter
 Hanna Schygulla as Tünde Eszter
 János Derzsi as the Man In The Broad-Cloth Coat
 Đoko Rosić as the Man In Western Boots
 Tamás Wichmann as the Man In The Sailor-Cap
 Ferenc Kállai as the Circus Master
Péter Dobai as the Police Captain

Reception
Werckmeister Harmonies received critical acclaim. On Metacritic, the film received a weighted average score of 92/100 (based on eight reviews), which translates to "universal acclaim". Based on 39 reviews, Rotten Tomatoes reports a 98% approval rating, with an average score of 8.5/10.

Lawrence van Gelder of The New York Times called the film "elusive" and argued that it "beckons filmgoers who complain about the vapidity of Hollywood movie making and yearn for a film to ponder and debate." David Sterritt, writing for the Christian Science Monitor, awarded it a full four stars, remarking, "Tarr wants to stir the imagination and awaken the conscience of his audience rather than divert us with easy entertainment."

In a 2016 poll by BBC, the film was listed as one of the top 100 films since 2000 (56th position).

Film critic Roger Ebert described the movie as "unique and original", writing that it "feels as much like cinéma vérité as the works of Frederick Wiseman." He went on to add the film to his "Great Movies" collection in 2007.

In the 2012 British Film Institute's decennial Sight & Sound poll, 10 critics and five directors voted Werckmeister Harmonies among their 10 favorite films — placing it 171st in the critics' poll and 132nd in the directors' poll. According to They Shoot Pictures, Don't They, a website which statistically calculates the most well-received movies, it is the 19th most acclaimed movie since 2000.  It also ranks 58th on a 2016 BBC poll of the best films since 2000.

Home video
The only home video release in Region 1 (U.S. and Canada) was released by Facets, and has gone out of print.

4K restoration
Film at Lincoln Center (FLC) announced a new 4K restoration of Werckmeister Harmonies, opening 26 May 2023, in the Walter Reade Theater.

References

External links

2000 films
2000 drama films
2000s Hungarian-language films
Films based on Hungarian novels
Films directed by Béla Tarr
Films with screenplays by László Krasznahorkai
Hungarian drama films
2001 drama films
2001 films

Werckmeister Harmonies


In exponentiation, the base is the number b in an expression of the form bn.

Related terms
The number n is called the exponent and the expression is known formally as exponentiation of b by n or the exponential of n with base b. It is more commonly expressed as "the nth power of b", "b to the nth power" or "b to the power n". For example, the fourth power of 10 is 10,000 because . The term power strictly refers to the entire expression, but is sometimes used to refer to the exponent.

Radix is the traditional term for base, but usually refers then to one of the common bases: decimal (10), binary (2), hexadecimal (16), or sexagesimal (60). When the concepts of variable and constant came to be distinguished, the process of exponentiation was seen to transcend the algebraic functions.

In his 1748 Introductio in analysin infinitorum, Leonhard Euler referred to "base a = 10" in an example. He referred to a as a "constant number" in an extensive consideration of the function F(z) = az. First z is a positive integer, then negative, then a fraction, or rational number.

Roots
When the nth power of b equals a number a, or aNCR. = bn, then b is called an "nth root" of a. For example, 10 is a fourth root of 10,000. =

Logarithms
The inverse function to exponentiation with base b (when it is well-defined) is called the logarithm to base b, denoted logb. Thus:

logb a = n.

For example, log10 10,000 = 4.

References

Exponentials
Mathematical terminology

Base (exponentiation)


George Dennis  (21 July 1814 in Ash Grove, Hackney, Middlesex – 15 November 1898 in South Kensington, London) was a British explorer of Etruria; his written account and drawings of the ancient places and monuments of the Etruscan civilization combined with his summary of the ancient sources is among the first of the modern era and remains an indispensable reference in Etruscan studies.

Early life
George Dennis left school at the age of 15. He never went to college, and yet he interested himself in languages, studying ancient Greek and Latin on his own and eventually becoming a polyglot in French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, modern Greek, Turkish and some Arabic. A strongly physical man as well, he often went for 40-mile hikes in the uplands of Scotland and Wales. He resolved to become an explorer; however, he worked mainly alone.

Solitary Explorer
At age 22 Dennis conducted his first explorations in Portugal and Spain, writing his first work, A Summer in Andalucia, in 1839. Dennis roughed it in Etruria between 1842, at age 28, and 1847, in the company of artist Samuel Ainsley in three separate trips from 1842 to 1844. Etruria of the times had reverted to a semi-wilderness state, rural, depopulated, malarial and infested with bandits. There were few roads. Dennis hiked about the country living in the outdoors or in rural quarters infested with insects studying and recording the monuments he found and any traditions about them.

The result of his travels was his 1,085-page treatise Cities and cemeteries of Etruria, published in 1848 by the British Museum and including sketches by Dennis and Ainsley. Dennis captures Etruscan civilization and Tuscan landscapes in able prose with scholarly detail. It was nevertheless generally unknown and unappreciated by the British public, partly because of Dennis' lack of academic credentials. He did make some fast friends among the academics who read his work, such as Austen Henry Layard.

Colonial officer
As his book did not receive the recognition and remuneration it deserves, George used his contacts to obtain work with the Colonial Service, which shipped him off to British Guiana. He married there but he found life dreary. After 14 years he asked his friend Austen Henry Layard to mediate with Lord John Russell to get him out of Guiana. The ploy was successful and in 1863, at age 50, Dennis went as vice-consul to Sicily, subsequently to Benghazi and Smyrna in Turkey, accompanied by his wife. He had no children.

Recognition
Meanwhile, his magnum opus became widely read and was appreciated for the masterpiece it is. Oxford University awarded him an honorary Doctorate of Civil Law for it. He was made a Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George. His lack of a formal education was a stigma that prevented higher honours. He endured shallow reviews and comments for the rest of his life.

End
George Dennis died alone in London at age 84 officially of "senile decay". At some time before his death, the second and third editions of his work had come out.

Notes

Bibliography
  Two volumes. A rare book.
  Two volumes. Downloadable from Google Books at .
 Potter, Timothy W. "Dennis of Etruria: a celebration", Antiquity 72 (1998), 916–21.
 Rhodes, Dennis E. Article in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

External links
 Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria, complete, at LacusCurtius

British classical scholars
Linguists of Etruscan
Companions of the Order of St Michael and St George
1814 births
1898 deaths

George Dennis (explorer)


Carter Littlepage Stevenson, Jr. (September 21, 1817 – August 15, 1888) was a career military officer, serving in the United States Army in several antebellum wars and then in the Confederate States Army as a general in the Western Theater of the American Civil War.

Early life and career
Stevenson was born to a prominent family in Fredericksburg, Virginia. His father and namesake served as the Commonwealth of Virginia's attorney for Fredericksburg. Carter Stevenson was an 1838 graduate of the United States Military Academy, receiving a commission as a brevet second lieutenant in the 5th Infantry Regiment and assigned to garrison duty in Wisconsin. Two years later, he was promoted to first lieutenant and participated in the Second Seminole War in Florida. He married Martha Silvery Griswold at Fredericksburg on June 15, 1842. They had four children, but their first two died in infancy.

Transferred to Texas, Stevenson served on frontier duty until the Mexican–American War. He fought with distinction in the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, and participated in several other fights before returning to the United States at posts in Mississippi, Indian Territory, and Texas. He helped explore parts of the proposed Southern route for the Pacific railroad, often skirmishing with Apache Indians.

In 1856–57, Stevenson again was in combat in Florida, this time in the Third Seminole War, fighting in the battles of Big Cypress Swamp and Bowleytown. By now a veteran warrior, Stevenson returned to the West and fought in the Utah War. During his stay in the Utah Territory, Stevenson joined Rocky Mountain Lodge #205 of the Freemasons. He later returned to routine garrison duty on the frontier until 1861.

Civil War
Stevenson, as with many other officers from Virginia stationed in the West, returned home when the state seceded from the Union in early 1861. He offered his services to the governor and received a commission as a lieutenant colonel in the Confederate army. He was soon promoted to colonel and given command of the 53rd Virginia Infantry at the recommendation of Pierre G. T. Beauregard. When openings were created with Beauregard's transfer of several officers to serve with him in the Western Theater, Stevenson was promoted to brigadier general in February 1862. On March 15, he reported to General Benjamin Huger and assigned to guard the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad in Virginia. However, this duty was short-lived, as Stevenson was sent to Edmund Kirby Smith's Department of East Tennessee and given command of a division.

Upon arriving in Tennessee, Stevenson's division marched to the Cumberland Gap to reinforce Colonel James Edward Rains but was ordered by Smith to withdraw to a position better suited to aid Chattanooga. This redeployment allowed the Gap to fall into Union hands. In August, Smith's 21-000-man Army of Kentucky spearheaded Braxton Bragg's Confederate Heartland Offensive into the Bluegrass State. Smith bypassed Union-held Cumberland Gap, leaving Stevenson's division behind to deal with the Federals there. While Smith's force moved north to the Battle of Richmond, Stevenson remained covering the Federals at Cumberland Gap.  This, coupled with the approach of Bragg's force, compelled Gen. George W. Morgan's withdrawal. Stevenson missed the Battle of Perryville and re-joined Smith on the Confederates' withdrawal back into Tennessee. Recognized again for his leadership ability, he was promoted to major general in October 1862.

In December, Braxton Bragg sent Stevenson with 10,000 men to reinforce John C. Pemberton's force at Vicksburg, Mississippi, which was threatened by a Union army under Ulysses S. Grant. The loss of Stevenson's men was sorely felt by Bragg in his upcoming battle at Stones River. Stevenson arrived in Vicksburg on December 29, 1862, and assumed command from Stephen D. Lee, defending the Walnut Hills area, north of the city.

In spring of 1863, Stevenson's division was a portion of the army that Pemberton moved east, after Grant had crossed the Mississippi River and was moving to surround Vicksburg. Stevenson's division bore the brunt of fighting at Pemberton's loss at the Battle of Champion Hill. There, the main Federal assault (nearly 25,000 troops) was against Stevenson's line, held by barely 6,500 men. After stubborn resistance, Stevenson finally withdrew when his lines began breaking. When Pemberton's force was defeated at the Battle of Big Black River Bridge, Stevenson (whose men had seen no significant action in the battle) commanded the retreating columns while General Pemberton hastened to Vicksburg to prepare the defenses of the city. During the Siege of Vicksburg, Stevenson commanded the right of the entire Confederate defensive line. When Pemberton surrendered the army on July 4, 1863, Stevenson briefly became a prisoner of war before receiving a parole.

On his return that fall, Stevenson reported to Bragg's Army of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Tennessee, where Bragg assigned Stevenson overall command of the Confederate left flank atop Lookout Mountain. During the Battles for Chattanooga, Stevenson and Benjamin Cheatham's men were ultimately unable to stave off Joseph Hooker's attacks on the mountain. At day's end, Stevenson decided to withdraw his force from the mountain, their movements screened by the darkness of a lunar eclipse. His men joined the left of John C. Breckinridge's wing just before the Battle of Missionary Ridge.  Bragg retreated to Dalton, Georgia, effectively ending the campaign, and offered his resignation.  President Davis replaced Bragg with Joseph E. Johnston.

During the 1864 Atlanta Campaign, Stevenson's division was positioned in the Crow Valley during the Battle of Rocky Face Ridge.  It was assigned to John Bell Hood's corps and fought at Resaca; New Hope Church; Kolb's Farm; Kennesaw Mountain; and the Battle of Atlanta. When General Hood was elevated to command of the army, Stevenson temporarily assumed command of Hood's corps, until replaced by Cheatham.

During the Tennessee Campaign, Stevenson commanded a division in Stephen D. Lee's corps in the center of the line at the Battle of Nashville. When Lee was wounded, he took charge of organizing and leading the retreat. His division had suffered enormous casualties and had been unable to recruit significant numbers of replacements. Down to approximately 2,600 men, the depleted division participated in the Carolinas Campaign against William T. Sherman, making stands at Columbia; and Battle of Bentonville. For the second time in the war, Stevenson surrendered to the Federals when Joseph E. Johnston surrendered his army 26 April 1865 at Bennett Place, NC to W.T.Sherman. Stevenson again was paroled and sent home.

Postbellum activities
After the war, he was occupied as a civil and mining engineer until his death in Caroline County, Virginia. He was buried in the Confederate Cemetery in Fredericksburg.

In 1914, Maj. Gen. Carter L. Stevenson was commemorated with a marble bust at the Vicksburg National Military Park.

See also

List of American Civil War generals (Confederate)

References
 Eicher, John H., and David J. Eicher, Civil War High Commands. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001. .
 Evans, Clement A., ed. Confederate Military History: A Library of Confederate States History. 12 vols. Volume 3. Hotchkiss, Jed. Virginia. Atlanta: Confederate Publishing Company, 1899. . Retrieved January 20, 2011.
 Sifakis, Stewart. Who Was Who in the Civil War. New York: Facts On File, 1988. .
 Warner, Ezra J. Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1959. .

External links
Biography
Bust of General Stevenson at Vicksburg National Military Park

Stevenson genealogy

1817 births
1888 deaths
United States Military Academy alumni
Confederate States Army major generals
People of Virginia in the American Civil War
American Civil War prisoners of war
Military personnel from Fredericksburg, Virginia
American military personnel of the Mexican–American War
United States Army officers

Carter L. Stevenson


Vicus Turris is a former Roman and Byzantine town of Africa and a titular see of the Roman Catholic Church.

The town is identified with modern Henchir-El-Djemel, near Sakiet Ezzit in the Gouvernorat of Safaqis, Tunisia (North Africa). Henchir-El-Djemel is located at  34°53'50" N and 10°46'51" E  just north of Sfax. It is situated on a wadi, 7 km from the Mediterranean coast with an elevation of 57 meters above sea level.  Hennchir el Djemel is also known as Hanshīr al Jamal, and Henchir el Jemel.

References

Populated places in Sfax Governorate
Communes of Tunisia
Roman towns and cities in Tunisia
Catholic titular sees in Africa

Vicus Turris


A mastodon ( 'breast' +  'tooth') is any proboscidean belonging to the extinct genus Mammut. Mastodons inhabited North and Central America from the late Miocene up to their extinction at the end of the Pleistocene 10,000 to 11,000 years ago. Mastodons are the most recent members of the family Mammutidae, which diverged from the ancestors of elephants at least 25 million years ago. M. americanum, the American mastodon (and possibly M. pacificus if this is a valid species), is the youngest and best-known species of the genus. They lived in herds and were predominantly forest-dwelling animals. M. americanum is inferred to have had a browsing diet with a preference for woody material, distinct from that of the contemporary Columbian mammoth. Mastodons became extinct as part of the Quaternary extinction event that exterminated most Pleistocene megafauna present in the Americas, believed to have been caused by a combination of climate changes at the end of the Pleistocene and hunting by recently arrived Paleo-Indians, as evidenced by a number of kill sites where mastodon remains are associated with human artifacts.

History

A Dutch tenant farmer found the first recorded remnant of Mammut, a tooth some  in weight, in the village of Claverack, New York, in 1705. The mystery animal became known as the "incognitum". In 1739 French soldiers at present-day Big Bone Lick State Park, Kentucky, found the first bones to be collected and studied scientifically. They carried them to the Mississippi River, from where they were transported to the National Museum of Natural History in Paris. Similar teeth were found in South Carolina, and some of the African slaves there supposedly recognized them as being similar to the teeth of African elephants. There soon followed discoveries of complete bones and tusks in Ohio. People started referring to the "incognitum" as a "mammoth", like the ones that were being dug out in Siberia – in 1796 the French anatomist Georges Cuvier proposed the radical idea that mammoths were not simply elephant bones that had been somehow transported north, but a species which no longer existed. Johann Friedrich Blumenbach assigned the scientific name Mammut to the American "incognitum" remains in 1799, under the assumption that they belonged to mammoths. Other anatomists noted that the teeth of mammoths and elephants differed from those of the "incognitum", which possessed rows of large conical cusps, indicating that they were dealing with a distinct species. In 1817 Cuvier named the "incognitum" Mastodon.

Cuvier assigned the name mastodon (or mastodont) – meaning "breast tooth" (Ancient Greek: μαστός "breast" and ὀδούς, "tooth"), – for the nipple-like projections on the crowns of the molars.

Taxonomy
Mastodon as a genus name is obsolete; the valid name is Mammut, as that name preceded Cuvier's description, making Mastodon a junior synonym. The change was met with resistance, and authors sometimes applied "Mastodon" as an informal name;  consequently it became the common term for members of the genus. "Mastodon" is also used informally to describe other non-elephant proboscideans, such as gomphotheres.

Species include:

 M. americanum, the American mastodon, is one of the best known and among the last species of Mammut. Its earliest occurrences date from the early-middle Pliocene (early Blancan stage). It was formerly regarded (see below) as having a continent-wide distribution, especially during the Pleistocene epoch, known from fossil sites ranging from present-day Alaska, Ontario and New England in the north, to Florida, and as far south as Honduras. Environmental DNA also suggests they ranged as far northeast as Greenland during the warmer conditions of the early Pleistocene. It had tusks that sometimes exceeded  in length; they curved upwards, but less dramatically than those of the woolly mammoth. Its main habitat was cold spruce woodlands, and it is believed to have browsed in herds. It became extinct at the end of the Pleistocene approximately 11,000 years ago.
 M. matthewi — found in the Snake Creek Formation of Nebraska, dating to the late Hemphillian (Late Miocene-Early Pliocene). Some authors consider it practically indistinguishable from M. americanum.
 M. pacificus — based on a 2019 analysis, Pleistocene specimens from California and southern Idaho have been transferred from M. americanum to this new species. It differs from the eastern population in having narrower molars, six as opposed to five sacral vertebrae, a thicker femur, and a consistent absence of mandibular tusks.
 M. raki — Its remains were found in the Palomas Formation, near Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, dating from the early-middle Pliocene, between 4.5 and 3.6 Ma. It coexisted with Equus simplicidens and Gigantocamelus and differs from M. americanum in having a relatively longer and narrower third molar, similar to the description of the defunct genus Pliomastodon, which supports its arrangement as an early species of Mammut. However, like M. matthewi, some authors do not consider it sufficiently distinct from M. americanum to warrant its own species.
 M. cosoensis — found in the Coso Formation of California, dating to the Late Pliocene, originally a species of Pliomastodon, it was later assigned to Mammut.
 M. furlongi, known from a partial mandible with three preserved molars (m1-m3) and a referred m3 from the Clarendonian of Oregon, originally placed in Pliomastodon.
 M. nevadanus originally placed in Pliomastodon, based on a partial cranium with preserved molars and a right tusk from Thousand Creek beds of Humboldt County, Nevada, dating to the Late Miocene-Early Pliocene (Hemphillian) unlike M. americanum, the tusk cuves downwards.
 "M." borsoni known from the late Miocene to Early Pleistocene of Europe and China, one of the largest known proboscideans, its placement in the genus is equivocal, as its relationship with North American Mammut is unclear.

Evolution

Mammut is a genus of the extinct  proboscidean family Mammutidae, related to the family Elephantidae (mammoths and elephants), from which it originally diverged approximately twenty-seven million years ago. The following cladogram shows the placement of the American mastodon among other proboscideans, based on hyoid characteristics:

Mammutids originated in Africa during the Late Oligocene, with the oldest member of the family, Losodokodon known from deposits in Kenya approximately 24-27 million years old. Mammutids expanded into Eurasia during the Early Miocene, approximately 18 million years ago, following the collision between the two landmasses.

Mammutids, represented by Zygolophodon, first arrived in North America across the Bering Land Bridge during the late early Miocene, approximately 16.5 million years ago. Mammut is thought to have evolved from Zygolophodon, though the relationship between North American Mammut and some Eurasian species assigned to the genus, such as the Late Miocene-earliest Pleistocene species "Mammut" borsoni is uncertain. Authors have proposed various hypotheses, including a second migration of mammutids into North America during the Late Miocene-Pliocene with the North American Mammut being descended from Eurasian Mammut species, or that the Eurasian and North American species of Mammut are not closely related and evolved in parallel. The second migration hypothesis has been criticised for lacking supporting evidence.

Description

Compared to mammoths and extant elephants, mastodons had a longer and wider body but were not as tall due to their shorter legs. Their limbs were more heavily muscled and had considerably thicker limb bones, making mastodons much more robust in comparison to mammoths. As in modern elephants, the females were smaller than the males.  The average height for male M. americanum was about  tall at the shoulder with an average body mass of ; one male specimen represents this average almost perfectly at about  at the shoulder with a body mass of about . The largest known male was about  in shoulder height and  about  in weight. These dimension make M. americanum about 80% heavier than modern elephants with  equivalent shoulder heights.

They had a low and long skull with long curved tusks, with those of the males being more massive and more strongly curved. Mastodons had cusp-shaped teeth, very different from mammoth and elephant teeth (which have a series of enamel plates), well-suited for chewing leaves and branches of trees and shrubs. In contrast to its ancestor Zygolophodon, the lower jaw was shortened (brevirostrine), the lower tusks were vestigial or absent, the upper tusks lacked an enamel band, and the jaws lacked permanent premolar teeth. The lower tusks were present in about a quarter of M. americanum individuals, but seem to have not been present at all in M. pacificus. M. pacificus is also suggested to be distinguished from M. americanum by its narrower molars, its consistent count of 6 sacral vertebrae, as opposed to the typical 5 in M. americanum (though the number in M. americanum varies from 4 to 6), its more robust femurs, and a smaller base male tusk diameter. However, the distinction of M. pacificus from M. americanum has been questioned, as there is little genetic evidence for the presence of two species.

Mastodons are typically depicted with a thick woolly mammoth-like coat of hair, but there is no preserved evidence for this, and consideration of the long tail (usually present in animals living in warm climates), size, body mass and environment implies the animal was not similarly hairy, and there is scant preserved evidence of body hair.

Paleobiology

Social behavior

Based on the characteristics of mastodon bone sites and strontium and oxygen isotopes from tusks, it can be inferred that, as in modern proboscideans, the mastodon social group consisted of adult females and young, living in bonded groups called mixed herds. The males abandoned the mixed herds once reaching sexual maturity and lived either alone or in male bond groupings. As in modern elephants, there probably was no seasonal synchrony of mating activity, with both males and females seeking out each other for mating when sexually active.

Diet

Mastodons have been characterized as predominantly browsing animals. Of the New World proboscideans, they appear to have been the most consistent in browsing rather than grazing, consuming C3 as opposed to C4 plants, and in occupying closed forests versus more open habitats. This dietary inflexibility may have prevented them from invading South America during the Great American Interchange, due to the need to cross areas of grassland to do so. Most accounts of gut contents have identified coniferous twigs as the dominant element in their diet. Other accounts (e.g., the Burning Tree mastodon) have reported no coniferous content and suggest selective feeding on low, herbaceous vegetation, implying a mixed browsing and grazing diet, with evidence provided by studies of isotopic bone chemistry indicating a seasonal preference for browsing. Study of mastodon teeth microwear patterns indicates that mastodons could adjust their diet according to the ecosystem, with regionally specific feeding patterns corresponding to boreal forest versus cypress swamps, while a population at a given location was sometimes able to maintain its dietary niche through changes in climate and browse species availability. Mastrodons have been found to have been eating pumpkins along with species like woolly mammoths and other elephant species at the time. The pumpkin would have been too toxic for many animals but mastrodons are able to avoid their toxicity due to their large body size. Mastrodons also distributed pumpkin seeds around the place aiding in pumpkin range expansion.

Distribution and habitat

The range of most species of Mammut is unknown as their occurrences are restricted to few localities, the exception being the American mastodon (M. americanum), which is one of the most widely distributed Pleistocene proboscideans in North America. M. americanum fossil sites range in time from the Blancan to Rancholabrean faunal stages and in locations from as far north as Alaska, as far east as Florida, and as far south as the state of Puebla in central Mexico, with an isolated record from Honduras, probably reflecting the results of the maximum expansion achieved by the American mastodon during the Late Pleistocene. A few isolated reports tell of mastodons being found along the east coast up to the New England region, with high concentrations in the Mid-Atlantic region. There is strong evidence indicating that the members of Mammut were forest dwelling proboscideans, predominating in woodlands and forests, and browsed on trees and shrubs. They apparently did not disperse southward to South America, it being speculated that this was because of a dietary specialization on a particular type of vegetation.

The American mastodon was only present in the far north of North America during interglacial periods, with mitochondrial genome analysis suggesting that separate populations repeatedly colonised the region before becoming extirpated during glacial periods. A 2022 study of ancient  environmental DNA from the Kap Kobenhavn Formation of northern Greenland, dating the Early Pleistocene, 2 million years ago, identified preserved DNA fragments of mastodons, assigned to M. americanum. This suggests that mastodons ranged as far north as Greenland during optimal conditions. Around this time, northern Greenland was 11–19 °C warmer than the Holocene, with a boreal forest hosting a species assemblage with no modern analogue. These are among the oldest DNA fragments ever sequenced.

Extinction
Fossil evidence indicates that mastodons probably disappeared from North America about 10,500 years ago as part of the Quaternary extinction event of most of the Pleistocene megafauna that is widely believed to have been a result of human hunting pressure. The latest Paleo-Indians entered the Americas and expanded to relatively large numbers 13,000 years ago, and their hunting may have caused a gradual attrition of the mastodon population. Analysis of tusks of mastodons from the American Great Lakes region over a span of several thousand years prior to their extinction in the area shows a trend of declining age at maturation; this is contrary to what one would expect if they were experiencing stresses from an unfavorable environment, but is consistent with a reduction in intraspecific competition that would result from a population being reduced by human hunting.

On the other hand, environmental DNA sequencing indicates that disappearance of megafaunal DNA in North America correlates in time with major changes in plant DNA, suggesting a key role of climate change. Modeling based on the whole of the proboscid fossil record also suggests climate was the more important factor, though with human hunting imposing a "double jeopardy" on mastodons and their kin.

See also

Coats–Hines site
List of museums and colleges with mastodon fossils on display
Manis Mastodon site
Snowmastodon site
Cerutti Mastodon site
Big Bone Lick State Park

Notes

References

External links

 The Rochester Museum of Science – Expedition Earth Glaciers & Giants
 Illinois State Museum – Mastodon
 Calvin College Mastodon Page
 American Museum of Natural History – Warren Mastodon
 BBC Science and Nature:Animals – American mastodon Mammut americanum
 BBC News – Greek mastodon find 'spectacular'
 Missouri State Parks and Historic Sites – Mastodon State Historic Site
 Saint Louis Front Page – Mastodon State Historic Site
 Story of the Randolph Mastodon (Earlham College)
 The Florida Museum of Natural History Virtual Exhibit – The Aucilla River Prehistory Project:When The First Floridians Met The Last Mastodons
 Western Center for Archaeology & Paleontology, home of the largest mastodon ever found in the Western United States
 Smithsonian Magazine Features Mammoths and Mastodons
 360 View of a Mastodon Skull from Indiana State Museum
 3-D Viewers of male and female mastodon skeletons at the University of Michigan Mammutidae digital fossil repository
 Scientific American, "The Chicago Mastodon", 18 September 1880, p. 175

Extinct animals of Canada
Fossil taxa described in 1799
Mammutidae
Messinian first appearances
Miocene mammals of North America
Miocene proboscideans
Paleontology in Michigan
Pleistocene extinctions
Pleistocene mammals of North America
Pleistocene proboscideans
Pliocene mammals of North America
Pliocene proboscideans
Ringold Formation Miocene Fauna
Symbols of Indiana
Symbols of Michigan

Mastodon


Jane Thompson, AICP (June 30, 1927 – August 22, 2016) was an American urbanist, designer and planner, with an international career exceeding forty years.

Biography
Thompson (née Fiske) was educated in the fine and applied arts at Vassar College with graduate work at Bennington College and NYU Institute of Fine Arts, her career has been devoted to the interaction of many facets of applied design. She spent early years in the Museum of Modern Art, becoming acting Assistant Curator in the Department of Architecture. This was followed by positions as Architecture Editor of Interiors Magazine. In 1954, she helped found Industrial Design (later known as International Design) magazine and served as its Editor-in-Chief

In the 1960s, sponsored by Edgar Kaufmann Jr.'s Foundation, she worked with Walter Gropius on an exploration of the creative educational methods of the original Bauhaus; she became a partner in architect Ben Thompson's retail venture, Design Research, during its 60s expansion from Cambridge to New York to California.

She became Ben Thompson's second wife in 1969.

Jane Thompson handled programming and planning Benjamin Thompson & Associates, Architects and Planners (BTA), founded in 1967 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. As partner for planning, Jane headed Thompson's project teams on large urban planning projects, including the Chicago Navy Pier and Grand Central Business Improvement District. She died at the age of 89 on August 22, 2016.

Thompson Design Group 1994-2015

 After 1994, Jane Thompson was Principal of her own firm, Thompson Design Group (TDG). The company had an emphasis on preservation and imaginative reuse of obsolete places. Master plan projects included Navy Pier in Chicago, Governors Island in New York, and North Coast Harbor in Cleveland. All were accomplished in partnership with the architect and urban planner Pratap Talwar, TDG's Principal in Charge.

Thompson and Talwar also branched into large-scale redevelopment planning; the firm's Master Planning and Development Guidelines for the City of Long Branch NJ, have received top awards from the Monmouth County Planning Department and New Jersey State Department of Planning.

TDG's comprehensive Masterplan for all lands bordering Houston's 10-mile-long Buffalo Bayou waterway (a district of 10 square miles ) won acclaim as a far-seeing urban planning model.

Jane Thompson was active in the International Design Conference in Aspen (IDCA) from 1971 to 2002, as a board member, program chairman, and speaker. In 1994, she was awarded Institute Honors by the American Institute of Architects, and in 1998 received the Personal Recognition Award of the Industrial Design Society of America for a lifetime contribution to the field of design.

For their lifelong support of Finnish Design and way of life, the President of Finland in 2000 named Ben and Jane Thompson each individually as Knight First Class, Order of the Lion of Finland.

In 2010, "Sir Lady Jane" as she was nicknamed (as both a Knight and wife of a Knight) was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. Then followed an Honorary PhD from Boston Architectural College, 2011, and the lifetime Award of Honor from Boston Society of Architects in 2012.

Bibliography

 Jane Thompson and Alexandra Lange, Design Research: The Store That Brought Modern Living to American Homes, 2010. .

Notes

1927 births
2016 deaths
American designers
National Design Award winners
Vassar College alumni
Bennington College alumni
New York University Institute of Fine Arts alumni
Knights First Class of the Order of the Lion of Finland
20th-century American architects
21st-century American architects
American urban planners
American women architects
Women urban planners
21st-century American women

Jane Thompson


Capital punishment in Latvia was abolished for ordinary crimes in 1999 and for crimes committed during wartime in 2012. Latvia is party to several international instruments which ban capital punishment.

History
Latvia regained independence in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union. Subsequently, the death penalty in civilian cases was reserved for murder and the only method of execution, as during Soviet times, was shooting with a single bullet to the back of the head. The last executions took place in January 1996.

In October 1996, President Guntis Ulmanis stated that he would commute any death sentence to a term of imprisonment.

Latvia continued to hand down death sentences until 1998. On April 15, 1999 the death penalty in peacetime was abolished by ratifying Protocol No. 6 to the European Convention on Human Rights. In 2002, Latvia signed Protocol No. 13 to ECHR, concerning the abolition of the death penalty under all circumstances. The law on the ratification of Protocol 13 was adopted on 13 October 2011, and the protocol was ratified on 26 January 2012 and entered into force on 1 May 2012.

Latvia was the last European Union country to retain capital punishment for wartime murder, until it abolished it in 2012. Latvia acceded to the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 2013.

References

External links
 Status of ratification:
 Second Optional Protocol to ICCPR;
 Protocol No. 6 to ECHR
  Protocol No. 13 to ECHR

Latvia
Human rights abuses in Latvia
Law of Latvia
Death in Latvia
1999 disestablishments in Latvia
1996 disestablishments in Latvia
2012 disestablishments in Latvia

Capital punishment in Latvia


Robert Liddell (1837 – December 2, 1893) was Mayor of Pittsburgh from 1878 to 1881.

Life
Robert Liddell was born in 1837 in England. He pursued the craft of beer making. During his administration, the Bureau of Water placed the Brilliant Pumping Facility into service.

In 1878, Holy Ghost Fathers started a college on the Bluff which would become Duquesne University. City streets were electrified in 1879 and Alexander Graham Bell's telephone went into limited use in Pittsburgh.

The city expanded west and south, annexing Mount Washington, Temperanceville and Birmingham.  When Mayor Liddell left office, he was employed as a liquor dealer.

Liddell died in 1893; and was buried at the Union Dale Cemetery.

See also

List of mayors of Pittsburgh

Sources
 Robert Liddell at Political Graveyard

1837 births
1893 deaths
Mayors of Pittsburgh
English emigrants to the United States
19th-century American politicians

Robert Liddell (Pittsburgh)


Bad Boys: Miami Takedown, also known as Bad Boys II in Europe, is a video game released in 2004 based on the action-comedy film Bad Boys II. It was released in early 2004 after the film's DVD and VHS release in 2003.

Gameplay
The player takes the role of Miami Police Department detectives Marcus Burnett and Mike Lowrey over alternating levels, meaning that the player plays level 1 with one character, plays level 2 with the other, then plays level 3 with the first, and so on. The game contains five acts, each containing several levels.

Plot
The game follows up from the events of the film, and starts with a deal taking place between the game's villains. A drug lord known as Tulio Mendoza is infuriated after being ripped off by a Russian businessman named Akimov. The two settle their problems and join forces. Meanwhile, two TNT agents, Ray Jackson and his partner, Lee-Ann Reid, are going to a diner. Jackson sits in the car, while Reid walks inside. While sitting at the counter, the car explodes with Jackson inside  and Reid is captured by a gang known as the Baby Demons.

Act 1
Marcus and Mike are sent by Captain Howard to rescue the surviving agent and take out the Baby Demons gang. They succeed in rescuing Reid, though not much to Burnett's surprise, who happens to have history with her. Later, the duo are sent to an abandoned house being used as the Baby Demons' hideout, and they soon find the leader: Bossu Williams. Burnett engages the gang leader in a shootout, who later escapes.

Act 2
Tatiyana Savin, Akimov's assistant, attempts to get Bossu involved with Mendoza in exchange for Baby Demon territory. Bossu declines, and begins ranting, until he is killed by Tatiyana after calling her a "commie". Then, the Baby Demons rob a bank, and Mike and Marcus are sent to suppress them. Afterwards, Tatiyana takes advantage of the bank robbery and attempts to escape, but crashes her car. She then attempts to escape on foot through the Miami alleyways as Mike and Marcus give chase, fighting their way through the remaining Baby Demons gangsters, and eventually find themselves up against the Russian Mafia, who have arrived to cover Tatiyana's escape. The two split up; Marcus going through the Little M's restaurant, and Mike going up to the roof. While Marcus is cut off, Mike pursues Tatiyana across the Miami rooftops, fighting his way through the Russian Mafia. Tatiyana boards her gunship and uses it against Lowrey. Initially, the helicopter has the upper hand, but Mike prevails and manages to destroy the helicopter, killing Tatiyana. The TNT duo regroups and plans their next mission at an art gallery.

Act 3
Mike and Marcus are sent to the Ellipse Modern where they attempt to find out about its connection with the Russians, and it is revealed that it is owned by Kirill Akimov, the guy whose money was torched by Marcus. Burnett goes on alone and manages to take control of the art gallery's security room, spying on Akimov and Jabuti Siro, Mendoza's bodyguard, discussing a deal taking place at the docks. Lowrey uses a silenced weapon to go through another part of the art gallery and find out what the Russians are doing. Eventually, the two become suspicious and think the Russians are guarding something else, which is later revealed to be a drug laboratory. Lowrey destroys the laboratory, and makes an explosive escape, ending up being outgunned by heavily-armed Russians. Burnett comes to his partner's aid, as the duo fights their way out of the art gallery.

Act 4
Mike, Marcus, and Lee-Ann set to the docks to eliminate Akimov. Burnett goes in alone, while Mike provides sniper support, with Reid spotting. Marcus makes it inside, and overlooks the deal between Mendoza and Akimov. While doing so, he soon finds out that Jackson, the agent who was presumably killed in the car explosion early in the game, is still alive, and is working with Mendoza. Marcus fights his way out of the warehouse, battling not only the remaining Russian Mafia, but the newly arriving Colombian Cartel. Mike hands Marcus his sniper rifle, while he goes onto Akimov's boat. On it, Akimov appears, holding Lee-Ann hostage. Running out of options, Marcus, with correct timing and patience, manages to snipe Akimov. Lee-Ann reveals that she put a tracker on Mendoza's boat, and the three give chase.

Act 5
Mike, Marcus, and Lee-Ann assault Mendoza's mansion, fighting their way through his private army of Colombian Cartel thugs. While Marcus and Mike clear the mansion, Lee-Ann confronts Ray Jackson. After a conversation, Jackson is shot and killed by Mendoza, who later escapes. Marcus arrives, and eventually confronts Mendoza's bodyguard, Siro. Marcus defeats Siro, and he and Mike regroup to finish off the Colombian Cartel. The duo fights their way to Mendoza, who awaits them on a large cannon. With Marcus drawing Mendoza's fire, and Mike shooting him, the two manage to defeat the drug lord. Mendoza pleads desperately, and takes their attention away to pull a hidden weapon, disarming Mike. Marcus kicks him Mendoza's Gold Enforcer, and he finishes off the drug lord, who lands right next to Ciro. The TNT agents, including Lee-Ann, regroup. Mike and Marcus exchange bickering, much to Lee-Ann's annoyance, who scolds them both. Despite being stuck on the island, the three walk away victorious.

Reception

Bad Boys: Miami Takedown received "generally unfavorable reviews" on all platforms according to video game review aggregator Metacritic.

The game was declared #10 worst for GameTrailers' "Top Ten Best And Worst Videogames"; It placed #3 for "Top Ten Worst Movie Games".

Despite the negative reviews the game would go on to be Blitz Games' most successful in terms of sales in the UK.

References

External links

2004 video games
Action-adventure games
Bad Boys (franchise)
Crave Entertainment games
Detective video games
Fictional portrayals of the Miami-Dade Police Department
GameCube games
Organized crime video games
PlayStation 2 games
Third-person shooters
Video games about police officers
Video games about the illegal drug trade
Video games based on films
Video games developed in the United Kingdom
Video games featuring black protagonists
Video games set in Miami
Windows games
Xbox games
Sony Pictures video games
Empire Interactive games
Blitz Games Studios games
Single-player video games

Bad Boys: Miami Takedown


Polygon is an American entertainment website covering video games and popular culture by Vox Media. At its October 2012 launch as Vox Media's third property, Polygon sought to distinguish itself by focusing on the stories of the people behind games and long-form magazine-style feature articles.

The site was built over the course of ten months, and its 16-person founding staff included the editors-in-chief of the gaming sites Joystiq, Kotaku and The Escapist. Vox Media produced a documentary series on the founding of the site.

History
The gaming blog Polygon was launched on October 24, 2012, as Vox Media's third property. The site grew from technology blog The Verge, which was launched a year earlier as an outgrowth of sports blog network SB Nation before Vox Media was formed. Vox Media's chief executive officer, Jim Bankoff, approached Joystiq editor-in-chief Christopher Grant in early 2011 about starting a video game website. Bankoff considered video games to be a logical vertical market for Vox, whose sites attracted an 18- to 49-year-old demographic. He also saw games to be an expanding market in consideration of mobile and social network game categories. Forbes described Bankoff's offer as a "serious commitment to online journalism" in an age of content farms and disappearing print publications, but Grant did not trust the offer and declined. Upon seeing the effort that Vox Media put into The Verge, their Chorus content management system, and the quality of their content and sponsorships, Grant changed his mind and returned to pitch Bankoff. Grant wanted the new site to compete with top gaming websites GameSpot and IGN, but still be able to run longform "magazine-style journalism" that could be of historic interest. As part of the site's attempt to "redefine games journalism", Vox Media made a 13-part documentary series of the site's creation ("Press Reset") that tracked the site's creation from start to launch.

Forbes described Polygon original 16-person staff as "star-studded" for including the editors-in-chief from three competing video game blogs. Grant left Joystiq in January 2012 and brought the editors-in-chief of Kotaku and The Escapist, Brian Crecente and Russ Pitts. Other staff included Joystiq managing editor Justin McElroy as well as weekend editor Griffin McElroy, and staff from UGO, IGN, MTV, VideoGamer.com, and 1UP.com. Ben Kuchera joined the site after The Penny Arcade Report closed in November 2013. The Polygon team includes remote workers based in Philadelphia, Huntington, San Francisco, Sydney, London, and Austin, while Vox Media is headquartered in New York City and Washington, D.C. The site was developed over the course of ten months, where the staff chose the site's name and set standards for their reporting and review score scale. Polygon staff published on The Verge as "Vox Games" beginning in February 2012 and ending with their October launch. The site's name was announced at a PAX East panel in April. It refers to a polygon—"the basic visual building block of video games".

After raising money in a second round of funding in late 2013, Vox Media announced that they would be investing further in the site's video product, such that the site's experience would feel "as much like TV programming as magazine publishing". Polygon announced that it would run fewer features in June 2014, with the departure of features editor Russ Pitts, their video director, and video designer. Polygon hired Susana Polo, founder of The Mary Sue, in 2015, which marked a transition in the site's scope to add pop culture and entertainment alongside their video game coverage. GamesIndustry added that the hire marked a changing cultural sensibility in game and tech media towards the acceptance of progressive, feminist principles in the wake of Gamergate.

Vox Media later created several sites dedicated to specific video games with editorial staff from Polygon and SB Nation: The Rift Herald (for League of Legends) in March 2016, and The Flying Courier (for Dota 2) and Heroes Never Die (for Overwatch) in June 2017. Brian Crecente left Polygon for Rolling Stone gaming website Glixel in July 2017, and Chris Plante replaced him as Executive Editor. Polygon video producer Nick Robinson left Polygon in August 2017, following allegations of inappropriate online sexual advances. Video producers Brian David Gilbert and Jenna Stoeber were hired soon after. In 2018, Griffin and Justin McElroy announced their departure from Polygon, in order to focus on their podcasting and families. In July 2019, Editor-in-Chief Christoper Grant was elevated to the position of Senior Vice President of Polygon and The Verge by Vox Media. Grant was replaced as Editor-in-Chief by Christopher Plante. On December 28, 2020, Brian David Gilbert announced he was leaving Polygon via Twitter and his final Unraveled video, saying he left "because it feels like the right time!".

Content

Polygon publishes video game news, entertainment, reviews, and video. They sought to set their content apart from other games journalism outlets by focusing on the people making and playing the games rather than the games alone. At the site's outset, Polygon planned to run multiple longform feature articles weekly, which they intended to be comparable in intent to the cover stories of magazines. They also decided to allow their game review scores to be updated as the games were updated, so as to more adequately reflect games that had changed with downloadable content and updates since their original release. The site received criticism for its comparatively low review score given to The Last of Us, which was later increased with the game's remastered edition. In consideration of games that may differ in quality before and after release, Polygon later began to mark pre-release reviews as "provisional" to defer final scoring until after their public release. Starting in September 2018, the site opted to drop scored reviews for games, as to let their reviewers have more freedom in how they review a game; they will substitute their scoring system for a "Polygon Recommends", a game that the reviewer, having played enough of the game to make a determination, can stand behind and support for the site. These Recommended titles subsequently will serve as the basis of selection of "Polygon Essentials", games that the site feels everyone should play.

Polygon emphasis on video production expanded in late 2013, and waned in mid-2014 with the loss of video staff and the editorial decision to run fewer feature articles. By 2015, the site began to shift from games-only coverage to pop culture coverage, similar to the scope of rival sites IGN and Kotaku. Polygon Minimap podcast was named among iTunes's best of 2015, and New York praised the site's Car Boys web series.

The website's flagship podcast, called The Polygon Show, launched in 2017 and discusses gaming and culture. It was named one of the "10 gaming podcasts every gaming nerd should know" by The Daily Dot in 2018. In May 2018, Polygon launched the YouTube series "Brand Slam", in which brand mascots battle against one another.

Design
The site uses a pink color palette and emulates the magazine-style layout of The Verge. The site was programmed to use HTML5 standards with a responsive design that adapts to the screen dimensions of laptops, tablets, and smartphones. This is partially to remove need for a separate mobile version. Their longform journalism was optimized for reading on tablets.

Business
The site uses a "direct content sponsorship" model of online advertising used by SB Nation and The Verge. For example, a video series sponsorship pairs brands with specific editorial content. Forbes wrote that Vox Media's avoidance of content farm and news aggregator tactics, and interest shown in building communities is desirable to "magazine-quality advertisers". The site pitched its longform journalism to advertisers as an indicator of high-quality content. The site's founding sponsors included Geico, Sony, and Unilever.

In June 2014, Polygon ranked fourth among games sites by Comscore web traffic data, behind IGN, GameSpot, and Kotaku. The same month, Grant reported that the previous month had been their most popular.

Criticism
VentureBeat criticized the site for accepting $750,000 in sponsorship from Microsoft to make documentary Press Reset in 2014. Polygon's released a gameplay video of 2016's Doom, which was ridiculed online for being played by someone who appeared to be a first-person shooter novice. The game's creative director expressed in a 2020 interview that they found the video valuable.

Notes

References

External links

American gaming websites
Internet properties established in 2012
Video game blogs
Video game Internet forums
Vox Media
Video game news websites
McElroy family

Polygon (website)


James Daniel Howard (born August 24, 1943) was Special Assistant to President of the United States Ronald Reagan from July 1986 to February 1988, United States Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs from February 1988 to May 1989 and Under Secretary of the Navy from 1989 to 1993.

Early life and education
Howard was born August 24, 1943, in Chattanooga, Tennessee.  After high school, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps, serving in Japan from 1961 to 1965.  Upon leaving the Marines, he enrolled at the University of Chattanooga, receiving a B.A. in 1969.  After college, Howard moved to Denver to work as a field representative for the American Red Cross.  He later returned to school, enrolling at the University of Tennessee and receiving an M.A. in 1972.  He then moved to Washington, D.C. to become a Foreign Service Officer trainee.

Career

Foreign Service Officer, 1974–1987

Howard's first posting as a member of the United States Foreign Service was in Japan, where he was a language trainee in Yokohama 1974–1975, and then served as director of the American Center in Sapporo from 1975 to 1977.  From 1977 to 1980, he was the press attaché of the Embassy of the United States in Tokyo.  In 1981–82, he was a cultural affairs officer of the American embassy in Warsaw.  During that period martial law was declared in Poland.  Howard was detained by the Communist government authorities three times and was ultimately declared persona non grata and expelled in May, 1982.  He then went to Cyprus where he was a public affairs officer at the American embassy in Nicosia. He was involved in the evacuation of Americans from nearby Beirut in the wake of the 1983 embassy bombing, the bombing of the embassy annex, and of the bombing of the Marine Barracks.  His last two weeks in Cyprus were spent attempting to resolve the TWA Flight 847 hijacking.  Howard returned to the United States in 1985 to serve as a public affairs adviser to the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs of the United States Department of State.  He received the State Department's Superior Honor Award for his work on the People Power Revolution in the Philippines in 1986.

In 1986, President of the United States Ronald Reagan named Howard a Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Press Secretary for Foreign Affairs at the White House where he worked directly for National Security Advisor Frank Carlucci and his deputy, General Colin Powell.  Howard focussed on arms control issues and remained through the signing of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in January 1988.  He also dealt with many issues associated with the Iran–Contra affair.

Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs), 1988–1989

On December 21, 1987, President Reagan nominated Howard to serve as Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs) and Howard would hold this post from February 1988 through May 1989.  He worked for Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci and dealt with the aftermath of the shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 by the U.S.S. Vincennes and the explosion of a gun mount on the U.S.S. Iowa.  He again supported Secretary Carlucci in direct negotiations designed to reduce tensions with the Soviet Union including a historic first visit by a U.S. Secretary of Defense to Moscow and Sevastopol in 1988.  He received the Department of Defense Distinguished Civilian Service Award.

Under Secretary of the Navy, 1989–1993

On July 31, 1989, President George H. W. Bush nominated Howard as Under Secretary of the Navy.  After confirmation by the United States Senate, Howard entered office on August 7, 1989.  Howard's time as Under Secretary was dominated by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent catastrophic drop in the defense budget, the 1991 Gulf War and the post-war Tailhook scandal.

He took over as Acting Secretary of the Navy in June, 1992 when Secretary of the Navy Henry L. Garrett III was forced to resign by President Bush in the wake of that scandal.  Howard immediately ordered a Navy and Marine Corps-wide "standdown" for training designed to prevent sexual harassment.  Defense Comptroller Sean O'Keefe replaced him as Acting Secretary the following month.  The Department of Defense Inspector General issued a blistering report in September 1992 in which he concluded that Under Secretary Howard, the Naval Inspector General, the Judge Advocate General and the Director of Naval Investigative Service (NIS) had failed to conduct an adequate investigation into allegations of misconduct; had been overly focused on lower ranking personnel; and had been more concerned with protecting the reputation of the United States Navy than with getting to the bottom of the allegations.  It was widely speculated that O'Keefe would have Howard (and the Navy IG) resign at the same time that Judge Advocate General  Rear Admiral John E. Gordon and NIS Director Rear Admiral Duvall M. Williams, Jr. were ousted for their attempts to turn the Tailhook investigation into a whitewash, but, in a move that drew surprise, O'Keefe announced that he continued to have "complete confidence" in Under Secretary Howard saying that he was much more "sinned against than sinned."  As such, Howard served out the rest of the Bush administration and left office on January 20, 1993.  Howard retired from the Foreign Service in June, 1993 with the rank of Minister-Counselor and received the Meritorious Honor Award for career achievements.

References

External links
 White House Press Release on Howard's Nomination as Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs)
 White House Press Release on Howard's Nomination as Under Secretary of the Navy

1943 births
Living people
United States Marines
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga alumni
University of Tennessee alumni
United States Foreign Service personnel
George H. W. Bush administration personnel
American press secretaries
United States Assistant Secretaries of Defense
United States Under Secretaries of the Navy

J. Daniel Howard


Superman and Batman (also known as Batman and Superman) is a the fictional two superheroes characters, meet for the first time in debut 1939, from the DC Comics, all comics such as Action Comics, Superman, Detective Comics, Batman, Batman and Robin and World's Finest Comics, created by Joe Shuster, Jerry Siegel, Bob Kane and Bill Finger, co-producers by Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz.

DC Comics the hero's journey characters including Superman and Batman, my sidekick as Robin, my best friends Lois Lane, Supergirl, Batgirl and many others, and locations Metropolis and Gotham City, and from the clutches of the evil Lex Luthor and the evil Joker, and all supervillains Catwoman, Mr. Mxyzpltk and others.

Appearances
The appeared together in a number of works, including:

 Superman and Batman, all longest-running franchises (since 1938 and since 1939)
 The Batman/Superman Hour, animated television series from 1968 to 1969
 The Superman/Batman Adventures, 1995 television series
 The New Batman/Superman Adventures, 1997 television series
 World's Finest, 2004 fan film
 World's Finest Comics featuring Superman and Batman (commonly known as Batman and Superman), comic series from 1941 to 1986
 Superman and Batman versus Aliens and Predator, two-part comic series from 2007
 Superman/Batman, comic series that lasted from 2003 to 2011
 Superman & Batman: Generations, comic series that lasted from 1999 to 2004
 Superman and Batman: World's Funnest, comic book from 2000
 Batman/Superman/Wonder Woman: Trinity, comic series from 2003
 Trinity, comic series from 2008 to 2018
 The Batman/Superman Movie: World's Finest, 1997 direct-to-video film based on the comic series
 Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, 2009 direct-to-video film based on the comic series
 Superman/Batman: Apocalypse, 2010 direct-to-video sequel based on the comic series
 Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, 2016 film directed by Zack Snyder

1939 establishments in the United States
DC Comics superheroes
Fictional business executives

Superman and Batman


Corey Stokes (born April 24, 1988) is an American former professional basketball player. He played college basketball at Villanova University and was best known for his three-point shooting.

High school
A native of Bayonne, New Jersey, Stokes played high school basketball for head coach Dan Hurley at St. Benedict's Prep School in Newark, New Jersey. During his four seasons with the Gray Bees, he was teammates with NBA Star J. R. Smith (Cleveland Cavaliers), Lance Thomas (New York Knicks) and many fellow Division I basketball players, including Eugene Harvey (Seton Hall), David Cubillan (Marquette), and Samardo Samuels (Louisville), among others.

Freshman
As a freshman in 2003–04, Stokes averaged 8.2 points, 4.3 rebounds, 3.1 assists and two steals per game for a talented Gray Bees squad that finished 29–2 with a runner-up finish in the 2004 Prep A state tournament.

Sophomore
As a sophomore in 2004–05, Stokes helped lead St. Benedict's to the Prep A state title, averaging 15.2 points per game, 8.2 rebounds, 3.5 assists, and 2.3 steals. He was named the Metro Hoops Sophomore of the Year and a second team All-State pick by NJHoops.com

Junior
As a junior in 2005–06, Stokes averaged 13 points, 11 rebounds and 5 assists for the 30-2 Gray Bees, who won their second consecutive New Jersey Prep A state championship. He was a first team All-Prep selection by NJHoops.com.

Senior
As a senior in 2006–07, Stokes averaged 35.0 points, 8.8 rebounds and 4.2 assists in leading the Gray Bees to a 24–1 record. He was named to the prestigious McDonald's and Parade All-American teams, as well as being named an EA Sports All-American and first team All-New Jersey by the Newark Star-Ledger. Stokes also participated in the Roundball Classic and was invited to try out for USA Basketball's 19-and-under team following the season. Scout.com ranked Stokes as the 9th best shooting guard in the high school class of 2007 (37th overall), while Rivals.com ranked him as the 8th best small forward (28th overall).

College
Stokes verbally committed to play for head coach Jay Wright at Villanova University in June 2006, selecting the Wildcats over the University of Connecticut and University of Florida, among others. He cited the desire to play alongside fellow guard Corey Fisher as one of his reasons for selecting Villanova.

Freshman
Stokes' transition to the college game in 2007–08 started slowly, as he averaged less than four points per game in limited action over the team's first 19 games. Beginning in mid-February, however, he played a major role in Villanova's late-season push to the NCAA Tournament. Stokes scored in double-figures in seven of the team's final 12 games, including a career-high 20 points versus Siena in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. He was named the Big East Conference Rookie of the Week on February 25 after scoring 16 points in a win over West Virginia and scoring 18 points, on 4-of-7 shooting from beyond the 3-point arc, in an upset victory over then No. 13 Connecticut.

Stokes was involved in one of the more controversial calls of the college basketball season when he was whistled for bumping Georgetown's Jonathan Wallace out of bounds with one-tenth of a second remaining in the February 11 match-up. The foul call was made during a tie game, nearly 70 feet away from the basket. Georgetown won the game, 55–53, on Wallace's free throws.

Stokes finished his freshman season averaging 18.3 minutes, 6.4 points, 2.4 rebounds, and 0.5 assists per game. He shot 37% from the field, including 30% from three-point territory, and 88% from the foul line.

Sophomore
In Stokes's sophomore season he averaged 22.8 minutes, 9.3 points, 3.4 rebounds, 1.0 assists. He hit numerous vital shots to propel his team to the Final Four, where they lost to North Carolina. He shot 41% from the field, 41.8% from 3-point territory, and 85% from the foul line during the season.

Junior
During Stokes's junior season, he averaged 26 minutes, 9.5 ppg, 4.0 rebounds, and 0.9 assists. He shot 41.6% from the field, 38.3% from the 3-point territory, and 87.3% from the charity stripe.

Senior
Stokes's senior season was highlighted by ESPN's College Gameday coming to campus for a game against the University of Pittsburgh. Due to turf toe injury that plagued him for most of the second half of the season he was unable to play in the game. For his senior year he averaged 14.9 ppg, 3.3 rebounds, and 1.3 assists. He went undrafted in the 2011 NBA draft and is currently exploring his professional options in France, Spain and Turkey.

Professional career
In September 2011, Stokes signed his first professional contract with BBC Bayreuth of the German Basketball Bundesliga. He later left Bayreuth in January 2012. In March 2012, he was acquired by the Maine Red Claws. The Red Claws waived him a week later due to injury.

In January 2013, he signed with LF Basket Norrbotten of Sweden. Later that month, he was waived due to injury after just 2 games. In February 2013, he signed with Keravnos B.C. of Cyprus.

On October 31, 2013, he was re-acquired by the Maine Red Claws. However, he was later waived on November 17.

References

External links
Official Villanova profile

1988 births
Living people
American expatriate basketball people in Cyprus
American expatriate basketball people in Germany
American expatriate basketball people in Sweden
American men's basketball players
McDonald's High School All-Americans
Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball)
St. Benedict's Preparatory School alumni
Sportspeople from Bayonne, New Jersey
Basketball players from Hudson County, New Jersey
Shooting guards
Villanova Wildcats men's basketball players

Corey Stokes


Gisela Ehrensperger née Gisela Heuzeroth (born 10 August 1943) is a Swiss opera/operetta/musical theatre soprano. For 40 years, she was a permanent member of the ensemble of the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz, Munich.

Life and career
Born in Wiesbaden, Ehrensperger was a pupil of the singing teacher Sofia Husi. She made her debut at Staatstheater in St. Gallen in 1965  in the role of Musetta in La Bohème. Two years later the soprano was engaged by the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz. During her 40 years on stage there, she performed leading roles (about 150) of genres: Mimi in Puccini's La Bohème, Pamina in Mozart's The Magic Flute, Micaela in Bizet's Carmen, Antonia in The Tales of Hoffmann, the Marschallin of Luxembourg in Gräfin Dubarry, Agricola in A Night in Venice, Palmyra in The Opera Ball, Praskowia in The Merry Widow, Wilhelmine in The Cousin from Dingsda, among others.

Ehrensperger sang the aging folk music singer Margot at the Theater am Gärtnerplatz in the premiere of the new version of the short operetta Die Ländler-Queen sieht Morgenrot (1 February 1997), music and text by , also in the world premiere of the opera Lebensregeln (27 August 1972) by Gerhard Wimberger and on Radio Zurich in the world premiere of the opera Der Alchimist (1969) by Max Lang. Television and radio versions of the latter two productions were recorded.

Ehrensperger could also be seen in several musicals. For example, at the Luisenburg Festival in Wunsiedel (2005) she played Golde, milkman Tevje's wife, in Fiddler on the Roof and in the Theater am Gärtnerplatz (1981) Mary Ann in the musical Casanova by Helmut Bez and Jürgen Degenhardt.

She gave her official farewell performance in Munich Countess Mariza on 16 June 2007. Ehrensperger is an honorary member of the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz.

In the 2007/2008 season she gave a guest performance at the Graz Opera as the  Princess in the operetta Countess Mariza.

In the 2012/2013 season of the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz, Ehrensperger appeared in the role of Fräulein Schneider in the musical Cabaret.

Awards
 Kammersänger, the youngest in Bavaria (1974)
 Bundesverdienstkreuz am Bande (14 April 1994)
 Bayerischer Verdienstorden (1999)

Discography
 Goldene Operette: Pariser Leben (Telefunken 1979)
 Goldene Operette: Die Fledermaus (Telefunken 1976)
 Goldene Operette: Der Vetter aus Dingsda (Telefunken 1977)
 Goldene Operette: Saison in Salzburg (Telefunken 1977)

Literature
 Karl-Josef Kutsch, Leo Riemens: Großes Sängerlexikon. First volume: A–L. Bern/Stuttgart 1987, .

References

External links

 Gisela Ehrensperger

1943 births
Living people
Musicians from Wiesbaden
Swiss operatic sopranos
Swiss musical theatre actresses
Recipients of the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany

Gisela Ehrensperger


Corneliu Moldovanu (pen name of Corneliu Vasiliu; 15 August 1883 – 2 September 1952) was a Romanian poet, prose writer and playwright.

Born in Bârlad, his parents were Dumitrache Vasiliu, a merchant, and his wife Ruxandra (née Rășcanu). After attending primary school in his native town, he entered the Boarding High School in Iași, graduating in 1902. He then earned a degree from the University of Bucharest's literature and philosophy faculty, in 1904. Starting that year, he was a secretary at the Conservatory of Music and Dramatic Arts, rising to associate professor in 1911. In 1917 at Iași, Romania's temporary World War I capital, he published Românul newspaper, together with Mihail Sadoveanu, Octavian Goga, Mihail Sorbul, Barbu Ștefănescu Delavrancea and Ion Minulescu. He was a founding member of the Romanian Writers' Society established in 1909, and served as its president from 1921 to 1923 and from 1933 to 1935. He chaired the National Theatre Bucharest and was general director of theatres from 1924 to 1926 and from 1927 to 1928.

Moldovanu made his literary debut in 1899 in Epoca literară and Floare albastră. Publications that ran his work include Epoca literară, Evenimentul literar, Revista modernă, Artă și literatură română, Noua revistă română, Convorbiri critice, Rampa, Flacăra, Universul, Sămănătorul and Luceafărul. His first book was the 1907 poetry collection Flăcări, followed by Cetatea Soarelui și alte poeme (1910) and Poezii (1924), as well as the short prose books Neguțătorul de arome (1916) and Povestiri (1921). He wrote the two-volume 1922 novel Purgatoriul, and translated works by Guy de Maupassant and Pierre Corneille. In outlook, he was a Sămănătorist. He was awarded the Legion of Honour in 1927 and the national prize for poetry in 1933.

Notes

1883 births
1952 deaths
People from Bârlad
Costache Negruzzi National College alumni
University of Bucharest alumni
Romanian newspaper editors
Chairpersons of the National Theatre Bucharest
Romanian male short story writers
Romanian short story writers
Romanian translators
Recipients of the Legion of Honour
20th-century Romanian poets
20th-century Romanian novelists
20th-century translators
20th-century short story writers
20th-century Romanian male writers

Corneliu Moldovanu


Monade were a French post-rock band which was initially a side project of Lætitia Sadier, a founding member of Stereolab. In 2009, Sadier retired the project name "Monade" and began performing under her own name.

History
In the late 1990s, the All-City imprint released a 7" split of Monade's "Ode to a Keyring"/"Witch Hazel" [the a-side of the split featured materials by post-rock group, M, featuring David Pajo of Slint. These songs were recorded by Sadier with Rosie Cuckston of the band Pram. The two songs featured on Monade's initial 45 were re-recorded for the group's first full-length record, Socialisme Ou Barbarie [Drag City]. They have released two albums to date on the Duophonic label which is partially owned by Sadier herself.  The first album, Socialisme ou Barbarie: The Bedroom Recordings was released in 2003 after being produced part-time over a period of six years.

Their second album, A Few Steps More (2005),  marks a more cohesive stage in the band's development. There is now a regular lineup, and it was recorded using studio equipment.  The album has been roundly praised and criticised for its superficial resemblance to the sound of Stereolab, but several reviews have commented more on the harmonic structure of the album, which almost seems to blend symphonically at times.  Asked about on the album's themes in an interview for Eye Weekly, Sadier commented: "I was trying to write to the individual and the capacity to listen to one's desires. Also, I tackled the idea of becoming. I think that's quite an important notion: that things should be allowed to become. I became a singer and it took me years and I want Monade to have a chance to become a band."

The name "Monade" was taken from Cornelius Castoriadis' concept of the "monade psychique" (psychical monad), which was the term Castoriadis used to describe the undifferentiated infantile psyche, before its shattering into the ego, super-ego, and id through the process of socialization. Lætitia Sadier has stated that the name has a double meaning – the word "monade" is from the root word "mono-" (meaning "one") and etymologically related to the sound recording term "mono", which stands in contrast to stereo, and therefore is a reference to Monade as a solo side project to Stereolab. The title of Monade's first album pays tribute to a libertarian Marxist political group founded by Castoriadis, Socialisme ou Barbarie.

In March 2008, a new Monade album was released, without any promotion, called Monstre Cosmic.

On September 19, 2009 at The BirdCage in London, it was announced that it was Laetitia's last performance under the name Monade.  Laetitia played a selection of new solo songs.

Discography
2003: Socialisme ou Barbarie: The Bedroom Recordings
2005: A Few Steps More
2008: Monstre Cosmic

References

External links

Interviews
Monade (interview), POPnews, January 2004. (In French)
Q&A: Monade by Joshua Ostroff, Eye Weekly, May 12, 2005.
"An Interview with Monade's Laetitia Sadier" by Monte Holman, Free Williamsburg, May 25, 2005.
Monade (video interview with Laetitia Sadier) by Jon Whitney, The Eye, May 29, 2005. (QuickTime MOV)
Reviews
Monade Socialisme ou Barbarie (review) by Betty Clarke, The Guardian, April 11, 2003. (Rating: 3 / 5)
Monade Socialisme ou Barbarie: The Bedroom Recordings (review) by Dominique Leone, Pitchfork Media, May 9, 2003. (Rating: 6.5 / 10)
Monade A Few Steps More by Mark Richardson, Pitchfork Media, March 18, 2005. (Rating: 6.7 / 10)
Monade: Monstre Cosmic (review) by Nate Patrin, Pitchfork Media, February 13, 2008. (Rating: 7.1 / 10)

French post-rock groups
French alternative rock groups
French indie rock groups
Stereolab
Musical groups from Bordeaux

Monade