Unhook the Stars is a 1996 American drama film directed by Nick Cassavetes, and starring his mother Gena Rowlands, Marisa Tomei, Gérard Depardieu, and Jake Lloyd in his film debut.

Rowlands plays Mildred, a widow who befriends the wayward Monica (Tomei), a single mother from across the street, and eventually finds herself babysitter of Monica's young son, J.J. (Lloyd) Throughout the film, Monica and J.J. inadvertently teach Mildred valuable life lessons about herself and her relationships with others.

Rowlands and Tomei both received SAG Award nominations for their performances. The film's title refers to a song of the same name by Cyndi Lauper, which can be heard over the closing credits.

Plot
Mildred is a widow living with her rebellious, irresponsible twentysomething daughter Annie in Salt Lake City. One day after a fight, Annie goes to live as a vagrant with her boyfriend, leaving Mildred alone for the first time in her life. Her wayward neighbor Monica knocks on Mildred's door, begging her to watch her young son J.J. so she can go to her work shift. Monica has kicked her abusive husband Frankie out of their house.

Mildred agrees to watch J.J., and offers to babysit and take him to school whenever Monica needs her to. Establishing a close relationship with J.J. and Monica, he eventually comes to refer to her as "Auntie Mildred." Mildred reads to him, takes him to the park, and educates him on history by reading from her encyclopedias. At Thanksgiving, Mildred invites Monica and J.J. over for dinner as well as her yuppie son Ethan and his wife Jeannie. Jeannie is perturbed by Monica's brash behavior and cursing, though Ethan and Mildred seem disaffected by her personality. Ethan suggests that Mildred should move to San Francisco with him and Jeannie.

Mildred spends Christmas with Monica and J.J., and babysits him on New Year's Eve. On Valentine's Day, Frankie comes to Monica's in the middle of the night, begging to reunite with her. She quietly listens to his pleas, but does not open the door. Monica gets a babysitter for J.J. so she can go out for a night with Mildred, taking her to a local pub where she introduces her to her friend Big Tommy, a truck driver who expresses interest in Mildred. Monica leaves the bar without telling Mildred, so Big Tommy gives Mildred a ride home.

Mildred goes to visit Ethan and Jeannie in San Francisco, where he invites her to live on the top floor of their luxurious house overlooking the Bay Area, and reveals that Jeannie is pregnant. She ultimately refuses Ethan's offer, enraging him. Mildred returns home to find that Monica and Frankie have reconciled, and J.J. begins spending more time with his father, leaving Mildred depressed and alone.

One night, Mildred returns home to find Annie there. She asks if she could return home, saying that she now has a job and is applying to college. However, Mildred tells her that she has sold the house, and has to be out by the end of the month. Mildred goes on a date with Tommy, and confesses she doesn't know where she's moving to.

While Monica helps Mildred pack her house, she tells her how much Frankie has improved as a husband, but senses Mildred's distance. Frankie brings J.J. over, and he asks to talk to Mildred in private. J.J. gives her a drawing and thanks her for taking care of him, and the three say their goodbyes. Annie drives Mildred to the airport, though Mildred refuses to tell her where she's going, saying it's a secret.

Cast

Release
The film was released theatrically in the United States on November 1, 1996 in a limited release in New York City. The film grossed a total of $272,542USD playing on three screens. The film late receive a wider release on Valentine's Day 1997.

Critical reception
Unhook the Stars received generally positive critical reaction.  Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars, calling it "a film of gentleness and low-key romance," and praised Rowlands' performance. Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B− rating, also praising the film's performances.

The New York Times also praised the performances in the film, but gave an ambivalent review, stating: "The impressive acting can cover up only so many glaring holes in a film that doesn't really know what it wants to say. Unhook the Stars isn't a story that had to be told but a sentimental contrivance constructed around its star."

References

External links

1996 films
French romantic drama films
English-language French films
Films directed by Nick Cassavetes
1996 romantic drama films
American romantic drama films
Films shot in Salt Lake City
Miramax films
1996 directorial debut films
1990s English-language films
1990s American films
1990s French films

Unhook the Stars


Crassula natans, commonly known as floating pigmyweed, is a herb in the family Crassulaceae.

The annual herb is often found in an aquatic environment. It blooms between July and November producing white-pink flowers. The plant has decumbent filiform branches that are around  in length and are often multi-branched when growing in marshy area, or slender floating branches up to  in length. It has linear shaped leaves linear approximately  long and  wide in marsh plants, or for floating plants with a length of  and a width of .

The plant is endemic to the wetlands of Cape Fold area of the Western Cape region of South Africa.
It has become naturalised in Western Australia where it is found in winter wet depressions and in gullies and lakes in the Great Southern, Wheatbelt, South West and Peel regions. It is also found throughout southern South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria.

References

natans
Plants described in 1794
Flora of Western Australia
Saxifragales of Australia
Endemic flora of the Cape Provinces

Crassula natans


The CNN effect is a theory in political science and media studies which states that global television networks play a significant role in determining the actions policymakers take and the outcomes of events.

History
The 24-hour international television news channel Cable News Network (CNN) had a major impact on the conduct of United States foreign policy in the late Cold War period; CNN and its subsequent industry competitors have had a similar impact in the post–Cold War era. While the free press has, in its role as the "Fourth Estate", always had an influence on policy-making in representative democracies, proponents of the CNN effect argue that the extent, depth, and speed of the new global media have created a new species of effects qualitatively different from those that preceded them. The term's coinage reflects the role played by CNN in particular, whose coverage of many events outside the U.S. – such as the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, the fall of Communism in eastern Europe, the first Gulf War, and the Battle of Mogadishu – was viewed as being strongly influential in bringing these images and issues to the immediate forefront of the American political consciousness. Additionally, the CNN effect has been cited as the driving force behind the U.S. intervention in the Kurdish crisis and the use of force by the U.S. Army during the Bosnia war of 1992–1995.

Research

In his research paper Clarifying the CNN Effect: An examination of Media Effects According to Type of Military Intervention, George Washington University professor Steven Livingston identifies three distinct aspects that fall under the broad term of the CNN effect. The media may function alternately or simultaneously as (1) a policy agenda-setting agent, (2) an impediment to the achievement of desired policy goals, (3) an accelerant to policy decision-making. (Italics in original). and (4) one of the common grounds of CNN effect is policy uncertainty; as policy certainty reduces, media influence increases and vice versa.

By focusing instantaneous and ongoing media coverage on a particular conflict, international incident, or diplomatic initiative, the news cycle effectively demands political attention, as governing politicians attempt to demonstrate that they are "on top of" current issues. The effect has been, according to Margaret Belknap, that "[t]he advent of real time news coverage has led to immediate public awareness and scrutiny of strategic decisions and military operations as they unfold". Deeper penetration and wider broadcast of statements and actions by public figures may increase transparency, but it can also complicate sensitive diplomatic relationships between states or force an official reaction from governments that would otherwise prefer to minimize political risk by remaining noncommittal. The information revolution and spread of global mass media through the Internet and international 24-hour news thus accelerates the policy-making process, requiring a faster tempo of decision and action to forestall the appearance of a leadership vacuum.

Former Secretary of State James Baker said of the CNN effect: "The one thing it does, is to drive policymakers to have a policy position. I would have to articulate it very quickly. You are in real-time mode. You don't have time to reflect." His former press secretary Margaret Tutwiler mirrors his sentiment: "Time for reaction is compressed. Analysis and intelligence gathering is out."

In natural disasters
While the CNN effect most commonly refers to the effect that news media have on politics and government during political conflict, its effect on decisions made during natural disasters is also noteworthy. As videos and images are broadcast worldwide immediately after or even during natural disasters, these images may convince the public to donate money or pressure governments for immediate action.

The CNN effect may have played a role in increasing aid following the Asian tsunami (2004), the Kashmir earthquake (2005), Hurricane Katrina (2005), and the Sichuan earthquake in China (2008). Following the Asian tsunami, for instance, the media "blitz" that followed this natural disaster may have helped prompt an unprecedented outpouring of donations. "By February 2005, the international community had donated $500 per person affected by the tsunami, compared to just 50 cents for each person affected by Uganda's 18-year war."

See also
Al Jazeera effect
Broadcast journalism
News broadcasting
Media circus
Media event
Media scrum
Sensationalism
Slashdot effect
Television news
Trial by media
Yellow journalism

Notes

External links
 "CNN effect" is Not Clear-Cut, essay by Indiana University School of Law professor Fred H. Cate, in Humanitarian Affairs Review. 2002.
 "The CNN Effect": How 24-Hour News Coverage Affects Government Decisions and Public Opinion, Brookings Institution/Harvard University forum transcript. 2002.
 The "CNN Effect:" TV and Foreign Policy, Center for Defense Information America's Defense Monitor transcript. 1995.

CNN
Civil–military relations
Mass media issues
Media coverage and representation
21st-century conflicts

CNN effect


N.S.V.Chitthan is an Indian politician of the Tamil Maanila Congress party.

Early life and background
N.S.V Chitthan was born in Tirumangalam district of Madurai on 12 April 1934. He belongs to the strong Thevar community. His father Shri N. S. Veerapathira Thevar was a member of Congress during the Pre Independence period. He married Shakuntala in 1959 . He holds a B.A. in (Economics) and studied in Madura College in Madurai, Tamil Nadu.

Entry into politics
Chithan joined Congress when he was young and contested the elections in 1967 when DMK routed Congress and managed to win even though he was contesting the elections for the first time and given the fact that there was a wave in favour of DMK.

Political base
Chithan contests from the Dindigul Parliamentary constituency. He has not been a Minister in the Union Government but has served on different committees and has been attributed to the Development of Madurai suburban localities and the transition of Road networks and Industries in Dindigul district and Madurai District.

Political timeline
 Elected to the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly (three times)( 1967–71 and 1980–89).
 Deputy Leader of Opposition and Deputy Leader
 Congress Legislative PartyChairman, Public Accounts Committee, Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly( 1980–84)
 Elected to 11th Lok Sabha( 1996)
 Leader, Tamil Manila Congress (TMC) Party in Lok Sabha( 1996–97)
 Re-elected to 14th Lok Sabha (2nd term)( 2004) and Member, Committee on Transport, Tourism and CultureMember,
 Re-elected to 15th Lok Sabha (3rd term)( 2009) and Member, Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice( 31 Aug. 2009)

Honours
Recipient of Silver Medal by Bureau of Parliamentary Affairs for raising maximum number (more than 7000) of Questions on the Floor of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly during 1967-71 . He also addressed the UN General Assembly in 1997 as member of the Indian Delegation . He also Served as the General Secretary of Tamil Nadu Congress Committee for 2 Years .

References

1934 births
Living people
Indian Tamil people
Lok Sabha members from Tamil Nadu
India MPs 2004–2009
Indian National Congress politicians from Tamil Nadu
India MPs 1996–1997
India MPs 2009–2014
United Progressive Alliance candidates in the 2014 Indian general election
Tamil Maanila Congress politicians
People from Madurai district
People from Dindigul district
Tamil Nadu MLAs 1967–1972
Tamil Nadu MLAs 1980–1984
Tamil Nadu MLAs 1985–1989

N. S. V. Chitthan


The Kingdom of Ava (, ) was the dominant kingdom that ruled upper Burma (Myanmar) from 1364 to 1555. Founded in 1365, the kingdom was the successor state to the petty kingdoms of Myinsaing, Pinya and Sagaing that had ruled central Burma since the collapse of the Pagan Empire in the late 13th century.

Like the small kingdoms that preceded it, Ava may have been led by Bamarised Shan kings who claimed descent from the kings of Pagan. Scholars debate that the Shan ethnicity of Avan kings comes from mistranslation, particularly from a record of the Avan kings' ancestors ruling a Shan village in central Burma prior to their rise or prominence.

History
The kingdom was founded by Thado Minbya in 1364 following the collapse of the Sagaing and Pinya Kingdoms due to raids by the Shan States to the north.

In its first years of existence, Ava, which viewed itself as the rightful successor to the Pagan Kingdom, tried to reassemble the former empire by waging constant wars against the Mon Hanthawaddy Kingdom in the south, the Shan States in the north and east, and Rakhine State in the west.

While it was able to hold Taungoo and some peripheral Shan States (Kalaymyo, Mohnyin, Mogaung and Hsipaw) within its fold at the peak of its power, Ava failed to reconquer the rest. The Forty Years' War (1385–1424) with Hanthawaddy left Ava exhausted. From the 1420s to early 1480s, Ava regularly faced rebellions in its vassal regions whenever a new king came to power. In the 1480s and 1490s, the Prome Kingdom in the south and the Shan states that were under the sway of Ava in the north had broken away, and the Taungoo dynasty became as powerful as its nominal overlord Ava. In 1510, Taungoo also broke away.

Ava was under intensified Shan raids for the first quarter of the 16th century. In 1527, the Confederation of Shan States, led by the state of Mohnyin in alliance with Prome, sacked Ava. The Confederation placed nominal kings on the Ava throne and ruled much of Upper Burma. As Prome was in alliance with the Confederation, only the tiny Taungoo in the southeastern corner, east of the Bago Yoma mountain range remained as the last holdout of the independent kingdom.

The Confederation's failure to snuff out Taungoo proved costly. Surrounded by hostile kingdoms, Taungoo took the initiative to consolidate its position, and defeated a much stronger Hanthawaddy in 1534–1541. When Taungoo turned against Prome, the Shans belatedly sent in their armies. Taungoo took Prome in 1542 and Bagan, just below Ava, in 1544. In January 1555, King Bayinnaung of the Taungoo dynasty conquered Ava, ending the city's role as the capital of Upper Burma for nearly two centuries.

Capital

Thado Minbya founded the city of Ava (modern day Inwa) and consecrated it as Ratanapura, the City of Gems, which was to remain the capital of Myanmar more or less continuously until the mid 19th century. The city was designed according to the traditional principles of Burmese city design, which had existed since at least the Pyu period. Ava was the first Burmese city to be entirely walled, with an inner citadel and an outer civilian city. Ava's citadel is probably the only barrel shaped city in the world. According to legend the outline of the city walls was intended to replicate the appearance of a mythical Burmese Lion, a Chinthe. What is certain is that Ava, or at least its inner citadel, is designed to replicate the Buddhist universe in miniature. The palace was constructed in the very centre of the citadel, which according to traditional principles of Burmese city design, corresponds to the location of the Buddha, therefore directly associating the King with the Buddha himself. This conferred upon the King a divine status and the palace as a religious centrepiece. The palace was specifically designed to emulate the highly auspicious Mount Meru in Hindu-Buddhist belief. The kingdom and its power emanated directly from the city as a mandala, encircling the entirety of the world (in theory) and therefore the city was a cosmological centre of a divinely ordained kingdom.

During the reign of Swa Saw Ke, a council was convened at Ava which was attended by the King, members of the Sangha, Sinhalese monks, and Brahmins. In one inscription the city was said to be as pleasant as Tavatimsa, the most important of the Buddhist heavens which also served as the model for the earthly realm of Burmese kingdoms. Swa Saw Ke was known as an intellectual king who encouraged scholarly endeavours and the city was said to be full of intelligent conversation.

Legacy
Ava's most notable legacy was its contribution to Burmese vernacular literature which flourished during this period. Literature moved from being written predominantly in Pali to using the vernacular Burmese language. Ava was a highly literate society with poetry being composed people from all levels of society, such as a village headman of Palaung in 1355, who inscribed verse onto stone. Inscriptions in classical Burmese during both the Bagan and Ava periods written by commoners and nobles appear at a ratio of 3:1 in favour of the commoners.

Elaborate use of simile, metaphor and other literary devices abound in Burmese verse, especially in the works of Shin Maharattathara. One of these works rejects the comforts of marriage and secular life for that of a forest ascetic. The following is a translation by Dr. Hla Pe, John Okell, and Anna Allott:

The maiden I marry shall be a forest dwelling, one that befits a hermit, far from the approach of men; she will tend to all my needs and will always keep me fed, with forest fruits for rice, and forest fruits for curry. I shall have Wisdom for my washing-water, for it cleanses the dirt of greed, hatred, and ignorance; and when I have neatly tied the ascetic's knot in my hair, I shall bedeck it with Faith for a garland; the fragrance of Meditation shall be my sandalwood, and I shall anoint myself with the sweet-smelling and cooling juice of aloes. ... I shall wear the priceless and costly garment of the Law.

See also
 Ava kings family tree
 Kingdom of Mrauk U
 List of monarchs

References

Bibliography

1364 establishments in Asia
14th century in Burma
14th-century establishments in Burma
1550s disestablishments in Asia
15th century in Burma
16th century in Burma
Burmese monarchy
Former countries in Southeast Asia
Former monarchies of Asia
Former monarchies of Southeast Asia
States and territories disestablished in 1555
States and territories established in 1364

Kingdom of Ava


AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order is a 2018 non-fiction book by  Kai-Fu Lee, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) pioneer,  China expert  and venture capitalist.  Lee previously held executive positions at Apple, then SGI, Microsoft, and Google before creating his own company, Sinovation Ventures.

AI arms race
According to Kai-Fu Lee, "If data is the new oil, then China is the new Saudi Arabia." Lee advances several arguments for why he thinks the artificial intelligence industry in China will excel in the artificial intelligence arms race:

 Training deep learning models requires more of a brute force method than innovation; well suited to China's supposedly higher quantity but lower quality of software engineer compared to the US
 China has fewer data protection regulations (e.g., the General Data Protection Regulation in Europe) than other countries, so Chinese software collect more data on users.
 Chinese tech startup culture is more "aggressive" than that of other countries', with fewer intellectual property restrictions and fewer barriers to vertical integration
 The participation of China's central government in funding and raising the status of the AI industry

AI threat to employment
Lee proposes that knowledge workers are generally under greater threat of unemployment due to advances in AI, in a similar manner to the effect of the Industrial Revolution on physical laborers. The book includes examples of the most and least threatened jobs both in mental and physical labor.

Least threatened cognitive labor jobs include criminal defense attorney, public relations director, concierge, social worker, psychiatrist, and CEO because those jobs are highly social and are based on creativity or strategy. Cognitive jobs with the greatest threat to being made redundant by AI include: basic translator, radiologist, consumer loan officer, consumer tax prep, telemarketer, and customer service rep because those jobs are asocial and optimization-based.

Physical jobs at low risk of irrelevance in the AI era include elder caregiver, physical therapist, hairstylist, and dog trainer because those roles are social and require high dexterity in an unstructured environment. Physical jobs most likely to suffer job losses or extinction include assembly line inspector, fruit harvester, truck driver, dishwasher, clothing factory worker, fast food and restaurant cooks and cashiers because these are asocial jobs in structured environments and don't require dexterity.

Reception
US Senator Mark Warner named AI Superpowers as his recommended book for The 2018 POLITICO 50 Reading List.  On the other hand, American magazine Foreign Affairs criticized the book for promoting zero-sum thinking and hyping Chinese state investment in tech ventures that often underperform relative to expectations; for focusing on deep learning to the exclusion of other forms of artificial intelligence; and for overgeneralizing the usefulness of Chinese data sets.

References

Houghton Mifflin books
2018 non-fiction books

Non-fiction books about Artificial intelligence

AI Superpowers


Andrew Geoffrey Kaufman ( ; January 17, 1949 – May 16, 1984) was an American entertainer and performance artist. While often called a "comedian", Kaufman preferred to describe himself instead as a "song and dance man". He has sometimes been called an "anti-comedian". He disdained telling jokes and engaging in comedy as it was traditionally understood, once saying in an interview, "I am not a comic, I have never told a joke. The comedian's promise is that he will go out there and make you laugh with him. My only promise is that I will try to entertain you as best I can."

After working in small comedy clubs in the early 1970s, Kaufman came to the attention of a wider audience in 1975, when he was invited to perform portions of his act on the first season of Saturday Night Live. His Foreign Man character was the basis of his performance as Latka Gravas on the hit television show Taxi from 1978 until 1983. During this time, he continued to tour comedy clubs and theaters in a series of unique performance art/comedy shows, sometimes appearing as himself and sometimes as obnoxiously rude lounge singer Tony Clifton. He was also a frequent guest on sketch comedy and late-night talk shows, particularly Late Night with David Letterman. In 1982, Kaufman brought his professional wrestling villain act to Letterman's show by way of a staged encounter with Jerry "The King" Lawler of the Continental Wrestling Association. The fact that the altercation was planned was not publicly disclosed for over a decade.

Kaufman died of lung cancer on May 16, 1984, at the age of 35. As pranks and elaborate ruses were major elements of his career, persistent rumors have circulated that Kaufman faked his own death as a grand hoax. He continues to be respected for the variety of his characters, his uniquely counterintuitive approach to comedy, and his willingness to provoke negative and confused reactions from audiences.

Early life
Kaufman was born on January 17, 1949, in New York City, the oldest of three children. He grew up with his younger brother Michael and sister Carol in a middle-class Jewish family in Great Neck, Long Island. His mother was Janice (née Bernstein), a homemaker and former fashion model, and his father was Stanley Kaufman, a jewelry salesman.  Kaufman began performing at children's birthday parties at age 9, playing records and showing cartoons. Kaufman spent much of his youth writing poetry and stories, including an unpublished novel, The Hollering Mangoo, which he completed at age 16. Following a visit to his school from Nigerian musician Babatunde Olatunji, Kaufman began playing the congas.

After graduating from Great Neck North High School in 1967, Kaufman took a year off before enrolling at the now defunct two-year Grahm Junior College in Boston, where he studied television production and starred in his own campus television show, Uncle Andy's Fun House. In August 1969, he hitchhiked to Las Vegas to meet Elvis Presley, showing up unannounced at the International Hotel. Soon after, he began performing at coffee houses and developing his act, as well as writing a one-man play, Gosh (later renamed God and published in 2000). After graduating in 1971, he began performing stand-up comedy at various small clubs on the East Coast.

Career

Foreign Man and Mighty Mouse
Kaufman first received major attention for his character Foreign Man, who spoke in a meek, high-pitched, heavily accented voice and claimed to be from "Caspiar", a fictional island in the Caspian Sea. It was as this character that Kaufman convinced the owner of the famed New York City comedy club The Improv, Budd Friedman, to allow him to perform on stage.

As Foreign Man, Kaufman would appear on the stage of comedy clubs, play a recording of the theme from the Mighty Mouse cartoon show while standing perfectly still, and lip-sync only the line "Here I come to save the day" with great enthusiasm. He proceeded to tell a few (intentionally poor) jokes and concluded his act with a series of celebrity impersonations, with the comedy arising from the character's obviously hopeless ineptitude at impersonation. For example, in his fake accent Kaufman announced to the audience, "I would like to imitate Meester Carter, de president of de United States" and then, in exactly the same voice, say "Hello, I am Meester Carter, de president of de United States. T'ank you veddy much."
At some point in the performance, usually when the audience was conditioned to Foreign Man's inability to perform a single convincing impression, Foreign Man would announce, "And now I would like to imitate the Elvis Presley", turn around, take off his jacket, slick his hair back, and launch into a rousing, hip-shaking rendition of Presley singing one of his hit songs. Like Presley, he took off his leather jacket during the song and threw it into the audience, but unlike Presley, Foreign Man would immediately ask for it to be returned. After the song's finale, he would take a simple bow and say in his Foreign Man voice, "T'ank you veddy much."

Portions of Kaufman's Foreign Man act were broadcast in the first season of Saturday Night Live. The Mighty Mouse number was featured in the October 11, 1975, premiere, while the joke-telling and celebrity impressions (including Elvis) were included in the November 8 broadcast that same year.

Latka

Kaufman first used his Foreign Man character in nightclubs in the early 1970s, often to tell jokes incorrectly and do weak imitations of famous people before bursting into his Elvis Presley imitation. The character was then changed into Latka Gravas for ABC's sitcom Taxi, appearing in 79 of 114 episodes in 1978–83. Bob Zmuda confirms this: "They basically were buying Andy's Foreign Man character for the Taxi character Latka." Kaufman's longtime manager George Shapiro encouraged him to take the gig.

Kaufman disliked sitcoms and was not happy with the idea of being in one, but Shapiro convinced him that it would quickly lead to stardom, which would earn him money he could then put into his own act. Kaufman agreed to appear in 14 episodes per season, and he initially wanted four for Kaufman's alter ego Tony Clifton. After Kaufman deliberately sabotaged Clifton's appearance on the show, however, that part of his contract was dropped.

His character was given multiple personality disorder, which allowed Kaufman to randomly portray other characters. In one episode of Taxi, Kaufman's character came down with a condition that made him act like Alex Rieger, the main character played by Judd Hirsch. Another such recurring character played by Kaufman was Latka's womanizing alter ego Vic Ferrari.

Sam Simon, who early in his career was a writer and later showrunner for Taxi, stated in a 2013 interview on Marc Maron's WTF podcast that the story of Kaufman having been generally disruptive on the show was "a complete fiction" largely created by Zmuda. Simon maintained that Zmuda has a vested interest in promoting an out-of-control image of Kaufman. In the interview Simon stated that Kaufman was "completely professional" and that he "told you Tony Clifton was him", but he also conceded that Kaufman would have "loved" Zmuda's version of events.

Kaufman was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Series, Limited Series, or Motion Picture Made for Television for Taxi in 1979 and 1981.

Tony Clifton

Another well-known Kaufman character is Tony Clifton, an absurd, audience-abusing lounge singer who began opening for Kaufman at comedy clubs and eventually even performed concerts on his own around the country. Sometimes it was Kaufman performing as Clifton, sometimes it was his brother Michael or Zmuda. For a brief time, it was unclear to some that Clifton was not a real person. News programs interviewed Clifton as Kaufman's opening act, with the mood turning ugly whenever Kaufman's name came up. Kaufman, Clifton insisted, was attempting to ruin Clifton's "good name" in order to make money and become famous.

As a requirement for Kaufman's accepting the offer to star on Taxi, he insisted that Clifton be hired for a guest role on the show as if he were a real person, not a character. After throwing a tantrum on the set, Clifton was fired and escorted from the studio lot by security guards. Much to Kaufman's delight, this incident was reported in the local newspapers.

Saturday Night Live Elvis sketch incident

On the January 30, 1982, episode of Saturday Night Live, while impersonating Elvis Presley in a sketch, Kaufman broke character by removing his wig and apologizing to the audience.

Kaufman explained this incident on the February 17, 1982, episode of Late Night with David Letterman. He said that he had apologized because he disagreed with how Presley was portrayed in the sketch, which involved Presley instructing two young women from his audience to visit him backstage, where they would wrestle topless in mud. Kaufman said that he had initially declined to perform the sketch but was pressured into it. He also alleged that SNL staff threatened to ruin his reputation in the industry if he did not perform the sketch.

The sketch was a reference to an incident alleged by Albert Goldman's controversial 1981 biography of Presley. Critics of the biography derided its scornful tone and charged that it was intended as an exposé. Kaufman said that Goldman threatened to sue him after the episode aired, but Kaufman challenged Goldman to a public debate on Presley's character.

Carnegie Hall show
At the beginning of an April 1979 performance at New York's Carnegie Hall, Kaufman invited his "grandmother" to watch the show from a chair that he had placed at the side of the stage. At the end of the show, she stood, removed her mask, and revealed to the audience that she was actually comedian Robin Williams.

Kaufman also had an elderly woman (Eleanor Cody Gould) pretend to have a heart attack and die on stage, after which he reappeared on stage wearing a Native American headdress and performing a dance over her body, "reviving" her.

Kaufman ended the show by taking the entire audience, in 24 buses, for milk and cookies. He invited anyone interested to meet him on the Staten Island Ferry the next morning, where the show continued.

TV specials
The Taxi deal with ABC included a television special/pilot for Kaufman. He proposed Andy's Funhouse, based on a routine that he had developed while in junior college. The special was taped in 1977 but did not air until August 1979. It featured most of Andy's famous gags, including Foreign Man/Latka and his Elvis Presley impersonation, as well as a host of unique segments (including a special appearance by children's television character Howdy Doody and the "Has-been Corner"). The program also included a segment with fake television screen static as part of the gag, although ABC executives feared that viewers would mistake the static for broadcast problems and would change the channel—which was the comic element that Kaufman wanted to present. Andy's Funhouse was written by Kaufman, Zmuda and Mel Sherer, with music by Kaufman.

In March 1980, Kaufman filmed a short segment for an ABC show called Buckshot. The segment was just over six minutes long and was called Uncle Andy's Funhouse. It featured Kaufman as the host of a children's show for adults, complete with a peanut gallery and Tony Clifton puppet.

In 1983, a show very similar to Andy's Funhouse and Uncle Andy's Funhouse was filmed for PBS's SoundStage program called The Andy Kaufman Show. It too featured a peanut gallery, and opened in the middle of an interview in which Kaufman was laughing hysterically. He then proceeded to thank the audience for watching and the credits rolled.

Fridays incidents
In 1981, Kaufman made three appearances on Fridays, a variety show on ABC that was similar to Saturday Night Live. In the last sketch on his first appearance, the cast were to deliberately break the scene and improvise an argument. Kaufman broke character first, announcing that he "felt stupid" and refusing to say his lines. In response, cast member Michael Richards walked off camera, returned with a set of cue cards, and dumped them on the table in front of Kaufman, who responded by splashing Richards with water. Coproducer Jack Burns stormed onto the stage, leading to a fake brawl on camera before the show cut to a commercial.

Richards claimed that what was going to happen was known only to him, Burns and Kaufman, but Melanie Chartoff, who played Kaufman's wife in the sketch, said that just before airtime Burns told her, Richards, and Maryedith Burrell that Kaufman was going to break the fourth wall.

Kaufman appeared the next week in a videotaped "apology" to the home viewers. Later that year, he returned to host Fridays. At one point during the show, he invited Lawrence Welk Show singer Kathie Sullivan to the stage to sing some gospel songs with him and announced that the two were engaged to be married. He then talked to the audience about his newfound faith in Jesus (Kaufman was Jewish), but the scene was a hoax. Later, following a sketch about a drug-abusing pharmacist, instead of introducing the Pretenders, he delivered a nervous speech about the harmfulness of drugs while the band stood behind him ready to play. After his speech, he informed the audience that he had talked too long and that the show needed to pause for a commercial break.

Appearances
Although Kaufman made a name for himself as a guest on NBC's Saturday Night Live, his first prime-time appearances were several guest spots as Foreign Man on the Dick Van Dyke variety show Van Dyke and Company in 1976. He appeared four times on The Tonight Show in 1976–78, with Foreign Man doing his imitation of Johnny Carson's sidekick Ed McMahon, with no change in voice: "Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. How hot was eet. Ha ha ha." Kaufman also appeared three times on NBC's late-night concert series The Midnight Special in 1972, 1977, and 1981. Kaufman appeared on The Dating Game in 1978, in character as Foreign Man, and cried when the bachelorette chose Bachelor #1, protesting that he had answered all the questions correctly.

His SNL appearances started with the first show, on October 11, 1975. He made 16 SNL appearances in all, doing routines from his comedy act, such as the Mighty Mouse singalong, Foreign Man, and the Elvis impersonation. After he angered the audience with his female-wrestling routine, Kaufman in January 1983 made a pretaped appearance (his 16th) asking the audience if he should ever appear on the show again, saying he would honor their decision. SNL ran a phone vote, and 195,544 people voted to "Dump Andy" while 169,186 people voted to "Keep Andy".

During the SNL episode with the phone poll, many of the cast members stated their admiration for Kaufman's work. After Eddie Murphy read both numbers, he said, "Now, Andy Kaufman is a friend of mine. Keep that in mind when you call. I don't want to have to punch nobody in America in the face", and Mary Gross read the Dump Andy phone number at a rate so fast that audiences were unable to catch it. The final tally was read by Gary Kroeger to a cheering audience. As the credits rolled, announcer Don Pardo said, "This is Don Pardo saying, 'I voted for Andy Kaufman.'"

Kaufman made a number of appearances on the daytime edition of The David Letterman Show in 1980, and 11 appearances on Late Night with David Letterman in 1982–83. He made numerous guest spots on other television programs hosted by or starring celebrities like Johnny Cash (1979 Christmas special), Dick Van Dyke, Dinah Shore, Rodney Dangerfield, Cher, Dean Martin, Redd Foxx, Mike Douglas, Dick Clark, and Joe Franklin.

He appeared in his first theatrical film, God Told Me To, in 1976, in which he portrayed a murderous policeman. He appeared in two other theatrical films, including the 1980 film In God We Tru$t, in which he played a televangelist, and the 1981 film Heartbeeps, in which he played a robot.

Laurie Anderson worked alongside Kaufman for a time in the 1970s, acting as a sort of "straight man" in a number of his Manhattan and Coney Island performances. One of these performances included getting on a ride that people stand in and get spun around. After everyone was strapped in, Kaufman would start saying how he did not want to be on the ride in a panicked tone and eventually cry. Anderson later described these performances in her 1995 album, The Ugly One with the Jewels.

In 1983, Kaufman appeared on Broadway with Deborah Harry in the play Teaneck Tanzi: The Venus Flytrap. It closed after just two performances.

Professional wrestling

Inspired by the theatricality of kayfabe, the staged nature of the sport, and his own tendency to form elaborate hoaxes, Kaufman began wrestling women during his act and proclaimed himself "Inter-Gender Wrestling Champion of the World", taking on an aggressive and ridiculous personality based on the characters invented by professional wrestlers. He offered a $1,000 prize to any woman who could pin him. He employed performance artist Laurie Anderson, a friend of his, in this act for a while.

Kaufman initially approached the head of the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) – now World Wrestling Entertainment or WWE – Vince McMahon Sr., about bringing his act to the New York wrestling territory. McMahon dismissed Kaufman's idea, as the elder McMahon was not about to bring "show business" into his Pro Wrestling society. Kaufman had by then developed a friendship with wrestling reporter/photographer Bill Apter. After many discussions about Kaufman's desire to be in the pro wrestling business, Apter called Memphis wrestling icon Jerry "The King" Lawler and introduced him to Kaufman by telephone.

Kaufman finally stepped into the ring (in the Memphis wrestling circuit) with a man—Lawler himself. Kaufman taunted the residents of Memphis by playing "videos showing residents how to use soap" and proclaiming the city to be "the nation's redneck capital". The ongoing Lawler-Kaufman feud, which often featured Jimmy Hart and other heels in Kaufman's corner, included a number of staged "works", such as a broken neck for Kaufman as a result of Lawler's piledriver and a famous on-air fight on a 1982 episode of Late Night with David Letterman.

For some time after that first match, Kaufman appeared wearing a neck brace, insisting that his injuries were much worse than they really were. Kaufman continued to defend the Inter-Gender Championship in the Mid-South Coliseum and offered an extra prize, other than the $1,000: that if he were pinned, the woman who pinned him would get to marry him and that Kaufman would also shave his head.

Eventually it was revealed that the feud and wrestling matches were staged works, and that Kaufman and Lawler were friends. This was not disclosed until more than 10 years after Kaufman's death, when the Emmy-nominated documentary A Comedy Salute to Andy Kaufman aired on NBC in 1995. Jim Carrey, who revealed the secret, later went on to play Kaufman in the 1999 film Man on the Moon. In a 1997 interview with the Memphis Flyer, Lawler said he had improvised during their first match and the Letterman incident.

Although officials at St. Francis Hospital stated that Kaufman's neck injuries were real, in his 2002 biography It's Good to Be the King ... Sometimes, Lawler detailed how they came up with the angle and kept it quiet. Even though Kaufman's injury was legitimate, the pair exaggerated it. He also said that Kaufman's furious tirade and performance on Letterman was Kaufman's own idea, including when Lawler slapped Kaufman out of his chair. Promoter Jerry Jarrett later recalled that for two years he mailed Kaufman payments comparable to what other main-event wrestlers were getting at the time, but Kaufman never deposited the cheques.

Kaufman appeared in the 1983 film My Breakfast with Blassie with professional wrestling personality "Classy" Freddie Blassie. The film was a parody of the art film My Dinner with Andre. Lynne Margulies, sister of the film's director, Johnny Legend, appears in it, and became romantically involved with Kaufman.

In 2002, Kaufman became a playable character in the video game Legends of Wrestling II and a standard character in 2004's Showdown: Legends of Wrestling. In 2008, Jakks Pacific produced for their WWE Classic Superstars toy line an action figure two-pack of Kaufman and Lawler, as well as a separate figure release with a royal blue robe.

On March 20, 2023, Kaufman was announced as the third inductee into the 2023 WWE Hall of Fame. He was inducted by Jimmy Hart .

Personal life
Kaufman never married. His daughter, Maria Bellu-Colonna (born 1969), was the child of an out-of-wedlock relationship with a high-school girlfriend and was placed for adoption. Bellu-Colonna learned in 1992 that she was Kaufman's daughter when she traced her biological roots. She soon reunited with her mother, grandfather, uncle and aunt. Bellu-Colonna's daughter Brittany briefly appeared in Man on the Moon, playing Kaufman's sister Carol as a young child.

In December 1969, Kaufman learned Transcendental Meditation at college. According to a BBC article, he used the technique "to build confidence and take his act to comedy clubs." For the rest of his life, Kaufman meditated and performed yoga three hours per day. From February to June 1971, he trained as a teacher of Transcendental Meditation in Mallorca, Spain.

Lynne Margulies, who met Kaufman during the filming of My Breakfast with Blassie, was in a relationship with Kaufman from 1982 until his death in 1984. Margulies later codirected the 1989 Kaufman wrestling compilation I'm from Hollywood, and published the 2009 book Dear Andy Kaufman, I Hate Your Guts!.

Kaufman kept his personal life secret and instead engaged in pranks and stunts to further obscure it, such as claiming in a September 22, 1983, appearance on David Letterman's show to have adopted three sons.

Illness and death

At Thanksgiving dinner on Long Island in November 1983, several family members openly expressed worry about Kaufman's persistent coughing. He claimed that he had been coughing for nearly a month, visited his doctor, and was told that nothing was wrong. When he returned to Los Angeles, he consulted another physician and then underwent a series of tests at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. A few days later, he was diagnosed with large-cell carcinoma of the lung, typically associated with smoking.

After audiences were shocked by his gaunt appearance during January 1984 performances, Kaufman acknowledged that he had an unspecified illness that he hoped to cure with natural medicine, including a diet of all fruits and vegetables, among other measures. Kaufman received palliative radiotherapy, but by then the cancer had spread from his lungs to his brain. His final public appearance was at the premiere of My Breakfast With Blassie in March 1984, where he appeared thin and with a mohawk hair style (radiation treatments had caused the loss of his hair).

The next day, Kaufman and Margulies flew to Baguio, Philippines where, as a last resort, he received treatments of a pseudoscientific procedure called psychic surgery (now recognized as explicitly deceptive medical fraud).

Afterward, Kaufman initially said that he felt better and returned to the U.S., but he died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on May 16, 1984, at the age of 35. He is buried in Beth David Cemetery in Elmont, New York.

Death-hoax rumors

Kaufman often spoke of faking his own death as a grand hoax, with rumors persisting, often fueled by sporadic appearances of Kaufman's character Tony Clifton at comedy clubs after his death. Kaufman's official website describes the faked death story as an "urban legend" and includes a picture of his death certificate.

"Clifton" performed a year after Kaufman's death at The Comedy Store benefit in Kaufman's honor, with members of his entourage in attendance, and during the 1990s made several appearances at Los Angeles nightclubs. Jim Carrey, who portrayed Kaufman in Man on the Moon, stated on the NBC special Comedy Salute to Andy Kaufman that Bob Zmuda had been performing as the Clifton character.

In 2013, responding to rumors that Kaufman was still alive and following the appearance of an actress who claimed to be Kaufman's daughter, the Los Angeles County coroner's office rereleased Kaufman's death certificate to confirm that he was indeed dead and had been interred at Beth David Cemetery.

In 2014, Zmuda and Margulies coauthored Andy Kaufman: The Truth, Finally, a book claiming that Kaufman's death was indeed a prank, and that he would soon reveal himself, as his upper limit on the "prank" was 30 years. Kaufman did not reappear.

Legacy and tributes
Comedian Elayne Boosler, who dated and lived with Kaufman and credits him with encouraging her comedy career, wrote an article for Esquire in November 1984 in his memory. She also dedicated her 1986 Showtime special Party of One to Kaufman. An audio recording of Kaufman offering encouragement to Boosler is featured in the intro.

In 1992, the band R.E.M. released the song "Man on the Moon", a tribute to Kaufman. The song's video featured footage of Kaufman. On March 29, 1995, NBC aired A Comedy Salute to Andy Kaufman. The special featured clips of many of Kaufman's performances, as well as commentary by some of his friends, family and colleagues. During the special, comedian Richard Lewis said: "No one has ever done what Andy did, and did it as well, and no one will ever. Because he did it first. So did Buster Keaton, so did Andy." Carl Reiner recalled his distinction in the comedy world:Did Andy influence comedy? No. Because nobody's doing what he did. Jim Carrey was influenced—not to do what Andy did, but to follow his own drummer. I think Andy did that for a lot of people. Follow your own drumbeat. You didn't have to go up there and say "take my wife, please". You could do anything that struck you as entertaining. It gave people freedom to be themselves.Reiner also said of Kaufman: "Nobody can see past the edges, where the character begins and he ends."

Carrey portrayed Kaufman in the 1999 biopic film Man on the Moon, directed by Miloš Forman. The film took its title from R.E.M.'s song of the same name. R.E.M. also performed the score for the film and recorded another Kaufman tribute song, "The Great Beyond". Carrey's portrayal was met with critical acclaim, earning him a Golden Globe Award for his performance. Forman named his twin sons Andrew and James after Kaufman and Carrey. In July 2012, Kaufman's play Bohemia West was staged in Providence, Rhode Island. Comedian Vernon Chatman compiled and produced Kaufman's first album, Andy and His Grandmother, via Drag City in 2013.

Kaufman is one of the featured celebrities in the 2005 children's book Different Like Me: My Book of Autism Heroes. Actress Cindy Williams, who was a close friend of Kaufman, devoted an entire chapter of her autobiography, Shirley, I Jest!: A Storied Life, to him. The Chris Gethard Show paid homage to the Kaufman Fridays incident with comedian Brett Davis throwing water on someone's face.

A neon likeness of Kaufman is on display at The Comedy Store in Los Angeles. The club's menu features the Andy Kaufman Special, which consists of "two cookies and a glass of ice cold milk."

The Vic Ferrari Band took its name from Kaufman's Taxi character.

According to executive producer Bill Oakley, the 1996 The Simpsons episode "Bart the Fink", in which Krusty the Clown fakes his death, was partially inspired by the rumors of Kaufman's faked death.

Al Jean, cocreator of the animated series The Critic, has said that the first-season drawing of Jon Lovitz's character Jay Sherman was loosely based on Kaufman.

In 2015, a bottled fragrance called Andy Kaufman Milk & Cookies was created.

German filmmaker Maren Ade has said that her 2016 film Toni Erdmann, which was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, was partially inspired by Kaufman and Tony Clifton.

Since 2004, the Andy Kaufman Award competition has been held annually as "a showcase for promising cutting-edge artists with fresh and unconventional material, for those willing to take risks with an audience, and for those who do not define themselves by the typical conventions of comedy." For the 2015 Andy Kaufman Award show, Two Boots Pizza created a special Andy Kaufman pizza.

On June 20, 2019, it was announced that Kaufman would be honored with a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in the television category. He was part of the class of 2020.

The Russian band Korol' i Shut recorded the song "Endi Kaufman" on its album Teatr Demona.

On March 20, 2023, Kaufman was inducted to the WWE Hall of Fame as part of the celebrity wing of the class of 2023.

Filmography

Television

Film

Home media

Discography

Bibliography
Three books of Kaufman's writings have been posthumously published:
, a novel
, the script for a one-man play Kaufman did in college
, a collection of his adolescent writings

See also
 List of Jewish professional wrestlers

References

Further reading
 Zehme, Bill (1999), Lost in the Funhouse: The Life and Mind of Andy Kaufman, Delacorte Press.
 Zmuda, Bob; Hansen, Matthew Scott (1999), Andy Kaufman Revealed!: Best Friend Tells All, Back Bay Books.
 Hecht, Julie (2001), Was This Man a Genius? Talks with Andy Kaufman, Vintage Books.
 Keller, Florian (2005), Andy Kaufman: Wrestling with the American Dream, University Of Minnesota Press.
 Zoglin, Richard (2008), Comedy at the Edge: How Stand-up in the 1970s Changed America, Bloomsbury USA.
 Margulies, Lynne; Zmuda, Bob (2009), Dear Andy Kaufman, I Hate Your Guts!, Process.
 Knoedelseder, William (2009), I'm Dying Up Here: Heartbreak and High Times in Stand-Up Comedy's Golden Era, PublicAffairs.
 Margulies, Lynne; Zmuda, Bob (2014), Andy Kaufman, The Truth Finally, BenBella Books.

External links

 The New Yorker, November 22, 1999, Issue. "Was This Man a Genius? A Year with Andy Kaufman, the Consummate Straight Man." by Julie Hecht
 The Village Voice, November 9, 1999, Issue. "Waking Andy Kaufman." by Bill Jensen
Dave Hirshey, "Andy Kaufman: Beyond Laughter"; Rolling Stone, April 30, 1981.

1949 births
1984 deaths
20th-century American comedians
20th-century American male actors
Male actors from New York City
American male comedians
American male film actors
American male television actors
American performance artists
American male professional wrestlers
Jewish professional wrestlers
Death conspiracy theories
Deaths from lung cancer in California
Elvis impersonators
Jewish American male actors
People from Long Island
First Family (professional wrestling) members
American sketch comedians
Burials at Beth David Cemetery
Comedians from New York City
Great Neck North High School alumni
Jewish American male comedians
Jewish singers
Professional wrestlers from New York City
Singers from New York City
WWE Hall of Fame inductees
Grahm Junior College alumni

Andy Kaufman


Bereldange ( , ) is a town in the commune of Walferdange, in central Luxembourg.  As of 2005, the town has a population of 3,570.

Though only a small town, Bereldange sports most of the facilities a family requires: supermarkets; petrol-stations; school; and fast-food chains. In the neighbouring town Walferdange (the centre of the commune) there are also sports facilities (including tennis courts, two full-size football pitches, a cricket pitch and a rugby field).

As of January the first, 1851, Bereldange is no longer a part of the Commune de Steinsel.

Walferdange
Towns in Luxembourg

Bereldange


Oscar (Astronotus ocellatus) is a species of fish from the cichlid family. Oscars have many common names. Some of these names are oscar, tiger oscar, velvet cichlid, and marble cichlid. The scientific name for the oscar species is A. ocellatus. Oscars can grow up to  long and weigh over . The Oscar fish is a smart species of fish. Oscars are popular as aquarium fish. Oscars are also very aggressive.

Description
The Oscar is a large predatory fish at grows up two 18". Their bodies are colorful and dark colors mixed with bright colors. Different variations include some with albinism "albino oscar" and others with darker variations "tiger oscar".

Behavior
The Oscar is an aggressive predator from the Amazon River. Oscars create territories and attack other fish that come into their territory. Captive bred oscars can do well in certain community tanks with only fish from their region. For this to work you need to get you oscar from a breeder as small as possible, so they know the other possible tank mates are not a threat/food.

Feeding
Captive oscars may be fed prepared fish food designed for large carnivorous fish. They can also eat crayfish, worms, and insects. Insects include, crickets, mealworms, grasshoppers, praying mantis and even hornworms. At about 6 months age, oscars can be fed live feeder fish, such as minnows, small gold fish and other feeder fish that can fit easily in their mouths. Captive bred oscars do best when fed natural frozen "carnivorous" fish food, along with live insects and crickets to keep a varied diet. These include, frozen bloodworms, frozen mysis shrimp, frozen beef heart, and frozen mixed fish cubes, as well as live feeders stated above.

Teleosts
Freshwater fish
Aquarium fish

Oscar (fish)


"(We've Got) Honey Love" is a 1967 song by Motown girl group The Velvelettes that later became a 1969 single released by another Motown girl group Martha and the Vandellas (credited here as Martha Reeves & the Vandellas) from their album Ridin' High released in 1968.  The song returned the Vandellas to the top forty of Billboard's R&B singles chart where it peaked at number twenty-seven while it hit the Billboard Hot 100 peaking at number fifty-seven. It was the group's sixth record where they were listed as Martha Reeves and the Vandellas following the successful "Honey Chile" single two years earlier. The song talked of how one woman's lover's charm was like "sugar and spice" adding names of candy and soda adding "a little bit of me, a little bit of you and we've got honey love." The Velvelettes, meanwhile, had recorded two versions of the song (one led by the group's lead singer, Carolyn 'Cal' Gill, the other is a rare lead for then group member - and future Vandella - Sandra Tilley), both of which would go unreleased for almost 40 years. All three versions were written by Richard Morris and Sylvia Moy, and produced by Morris (with Moy co-producing the versions by The Velvelettes). Every version also used the same track with The Andantes as background vocals.

Personnel
Lead vocals by Martha Reeves
Backing vocals by The Andantes: Marlene Barrow, Jackie Hicks and Louvain Demps
Instrumentation by The Funk Brothers

References

1969 singles
Martha and the Vandellas songs
Songs written by Sylvia Moy
Songs written by Richard Morris (songwriter)
Motown singles
1967 songs
1968 songs

(We've Got) Honey Love


Jackson Kepler Lago (November 1, 1934 –  April 4, 2011) was a Brazilian physician, politician and teacher. He served as governor of Maranhão from January 1, 2007, to April 16, 2009, when the Brazilian Supreme Electoral Court provided his term. Before being elected governor of Maranhão, Lago was the mayor of São Luís on two occasions (1989–1992 and 1997–2002).

Political career
Born in the municipality of Pedreiras, Maranhão, Lago began his political career in the late 1960s, participating in events against the military dictatorship. A member of the doctors' union, Lago was a pioneer in the performance of thoracic surgeries in the public health system of Maranhão and taught at the Medicine School of the State. In 1979, he helped Leonel Brizola to found the Democratic Labour Party, of which he was a member until his death, in Maranhão.

In 1989, Lago was elected and assumed office as Mayor of São Luís for the first time. On 1996 he was elected by the second time and assumed office on January 1, 1997, for his second term. In 2000 he was re-elected and assumed office on January 1, 2001, for the third time. Lago achieved the title of best mayor in Brazil, being so-named according to research conducted by the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo. Lago considered the expansion of the number of students in public schools and the improved training of teachers to have been his greatest achievements as the head the mayor of São Luís. The Lago administration was also recognized for advances in public health, generation of employment and income, public safety, public participation, infrastructure, environment and culture, among others.

Lago resigned his last term as mayor of São Luís to run to become the governor of Maranhão. Counting initially on the support of only about 20% of the electorate, Lago surprised opinion polling and was elected in the second round with 51.82% of the valid votes against 48.18% of former governor Roseana Sarney. An IBOPE survey commissioned by TV Mirante had indicated that Sarney would win the election in the first round. Only the Toledo & Associates Institute, hired by the newspaper O Imparcial, foresaw the possibility of runoff voting in the state. During his campaign, Lago bet on the political wear of the Sarneys, strongly denouncing the alleged corruption cases involving the group linked with them. Lago's campaign material was shared with President Lula, although Lula declared his public support for Sarney. His election was celebrated as a victory against the 40-year rule of the Sarney oligarchy in the state.

Repeal
Lago was accused by the coalition of the defeated candidate of committing electoral crimes, such as abuse of power and buying votes, during the elections of 2006. On March 2, 2009, the STF tried a lawsuit by the coalition of the defeated candidate Roseana Sarney and decided, by 5-2 votes, to revoke the terms of both Lago and Luiz Carlos Porto, the vice-governor of Maranhão and a member of the PPS. Contrary to what the Electoral law demands, the holding of new elections, the Court instead decided that the candidate who placed second in the elections would assume the vacated office.

On April 16, 2009, the STF in denying all appeals confirmed the repeal of both the Lago and Porto mandates. It also confirmed that Roseana Sarney would assume office. However, Lago refused to leave the Palácio dos Leões, the seat of government. On April 18, he left the palace with members of his party and even of Lula's PT, in addition to members of social movements such as the MST, and led a march to the local seat of the PDT. There, he promised his supporters to continue his political career. He lost the 2010 gubernatorial election overwhelmingly, taking third place with 19,5% of the vote, while Roseana was re-elected.

Death

Lago died of prostate cancer on April 4, 2011, in São Paulo  at the age of 76.

Personal life
Lago was married with Maria Moreira Clay Lago, also a doctor, with whom he had three children. Maria Clay was the State Secretary of Human Solidarity during the term of governor José Reinaldo Tavares, after his rupture with the Sarney family in May 2004.

See also
 List of mayors of São Luís, Maranhão

References

1934 births
2011 deaths
Governors of Maranhão
Brazilian communists
Brazilian Democratic Movement politicians
Democratic Labour Party (Brazil) politicians
Mayors of places in Brazil
Deaths from cancer in São Paulo (state)
Deaths from prostate cancer
People from Pedreiras, Maranhão

Jackson Lago


The Peaches is a 1964 British short film, narrated by Peter Ustinov.

In 1964 the film was the British choice for the Cannes Film Festival and is a sensual, surreal fantasy about a beautiful woman and her passion for peaches. The 15-minute story, which opens with a woman splayed on a bed rubbing her face with a ripe peach.

Directed by Michael Gill and written by Yvonne Gilan, his then wife, it stars Juliet Harmer as the Very Beautiful Girl, Tom Adams as The Boy Next Door, and is narrated by Peter Ustinov.  It also features an appearance from the nine-year-old A. A. Gill, son of the director and writer.

The film charts the coming of age of this clever and beautiful girl and her fetish for fruit. In search of kindred spirits of like intellect, she goes to live in the city, but finds herself cleaning in "the Ministry". She then falls in love, and the peaches become less important as her love grows. Bizarrely she transfers her craving to pickled onions.

The film won several awards and made Michael Gill consider working in Hollywood. Instead he chose to remain at the BBC, where he later approached Sir Kenneth Clark to make the television series Civilisation.

The film was funded by the BFI's Experimental Film Fund, established by Sir Michael Balcon.

Cast

Juliet Harmer as The Very Beautiful Girl
Tom Adams as The Boy Next Door

References

External links

1964 films
British short films
1964 short films

The Peaches


Narrowcasting is the dissemination of information  to a specialised audience, rather than to the broader public-at-large; it is the opposite of broadcasting. It may refer to advertising or programming, via radio or podcast, newspaper, television, or, increasingly in this digital age, via the Internet. The term "multicast" is sometimes used interchangeably, although strictly speaking this refers to the technology used, and narrowcasting to the business model. Narrowcasting is sometimes aimed at paid subscribers, such as in the case of cable television.

History and terminology
The evolution of narrowcasting came from broadcasting.  In the early 20th century, Charles Herrold designate radio transmissions meant for a single receiver, distinguished from  broadcasting, meant for a general audience. Merriam-Webster reports the first known use of the word in 1932. Broadcasting was revived in the context of subscription radio programs in the late 1940s, after which the term narrowcasting entered the common lexicon due to computer scientist and public broadcasting advocate J. C. R. Licklider, who in a 1967 report envisioned

The term "multicast" is sometimes used interchangeably, although strictly speaking this refers to the technology used, and narrowcasting to the business model.  Narrowcasting is sometimes aimed at paid subscribers, such as in the case of cable television.

In television
In the beginning of the 1990s, when American television was still mainly ruled by three major networks (ABC, CBS and NBC), it was believed that the greatest achievement was to promote and create content that would be directed towards a huge mass of people, avoiding completely those projects that might appeal to only a reduced audience. That was mainly due to the fact that specially in the earlier days of television, there was not much more competition. Nevertheless, this changed once independent stations, more cable channels, and the success of videocassettes started increasing and rising, which gave the audiences the possibility of having more options. Thus, this previous mass-oriented point of view started to change towards one that was, obviously, narrower.

It was the arrival of cable television that allowed a much larger number of producers and programmers to aim at smaller audiences, such as MTV, which started off as the channel for those who loved music.

Narrowcasting has made its place in, for example, the way television networks schedule shows; while one night they might choose to stream shows directed at teenagers, a different night they might want to focus on another specific kind of audience, such as those interested in documentaries. In this way, they target what could be seen as a narrow audience, but collect their attention altogether as a mass audience on one night.

Uses

Advertising
Related to niche marketing or target marketing, narrowcasting involves aiming media messages at specific segments of the public defined by values, preferences, demographic attributes, or subscription. Narrowcasting is based on the postmodern idea that mass audiences do not exist.

Marketing experts are often interested in narrowcast media as a commercial advertising tool, since access to such content implies exposure to a specific and clearly defined prospective consumer audience. The theory being that, by identifying particular demographics viewing such programs, advertisers can better target their markets. Pre-recorded television programs are often broadcast to captive audiences in taxi cabs, buses, elevators, and queues. For instance, the Cabvision network in London's  black cabs shows limited pre-recorded television programs interspersed with targeted advertising to cab passengers. Point of sale advertising is a form of narrowcasting.

Interactive narrowcasting allows users to interact with products or services via touch screens or other technology, thus allowing them to interact with them before purchasing them.

Political uses
Narrowcasting has become increasingly used to target audiences with a particular political leaning, such as political satire by the entertainment industry. It has been often pointed out that Donald Trump used narrowcasting as well as broadcasting to good effect.

Other uses
The term narrowcasting can also apply to the spread of information to an audience (private or public) which is by nature geographically limited—a group such as office employees, military troops, or conference attendees—and requires a localised dissemination of information from a shared source. Hotels, hospitals, museums, and offices, use narrowcasting to display relevant information to their visitors and staff.

Internet
Both broadcasting and a narrowcasting models are found on the Internet. Sites based on the latter require the user to register an account and log in before viewing content. Narrowcasting may also employ various types of push technologies, which send information directly to subscribers; electronic mailing lists, where emails are sent to subscribers, are an example of these.

Narrowcasting is also sometimes applied to podcasting, since the audience for a podcast is often specific and sharply defined.

Social impact

Positive
This evolution towards narrowcasting was discussed in 1993 by Hamid Naficy, who focused on this change specifically in Los Angeles, and how such a content directed towards a narrowed audience affected social culture. For example, with the rise of Middle Eastern television programs, more content that did not have the pressure to have a mass audience appeal to watch it was able to be produced and promoted. This made it easier for minorities to feel better represented in television.

Negative
Narrowcasting by definition focuses on specific groups of people, which may promote division or even conflict among groups. Political, social, or other ideologies promoted by narrowcasting have the potential to cause harm to society.

There is also the danger of people living in a filter bubble, where the audience is not exposed to different viewpoints, opinions or ideologies, leading to thinking that their opinion is the correct one. The resulting narrow-mindedness can lead to conflict.

In the arts
The 2022 Australian sci-fi thriller Monolith, in which the sole on-screen actor is a podcaster, provides commentary on narrowcasting. Ari Mattes of Notre Dame University wrote in an article in The Conversation: "Monolith is one of the first Australian films to critically navigate the ramifications of narrowcasting technology... the strange solitude of interpersonal communication in the global information economy underpins the whole thing".

See also
 Data aggregator
 Microtargeting
 National Narrowcasting Network
 Personalcasting
 Webcasting
 Video blog

References

Further reading

Broadcasting
Market segmentation
Political campaign techniques
1967 neologisms
Podcasting

Narrowcasting


Dennis Tinerino (December 23, 1945 – May 7, 2010) was an American bodybuilder, most prominent in the late 1960s and 1970s.  He won the Mr. Universe title four times in 1968, 1975, 1980 and 1981 and Mr. World in 1971 in the tall man's category, and Mr. America in 1978. After becoming involved in a life of crime, running one of the biggest escort services in California, he became an international evangelist. The 1983 edition of The Gold's Gym book of bodybuilding cited him as "one of the most successful bodybuilders of the past decade or two". He is an inductee of the National Fitness Hall of Fame,  IFBB Hall of Fame and National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame.

Biography

Early life
Tinerino was born into an Italian-American family in Brooklyn in 1945. At the age of 12 he resolved to become a champion bodybuilder and actor after looking in the mirror and feeling that he was "so skinny he could duck raindrops". His father, a boxer, started his training at the local YMCA. He grew up in a rough area, white in a black neighborhood, surviving numerous death threats, but remained focused. Attending East New York Technical High School from aged 13–16, he "packed three inches onto his arms, netting 16 inches total at a bodyweight of 175 pounds." After graduating high school he worked for Olympic Radio and TV. There he met Joe Abbenda who became his mentor, along with Bill Pearl, advancing his training sessions to 5 days a week.

Bodybuilding
Tinerino won the Teen Mr. America, Mr. Atlantic Coast, Mr East Coast, and Mr. Brooklyn contests in 1964, and finished second to Arnold Schwarzenegger at the Mr. Universe contest in 1967 at the age of 21.  He won the NABBA Mr. Universe title in England in 1968, and later in 1975, 1980 and 1981 in the tall man's category. He won the Mr. World contest in the tall man's category in 1971. He finished 6th overall in the 1977 Mr. Olympia contest, 3rd in the over 200 lb category, and 9th overall in the 1978 Mr. Olympia coast,  4th in the over 200 lb category. Tinerino also won the title of Pro Mr. Natural America in 1978. His last contest was in the 1982 Mr. Olympia, finishing in 14th place.

In 1969 he portrayed Atlas in Schwarzenegger's debut film, Hercules in New York, released in February 1970. In the 1970s he appeared on the cover of magazines such as Muscle & Fitness, Muscular Development, Iron Man, and Strength & Health. The 1983 publication, The Gold's Gym book of bodybuilding, cited him as "one of the most successful bodybuilders of the past decade or two". In 1985, Robert Kennedy said of him, "this bodybuilding superstar has won every major competition except the Mr. Olympia title. To his credit, he is the only major champion to win a steroid-free contest (the Natural Mr. America).

Criminal turned pastor
Enjoying a life of excess, he was drawn into organized crime. This involved him in one of the largest escort rings in California, as well as gambling, book making and other criminal pursuits. Eventually he was arrested and prosecuted. He boasted that he earned millions and loved life in the fast lane, including making $1000 a week from arm wrestling alone. His arrest in his Hollywood office was broadcast on live TV, shamed as a former Mr. Universe turned crook.   His lawyer managed to reduce his sentence to just a year in prison for pandering. In prison he met a preacher who told him that God had big plans for him and that it was his destiny to become an international evangelist. He confesses to having been "struck by a lightning bolt from heaven and have his life flash before his eyes" after praying to God to pardon his sins and becoming a Christian. On being released from prison, he established the Dennis Tinerino Ministries based in Beverly Hills in 1979, becoming an international evangelist.  In 2006 he authored the book Super Size Your Faith.

Personal life
Tinerino married Anita Conti in 1970.
He developed cancer in the 1990s and was told he had 2 weeks to live but the cancer went into remission. He survived numerous near encounters with death, surviving a plane crash, car crashes and hitmen. He died of cancer in 2010. He is recognized in the AAU Hall of Fame, the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame, the Oldetime Barbell & Strongmen Hall of Fame, the National Fitness Hall of Fame, and entered the IFBB Hall of Fame in 2006.

References

External links
Official site
List of titles

Death announcement

American bodybuilders
American sportspeople convicted of crimes
American evangelists
1945 births
2010 deaths
Writers from Brooklyn
Deaths from cancer in New York (state)
American gangsters of Italian descent
American pimps
People associated with physical culture

Dennis Tinerino


The Muppets Valentine Show aired on ABC on January 30, 1974. It was one of two pilots produced during the planning stages for The Muppet Show. The other pilot was The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence, which aired in 1975.
In this half-hour Valentine's Day special featuring the Muppets and special guest star Mia Farrow, host Wally has writer's block—he can't think of material for the show that represents the true meaning of love. He asks the other Muppets and Mia for assistance, with mixed results.

Sketches

 The Muppets perform the opening number, "Love is a Simple Thing."
 Wally, George the Janitor, Mildred and Brewster discuss love.
 Kermit the Frog tells the story of his doomed love affair with Miss Mousey, singing "Froggy Went A Courtin'"
 Mia Farrow enters, and meets the Muppets.
 Mia and Thog perform a duet, "Real Live Girl".
 Mia sings "Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms" to Rufus.
 Kermit reports live from the planet Koozebane, where aliens are about to perform the Galley-oh-Hoop-Hoop.
 Mia discovers that George loves his mop.
 Mia and the Muppets sing "We Got Love".

Home media
The Muppets Valentine Show was released on DVD in 2007, as an extra feature on The Muppet Show: Season Two box set. On the box and on the DVD menus, it is referred to as The Muppets Valentine Special.

The cast of Muppeteers closely matches the lineup of the first season of The Muppet Show, with the exception of Eren Ozker, who joined the Muppets in 1976.

Muppet performers
 Jim Henson as Wally, Kermit, and Ernie
 Frank Oz as George the Janitor, Rufus, Male Koozebanian Creature, and Frogs
 Jerry Nelson as Droop, Thog, Miss Mousey, Female Koozebanian Creature, and Frogs
 Richard Hunt as Mildred Huxtetter and Big Mouse
 John Lovelady as Crazy Donald and Frogs
 Dave Goelz as Brewster, Frogs, and Crumpet

Additional Muppets performed by Jane Henson and Nancy McGeorge.

External links
 The Muppets Valentine Show at Muppet Wiki

1974 films
The Muppets television specials
1974 television specials
American television series premieres
Valentine's Day television specials
Television shows directed by Jim Henson
Television shows written by Jerry Juhl

The Muppets Valentine Show


Blanching is a cooking process in which a food, usually a vegetable or fruit, is scalded in boiling water, removed after a short timed break, and then dropped into cold water to stop the cooking process. Blanching foods helps reduce the loss of quality over time.

People usually use blanching to treat food before freezing, drying, or canning—heating vegetables or fruits to inactivate enzymes, change texture and remove the peel. Blanching is also used to preserve color, flavor, and nutritional value. The benefits of blanching include removing pesticide residues and killing of microorganisms. The disadvantages of blanching can include leaching of nutrients that dissolves in water and the production of effluent.

Uses
Blanching is a process mainly used to inactivate enzymes that cause browning as well as changes in texture and off-flavors. Blanching is used to peel fruits, vegetable, and nut as steam peeling produces less environmental pollution.

Blanching is also used to kill microorganisms, remove pesticide and toxic residues, surface cleaning, removing damaged seeds or foreign materials and killing parasites and their eggs.

Technology
Traditionally, blanching is done using either a water bath or saturated steam. In both methods, the food is heated for a short period of time and then dropped into either cold water or cold air to quickly stop the heating process. At the industrial level, foods move on a conveyor belt through preheating, holding, and cooling systems.

Steam blanching systems inject hot air onto food as it passes through the blanching system on a conveyor belt. This method reduces the leaching of water-soluble compounds from the product. It is more energy-efficient. This reduced heat exposure preserves color, flavor, and overall quality of the food.

Emerging technologies include ohmic, infrared, microwave, and radio frequency blanching.

Tthe times and temperatures are not enough to effectively destroy all microorganisms.

A limitation to hot water blanching is the leaching of water-soluble nutrients and the degradation of thermal sensitive compounds. Vitamins, minerals, and other water-soluble compounds, such as proteins, sugars, and flavor compounds, diffuse out of the food and into the water, lowering the overall quality of the food. The degree to which compounds diffuse out of food depends on the food's composition and characteristics, the water to food ratio, the blanching temperature, and other variables. Ascorbic acid, thiamin, and many aromatic compounds are heat-sensitive.

A complication in the food industry is the production of effluent from water blanching systems. Blanching with reused water can lead to a buildup of water-soluble compounds that are considered pollutants, and therefore must be properly treated before being discharged. This can increase capital costs at the industrial level and has been a main reason for the development of newer blanching technologies.

References

Cooking methods

Blanching (cooking)


Arlington Louis "Ali" Highsmith (born January 20, 1985) is a former professional American football linebacker. He was signed by the Arizona Cardinals of the National Football League (NFL) as an undrafted free agent in 2008. He played college football at Louisiana State University.

Early years
Highsmith played high school football at Central High School in Miami, Florida.

Professional career

Arizona Cardinals
Highsmith went undrafted in the 2008 NFL Draft and was signed by the Arizona Cardinals shortly following the draft.

In 2008, Highsmith made the team out of training camp and went on to appear in six games for the Cardinals as a rookie before being placed on season-ending injured reserve with a knee injury on November 4. He finished the season with four tackles.

Highsmith was waived by the Cardinals on December 22, 2009, and re-signed to the team's practice squad the following day. He was re-signed to a future contract on January 18, 2010.

He was waived on August 3, 2010.

San Diego Chargers
Highsmith was claimed off waivers by the San Diego Chargers on August 5, 2010. He was waived on August 13.

References

External links

Arizona Cardinals bio
LSU Tigers bio
"Former LSU, NFL player arrested for marijuana"

1985 births
Living people
Miami Central Senior High School alumni
Players of American football from Miami
American football linebackers
LSU Tigers football players
Arizona Cardinals players
San Diego Chargers players

Ali Highsmith


Dynamic video memory technology (DVMT) is an Intel technology allowing dynamic allocation of system memory for use as video memory, giving more resources for 2D/3D graphics.

How it works
The amount of video memory is dependent upon the amount of pre-allocated video memory plus DVMT allocation. DVMT, as its name implies, dynamically allocates system memory for use as video memory to ensure more available resources for 2D/3D graphics performance, e.g. for graphically demanding games.

References

Intel graphics
Memory management

Dynamic video memory technology


Slazenger () is a British sports equipment brand owned by the Frasers Group (formerly Sports Direct). The company was established as a sporting goods shop in 1881 by Ralph and Albert Slazenger on Cannon Street, London. Slazenger was acquired by Dunlop Rubber in 1959. Dunlop was acquired by BTR in 1985. Sports Direct acquired the business in 2004.

Frasers Group offers a range of products under the Slazenger label, including equipment for cricket, field hockey, golf, swimming, and tennis,  and a clothing line. Slazenger produced the official football match ball for the 1966 FIFA World Cup.

Slazenger has the longest-running sporting sponsorship in the world, thanks to its association with the Wimbledon Tennis Championship, providing balls for the tournament since 1902.

History
In 1881, Ralph and Albert Slazenger, Jewish brothers from Manchester, established a shop on London's Cannon Street, selling rubber sporting goods. Slazenger quickly became a leading manufacturer of sporting equipment for golf and tennis. Four years after the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club held its first-ever championships in 1877, Slazenger produced 'The New Game of Lawn Tennis' (tennis rackets and balls) complete in a box.

Their plant in Barnsley manufactured tennis balls and exported them round the world. The plant closed in 2002, and production is now based in the Philippines.

In 1902, Slazenger was appointed as the official tennis ball supplier to The Championships at Wimbledon, and it remains the longest unbroken sporting sponsorship in history.

In 1910, a public company was incorporated to acquire Slazenger and Sons, "manufacturers of sports equipment, india rubber, gutta percha and waterproof goods, leather merchants and dealers", which floated on the stock market. In 1931, Slazenger acquired H. Gradidge and Sons.

War years (1939–1945)
During the Second World War, Slazenger, like most manufacturers of non-essential items in the UK, redirected its production to manufacture a wide variety of components for military purposes, utilising their expertise in wood and rubber manufacturing.

On 15 September 1940, during the Blitz on London, incendiary bombs fell on the Slazenger factory and on the Gradidge factory in Woolwich. The competing William Sykes Ltd factory at Horbury was undamaged by the bombings. Slazenger and Gradidge were able to continue production at other facilities but began a series of mergers with competing companies. In 1942, it acquired William Sykes Ltd to broaden its wartime production facilities. Around 1943, Slazenger acquired F. H. Ayres. Founded in 1810 by Edward Ayres, the firm manufactured a range of sporting equipment but was best known as a high-quality manufacturer of archery equipment and in particular the bow (or longbow, as it is more commonly known). Thereafter the company was known as Slazenger Sykes Gradidge and Ayres.

The following lists a snapshot of some of the company's larger contracts completed for the UK Government between 1939 and 1945, as recorded by Slazenger, Gradidge, Sykes and Ayres in 1946:

In Australia, Slazenger produced naval utility launches at Newcastle, New South Wales for the country's war effort.

At its peak

In its heyday, the Slazenger, Gradidge, Sykes and Ayres empire stretched across the world with either licensed distributors or agents and/or manufacturing operations with which the company had partnerships or licensing agreements. Distributors were found in New Zealand and Africa, as well as remote locations such as Iceland, Newfoundland, Madagascar and Bolivia.

Selling a brand
In the days when wooden tennis racquets held no peer, brands such as Slazenger and Dunlop were dominant forces in the global market. However, with the rise in popularity of metal tennis racquets from the early 1980s and then the fast transition to even more popular composite materials such as fiberglass, graphite and Kevlar, more brands emerged and became popular due to their ability to meet consumer trends and demand for the new technology. Slazenger, in contrast, was slow to react. The company could not re-gear its existing factories to produce products using the new materials and there was a major existing investment in plant and raw materials. The company tried to market its product against these new products using quality as its unique selling point, but the quality level of imports quickly improved and Slazenger lost popularity and fell from prominence.

 1959: Ralph Slazenger Jr. sold the family business to Dunlop Rubber.
 1985: Dunlop Rubber was purchased by BTR plc, which formed a Sports Group combining Slazenger with the Dunlop Sport branded goods.
 1996: BTR sold Dunlop Sport in a management buyout for £300 million – the buyout was backed by investment company Cinven. The new company was to be known as "Dunlop Slazenger".
 2004: CINVen sold Dunlop Slazenger to Sports Direct International for a reported £40 million, who in turn sold on the rights to the Slazenger Golf brand in Europe to JJB Sports.

Global rights and licensing

The purchase of Dunlop Slazenger by Sports World International (SWI) did not confer global rights to the brand. SWI chose not to diversify the brands it acquired internally, and thus strain its own resources and finances, but to license them globally.  With Slazenger, this was achieved successfully, with the Slazenger name being seen on a wide range of products not previously associated with the brand, such as sunglasses, toiletries and push bikes.

In Australia and New Zealand, the Slazenger brand is owned and licensed by Pacific Brands, with full and exclusive rights to sell and distribute throughout those territories. From the early 2000s due to poor management sales plummeted. Rather than investing in the brand, the Slazenger management began downsizing staff numbers, closing branches, cutting back long-standing sponsorship as well as stripping back costs elsewhere within the business. Despite these radical moves the Slazenger brand still ultimately offered no real return to Pacific Brands and in 2010/11 they sub-licensed it to Spartan Sports who had been operating in Australia since 2005 and is owned by Spartan Sports in Jallandhar, India (established in 1954).

Products
Range of products under the brand Slazenger includes:

Sponsorships

During its peak, many famous cricket players such as Sir Don Bradman, Sir Garfield Sobers, Sir Viv Richards, Sir Len Hutton, Denis Compton, Rohan Kanhai, Mark Waugh, Jacques Kallis , Jason Roy, James Anderson Geoffrey Boycott used Slazenger's bats and products. The Pakistan cricket team wore the Slazenger kit in their winning campaign during the 2009 ICC World Twenty20.

There are also many famous golf players who have used Slazenger products, such as Jack Nicklaus, Seve Ballesteros, Tom Weiskopf, Tom Watson and Johnny Miller. Besides professional golf players, film-star Sean Connery also wore the Slazenger v-neck jumper while playing golf in his free time. Furthermore, in the golf scene at Stoke Park Golf Club in Buckinghamshire in the James Bond film Goldfinger (1964), he wears a burgundy v-neck Slazenger jumper and the Slazenger brand of golf balls are shown on screen and mentioned several times in dialogue—Bond: "You play a Slazenger 1, don't you?"—as they play a key plot point.

References

External links

British brands
English brands
Sportswear brands
Cricket equipment manufacturers
Golf equipment manufacturers
Tennis equipment manufacturers
Clothing companies of England
Sporting goods manufacturers of the United Kingdom
Manufacturing companies established in 1881
1881 establishments in England
Companies based in Derbyshire
Sports Direct

Slazenger


Sheep dip is a liquid formulation of insecticide and fungicide which shepherds and farmers use to protect their sheep from infestation against external parasites such as itch mite (Psoroptes ovis), blow-fly, ticks and lice.

History
Sheep dipping is the immersion of sheep in water containing insecticides and fungicide.

The world's first sheep dip was invented and produced by George Wilson of Coldstream, Scotland in 1830. That dip was based on arsenic powder and was exported by package steamer from nearby Berwick-upon-Tweed. One of the most successful brands of dip to be brought to market was Cooper's Dip, developed in 1852 by the veterinary surgeon and industrialist William Cooper of Berkhamsted, England.

Design
Sheep dip is available as wettable powders, pastes, solutions, or suspensions which are used to prepare diluted solutions or suspensions. The term is used both for the formulation itself, and the trough in which the sheep is completely immersed.

There are two broad classes of sheep dip: organophosphorus compounds, from which chemical warfare agents were later developed, and synthetic pyrethroids. Organophosphorus compounds are very toxic to humans exposed even to very low doses, as they travel easily through the skin, and are cumulatively toxic.

Plunge sheep dips may be permanent in-ground structures, often of concrete, or mobile transportable steel structures. Invented after the permanent plunge dip was the rotating, power spray dip. These dips are redundant in the major sheep breeding countries, as the backliners and jetting provide a better alternative.

Negative health and environmental effects
Sheep dips have been found to cause soil contamination and water pollution. They contain chemical insecticides that are highly toxic to aquatic plants and animals. For this reason, it is important that the dip and dipped sheep are well managed to avoid spreading the chemicals and causing water pollution.

Some chemicals used in sheep dips are known to have been harmful. A sheep dip based on organo-phosphates has resulted in neurological conditions known as "OP poisoning".

See also
 Fly strike in sheep

References

External links

Sheep farming
Insecticides
+

Sheep dip


Kleve (Cleves in English use) or Kreis Kleve is a Kreis (local-government district) in the Lower Rhine region of northwestern North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Neighbouring districts are Borken, Wesel, and Viersen in Germany, and the Dutch provinces of Limburg and Gelderland.

History

The district in its current borders was created in 1975 when the former district of Kleve and Geldern was merged with the Rees District towns of Emmerich and Rees and the Moers District municipality of Rheurdt.

The two precursor districts had been created in 1816 when the whole of the Rhineland became a province of Prussia. Territorially they corresponded roughly to the historic Duchies of Cleves and Guelders.

Geography

The district is located in the lower valley of the Rhine, in the region where that river flows into the Netherlands.

Coat of arms
The coat of arms, which was granted in 1983, combines the shields of the two constituent duchies.

The dexter side depicts the emblem of the dukes of Cleves: On a red (gules) field a white (argent) escutcheon (shield shape) with an eightfold fleur-de-lys (escarbuncle/metal shield reinforcement). The sinister side shows a golden (or) lion (in rampant position) on a blue (azure) field (background): the emblem of the dukes of Geldern.

Towns and municipalities

Gallery of churches in Kleve

References

External links

Districts of North Rhine-Westphalia

Kleve (district)


is a Shinto shrine in Nichinan, Miyazaki prefecture, Japan, south of Aoshima. It is the mythical birthplace of Emperor Jimmu's father  Ugayafukiaezu. According to shrine legends, it is the place where  the sea goddess Toyotamahime, the mother of said Ugayafukiaezu, built a birth-hut from the feathers of a cormorant. Other gods venerated here are Yamasachihiko (alias Hohodemi alias Hoori, Jinmu's grandfather), Amaterasu, Amenooshihomimi, Ninigi-no-Mikoto, and Emperor Jimmu. While the original myth includes a tragic divorce of Ugayafukiaezu's parents, the shrine is popular with young couples hoping for easy childbirth and a happy marriage.

Local characteristics

Udo shrine is in a cave in the side of the cliff, near the Nichinan coast of Miyazaki. The honden, or main shrine, is in a cavern with a view of the ocean.

In the cave is the ochichi iwa, or "breast stone," a dripping stone which is said to have fed the kami Ugayafukiaezu, father of the first emperor of Japan, when his mother returned to the sea. The shrine sells a candy made from the water of this stone, mizuame, a kind of taffy.

In the slight distance of the cavern is a rocky island with two peaks. Attendees can purchase small clay balls and attempt to toss them between the peaks for good luck.

Kanpei Taisha

References

Shinto shrines in Miyazaki Prefecture
Beppyo shrines
Nichinan, Miyazaki
Miyazaki prefecture designated tangible cultural property

Udo Jingū


Consumers is a ghost town in Carbon County, Utah, United States. It is located in the Gordon Valley near several other former coal mining communities that also are now ghost towns.  It is less than a mile from the ghost town of National, and also quite near to Clear Creek.

History

Coal was discovered in the area in 1908, but large-scale mining did not begin until the 1920s. The settlement was originally named Gibson, after Arthur E. Gibson who secured almost 1,500 acres of land sometime before 1920.  During the winter of 1921–22, Gibson began to develop a seam of coal, hiring labor to work the mine.  By 1924, the Consumers Mutual Coal Company was formed; the town that was originally called Gibson changed its name to Consumers.  The Consumers Mine was the first in Utah to use conveyor belts to haul the coal, rather than mine cars.  In September, 1927, the company was sold to the Blue Blaze Coal Company.

The town shared a post office, school house, hospital and amusement hall with the nearby towns of National and Sweet.  Consumers had its own store and a central well.

The mine closed in February 1938, although it reopened in October 1939 under new ownership.  Sometime in the 1940s, the Hudson Coal Company took ownership of all the coal mining operations in the Gordon Valley area.  Modern mining operations continue in the area today, but Consumers itself was abandoned by the end of the 1940s.  All that remains today are a few decaying buildings and foundations.

See also
List of ghost towns in Utah
Coal mining in the United States

References

Ghost towns in Carbon County, Utah
Populated places established in 1921
Mining communities in Utah
Ghost towns in Utah

Consumers, Utah


The A. S. Bradford House, also known as The Bradford House, is a historic home in Placentia, California.  It was the home of Albert Sumner Bradford, who founded Placentia by arranging for establishment of a water tank along the railway.  Homes and businesses within a one-mile radius could get water.

Designed by James Stafford, the Colonial Revival, 15-room house was built in 1902, in an orange grove.

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, and operated as a house museum at one point.

Albert Sumner Bradford (August 18, 1860—March 30, 1933), originally from Shapleigh, Maine, bought 20 acres land in 1890 in what would become  his Tesoro Ranch Placentia.  He did much to support growth of the citrus industry.

See also
National Register of Historic Places listings in Orange County, California
List of Ranchos of California

References

External links

Houses in Orange County, California
Historic house museums in California
Museums in Orange County, California
Placentia, California
Houses completed in 1902
Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in California
National Register of Historic Places in Orange County, California
Colonial Revival architecture in California

A. S. Bradford House