Jack Lewis Snyder (born February 6, 1951) is an American political scientist who is the Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Relations at Columbia University, specializing in theories of international relations.

Snyder's research centers around the relationship between violence and government. He is known for introducing the distinction between offensive and defensive realism into the international relations literature in his 1991 book Myths of Empire.

Early life and education
Snyder was born in February 1951 in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He attended Harvard University as an undergraduate, receiving a B.A. in government in 1973. From 1973 to 1975 he was on the research staff of the Wednesday Group (a grouping of liberal Republicans), and later the foreign policy staff of Illinois senator Charles H. Percy.

He pursued graduate studies at Columbia University, first receiving a certificate from the Harriman Institute (then known as the Russian Institute) in 1978 before receiving his PhD in international relations in 1981. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard's Center for International Affairs before returning to teach at Columbia.

Academic work

It was in his Myths of Empire that Snyder first drew a distinction between offensive and defensive realism.

Much of Snyder's work presents challenges to the fundamental assumption of democratic peace theory: that democracies do not go to war with each other and that, therefore, democratization leads to a reduction in interstate conflict. In From Voting to Violence he argues that, rather than encourage peace, poorly managed democratization processes have often produced upsurges in nationalism and ethnic violence, as threatened political elites seek to thwart moves towards popular rule. He cites as examples Weimar Germany and the internationally sponsored 1993 presidential elections in Burundi (which led to the outbreak of a civil war later that year).

In Electing to Fight, Snyder and Mansfield argue emerging democracies with weak political institutions are more rather than less likely to go war, as their leaders often seek to rally support by invoking external threats and employing belligerent, nationalist rhetoric. Mansfield and Snyder demonstrate this pattern in a number of cases, ranging from revolutionary France to contemporary Russia under Putin.  Snyder suggests that the way to avoid nationalist conflict is to promote the growth of robust civic institutions and a solid middle class prior to democratization.

His students at Columbia included Colin Kahl, current Under Secretary of Defense for Policy.

Other activities

Snyder was Director of Columbia's Institute of War and Peace Studies from 1994 to 1997 and chair of Columbia's political science department from 1997 to 2000.

Honors

Selected bibliography

Books

Edited volumes

Selected journal articles and chapters

Other works

References

External links
Jack Snyder | Columbia SIPA

Harvard College alumni
1951 births
Living people
American political scientists
American international relations scholars
Political realists
Columbia University alumni
Columbia School of International and Public Affairs faculty
Neoclassical realists(international relations)

Jack Snyder (political scientist)


Vipava Valley is a valley in western Slovenia. It lies between Italy on the west and Nanos on the east, and between Trnovski gozd on the north and Karst plateau on the south. Main towns are Ajdovščina and Vipava. Vipava river flows through the valley.

It has mild Mediterranean climate and is suitable for farming of different fruits and wines. Valley is also strongly influenced by burja, which reaches its peak in winter months at speeds of over 200 kmph.

Vipava valley was first colonized in 8000 BC. In antique, it was under Roman reign. In 394 it was place of battle of Frigidus. In the Middle Ages the valley belonged to the Dutchy of Carniola. After the end of the World war I it became part of Italy until the end of the World war II, when it became part of Yugoslavia.

Valleys
Geography of Slovenia

Vipava (valley)


Theodor Horschelt (16 March 1829, Munich – 3 April 1871, Munich) was a German painter who specialized in scenes from the Caucasian Wars.

Biography
Theodor Horschelt was the son of ballet master, Friedrich Horschelt. His older brother, Friedrich, was a portrait painter. Beginning in 1846, he went to the Academy of Fine Arts Munich where he was a student of the history painter, Joseph Anton Rhomberg, but left him after a short period and attempted to learn drawing on his own. He initially focused on scenes from nature and imaginative portrayals of the Caucasian Wars.

He soon took direction from Professor Hermann Anschütz, learning precision and clarity of outline. After leaving the academy, he studied with more enthusiasm in the studios of Albrecht and Franz Adam and Julius Lange. He eventually decided to devote himself exclusively to war paintings, and began by doing sketches of horses at the Royal Stables in Stuttgart.

In 1853, he made two study trips; one to Paris with Friedrich Wilhelm Hackländer and one to Spain with him and Christian Friedrich von Leins, where he mostly wandered about on horseback. He separated from his companions when they crossed to North Africa and rode on alone to Algiers. On his return to Munich in 1854, he painted several canvases on Arabian themes for King William. These works made it possible for him to take his long-planned trip to the Caucasus.

The Caucasus
Soon after his arrival there in 1858, he joined an expedition against the Lezghians. The following year, he was part of a military campaign in Chechnya and participated in an attack on the headquarters of Imam Shamil, exposing himself to enemy fire. For his bravery, he was honored with the Grand Cross Star of the Order of Saint Stanislaus and a medal of the Order of St. Anna, both with swords.

For two weeks in 1860, he toured with Tsar Alexander II on a journey through the Kuban, then joined Prince Albert of Prussia on a tour to Armenia and the shores of the Caspian, returning to Munich by way of Moscow and St. Petersburg in 1863. Once home, he began to produce the war paintings that would establish his reputation. A projected return to the Caucasus was thwarted by the start of the Franco-Prussian War and Horschelt died of diphtheria nine months later.

References

Further reading
 Hyacinth Holland: Theodor Horschelt.  (Munich 1871).
 Martin Kremp: Ein Maler des Muriden-Krieges und des Imam Schamil: Theodor Horschelt im Kaukasus: Literatur, Vita, Oeuvre. Frankfurt/Main 2000.

External links

1829 births
1871 deaths
19th-century German painters
19th-century German male artists
German male painters
Painters from Munich

Theodor Horschelt


LetsRun Park Seoul, also known a Seoul Race Park or Seoul Racecourse Park is a 40,000 capacity Korean thoroughbred racetrack in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea. It is host to many of Korea's most valuable thoroughbred horse races including the Korean Derby and Grand Prix. LetsRun Park Seoul is located next to Seoul Racecourse Park Station on Line 4 of the Seoul Metropolitan Subway. It is operated by the Korea Racing Authority (KRA).

In the Republic of Korea, the racecourse has been misleading with the negative image of gambling and speculative facilities and has been distorted into a socially problematic place. It's called 'Park'. The name of the station was changed in 2000.

History
The current site at Gwacheon is the third home of LetsRun Park Seoul. The first was at a track in Sinseol-dong, Dongdaemun-gu, which was in operation from the early 1920s until just after the Korean War. Following the closure of the Sinseol-dong track, a new racetrack was constructed at Ttukseom, on the north bank of the Han River In February 1983, after South Korea was awarded the 1988 Summer Olympics, the KRA was given the task of organising the equestrian events. The Ttukseom Racetrack was inadequate; the KRA acquired a new site south of Seoul in Gwacheon Gyeonggi-do, where the equestrian (except the individual-jumping final) and the riding portion of the modern pentathlon events were held. After the Olympics, the KRA turned the site into a racetrack.

This is where the headquarters of the Korean Horse Society is located. Gyeongseong Racecourse, which opened in Yongdujeong [2], Gyeongseong-bu, on September 20, 1928, started as a racecourse. Construction began in 1984 to host the equestrian events of the 1986 Asian Games in Seoul and the Seoul Olympics in 1988, and officially opened on September 1, 1989. Construction began in 1984 and moved to 1989. Until 1998, it was called 'Seoul Racecourse' and then changed to the current name.

Present
The first race at the new LetsRun Park Seoul was held on 1 September 1989. The track can accommodate more than 80,000 spectators; in 2003 a second grandstand, "Luckyville", was opened alongside the existing "Happyville". Races are run on an oval artificial sand-based track with a two-furlong home straight.

As of 2011 live thoroughbred racing takes place on Saturdays and Sundays all year, with 12 races each Saturday and 11 each Sunday. On race day, races are also simulcast from the pony-racing track on Jeju Island and the thoroughbred track at Busan-Gyeongnam. Major races at the LetsRun Park Seoul include the Korean Derby in May, the Minister of Agriculture Cup in October, the President's Cup in November and the season-ending Grand Prix in December.

In 2007, the Korean-bred J.S. Hold won the Korean Triple Crown (the Ttukseom Cup, the Korean Derby and the Minister's Cup) at LetsRun Park Seoul. In 2008 the Ttukseom Cup was replaced as the first leg of the Triple Crown by the KRA Cup Mile, which is run at Busan-Gyeongnam Race Park on the first Sunday in April.

In 2009 the champion jockey at LetsRun Park Seoul was Park Tae Jong, who also holds the record for most wins in Korean racing history. The 2009 Korean Derby was won by a filly, Sangseung Ilro, who had previously won the KRA up Mile at Busan-Gyeongnam. At the end of each season, racing fans in Korea can vote for which horses they wish to take part in the traditional season-ending Grand Prix race. In 2009, the American-bred Dongbanui Gangja won the race for the second consecutive year.

Notable races

See also
Racing in Korea
Gwacheon
Thoroughbred racing

References

External links

 Korea Racing Blog – News, Results & Picks
 Korea Racing Authority
 과천시청

동인천역 파크푸르지오

Horse racing venues in South Korea
Venues of the 1988 Summer Olympics
Olympic equestrian venues
Olympic modern pentathlon venues
Sports venues in Gyeonggi Province
Buildings and structures in Gwacheon
Venues of the 1986 Asian Games
Asian Games equestrian venues

LetsRun Park Seoul


The Libri Feudorum is a twelfth-century collection by Pillius Medicinensis, originating in Lombardy, of feudal customs. The work gained wide acceptance as a statement of the various rules governing the relation of lord and vassal.
Later in the century it was integrated into civil law.  It is a significant example of an increasing need for the rationalization of law.

Its integration by civilians into the larger corpus of civil law demonstrates the interaction of Roman law concepts with local law.
J. G. A. Pocock noted that "Lombard feudalism possessed, in the Libri Feodorum,  the only written systematization of feudal law that had become part of the general legal heritage of Europe."

References

Medieval law
Legal history of Italy

Libri Feudorum


James C. Wang (; born November 18, 1936) is Chinese-born American biochemist and biologist. He is a Harvard University Professor of biochemistry and molecular biology. Wang was the first discoverer of topoisomerases. He was elected as an academician of the Taiwan Academia Sinica in 1982 and a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences.

After his bachelor's degree at National Taiwan University and his doctoral studies at the University of Missouri, he became a research fellow at the California Institute of Technology. He then taught at the University of California at Berkeley from 1966 until 1977, when he joined the faculty at Harvard University. He was named the Mallinckrodt Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Harvard in 1988. Retired in 2006.

Wang discovered DNA topoisomerases (or local enzymes) and proposed a mechanism for their operation in the 1970s. He also studied the configuration (or topology) of DNA, an approach that proved fruitful in helping to explain how the structure of the double helix coils and relaxes.

References

External links
 Biography

1936 births
Living people
American biochemists
American molecular biologists
Chinese emigrants to the United States
Chinese biochemists
Chinese molecular biologists
Harvard University faculty
Members of Academia Sinica
National Taiwan University alumni
University of California, Berkeley faculty
Chemists from Jiangsu
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
Educators from Jiangsu
Biologists from Jiangsu

James C. Wang


Civil Servant-Family Pair Up (), also known as Pair Up and Become Family, is a Chinese government policy that forces designated Uyghur families to be matched with Han Chinese civil servants, with the families forced to host the civil servants in their home. Since the late 2010s, China has vigorously promoted the policy in Xinjiang. Beginning in 2018, over one million Chinese government workers began forcibly living in the homes of Uyghur families to monitor and assess resistance to cultural assimilation as well as to surveil religious and cultural practices. According to the official state perspective, the policy is to provide Mandarin language training as a way to better integrate Uyghurs and as a means for the poverty alleviation of the region. Policies bearing the same name have also been implemented in impoverished regions in Anhui, Tibet,  as well as for left-behind children, widowed elders, the disabled, and in earthquake-affected regions.

Hosting requirements have increased over time across counties and prefectures, ranging from 5 days per month to 14 days per month. Despite this, overseas Uyghurs have stated that 'visitation' times often exceeded the time requirement, with one stating that visits regularly occurred up to four times per week and eventually became full-time. Refusal to host leads to imprisonment in an internment camp.

According to Radio Free Asia, these Han Chinese government workers have been trained to call themselves "relatives" and engage in the forcible co-habitation of Uyghur homes for the purpose of promoting "ethnic unity". Radio Free Asia reports that these men "regularly sleep in the same beds as the wives of men detained in the region's internment camps." Chinese officials maintain that co-sleeping is acceptable, provided that a distance of one meter is maintained between the women and the "relative" assigned to the Uyghur home. Uyghur activists state that no such restraint takes place, citing pregnancy and forced marriage numbers, and name the program a campaign of "mass rape disguised as 'marriage'." Human Rights Watch has condemned the Pair Up and Become Family Program as a "deeply invasive forced assimilation practice", while the World Uyghur Congress states that it represents the "total annihilation of the safety, security and well-being of family members."

See also
 Billet
 Uyghur genocide
Sinicization
Targeted Poverty Alleviation

References

Cultural assimilation
Human rights of ethnic minorities in China
Islam in China

Language policy in Xinjiang
Linguistic discrimination
Political repression in China
Separatism in China
Politics of Xinjiang
Racism in China
Violence against Muslims
Religious persecution by communists
Ethnic cleansing in Asia
Xinjiang conflict
Counterterrorism in China
Anti-Islam sentiment in China
Human rights abuses in China
Persecution of Uyghurs
Genocides in Asia

Civil Servant-Family Pair Up


Andrew B. McKenzie (January 4, 1887 – December 17, 1951) was an American physician. He was the first African American to practice medicine in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Born in Tallassee, Alabama, Andrew was the oldest of five children. He studied at the Tuskegee Institute, St. Augustine's College in Raleigh, and earned his medical degree in 1912 at the Leonard Medical School of Shaw University in Raleigh.

In honor of his memory, the McKenzie Courts in West End, Tuscaloosa, was named after him. He is buried next to Stillman College at West Highland Cemetery.

References

1887 births
1951 deaths
People from Tuscaloosa, Alabama
20th-century African-American physicians
20th-century American physicians
Physicians from Alabama

Andrew McKenzie


The Angeles National Forest is a woodland in the US state of California. It covers around 1200 square miles (2,652 square kilometers) across San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Ventura counties. It is managed by the U.S. Forest Service.

The forest is in the San Gabriel Mountains and Sierra Pelona Mountains. It is northeast of Los Angeles and south of Lancaster and the Sierra Pelona Mountains. The area has lush green trees and steep hills and cliffs stretching for up to 100 km (60 miles) from San Bernardino to Santa Clarita.

Geography of California
Forests of the United States

Angeles National Forest


Calvary Catholic Cemetery is located at 718 Hazelwood Avenue in the Greenfield and Hazelwood neighborhoods of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.

It was founded in 1886 with the purchase of a 200-acre (80-hectare) tract. The first official interment occurred in 1888, though there are graves with earlier dates. As of 2008, 152,238 entombments have been recorded at Calvary Cemetery. It remains the largest of the cemeteries in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh.

Notable burials
Actors/Actresses
Gerald Anthony, actor
Frank Gorshin, actor, best known for his portrayal of The Riddler on Batman
Gene Lyons (1921-1974), actor

Politicians
James Francis Burke (U.S. Representative)
William Joseph Burke (Pennsylvania Senator)
Richard Caliguiri (Mayor of Pittsburgh (1978-88) )
William J. Coyne (U.S. Representative)
Thomas Gallagher (Transaction Mayor of Pittsburgh (1959))
David Leo Lawrence (Mayor of Pittsburgh (1946-59), Governor of Pennsylvania (1959-63) )
James McDevitt Magee (U.S. Representative)
Joseph A. McArdle (U.S. Representative)
Buck McGovern (Allegheny County Commissioner, and famous for nabbing and tracking down Biddle Boys and Mrs Soffel in 1902)
John Mary Morin (U.S. Representative)
Michael Joseph Muldowney (U.S. Representative)
Bob O'Connor (Mayor of Pittsburgh (2006) )
Patrick J. Sullivan (Pennsylvania politician) (U.S. Representative)
Gregory Zatkovich (lawyer and Rusyn political activist)

Religious figures
Father James Cox (labor priest and candidate for President of the United States)
Vincent Leonard (9th Roman Catholic Bishop of Pittsburgh)

Sports
Jack Butler (Professional football player, Pittsburgh Steelers, Pro Football Hall of Hame)
Billy Conn (World Light Heavy-Weight Boxing Champion)
Herbert Drury (Professional Hockey Player)
Pud Galvin (Professional baseball player, Hall Of Fame)
Harry Greb (World Middle-Weight Boxing Champion)
Enos Kirkpatrick (Professional baseball player, MLB)
Bill Regan (Professional baseball player, MLB Red Sox, catcher)
Jimmy Smith (baseball player) (Professional baseball player, 8 seasons MLB)
Moose Solters (Professional baseball player, outfield)
Harry Stuhldreher (Notre Dame, All-Americans, one of the Four Horsemen (college football))
Bucky Williams (Negro league baseball player, Pittsburgh Crawfords)

Various
Jack and Ed Biddle (outlaws of "The Biddle Boys and Mrs Soffel" fame in 1902)
Patricia Dobler (poet)
Norman Frauenheim (American pianist)
Mary Lou Williams (jazz pianist)
John Kane (American painter)
Frank Gorshin (The Riddler - 1960s TV Batman Fame)

The cemetery contains one British Commonwealth war grave of a Canadian soldier of World War I.

References

External links
Catholic Cemeteries Association, Diocese of Pittsburgh website
Article: Many notables interred at Calvary Cemetery, Pittsburgh Tribune Review
Find A Grave

Cemeteries established in the 1880s
Cemeteries in Pittsburgh
Roman Catholic cemeteries in Pennsylvania
History of Pittsburgh
1886 establishments in Pennsylvania

Calvary Catholic Cemetery (Pittsburgh)


Clearly is an online retailer of contact lenses, eyeglasses and sunglasses. The company was acquired by EssilorLuxottica Canada, and is headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia. They are one of the largest online contact lens retailers in North America, and the largest seller of prescription eyeglasses online in the world.

History
Founded in 2000 as Coastal Contacts by Roger Hardy and his sister Michaela Hardy,  who bought the keyword "contact lens" from AltaVista, which meant that all searches for "contact lens" were accompanied with Coastal Contacts' banner ads.  In the first day, they had 30 orders; within the first month, they had $68,000 in sales. In addition to their lower pricing, the firm provided same day fulfillment of online orders.

In 2004, Coastal Contacts raised $6 million in an initial public offering, which they used to expand into the United Kingdom and parts of Europe. In late 2004, they acquired a mail order contact lens business in Europe, LensWay. In 2006, they acquired two more companies: one in the Netherlands and one in Japan. By 2009, the firm increased their revenue to $140 million. They moved into the eyeglasses market in 2008. They source parts for eyeglasses from independent manufactures across the globe, but maintains control over final assembly.

In January 2012, they shipped over 80,000 prescription eyeglasses, setting a service record for online sales of made-to-order prescription glasses in any one month. In 2012, the company had sold more than $1.2 billion in retail eyewear sales over the internet since inception and served more than 5 million customers.

In 2014, French lens manufacturer Essilor acquired Coastal.com and appointed Roy Hessel as CEO. Hessel, a former venture capitalist, founded online eyewear retailer Eyebuydirect in 2005. Aside with his role with Clearly, Roy Hessel is also since 2016 VP of America for the Essilor Online division. In August 2017, he appointed a new Managing Director at Clearly to help him in designing and implementing the strategy of the company.

In 2015, Clearly Contacts re-branded itself as Clearly, while also making brand name changes in other global markets such as Australia and New Zealand. In the United States, they are known as Coastal.

In September 2017, Arnaud Bussières joined Clearly as Managing Director. He became CEO in January 2018.

In 2018, Essilor merged with the Luxottica Group to become the largest eyewear retail group in the world.

In 2019, Clearly acquired Australian online retailer OzContacts.

Products
Clearly, then known as Coastal Contacts, initially exclusively sold contact lenses on their storefronts. As of 2017, the online store sells around 100 types of contacts, including daily and extended wear lenses, and coloured contact lenses.

In 2008, the company began selling eyeglasses and sunglasses. As of 2017, they sell glasses from over 100 brands. In 2012, they sold more than one million pairs of eyeglasses, making them the largest online seller of eyeglasses in the world.

References

Essilor
Eyewear retailers of Canada
Companies based in Vancouver
Online retailers of Canada
Canadian companies established in 2000
Retail companies established in 2000
Internet properties established in 2000
Companies formerly listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange
Online retailers of the United States
Online retailers of Australia
Eyewear companies of Canada

Clearly


Angular distance or angular separation, also known as apparent distance or apparent separation, denoted , is the angle between the two sightlines, or between two point objects as viewed from an observer.

Angular distance appears in mathematics (in particular geometry and trigonometry) and all natural sciences (e.g., kinematics, astronomy, and geophysics). In the classical mechanics of rotating objects, it appears alongside angular velocity, angular acceleration, angular momentum, moment of inertia and torque.

Use
The term angular distance (or separation) is technically synonymous with angle itself, but is meant to suggest the linear distance between objects (for instance, a couple of stars observed from Earth).

Measurement
Since the angular distance (or separation) is conceptually identical to an angle, it is measured in the same units, such as degrees or radians, using instruments such as goniometers or optical instruments specially designed to point in well-defined directions and record the corresponding angles (such as telescopes).

Formulation

To derive the equation that describes the angular separation of two points located on the surface of a sphere as seen from the center of the sphere, we use the example of two astronomical objects  and  observed from the Earth. The objects  and  are defined by their  celestial coordinates, namely their right ascensions (RA), ; and declinations (dec), . Let  indicate the observer on Earth, assumed to be located at the center of the celestial sphere. The dot product of the vectors  and  is equal to:

which is equivalent to:

In the  frame, the two unitary vectors are decomposed into:

Therefore,

then:

Small angular distance approximation
The above expression is valid for any position of A and B on the sphere. In astronomy, it often happens that the considered objects are really close in the sky: stars in a telescope field of view, binary stars, the satellites of the giant planets of the solar system, etc. In the case where  radian, implying  and , we can develop the above expression and simplify it. In the small-angle approximation, at second order, the above expression becomes:

meaning

hence
.
Given that  and , at a second-order development it turns that , so that

Small angular distance: planar approximation

If we consider a detector imaging a small sky field (dimension much less than one radian) with the -axis pointing up, parallel to the meridian of right ascension , and the -axis along the parallel of declination , the angular separation can be written as:

where  and .

Note that the -axis is equal to the declination, whereas the -axis is the right ascension modulated by  because the section of a sphere of radius  at declination (latitude)  is  (see Figure).

See also
 Milliradian
 Gradian
 Hour angle
 Central angle
 Angle of rotation
 Angular diameter
 Angular displacement
 Great-circle distance

References

 CASTOR, author Michael A. Earl. "The Spherical Trigonometry vs. Vector Analysis".

Angle
Astrometry
Trigonometry

Angular distance


).National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (NISEE), nke akpọrọ INSEE ma ọ bụ Insee[1] (/ ɪnseɪ/ in-SAY, French pronunciation: [inse]), bụ National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies bureau nke France.  Ọ na-anakọta ma na-ebipụta ozi gbasara akụ na ụba France na ọnụ ọgụgụ mmadụ ma na-eme ngụkọ mba nke oge.  Isi ụlọ ọrụ na Montrouge, ọgbakọ dị na ndịda mpaghara Paris, ọ bụ ngalaba French nke Eurostat.  Emepụtara INSEE na 1946 dị ka onye nọchiri anya National Statistical Service (SNS) nke ọchịchị Vichy.  Ọ na-arụkọ ọrụ ọnụ na National Institute for Demographic Studies (INED).

Purpose
Ndị INSEE na-ahụ maka mmepụta na nyocha nke ọnụ ọgụgụ gọọmentị na France.  Ọrụ ya kacha mara amara gụnyere

 Organising and publishing the national census.
 Producing various indices – which are widely recognised as being of excellent quality –  including an inflation index used for determining the rates of rents and the costs associated with construction.
 Eurostat uses INSEE statistics in combination with those of other national statistical agencies to compile comparable statistics for the European Union as a whole. It is also widely recognized as representing France on international questions of statistics.

The INSEE is the responsibility of MINEFI, the French Ministry of Finance. The current director is Jean-Luc Tavernier. However, Eurostat considers INSEE as an independent body, although its independence is not written in the law.


The Massachusetts Charter of 1691 was a charter that formally established the Province of Massachusetts Bay.  Issued by the government of William III and Mary II, the corulers of the Kingdom of England, the charter defined the government of the colony, whose lands were drawn from those previously belonging to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Plymouth Colony, and portions of the Province of New York.  The territorial claims embodied in the charter also encompassed all of present-day Maine (some of which had been claimed by the Massachusetts Bay Colony), New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia.

The charter was approved by William and Mary on October 7, 1691 and established English rule of the colony, by appointing a governor, deputy governor and secretary, to be elected by members of the council. It took away many of its rights of self-government that had previously been enjoyed by Massachusetts and Plymouth authorities, transitioning the power in Boston from elected to royally appointed governors. William and Mary appointed Sir William Phips as the new governor. The charter established freedom of worship for Christians (not including Roman Catholics, referred to in the charter as "Papists") and removed religious restrictions on voting. Economically the charter benefited the British by reserving the right of free fishery to British interests only.

Towns across the colony grew in status as a result of the charter.

History

With the Glorious Revolution and the 1689 Boston revolt the Dominion of New England fell apart. The Dominion had been an attempt by the Crown to consolidate some North American colonies into one entity and consisted of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Province of New Hampshire, Plymouth Colony, Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut Colony, Province of New York, and Province of New Jersey. With the breakup of Dominion the Crown consolidated colonies around New England, specifically the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the Plymouth Colony, and territories such as Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. With the dissolution of the Dominion many colonies were concerned about their future status of annexation by other colonies. For instance the Plymouth Colony was originally meant to be transferred to the Colony of New York however the colonial leaders insisted that they become part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony instead.

A draft of the charter was drawn up by the Attorney-General which allowed the Royal Governor to be chosen by the Crown, however the Governor's Council, the Deputy Governor and the lower house of the General Court were to be elected by the colonists. These proposals were dismissed by the Privy Council on the grounds it gave too much control to the colonists and diminished the rightful authority of the Crown. In 1692 William Phips arrived in Boston with a copy of the new charter that was written by the Privy Council. Although many in Massachusetts Bay objected to their not being able to return to their original 1629 charter (other colonies were allowed to return to their original charters). Despite opposition from many colonial leaders, when Phips arrived he assembled the General Court and the majority of members approved the charter and declared a day of prayer and thanksgiving.

Effects

Other than an increase in land under control of the General Court in Boston were other "constitutional" changes. The religious requirement that had existed for suffrage was changed to a property requirement, which widened the margin of those men able to vote. The lower house of the General Court was to remain intact and allowed to continue to pass governmental rulings, with the condition that the Royal Governor had veto power. The upper house of the legislature was to be codified as the Governor's Council, instead of the previous "Board of assistants." The councilors were to be elected by the General Court with the Governor's assent. The General Court was to be given control of most Provincial affairs, aside from admiralty and commercial rulings, areas that were to remain under the control of Royal Officers appointed by the monarchy. The Governor was given control of the militia, but the House of Representatives had to consent to any officers receiving commission. The General Court was also given authority of the treasury, which included the Governor's as well as all royal officer's pay. With a friction existing between the General Court and the Governor, the Royal Governor was limited in power and authority in most matters to that of a head of state, rather than a head of government.

With the passage of what came to be known as the Intolerable Acts by the Parliament of England, many colonists became dissatisfied with the governmental arrangement. The political tension culminated in the Boston Tea Party, which resulted in the cancellation and dissolution of the General Court by Thomas Gage. The members of the General Court cited the 1691 Charter as their constitutional authority and did not recognize the actions of Gage as legitimate. The delegates then met and formed the Massachusetts Provincial Congress in 1774. The Provincial Congress became the revolutionary government of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, with the 1691 charter acting as the de facto constitution of Massachusetts Bay until the formulation and passage of the Constitution of Massachusetts in 1780.

See also
Charter of the Massachusetts Bay Company
Mayflower Compact
Massachusetts Body of Liberties
Constitution of Massachusetts

References

External links
The Charter of 1691

1691 in law
History of Massachusetts
Legal history of Massachusetts
Political history of Massachusetts
Political charters
Pre-statehood history of Massachusetts

Massachusetts Charter


The ʻAhu ʻula (feather cloak in the Hawaiian language), and the mahiole (feather helmet) were symbols of the highest rank of the chiefly aliʻi class of ancient Hawaii. The feathered cloaks and capes provided physical protection, and were believed to provide spiritual protection for their wearers. There are over 160 examples of this traditional clothing in museums around the world. At least six of these cloaks were collected during the voyages of Captain Cook.  These cloaks are made from a woven netting decorated with bird feathers and are examples of fine featherwork techniques. One of these cloaks was included in a painting of Cook's death by Johann Zoffany.

Construction
The cloaks were constructed using a woven netting decorated with feathers obtained from local birds. The plant used to make the netting is Touchardia latifolia, a member of the nettle family.

The coloring was achieved using different types of feathers. Black and yellow came from four species of bird called ōōs. All species had become extinct by 1987, with the probable cause being disease. Black feathers were also sourced from the two species of mamo, which are also now both extinct. The distinctive red feathers came from the Iiwi and the Apapane. Both species can still be found in Hawaii, but in much reduced numbers. Although birds were exploited for their feathers, the effect on the population is thought to be minimal. The birds are said to have not been killed but, rather, caught by specialist bird catchers, a few feathers harvested, and the birds then released.

Hundreds of thousands of feathers were required for each cloak. A small bundle of feathers was gathered and tied into the netting. Bundles were tied in close proximity to form a uniform covering of the surface of the cloak.

Ahu ula given to Captain James Cook, 1778

When British explorer James Cook visited in Hawai'i on 26 January 1778 he was received by a high chief Kalaniʻōpuʻu. At the end of the meeting Kalaniʻōpuʻu placed the feathered mahiole and cloak he had been wearing on Cook. Kalaniʻōpuʻu also laid several other cloaks at Cook's feet as well as four large pigs and other offerings of food. Much of the material from Cook's voyages including the helmet and cloak ended up in the collection of Sir Ashton Lever. He exhibited them in his museum, the Holophusikon. It was while at this museum that Cook's mahiole and cloak were borrowed by artist Johann Zoffany in the 1790s and included in his painting The Death of Captain James Cook.

Lever went bankrupt and his collection was disposed of by public lottery. The collection was obtained by James Parkinson who continued to exhibit it, at the Blackfriars Rotunda in London. He eventually sold the collection in 1806 in 7,000 separate sales. The mahiole and cloak were purchased by the collector William Bullock who exhibited them in his own museum until 1819 when the collection was again sold. The mahiole and cloak were then purchased by Charles Winn along with a number of other items and these remained in his family until 1912, when Charles Winn's grandson, Rowland Winn, 2nd Baron St Oswald, gave them to the Dominion of New Zealand. They are now in the collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.

Cook's mahiole and cloak are featured in episode 52 of the mini-documentary television series Tales from Te Papa.

ʻAhu ʻula in museums
The Bishop Museum in Honolulu has a 200-year-old mahiole and matching cloak. This bright red and yellow cloak was given to the king of Kauaʻi, Kaumualiʻi, when he became a vassal to Kamehameha I in 1810, uniting all the islands into the Hawaiian Kingdom.

The de Young Museum in San Francisco displayed several of these cloaks in a special exhibition in 2015.

The British Museum has three of these cloaks.

The National Museums of Scotland show a feather cloak that was given in 1824 from King Kamehameha II of Hawaii to Frederich Gerald Byng thanking for his service in London.

The Te Papa in New Zealand has three ʻahu ʻula in its collection. All were gifts of Rowland Winn, 2nd Baron St Oswald, in 1912. The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa believes that one of these cloaks was placed on Captain James Cook by the Hawaiian chief Kalani'ōpu'u.

Auckland War Memorial Museum acquired a cloak for its collection in 1948.

Musée d'ethnographie de Genève displays an early 19th-century cloak on its permanent exhibition. It was considered the museums most precious item by the institution's founder, Eugène Pittard.

References

Hawaii culture
Featherwork
Hawaiian regalia
Hawaiian words and phrases

ʻAhu ʻula


Maesteg Park Athletic Football Club is a Welsh football club based in Maesteg, Wales. The club played in the Welsh Football League and the top flight League of Wales before being dissolved. The club reformed in 2010 and now compete in South Wales Alliance League Division One West, having won promotion from the Bridgend & District League via the South Wales Alliance League promotion play-offs in June 2019, and the Division Two title in the summer of 2020.

History

Formed in 1945, as Maesteg Park Athletic, they spent nearly twenty years in local league football prior to joining Division Two West of the Welsh Football League in 1962–63. Within six years the club gained promotion and in 1969–70 moved to their present home at Tudor Park. The ground was built adjacent to the clubhouse which pre-dates Tudor Park by some seven years.

Following promotion in 1972–73, The Park spent two seasons in the top flight with moderate success, only to be relegated in 1975. They had plenty to celebrate in 1978–79 season when the Division One title was won along with the South Wales Senior Cup. The following season Maesteg were runners up to Newport County and reached the last eight of the Welsh Cup before bowing out to Swansea City.

Floodlights were erected at Tudor Park in 1982 and Cardiff City played the inaugural match under them. Thereafter, Maesteg Park enjoyed an unbroken spell in the Abacus League's top flight having been elected as founder members of the restructured National Division in 1983–84. They finished third that season and continued to perform satisfactorily in the 1980s, without ever bettering that position.

In 1989–90 Maesteg just managed to escape relegation, though they made up for this lapse by finishing fifth the following year. That was Phil Holmes' first year as the club manager and he saw his side triumph over Barry Town in the final of the South Wales Senior Cup, Maesteg winning a two-legged final with a 6–3 aggregate score. Within another two years The Park had another achievement to be proud of when reaching the semi-final of the Welsh Cup in 1992. On their way to reaching the late stage of the competition, Maesteg Park beat Trelewis Welfare 8–0 and Llanwern 4–2 before winning 5–2 at Cwmbran Town. In the fourth round they were drawn to play Football League side Hereford United at Edgar Street, yet came away with a 2–1 victory. A 2–0 quarter final success over Aberystwyth Town was rewarded with a semi final tie against Cardiff City.

Following a goalless draw at Ninian Park, Maesteg were ordered to return to Cardiff's home for the replay amidst much controversy. Police objections to the tie staged at Tudor Park left Maesteg Park with no choice but to comply. Despite holding the Football League side to 0–0 at half-time, strength and experience told in the end and Cardiff City ran out 4–0 winners.

Maesteg Park enjoyed the distinction of being one of just fourteen Welsh Clubs accepted into the F.A. Cup and F.A. Trophy for each of the eleven seasons prior to the formation of The League of Wales in 1992.

The team's initial season in The League of Wales saw the club finish in fifteenth position, gaining forty points from nine victories and thirteen draws. However, The Park finished last but one and only escaped relegation when Haverfordwest County had to resign from the League. Maesteg were forced to play their first seven games away from home in 1993, while ground and dressing room improvements were finished off at Tudor Park. They fared quite well during that period, but then won only three of their next 25 league games and a relegation battle was fought to the end.

The 1994–95 season brought little other than disappointment as the club slid quietly out of the League of Wales with hardly a murmur. They were tailed off for most of the season and finished 22 points adrift of Mold Alexandra the other relegated club. One of the fifty players to feature in the first team that season Mark Jones, took over the managerial reins for the following term as the club returned to the Welsh League, and stayed as manager of the club for six seasons.

Since then the Welsh League have witnessed Maesteg Park as a regular top half side. Twice in 1995–96 and 1999–2000, the club finished in third place and in 2000–01 they lost the Welsh League Championship on goal difference to Ton Pentre as well as reaching the semi-finals of the Welsh Cup for the second time in nine years.

With Andrew Rickard as Manager for the last two seasons The Park finished fourth and seventh respectively in the league. Dave Elliott subsequently took over the reins as Manager, but could not avoid the club resigning from the league at the end of the 2009–10 season.

The club reformed in the 2010, and played in the Bridgend & District League. In 2013–14 they were champions of the Tier 9 First Division.
 After finishing in the top 4 for the next three seasons in the Premier Division, they were runners-up in the 2017–18 season.
 before being crowned champions at the end of the 2018–19 season/.

In May 2020 they secured the South Wales Alliance League Division Two title, on points per game average after the season was curtailed as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic.

Honours

Maesteg Park
 South Wales Alliance League Division Two — Champions: 2019–20
 South Wales Alliance League Promotion Play-Offs — Winners: 2018–19
 Bridgend & District League Premier League — Champions: 2018–19
 Bridgend & District League Premier League — Runners-Up: 2017–18
 Bridgend & District League First League — Champions: 2013–14
 South Wales Senior Cup – Winners: 1990–91

Maesteg Park Athletic
 Welsh Football League Premier League Division — Runners-Up: 1979–80
 Welsh Football League First Division  — Champions: 1978–79
 Welsh Football League First Division  — Runners-Up: 1972–73
 Welsh Football League First Division — Runners-Up: 2000-01
 Welsh Football League Second Division  — Runners-Up: 1968–69
 South Wales Senior Cup – Winners: 1978–79

References

 https://web.archive.org/web/20110718025459/http://www.welshpremier.com/maesteg.ink

External links
Official Maesteg Park 2010 Twitter

Association football clubs established in 1945
Maesteg
Association football clubs disestablished in 2010
1945 establishments in Wales
2010 disestablishments in Wales
2010 establishments in Wales
Association football clubs established in 2010
Cymru Premier clubs
Welsh Football League clubs
South Wales Alliance League clubs
Bridgend & District League clubs
Football clubs in Bridgend County Borough
Football clubs in Wales

Maesteg Park A.F.C.


Daniel Marcus Ilabaca (born 23 January, 1988) is a freerunner and traceur from Moreton, Merseyside, England. He along with Ryan Doyle, are the founders of the World Freerunning and Parkour Federation.

Personal life
Ilabaca was born on 23 January 1988 in Moreton, England. He has a brother, Chris Ilabaca, who often films and edits his videos.

Career
Daniel first noticed Parkour after seeing a man on the street perform a wall flip and wanted to be able to do the same. He later took up the Brazilian martial art Capoeira, but was disappointed with its limitations. He then took up parkour and freerunning. He has since won first place in MTV's inaugural Ultimate Parkour Challenge, and is one of the most watched freerunners with over 30 million views on YouTube.

Philosophy
Ilabaca believes parkour is a global movement that will change the way people interact with their environment. To him all ways of being free and expressing yourself are parkour. Furthermore, he emphasizes the power of choices in one's training. He states that falling is the result of choosing to fall: "Thinking you're going to fail at something gives you a higher risk of doing just that. Committing to something you're thinking or knowing you will land gives you a higher chance of landing or completing the task."

Film/TV appearances
Top Gear (2006)
In episode 7 of the 8th season of Top Gear, Daniel and Kerbie took part in a challenge to race a Peugeot 207 through the busy city centre of Liverpool. In the episode, the traceurs won.
Eric Sheridan Prydz vs. Pink Floyd - "Proper Education" (music video, 2006)
Daniel performed parkour, stunts and other various action moves while dressed in a school uniform which promoted the theme of saving the environment.
Parkour Journeys (2006)
Daniel featured in the Parkour Journeys DVD documentary, in a section called "Daniel Ilabaca in Profile", which featured an interview and footage of him training.
Pierre David Guetta vs. The Egg - "Love Don't Let Me Go (Walking Away)" (music video, 2007)
Along with several members of 3RUN, Daniel performed several parkour moves around Elephant & Castle.
UEFA Champions' League Advert (advert, 2008)
Daniel Ilabaca and Ryan Doyle were among the freerunners appearing in a commercial shown regularly on Sky Sports to promote the Champions' League, in which they performed various tricks and martial arts kicks on a computer-generated football around central London's South Bank.
The Chemical Brothers - "Midnight Madness" (music video, 2008)
The video is set in a back alley and warehouse in London, United Kingdom. It begins with a Daniel playing a goblin, who jumps out of a dumpster, and starts dancing. His dancing takes him out of the alley and up onto the nearby rooftops, then into a theatre. The goblin begins breakdancing on the stage. He exits, jumps onto a police car, and rides it back to the dumpster, when he jumps in moments before a man walks into the alley and dumps a bag of trash into the dumpster.
MTV's Ultimate Parkour Challenge (2009–2010)
Daniel Ilabaca was the winner of the inaugural Ultimate Parkour Challenge, winning the $10,000 prize.
The European Parkour Tour 2010 (2010)
Daniel Ilabaca traveled across 4,000 miles to eight major cities to meet some of Europe's best Freerunners. From each city, short films and interviews with the local freerunning community were made. He visited London, Amsterdam, Cologne, Copenhagen, Vienna, Milan, Barcelona and Paris – all in three weeks.
Misfits (2010)
In the first series, Daniel played "Superhoodie", a recurring character who monitors and plays a guardian role outside the circle of already established characters. He is an onlooker and an outsider, with traits such as athletic ability and care being amplified since the storm in episode 1.
Kolpingtag: Mut (Courage) (2015)
Trailer for the "Kolpingtag" a German Christian society.

References

External links
Daniel's YouTube Channel

Freerunners
English capoeira practitioners
Traceurs
Sportspeople from Wirral
1988 births
Living people

Daniel Ilabaca


Georgius II wæs Creca Cyning fram Haligmonaðe 1922 oð his deaþ in Eastermona ðe 1947, ac his cynedom wæs gebrocen be swicdome in March 1924 oþ he cwon eft to his rice in Blotmonaðe 1935.

Georgius Cyning wæs Constontines I Cyninges ielsta sunu be his cwene Sophia of Preossum, In 1917 wæron Constontinus Cyning and Georgius Æþeling adrifen of þæm rice æfter þæm 'Leodes Todræfnesse', and Alexander Georgies iengra broþor wæs gesetted on þæm cynestole.

Æt Alexandres deaþ in 1920 wæs Constontinus eft gestaþoled in his cynedome, ac he afliemed æfter twæm wintrum forðig þæm gewinn wiþ Tyrcum. Georgius fang to rice ac he wæs adrifen of his rice in Winterfylleðe 1923 and he afliemde he on Romaniaware. In  Hreþmonaðe 1924 abanned his leodweard þ Crecland biþ cynewise and Georgius Cyning wæs asetted of his stole. He abad on wræcce oþ 1935 þan Creca rices cynedom wæs eft gestaþoled.

Eft wæs Georgius Cyning adrifen on wræcce in 1941 þan Germaniaware onswogen þæt land. He seglode to Creto and þanon to Ægypte beforan þe he cwom on Lunden. Æfter þæm gewinne for he to his agnum eþel. He forþferde in Eastermonaþe 1947 æfter 56 wintrum. Nan bearn hæfde se cyning and þy his iefa wæs his iengra broðor, Paulus.

Georgius 2

Georgius II Crēca Cyning


Squash is a racket-and-ball sport played by two or four players in a four-walled court with a small, hollow, rubber ball. The players alternate in striking the ball with their rackets onto the playable surfaces of the four walls of the court. The objective of the game is to hit the ball in such a way that the opponent is not able to play a valid return. There are about 20 million people who play squash regularly world-wide in over 185 countries. The governing body of squash, the World Squash Federation (WSF), is recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC),and the sport is included in the Olympic Games, after a number of applications. Squash has been added for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. The Professional Squash Association (PSA) organizes the pro tour.

History
Squash has its origins in the older game of rackets, which was played in London's prisons in the 19th century. Later, around 1830, boys at Harrow School noticed that a punctured ball, which "squashed" on impact with the wall, offered more variety to the game. The game spread to other schools. The first courts built at Harrow were dangerous because they were near water pipes, buttresses, chimneys, and ledges. Natural rubber was the preferred material for the ball. Students modified their rackets to have a smaller reach and improve their ability to play in these cramped conditions. In 1864, the school built four outside courts.

In the 20th century, the game increased in popularity with various schools, clubs and private individuals building squash courts, but with no set dimensions. The first squash court in North America was at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, in 1884. In 1904 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the earliest national association of squash in the world, the United States Squash Racquets Association, now known as U.S. Squash, was formed. In April 1907, the Tennis, Rackets & Fives Association of Queens, New York, which regulated those three sports (fives being a similar sport using hands instead of a racket), established a subcommittee to set standards for squash. In 1912, the association published rules for squash, combining aspects of these three sports.

In 1912, the RMS Titanic had a squash court in first class, available for 8 pence (£12.22 in 2022 terms). The 1st-Class Squash Court was situated on G-Deck. The Spectators Viewing Gallery was one level higher, on F-Deck. Passengers could use the court for one hour unless others were waiting.

In 1923, the Royal Automobile Club hosted a meeting to further discuss the rules and regulations. Five years later, the Squash Rackets Association, now known as England Squash, was formed to set standards for the game in Great Britain and internationally.
The rackets were made from one piece English ash, with a suede leather grip and natural gut.

The 1980s witnessed a period of restructuring and consolidation. The Cambridge rackets factory was forced to close in face of the move to graphite rackets, and production was moved to the Far East. Customization of squash rackets has grown over the years as well. There are custom variations on racket head shape, racket balance, and racket weight. The most common racket variation for international singles squash is a teardrop (closed throat) head shape, even balance, and racket weight of 130g. For hardball doubles, the most common variation is an open throat head shape, even balance, and racket weight of 140g.

There are several variations of squash played across the world, although the international version of the sport has become the dominant form. In the United States, a variant of squash known as hardball was traditionally played with a harder ball and differently sized courts. Hardball squash has lost much of its popularity in North America (in favor of the international version). There is doubles squash a variant played by four players. There is also a tennis-like variation of squash known as squash tennis. Finally, racketball, a similar sport, is also played in the United States.

Equipment

Racket

Squash rackets have maximum dimensions of 686 mm (27.0 in) long and 215 mm (8.5 in) wide, with a maximum strung area of 500 square centimeters (77.5 sq in). The permitted maximum weight is , but most have a weight between 90 and 150 grams (3–5.3 oz.). The strings of the racket usually have a tension of 25–30 pounds.

Ball

Squash balls are between 39.5 and 40.5 mm in diameter and weigh 23 to 25 grams. They are made with two pieces of rubber compound, glued together to form a hollow sphere and buffed to a matte finish. Different balls are provided for varying temperature and atmospheric conditions and standards of play: more experienced players use slow balls that have less bounce than those used by less experienced players (slower balls tend to "die" in court corners, rather than "standing up" to allow easier shots). Squash balls must be hit dozens of times to warm them up at the beginning of a session; cold squash balls have very little bounce. Small colored dots on the ball indicate its dynamic level (bounciness).
The "double-yellow dot" ball, introduced in 2000, is the competition standard, replacing the earlier "yellow-dot" ball. There is also an "orange dot" ball for use at high altitudes. The recognized colors are:

Some ball manufacturers such as Dunlop use a different method of grading balls based on experience. They still have the equivalent dot rating but are named to help choose a ball that is appropriate for one's skill level. The four different ball types are Intro (Blue dot, 140% of Pro bounce), Progress (Red dot, 120% of Pro bounce), Competition (single yellow dot, 110% of Pro bounce) and Pro (double yellow dot).

Many squash venues mandate the use of shoes with non-marking tread and eye protection. Some associations require that all juniors and doubles players must wear eye protection. The National Institutes of Health recommends wearing goggles with polycarbonate lenses.

Court

The squash court is a playing surface surrounded by four walls. The court surface contains a front line separating the front and back of the court and a half court line, separating the left and right sides of the back portion of the court, creating three 'boxes': the front half, the back left quarter and the back right quarter. The back two boxes contain smaller service boxes.

The court's four walls are divided into a front wall, two side walls, and a back wall. An 'out line' runs along the top of the front wall, descending along the side walls to the back wall. The bottom line of the front wall marks the top of the 'tin', a half meter-high metal area. The middle line of the front wall is the service line. The dimensions of the court are:

North American hardball doubles courts are larger than international singles courts because of a hard ball that has a much faster pace. With double the number of players, the doubles court needs to be significantly bigger than a singles court. The doubles court should measure 25 feet wide by 45 feet long and have a ceiling height of at least 24 feet but preferably 26.

Manner of play

Service
The players spin a racket to decide who serves first. This player starts the first rally by electing to serve from either the left or right service box. For a legal serve, one of the server's feet must be in the service box, not touching any part of the service box lines, as the player strikes the ball. After being struck by the racket, the ball must strike the front wall above the service line and below the out line and land in the opposite back quarter court. The receiving player can choose to volley a serve after it has hit the front wall. If the server wins the point, the two players switch sides for the following point. If the server loses the point, the opponent then serves, and can serve from either box.

Play

After the serve, the players take turns hitting the ball against the front wall, above the tin and below the out line. The ball may strike the side or back walls at any time, as long as it hits below the out line. It must not hit the floor after hitting the racket and before hitting the front wall. A ball landing on either the out line or the line along the top of the tin is considered to be out. After the ball hits the front wall, it is allowed to bounce once on the floor (and any number of times against the side or back walls) before a player must return it. Players may move anywhere around the court, but accidental or deliberate obstruction of the other player's movements is forbidden and could result in a let or a stroke. Players typically return to the centre of the court after making a shot, as it is the optimal position in the court to receive the opponent's shot. The centre of the court is typically referred to as "the T", named after the shape of the floor lines.

Strategy and tactics
A key strategy in squash is known as "dominating the T" (the intersection of the red lines near the centre of the court, shaped like the letter "T", where the player is in the best position to retrieve the opponent's next shot). Skilled players will return a shot, and then move back toward the "T" before playing the next shot. From this position, the player can quickly access any part of the court to retrieve the opponent's next shot with a minimum of movement and possibly maximising the movement required by the opponent to answer the returned shot.

A common tactic is to hit the ball straight up the side walls to the back corners; this is the basic squash shot, referred to as a "rail", straight drive, wall, or "length". After hitting this shot, the player will then move to the centre of the court near the "T" to be well placed to retrieve the opponent's return. Attacking with soft or "short" shots to the front corners (referred to as "drop shots") causes the opponent to cover more of the court and may result in an outright winner. Boasts or angle shots are deliberately struck off one of the side walls before the ball reaches the front. They are used for deception and again to cause the opponent to cover more of the court. Rear wall shots float to the front either straight or diagonally drawing the opponent to the front. Advantageous tactical shots are available in response to a weak return by the opponent if stretched, the majority of the court being free to the striker. Nicks are when the ball comes into contact with the intersection of the floor and any sidewall.

Rallies between experienced players may involve 30 or more shots and therefore a very high premium is placed on fitness, both aerobic and anaerobic. As players become more skilled and, in particular, better able to retrieve shots, points often become a war of attrition. At higher levels of the game, the fitter player has a major advantage.

The ability to change the direction of the ball at the last instant is also a tactic used to unbalance the opponent. Expert players can anticipate the opponent's shot a few tenths of a second before the average player, giving them a chance to react sooner.

Depending on the style of play, it is common to refer to squash players as

 Power players: powerful shots to take time away from their opponent. For example, John White, Omar Mosaad, Mohamed El Shorbagy, Nouran Gohar
 Shotmakers: accurate shots to take time away from their opponent. For example, Jonathon Power, Ramy Ashour, Amr Shabana, James Willstrop.
 Retrievers: excellent retrieval to counter power and accuracy and to return shots more quickly to take time away from their opponent. For example, Peter Nicol, Grégory Gaultier, Nicol David.
 Attritional players: a consistently high-paced game both from shot speed and running speed to wear their opponent down over time. For example, David Palmer, Nick Matthew, Jansher Khan, Jahangir Khan.

Interference and obstruction
Interference and obstruction are an inevitable aspect of squash, since two players are confined within a shared space. Generally, the rules entitle players to a direct straight-line access to the ball, room for a reasonable swing and an unobstructed shot to any part of the front wall. When interference occurs, a player may appeal for a "let" and the referee (or the players themselves if there is no official) then interprets the extent of the interference. The referee may allow a let and the players then replay the point or award a "stroke" to the appealing player (meaning that he is declared the winner of that point) depending on the degree of interference, whether the interfering player made an adequate effort to avoid interfering, and whether the player interfered with was likely to have hit a winning shot had the interference not occurred. An exception occurs when the interfering player is directly in the path of the other player's swing, effectively preventing the swing, in which case a stroke is always awarded.

When it is deemed that there has been little or no interference, the rules provide that no let is to be allowed in the interests of continuity of play and the discouraging of spurious appeals for lets. Because of the subjectivity in interpreting the nature and magnitude of interference, awarding (or withholding) of lets and strokes is often controversial.

Interference also occurs when a player's shot hits their opponent prior to hitting the front wall. If the ball was travelling towards the side wall when it hit the opponent, or if it had already hit the side wall and was travelling directly to the front wall, it is usually a let. However, it is a stroke to the player who hit the ball if the ball was travelling straight to the front wall when the ball hit the opponent, without having first hit the side wall. Generally, after a player has been hit by the ball, both players stand still; if the struck player is standing directly in front of the player who hit the ball, he loses the stroke; if he is not straight in front, a let is played. If it is deemed that the player who is striking the ball is deliberately trying to hit his opponent, they will lose the stroke. An exception occurs when the player hitting the ball has "turned", i.e., letting the ball pass them on one side, but then hitting it on the other side as it came off the back wall. In these cases, the stroke goes to the player who was hit by the ball.

Referee
The referee is usually a certified position issued by the club or assigned squash league. Any conflict or interference is dealt with by the referee. The referee may also take away points or games due to improper etiquette regarding conduct or rules. The referee is also usually responsible for the scoring of games. Three referees are usually used in professional tournaments. The Central referee has responsibility to call the score and make decisions with the two side referees.

Scoring system

Point-a-Rally to 11
Games are played according to point-a-rally scoring (PARS) to 11 points. PARS is almost universally preferred by the game's top professionals and is the current official scoring system for all levels of professional squash tournaments. In PARS, the winner of a rally receives a point, regardless of whether they were the server or returner. Games are played to 11 and must be won by two points. That is, if the score reaches 10–10, play continues until one player wins by two points. Competition matches are usually played to "best-of-five" games (i.e., the first player to win three games).

Squash can also be played with different scoring systems, such as PARS to 15, traditional English or Hand-in-Hand-Out (HiHo) scoring to 9, or RAM scoring (see below). Players often experience PARS and Hi-Ho as requiring different tactics and player attributes.

Other scoring systems

Point-a-Rally to 15
Point-a-rally scoring to 15 was used for the World Championships between 1989 and 2003. PARS to 15, with the tiebreak being two clear points (as per standard PARS) from 14–14, was used in many amateur leagues because PARS to 11 was considered too short. This system fell out of favor in 2004 when the Professional Squash Association (PSA) decided to switch to PARS to 11. Games were considered to last too long and the winner would usually be the fitter player, not necessarily the better player.

English/Hand-In-Hand-Out to 9
Known as English or hand-in-hand-out scoring, under this system, if the server wins a rally, they receive a point, while if the returner wins rally, only the service changes (i.e., the ball goes "hand-out") and no point is given. The first player to reach nine points wins the game. However, if the score reaches 8–8, the player who was first to reach eight decides whether the game will be played to nine, as before (called "set one"), or to 10 (called "set two"). This scoring system was formerly preferred in Britain, and also among countries with traditional British ties, such as Australia, Canada, Pakistan, South Africa, India and Sri Lanka.

RAM
The RAM scoring system is a proposed new scoring system created by former World Champion, Ramy Ashour and co-founded by Osama Khalifa. This consists of playing a best of five games. Each game is three minutes long; however, this only refers to the three minutes in play. The 'downtime' in between the end of a rally and a serve is not counted. Once the time is up, the clock stops, and the leading player needs to win a final point. If the player who is behind wins the point the game continues until the trailing player catches up and wins one more point than the initially leading player.

For example, Player one is leading 5–3 and the clock stops. Player two wins the next two points and the score is 5–5. Whoever wins the next point wins the game. This is called sudden death. If the score is 0–0 when the clock stops the clock is reset and the game restarts. For Let Calls the clock reverts to the start time of that point. Further rules include that there must be a referee and a time keeper to make this match official. Players have two minutes of rest between games, and all other standard PSA and WSF rules apply.

Transition from English/HiHo to PARS 11
In 2004, the Professional Squash Association (PSA) decided to switch to PARS 11. This decision was ratified in 2009 when the World Squash Federation confirmed the switch to the PARS 11 scoring system. Since that time, almost all professional and league games have been played according to PARS to 11. One of the reasons for switching to PARS was that long, taxing matches became less frequent and promoters could more easily predict match and session length. Gawain Briars, who served as the Executive Director of the Professional Squash Association when the body decided to switch to PARS in 2004 hoped that PARS would make the "professional game more exciting to watch, [and] then more people will become involved in the game and our chances of Olympic entry may be enhanced."

One of the problems with English or Hi-Ho scoring is that games often last longer as players continually win service before losing service to the other player without the score being affected. Consequently, the winner is more often than not the fitter athlete. Moreover, English or Hi-Ho scoring can encourage players to play defensively with the aim of wearing down one's opponent before winning by virtue of one's fitness. Such exhausting, defensive play can affect player's prospects in knock-out tournaments and does not make for riveting TV. In English or Hi-Ho, one player might win by 9–0 despite the opponent having repeatedly won service, but without converting that service into actual points.

For the World Championships: HiHo to 9 was used until 1988; PARS to 15 from 1989 to 2003; and PARS to 11 from 2004. For the British Open: HiHo to 9 was used until 1994; PARS to 15 from 1995 to 2003; and PARS to 11 from 2004.

The WSF's decision to switch to PARS 11 proved controversial in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth where games were usually played according to English or Hi-Ho. When the Veterans Squash Rackets Club of Great Britain surveyed their members in 2012, they found that 80% of their members were against switching from HiHo to PARS. President Philip Ayton argued that PARS would "kill the essence of the game." Ayton was particularly concerned that the "great comebacks" that characterised English or Hi-Ho when "the player who is down in a game can still attack when in hand serving" would disappear as PARS fostered an "ultra-defensive attitude, because every rally counts the same."

Jahangir Khan has countered that PARS actually made the game far more attacking, but diminished the psychological aspect of the game: "With the nine points scoring system, matches were more mental and physical and could go longer, but now with the 11-point system, every rally counts, and even if you go behind you can still recover. That makes it a lot more attacking." Maj Madan, one of the game's top referees, similarly stated that PARS had "destroyed the fitness element and, more importantly, the cerebral magic of the…game." His comments were unearthed when an email chain of referees discussing the problem of shorter and shorter squash matches was leaked in 2011.

Contribution to health
Squash provides an excellent cardiovascular workout. Players can expend approximately 600–1,000 food calories (3,000–4,000 kJ) every hour playing squash, according to English or Hi-Ho scoring. The sport also provides a good upper- and lower-body workout by exercising both the legs in running around the court and the arms and torso in swinging the racket. In 2003, Forbes rated squash as the number-one healthiest sport to play. However, one study has implicated squash as a cause of possible fatal cardiac arrhythmia and argued that squash is an inappropriate form of exercise for older men with heart disease.

Around the world
As of November 2019, there were players from eighteen countries in the top fifty of the men's world rankings, with Egypt dominating with fifteen players, six of whom were in the top ten, including ranks one through four. Similarly, the women's world rankings featured players from sixteen countries, again led by Egypt taking thirteen spots of the top fifty, whilst holding spots one through four in the world.

The men's and women's Professional Squash Association tour, men's rankings and women's rankings are run by the Professional Squash Association (PSA).

The Professional Squash Tour is a tour based in the United States.

Inclusion in multi-sport events
Squash has been featured regularly at the multi-sport events of the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games since 1998. Squash is also a regular sport at the Pan American Games since 1995. Squash players and associations have lobbied for many years for the sport to be accepted into the Olympic Games. Squash narrowly missed being instated for the 2012 London Games and the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games (missed out again as the IOC assembly decided to add golf and rugby sevens to the Olympic programme). Squash also was not selected as an event in the 2020 Olympic Games. At the 125th IOC Session in Buenos Aires, the IOC voted for Wrestling instead of Squash or Baseball/Softball. The usual reason cited for the failure of the sport to be adopted for Olympic competition is that it is difficult for spectators to follow the action, especially via television. Previous world number one Peter Nicol stated that he believed squash had a "very realistic chance" of being added to the list of Olympic sports for the 2016 Olympic Games, but it ultimately lost out to golf and rugby sevens. Squash has been part of the World Games since 1997.

Squash was accepted as a demonstration sport for the 2018 Summer Youth Olympics. The World Squash Federation hopes that this inclusion will create a strong bid for a potential inclusion at the 2024 Summer Olympics.

On 16 October 2023, squash received approval from the International Olympic Committee for inclusion in the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

Major tournaments
World Open Championship
World Tour Finals
World Team Championships
British Open
Tournament of Champions
US Open
Hong Kong Open
Qatar Classic
Windy City Open
El Gouna International
Summer Olympics
World Games
Commonwealth Games
Asian Games

Players, records and rankings

The (British) Squash Rackets Association (now known as England Squash) conducted its first British Open championship for men in December 1930, using a "challenge" system. Charles Read was designated champion in 1930, but he was beaten in home and away matches by Don Butcher, who was then recorded as the champion for 1931. The championship continues to this day, but it has been conducted with a "knockout" format since 1947.

The women's championship started in 1921, and it has been dominated by relatively few players: Joyce Cave, Nancy Cave, Cecily Fenwick (England) in the 1920s; Margot Lumb and Susan Noel (England) in the 1930s; Janet Morgan (England) in the 1950s; Heather McKay (Australia) in the 1960s and 1970s; Vicki Cardwell (Australia) and Susan Devoy (New Zealand) in the 1980s; Michelle Martin and Sarah Fitz-Gerald (Australia) in the 1990s; and Nicol David (Malaysia) in the 2000s.

The Men's British Open has similarly been dominated by relatively few players: F. D. Amr Bey (Egypt) in the 1930s; Mahmoud Karim (Egypt) in the 1940s; brothers Hashim Khan and Azam Khan (Pakistan) in the 1950s and 1960s; Jonah Barrington (Great Britain and Ireland) and Geoff Hunt (Australia) in the 1960s and 1970s; Jahangir Khan (Pakistan) 1980s; Jansher Khan (Pakistan) in the 1990s; and more recently, David Palmer and Nick Matthew.

The World Open professional championship was inaugurated in 1976 and serves as the main competition today. Jansher Khan holds the record of winning eight World titles followed by Jahangir Khan with six, Geoff Hunt & Amr Shabana four, Nick Matthew & Ramy Ashour three. The women's record is held by Nicol David with eight wins followed by Sarah Fitzgerald five, Susan Devoy four, and Michelle Martin three.

Heather McKay remained undefeated in competitive matches for 19 years (between 1962 and 1981) and won sixteen consecutive British Open titles between 1962 and 1977.

Current rankings
The Professional Squash Association (PSA) publishes monthly rankings of professional players:

Men's

Women's

Current champions

See also

 The Howe Cup
 World Squash Federation
 PSA World Tour
 PSA World Tour records
 Basque pelota
 Racquetball
 List of squash players
 World Championship
 Hardball squash
 List of PSA number 1 ranked players
 List of WSA number 1 ranked players
 World Team Squash Championships
 British Open Squash Championships
 List of US Intercollegiate squash champions
 US Junior Open squash championship
 Longest squash match records
 Squash tennis
 Table squash
 rackets (also called "hard rackets", "prison tennis").

References

Citations

General sources

Further reading

 Zug, James; Plimpton, George (2003). Squash: a history of the game. New York: Scribner. .

External links

 World Squash Federation official website

Ball games
Racket sports
Wall and ball games
Sports originating in England

Squash (sport)


Pittsburgh Theological Seminary (PTS) is a Presbyterian graduate seminary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1794, it houses one of the largest theological libraries in the tri-state area.

History

Pittsburgh Theological Seminary was formed in 1959 by consolidating the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.'s Western Theological Seminary and the United Presbyterian Church of North America's Pittsburgh-Xenia Theological Seminary. The consolidation was the result of the 1958 merger between the PCUSA and the UPCNA to form the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.

Pittsburgh-Xenia Theological Seminary began with the founding of Service Seminary (Associate Theological Seminary in the town of Service, Beaver County, Pennsylvania) in 1792 by the Associate Presbytery of Pennsylvania. Prior to that time, the Presbytery was dependent on a supply of ministers sent from Scotland. John Anderson was elected as the first teacher of divinity and the school began with an enrollment of six students. Service Seminary moved several times, from Service to Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, then to Xenia, Ohio, where it became Xenia Theological Seminary. This occurred in the 1850s and was prompted by a desire to locate nearer to the growing population in the Midwest. Joseph Kyle joined the faculty in 1900 (leaving 4th United Presbyterian Church in Allegheny, Pennsylvania). In approximately 1914 Kyle was appointed president. In 1920 the trustees determined to move the seminary to St. Louis, Missouri, also to be nearer to potential students in the Plains states. In 1921 Kyle died unexpectedly. This loss of leadership at a crucial transition period created problems for the fledgling institution and it never really took root. In 1930 Xenia merged with a seminary that was founded in Pittsburgh in 1825, which was known as Pittsburgh Seminary (1825–1833; 1913–1930) and Allegheny Seminary (1833–1912). Together Pittsburgh and Xenia formed the Pittsburgh-Xenia Theological Seminary. This institution was later augmented by the resources of Newburgh Seminary, founded in New York City in 1805 by John Mitchell Mason.

Western Theological Seminary, the other branch of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary's pre-1959 history, began with the establishment of classical academies in Washington, Pennsylvania, the first in 1785 by Joseph Smith and another in 1787 by John McMillan. Out of these academies, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA created Western Seminary. It was indeed a western seminary in 1825, furnishing a ministry for the rapidly opening frontier territories along the Ohio River.

Since the 1959 consolidation, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary has been located on the former Pittsburgh-Xenia Seminary campus in the Highland Park/East Liberty section of Pittsburgh. It became a PC (U.S.A.) seminary following the 1983 merger between the UPCUSA and the Presbyterian Church in the United States.

Academics
Pittsburgh Theological Seminary is accredited by the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada and the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. The seminary has scholars in all major fields of theological inquiry and offers language training in Greek and Hebrew. The following degrees are offered by the institution:

Master of Divinity (M.Div.)
Master of Arts in Pastoral Studies (M.A.P.S.)
Master of Theological Studies (MTS)
Doctor of Ministry (D.Min.) Focus areas include Science and Theology, Missional Leadership, Reformed, Christian Spirituality, Intergenerational Black Church Studies, Eastern Christian, and Creative Writing & Public Theology.

The Seminary also cooperates with other institutions within the Pittsburgh Council on Higher Education to offer joint degree programs, including:
Master of Divinity/Juris Doctor (Duquesne University)
M.A.P.S./Juris Doctor (Duquesne University)
MTS/Juris Doctor (Duquesne University)
Master of Divinity/Master of Social Work (University of Pittsburgh)

Clifford E. Barbour Library
The Clifford E. Barbour Library is a theological library in Western Pennsylvania. Its 300,000 volumes, several online databases, and more than 800 periodical subscriptions make it one of the larger stand-alone theological libraries in the United States. The library is located in a three-story building of American Colonial design, dedicated in 1964. The library houses several valuable collections, including the John M. Mason Memorial Collection, which consists of many rare theological works dating from the Reformation. On display in the Hansen Reading Room are the desk and chair of Karl Barth, dedicated to Pittsburgh Theological Seminary by Barth's son, Markus Barth, a faculty member from 1963–1972. Many of the books and periodicals in the collection were made possible by a $15 million gift from wealthy banker and businessman Thomas Clinton. The library was managed by Dikran Hadidian during its formative years.

Kelso Museum of Near Eastern Archaeology
Pittsburgh Theological Seminary is home to the Kelso Museum of Near Eastern Archaeology. The museum contains a collection of ancient Near Eastern and Palestinian pottery and artifacts brought together by travelers and archeologists over the past 60 years. Many exhibits resulted from the eight excavations of which the seminary has been a part.

The Seminary is very involved in Biblical archaeology, and sponsors the Zeitah Excavations in Israel at Tel Zayit. The excavation was founded under the direction of Professor Ron E. Tappy, Professor of Bible and Archaeology and director of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary's Kelso Museum of Near Eastern Archaeology. The excavation began in 1999 with a 55 member international team of experts and volunteers. In July 2005 excavators discovered the Zayit Stone, which contained an inscription dating to the 10th century BCE (King Solomon's reign). The two-line inscription, on a 33-pound limestone boulder embedded in the stone wall of a building, is the earliest securely-dated example of the complete Hebrew alphabet (an "abecedary"). The letters show a transitional script emerging from Phoenician and leading to the Hebrew national script of the 9th century BCE. The first significant inscription from this period in nearly a century, the discovery was reported in the New York Times.

World Mission Initiative
World Mission Initiative (WMI) at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary is a fellowship of Presbyterians.

WMI prepares seminarians to become pastors, and coordinates cross-cultural trips. It has a church focus and works to train world Christian pastors. WMI hosts missionaries, national church leaders, and scholars on campus throughout the year.

Faculty and alumni
Prominent faculty from the seminary's history include:
Dale Allison
M. Craig Barnes
Robert A. J. Gagnon
John Gerstner
Archibald Alexander Hodge
William Swan Plumer
Andrew Purves
Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki
Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield
Robert Dick Wilson

Prominent alumni include:
Thomas K. Chadwick
John A. Dalles
Festo Kivengere
Charles William Kerr, first permanent Protestant Christian minister of Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Isaac C. Ketler, founder of Grove City College
Calvin Wilson Mateer, the chairman of the committee for Bible translation of The Chinese Union Version.
Robert H. Meneilly
Fred Rogers
R. C. Sproul
Neil M. Stevenson
Ralph Watkins

References

External links

 Official website

Presbyterian Church (USA) seminaries
Educational institutions established in 1794
Seminaries and theological colleges in Pennsylvania
1794 establishments in Pennsylvania
Universities and colleges in Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh Theological Seminary


Boubou Cissé (born 1974) is a Malian politician who was the Prime Minister of Mali from April 2019 to his resignation following the 2020 Malian coup d'état in August 2020. He was also the Minister of Economy and Finance and Minister of Mines and Industry.

Early life
Boubou Cissé a Fulani tribe earned a master's degree from the University of Auvergne and a PhD in economics from Aix-Marseille University.

Career
Cissé began his career as an economist for the World Bank in Washington, D.C., US in 2005. In 2008, he was promoted to Senior Economist of its Human Development Division. He later worked in Nigeria and Niger as a resident representative for the World Bank.

Cissé was appointed the Malian Prime Minister in 2019 after the resignation of Soumeylou Boubèye Maïga and his government. He was Minister of Industry and Mines in 2013, the Minister of Mines in April 2014, and the Minister of Economy and Finance since 2016.

On 18 August 2020, Cissé along with the President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta was detained by mutinying forces during the 2020 Malian coup d'état. The next day, with President Keita's dismissal of Parliament and the government, Cissé was removed from office.

On 1 January 2021, Cissé′s half-brother Aguibou Tall and five others were arrested for an "attempted coup". Boubou Cissé was also accused, but he was not arrested because the government could not ascertain his whereabouts.

Other activities
 International Monetary Fund (IMF), Ex-Officio Member of the Board of Governors (since 2016)
 Islamic Development Bank, Ex-Officio Member of the Board of Governors (since 2016)
 World Bank, Ex-Officio Member of the Board of Governors (since 2016)

References

Living people
1974 births
People from Bamako
Aix-Marseille University alumni
Malian economists
World Bank people
Prime Ministers of Mali
Economy ministers of Mali
Finance ministers of Mali
Industry ministers of Mali
Mining ministers of Mali
Malian officials of the United Nations
Commanders of the National Order of Mali
21st-century Malian people

Boubou Cissé


I Stand Alone () is a 1998 French psychological drama art film written and directed by Gaspar Noé as his directorial debut, and starring Philippe Nahon, Blandine Lenoir, Frankye Pain, and Martine Audrain. The film, focusing on several pivotal days in the life of a butcher facing abandonment, isolation, rejection and unemployment, was the director's first feature-length production, and is a sequel to his 1991 short film Carne.

Plot
The film opens by revealing the history of the Butcher (who is given no other name) presented in narration which plays over a montage of still photographs. Orphaned at a young age, he was sexually abused by a priest. As a teenager, without the opportunity to study and learn the profession of his choice, he reluctantly embraces the career of a butcher specializing in horse meat, a job frowned upon at the time in France.

After several years of hard work, he finally opens his own butcher shop while his girlfriend gives birth to a daughter. When the woman realizes the infant is not a boy, she leaves the young father alone with the child. Embracing it as fate, the Butcher decides to take care of his daughter himself. As the single father is consumed by loneliness, he starts to become overprotective and develops incestuous feelings for his child. One day, when he sees blood on her skirt, he thinks she's been raped and stabs the man he thinks is responsible, only to find out it was menstrual blood. He is sentenced to prison and forced to sell his shop to a Muslim butcher while his troubled daughter is sent to an institution.

In prison, the Butcher has sex with a cellmate and, upon his release, vows to forget it happened. He finds a job working as a bartender for the woman who owns the tavern where he was a regular customer. They begin dating and soon she becomes pregnant. As they start making plans for their future together, she sells her business and they move to northern France, where she says she will buy a butcher shop for him.

There, however, she backs out of their promise, which forces him to take up a job as a nightwatchman at a nursing home. During his job, he meets a young and caring nurse who is the complete opposite of his old, icy mistress. After he and the nurse witness the death of an elderly patient, the Butcher thinks back about the lack of affection throughout his life, from the orphanage to a life with an uncaring mistress who abuses the power she has over him because of her money. When his mistress unjustly accuses him of having an affair with the nurse, he snaps and punches her in the belly several times, perhaps killing their unborn child, before fleeing the scene with a pistol.

He decides to return to Paris, where he rents the same flophouse room where he conceived his daughter and begins looking for a job as a horse meat butcher. Unfortunately, due to the changing tastes of customers during his time in prison, the market for horse meat has collapsed. Despite his patience, his job interviews consistently end in rejection. He broadens his job search but is considered unskilled in terms of general butchery, forcing him to start over again at the very bottom.

He starts looking outside his field, but the more he broadens his searches, the more desperate he becomes and the more humiliating the job interviews become. When he turns to his old friends for advice, they also reject him. After being turned away at a slaughterhouse that once did business with his shop, the Butcher decides to kill the slaughterhouse manager. He plots the murder at a local tavern but is ejected from the bar at gunpoint after squabbling with the owner's son. The Butcher finds that he has only three bullets in his gun and begins assigning them to the men he feels have humiliated him the most.

Before he can take revenge, the Butcher decides to look for the only person he feels has ever loved him: his daughter. After meeting her at the asylum in which she is a patient, he takes her back to his room where he fantasizes about molesting her, killing her, and committing suicide. Then he decides to put his gun away, resolving to be good, and tearfully embraces his daughter. Again, however, he starts to contemplate having sex with her in the same manner he did with her mother.

Standing at a window, he unzips his daughter's jacket and begins fondling her. As he abuses his daughter, the Butcher, between more and more incoherent thoughts, tries to justify his act by asserting that the world does not condemn his love because it is evil but because it is too powerful.

Cast
 Philippe Nahon as the Butcher
 Blandine Lenoir as his daughter, Cynthia
 Frankye Pain as his Mistress
 Martine Audrain as his Mother-in-Law
 Roland Guéridon as his Old Friend
 Aïssa Djabri as Dr. Choukroun
 Gérard Ortega as the Bar Owner
 Alain Pierre as the Owner's Son
 Zaven as the Man with Morality

Production
The film was produced by Les Cinémas de la Zone, a production company run by director Noé and his girlfriend Lucile Hadžihalilović. It was shot in an unusual combination of 16 mm film and the CinemaScope format. Recording took place sporadically over a period of two and a half years, with frequent budget problems. The fashion designer agnès b. eventually granted a loan which Noé says saved his production company. The gimmick of having a warning text before the story's climax was borrowed from William Castle's 1961 film Homicidal.

According to a 2010 interview, Noé came up with the idea of the butcher character following a conversation he had with his father as a teenager. The Argentinian-born Noé was traveling to his mother's native France for the first time, and upon landing in Paris, his father turned to him and said: "They eat horses here" (referring to the French consumption of horse meat, which is unheard of in Argentina). Noé then decided that a horse meat butcher would make a great character in a film, and this formed the basis for his first short Carne.

Style
Most of the film's script consists of the Butcher's internal monologue, spoken in voice-over.

The camera is usually stationary throughout the film, but this trend is sometimes contrasted by abrupt, rapid movements. The sudden movements are always accompanied by a loud sound effect, usually an explosive gunshot. A notable exception is the final crane shot, which moves gently away from the Butcher's window and turns to look down an empty street.

The film frequently cuts to title cards that display a variety of messages. The cards often repeat a notable word spoken by the Butcher, such as "Morality" and "Justice". At the film's climax, a "Warning" title card counts down 30 seconds, gives viewers an opportunity to stop watching and avoid the remainder of the film.

Film connections
The film is a sequel to Noé's short film Carne. The Butcher also makes a cameo appearance at the beginning of Irréversible, Noe's follow-up to I Stand Alone. In a drunken monologue, the Butcher reveals that he was arrested for molesting his daughter.

Accolades
 International Critics' Week Award at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival
 Official Selection of Telluride, Toronto, New York, Rotterdam, San Francisco, Sundance film festivals.
 Selected as a favourite film by John Waters to present as his annual selection within Maryland Film Festival 2003.

References

External links

 Gaspar Noé, todo es cuestión de moral

1998 films
1998 crime drama films
1998 directorial debut films
1990s French films
1990s French-language films
1990s psychological drama films
Films directed by Gaspar Noé
Films set in the 1980s
French crime drama films
French psychological drama films
Heart of Sarajevo Award for Best Film winners
Incest in film

I Stand Alone (film)


Pierre Lambert (real name Pierre Boussel; June 9, 1920 – January 16, 2008) was a French Trotskyist leader, who for many years acted as  the central leader of the French Courant Communiste Internationaliste (CCI) which founded the Parti des Travailleurs.

He was born in Paris to a family of Russian Jewish immigrants. Lambert began his activity as a Trotskyist militant before the Second World War when he was a member of the Internationalist Workers Party (POI) led by Raymond Molinier. After the war he continued his activism, as a member of the now united French section of the Fourth International, the Internationalist Communist Party (PCI).

In the PCI he was known as a specialist in trade union matters. When Michel Pablo, the secretary of the Fourth International, raised the question of entrism sui generis he eventually came to oppose this and helped to challenge Pablo within the French Section of the FI, backing the PCI leadership around Marcel Bleibtreu (also known as Pierre Favre).

Differences between Lambert and Bleibtreu forced the latter to leave the PCI. By this time, 1952, the PCI had split into two mutually hostile groups on the question of entrism sui generis and the associated perspective of hundreds of years of deformed workers states propagated by Pablo.

As leader of the PCI by 1954 Lambert forged an alliance with the Socialist Workers Party in the United States  and others opposed to Pablo. Lambert lead the PCI to  join with these anti-Pabloist fores to form the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). This alliance would last for nearly a decade at which point the SWP (US) and its international faction fused with the International Secretariat of the Fourth International, within which Pablo was now marginalised, to form the United Secretariat of the Fourth International.

Lambert was left in 1963 to continue the ICFI in an alliance with the Gerry Healy-led Socialist Labour League, based in Britain. The much shrunken ICFI consisted at this point of the SLL, Lambert's Organisation Communiste Internationaliste (the PCI as rebranded in 1966) and smaller groups around Europe and Latin America, most notably the POR in Bolivia led by Guillermo Lora  and the  Politica Obrera  group in Argentina led by Jorge Altamira. By the time of the ICFI's congress in 1966, pressures were building between the OCI (which thought the SLL to be "ultimatistic") and the SLL. In 1971 the OCI left the ICFI to form the Organising Committee for the Reconstruction of the Fourth International and in 1973 and 1974 proposed discussions to the USFI. This was supported by the US SWP but the Nicaraguan Revolution intervened in 1979 and instead the OCRFI eventually united with Nahuel Moreno's group to form the Parity Committee for the Reconstruction of the Fourth International. The parity commission failed, leaving Lambert's supporters organised in the Fourth International (ICR). In 1996 the Fourth International (ICR) reproclaimed the Fourth International  and goes by that name since.

Under his real name of Pierre Boussel, Lambert was candidate at the presidential election in 1988. He gathered 116,823 votes (0.39% of validly cast ballots).

Lambert died in Paris January 16, 2008.

External links
Lambert biography (in French)
De la IVe Internationale au Parti des travailleurs Tribute in Libération, 16 January 2008

1920 births
2008 deaths
Politicians from Paris
20th-century French Jews
French people of Russian-Jewish descent
Internationalist Workers Party politicians
Internationalist Communist Party (France) politicians
Internationalist Communist Organisation politicians
Members of the General Confederation of Labour (France)
Workers' Force members
Jewish socialists
Candidates in the 1988 French presidential election

Pierre Lambert