In parliamentary procedure, a division of the assembly, division of the house, or simply division is a method of taking a vote that physically counts members voting.

Historically, and often still today, members are literally divided into physically separate groups. This was the method used in the Roman Senate (vote per secessionem), and occasionally in Athenian democracy. Westminster system parliament chambers have separate division lobbies for the "Ayes" and "Noes" to facilitate physical division. In several assemblies, a division bell is rung throughout the building when a division is happening, in order to alert members not present in the chamber. In the United Kingdom, division bells are also present in a number of bars and restaurants near the Palace of Westminster in order to call members to vote who may be outside the building.

Australia

House of Representatives
In the Australian House of Representatives divisions follow a form similar to that of the United Kingdom, but the requirements are generally more stringent. For instance, a Member in the Chamber when the tellers are appointed must vote, while a Member not then present may not. Furthermore, members must vote in accordance to their voice votes.

The voice vote is held as in the British House of Commons. If more than one Member objects, then the division bells are rung throughout the Parliamentary estate. When not less than four minutes have elapsed since the question was first put, the Speaker orders that the doors to the Chamber be locked, and directs that the Ayes proceed to the right side of the Chamber, and that the Noes proceed to the left. Members then take seats on the appropriate side of the Chamber, rather than entering a lobby, and then the Speaker appoints tellers for each side, unless fewer than five Members are seated on one side, in which case the Speaker calls off the division and declares the result for the side with the greater number of Members. If the division is still on, the tellers count and record the names of the Members. The Speaker announces the result, but does not vote unless there is an equality of votes. (If only one Member objects, his objection may be noted on the Hansard, but no vote is taken.)

Senate
In the Australian Senate, a procedure similar to that of the House of Representatives is followed. The voice vote is taken, and, if two Senators object, a division is held. Senators take seats in the right or left of the Chamber as in the House, and the President of the Senate appoints one teller for each side to record the votes. The President may vote by stating to the Senate the side on which he intends to vote. If the result of the division is an equality of votes, then the motion is in all cases disagreed to.

Canada
The procedure used in the House of Commons of Canada is similar to that in the British House of Commons, with a few differences. The Speaker reads the question aloud, and then asks, "Is it the pleasure of the house to adopt the motion?"  If anyone dissents, the Speaker then states "all those in favour of the motion will please say yea."  After the cries of 'yea', the Speaker says "all those opposed will please say nay," and all members opposed to the question cry out 'nay' all at once. The Speaker then announces his opinion of the outcome of the vote. If five or more MPs challenge the Speaker's opinion, a formal division follows.

A formal division is invoked by the Speaker asking to "call in the members." Bells are rung throughout the Parliament Buildings for either 15 or 30 minutes to allow all present MPs time to enter the chamber and take their seats. The division begins with the whips from both the government and the official opposition bowing to the Speaker and each other before returning to their seats.

There are no division lobbies in the House of Commons, so each member votes by simply standing up from his or her seat. "Yea" votes are recorded first, followed by the "Nay" votes, on the Speaker's order. Finally, the clerk of the house reads the result of the vote aloud to the Speaker.

Germany
In the German Bundestag and some state parliaments the president can call for the so-called  (literally, wether's leap) if an undisputed majority couldn't be established by either MPs raising their hands or standing in order to cast their votes.
In this voting procedure the MPs leave the plenary hall and re-enter through one of three doors designated for "yes", "no", or "abstention".

According to the Duden dictionary, the expression refers to the MPs grouping themselves like sheep behind their respective bellwethers before re-entering the chamber. The procedure was introduced in 1874 by a Reichstag vice president. In 1894 the architect of the new Reichstag building made a reference to the : above the door for "yes", he depicted Ulysses and his friends escaping from Polyphemus.

Ireland
In Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Oireachtas, a division is a formal count that can be called for if a voice vote is deemed insufficient. The procedure for voting and divisions is specified by standing orders 70–77. In Seanad Éireann, the upper house, a similar procedure is laid out by standing orders 56–63. In the Dáil the Ceann Comhairle (chair) puts the question and TDs (deputies) present say the Irish word tá (yes) or níl (no) respectively if they agree or disagree. The Ceann Comhairle then gives an opinion on the voice vote. Any TD may demand a division by calling Vótáil (vote). Since 2016, in an effort to reduce delays, many divisions are deferred until a weekly division time on Thursdays when they are taken one after another. Previous to this, if the Ceann Comhairle suspected that fewer than ten TDs had called for a division, he asked them to rise; if the number was less than ten, their names were entered in the Dáil record but no division occurred. This process still is still used when holding the Thursday vote on a question, but the deferral of the vote until Thursday happens regardless of how few demand a vote.

The Dáil and Seanad division bells are reproductions respectively of the Lough Lene Bell and the Bell of Armagh; At a division, bells sound and bulbs light around Leinster House and the adjoining Oireachtas buildings, calling legislators to the chamber; with differing sounds and lights for Dáil and Seanad votes. The bells ring for between two and six minutes, and the doors to the chamber are locked after a further one to four minutes. The Ceann Comhairle then appoints two tellers for each side and deputies present are given one minute to vote. Voting is usually electronic, with deputies pressing either the  (yes) or  (no) button on their desks. After the voting time has concluded a Division Paper recording the result and each TD's vote is signed by the four tellers and given to the Ceann Comhairle, who declares the result. Electronic voting was introduced in 2002. The traditional practice of voting by physically entering division lobbies is retained for some symbolically important votes: confidence motions and nominations of Ceann Comhairle, Taoiseach (Prime Minister) and cabinet ministers.

A group of at least 20 TDs may demand a non-electronic repeat of an electronic vote. A summer 2016 upgrade to the electronic voting system allowed a change to standing orders such that TDs may have an abstention from voting () formally recorded; for other purposes this is treated the same as not voting.

Since 2016, the Ceann Comhairle has been elected in a secret ballot by alternative vote (ranked ballot), with the winner's ensuing nomination uncontested without a division. Secret-ballot single transferable vote elections were used in the 1920s, for the Dáil's 30 nominees to the 1922 Seanad, and for the Dáil and Seanad's separate slates of candidates in the 1925 Seanad election. Ballots were distributed and submitted in the assembly chamber, then removed for counting; Dáil results were announced by the Ceann Comhairle in the chamber, whereas the Seanad adjourned for the day and allowed its Cathaoirleach (chair) to announce the results to the press that evening.

Incidents
During the renomination of Taoiseach of Fianna Fáil's Jack Lynch after the 1969 election, the division bell continued to ring after the doors had been locked, while several Fianna Fáil deputies entered the chamber through an unlocked door.

In October 2019 several TDs admitted having, over previous months, pressed the voting button of an absent party colleague, either by accident or when they believed the colleague was elsewhere in the chamber during the division. News media reported that the Ceann Comhairle would propose suspending electronic voting pending investigation. On 22 October the Dáil committee on procedure commissioned a review by the clerk of the Dáil of the instances first reported, which had occurred on 17 October. The clerk's review and recommended changes to procedure was endorsed and published by the committee on 24 October, and debated in the Dáil chamber the same day. Some politicians described the report as a whitewash.

New Zealand

In the New Zealand House of Representatives, division of the assembly occurs when the result of a voice vote on a motion is split, and a member disagrees with the Speaker's call. There are two methods for handling a division: a party vote and a personal vote.

A party vote is the most common method, and occurs for non-conscience issues and some conscience issues. In this method, the Clerk of the House reads out each party's name in order of the number of seats each party has, starting with the largest party, followed by any independent members and any members wishing to cross the floor. A member of the party (usually a whip) will respond to their party's name by stating how many members of the party are in favour or opposed. The Clerk tallies up the votes and gives the results to the Speaker, who declares the result. A split party vote is a variation of the party vote, used for some conscience issues. The main difference is voting members state how many members of their party are in favour and how many members are opposed, and once the voting is completed, must table a list of the members of the party and how they voted.

A personal vote is used mainly for conscience issues, and follows similar procedures to other Westminster systems. In the event of a personal vote, the division bells are rung for seven minutes, and after the bells stops, members are instructed to move to one of two lobbies, "Ayes" or "Noes", to have their vote recorded as such. Once all the votes are tallied, the results are handed to the speaker who declares the result.

An unusual division occurred on 30 August 2012, simulating an exhaustive ballot for a three-way conscience vote on New Zealand's legal drinking age. All members were directed to the Noes lobby, where the Clerk of the House recorded each member's vote (either for keeping the age at 18, raising the age to 20, or raising the off-licence age to 20 while keeping the on-licence age at 18) as they passed back into the main debating chamber. The votes were tallied and handed back to the Speaker, who declared the results as 50 votes for 18 years, 38 votes for 20 years, and 33 votes for an 18/20 split. As no option acquired the 61-vote majority needed, the option with the lowest number of votes (18/20 split) was dropped, and the members voted again as per a normal personal vote, using the Ayes lobby for 18 years and Noes lobby for 20 years.

United Kingdom

House of Commons

In the House of Commons, the Speaker says "The Question is that...", states the question and next says "As many as there are of the opinion say Aye". Then, following shouts of "Aye", the Speaker says "Of the contrary, No" and similar shouts of "No" may follow. If one side clearly has more support, the Speaker then announces their opinion as to the winner, stating, for example, "I think the Ayes have it, the Ayes have it". Otherwise, the Speaker declares a division.

Any member may object to the Speaker's determination. If feeling that the division is unnecessary, the Speaker may first ask those who support the determination of the voice vote to rise, and then ask those who oppose the opinion to rise. Then, the Speaker may either declare that the ruling on the voice vote stands, or proceed to a division.

If a division is to be taken, the Speaker first states, "Division! Clear the lobbies!" Like all parliamentary procedure, there is a historical reason for the tradition. In this case it was a division that took place on 27 February 1771 when a non-MP (known as a 'stranger'), Thomas Hunt, was included in the 'Noes' vote. It subsequently transpired that he had voted several times previously. The division bell then sounds across the Parliamentary Estate as well as several buildings in the vicinity, such as restaurants and pubs. (For a full list see external bells.) The lobbies are cleared of strangers, these days primarily journalists, but historically could have been members of the public. Division bells notify any members not currently in the chamber that a vote is about to start. A recent development has been the use of pagers and mobile phones by party whips, to summon members from further afield. At the beginning of a division, two MPs who intend to vote in favour and two MPs who intend to vote against communicate to the Speaker their intentions to act as tellers.

Two minutes into the division the Speaker puts the question to the House again. If it is clear that a division is still required, the Speaker announces the names of the tellers. In order to ensure impartiality, in each lobby there is one teller for the Ayes (i.e. a teller who intends to vote in favour) and one teller for the Noes (i.e. a teller who intends to vote against). If there are tellers for one side but not for the other, the question is decided in favour of the side for which there are tellers (for instance, if there are no tellers for the Noes, the Aye side automatically wins the division, and vice versa).

MPs have to walk through one of the two division lobbies on either side of the House, tapping their pass against one of several readers installed in the lobbies, in order to vote. They are then counted by the two tellers as they leave the lobby; the numbers they record are the definitive result of the division. The whips keep check on which MPs enter which lobby and try to persuade them to enter the lobby that the party would like them to enter. Until 2020, the names of Members voting in each lobby were recorded by clerks rather than electronic systems, but this procedure was reformed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Division List, recording the way in which MPs voted, is automatically made available on the Parliament website soon after a division. In October 2022, then-Prime Minister Liz Truss was erroneously thought to have abstained from her own government's motion against a Labour motion to ban fracking as she had forgotten to swipe her voting card.

MPs with a direct financial interest on any matter are prohibited from voting. In order to act as a disqualification, the matter must be immediate and personal and not a general or remote matter.

Originally, there was only one lobby. After the fire of 1834, the House of Commons Chamber was rebuilt. At that time, a second lobby was added.

Eight minutes after the question has been put for the first time, the Speaker declares, "Lock the doors!" The lobby entrances are locked, and only those within the lobbies may continue to vote.

After all members have voted in the lobbies, the vote totals are written on a card and the numbers are read out to the House by one of the tellers of the winning side announcing as follows; "The Ayes to the right: (number of votes), The Noes to the left: (number of votes)". The Speaker then announces these numbers a second time, announcing the final result by saying "The Ayes/Noes have it, the Ayes/Noes have it". The Speaker then adds: "Unlock." Tellers are not included among the numbers announced to the Speaker. The Speaker himself only votes if a tie arises; in that case, he verbally announces his vote, which is cast in accordance with Speaker Denison's rule.

Members may signify, but not record, an abstention by remaining in their seats during the division. Though the practice is traditionally frowned upon, MPs can also pass through both lobbies, effectively registering their abstention.

It is stipulated that all Members of Parliament are required to stay in or around the premises of the House of Commons until the main business of the day has ended, however long that may be. In the unlikely event that fewer than forty members participate in the division (including the speaker and the tellers), the division is declared 'inquorate', the question at hand is postponed until the next sitting, and the House proceeds to the next business.

The nature of divisions in the House of Commons is one which traditionally could go on well into the night, sometimes past midnight. However, in 2000 the House introduced, on an experimental basis, the procedure of "Deferred Divisions." Essentially, some divisions are delayed until the next Wednesday. The procedure is used for very few matters; most divisions still occur normally.

There have been suggestions that electronic voting may be easier and quicker to do than physically going through a division lobby. However, MPs have often found that a division is the best way to interact with senior members of the government.

There are two variations to the normal practice of an MP voting by walking through the respective lobby.

Nodding through

There have been cases where Members of Parliament are wheeled from far afield to vote for their party in a crucial vote. For members who are too ill to reach the lobby, there is a procedure called 'nodding through' provided the tellers agree. The whips will ensure that the MP's name is added to the list of those voting. There are only two conditions. The MP must be within the precincts of the Palace of Westminster, and must be alive. Former MP Joe Ashton remembered a case from the final days of James Callaghan's government:

Pairing

'Pairing' is an arrangement between two opposing MPs where both agree not to participate in any divisions because their votes would cancel each other out anyway. Pairing agreements can last anything from days to the life of the Parliament. All pairings have to be registered with the party whips so that they know not to pursue their member for failing to vote.

House of Lords

In the House of Lords, the Lord Speaker proposes the question and announces the result as in the Commons, but substitutes "Content" for "Aye" and "Not-content" for "No". A Lord may object to the Lord Speaker's determination. The Lord Speaker then announces a division by stating, "Clear the Bar!" The Bar of the House is then cleared. Tellers are appointed as in the Commons.

Three minutes after the question was first proposed, the Lord Speaker again proposes the question as above. If his opinion is not challenged, then the question is decided without a division. But if his decision is once again disputed, the Lord Speaker may again ask the question. The question may be repeated as many times as the Lord Speaker pleases; the process is referred to as "collecting the voices". But if a single Lord maintains an objection, the Lord Speaker, not having the Commons Speaker's power to declare a division unnecessary, must eventually announce, "The Contents to the right by the Throne, the Not-contents to the left by the Bar". Lords then vote in the lobbies, as it is done in the Commons. Unlike the Speaker, the Lord Speaker may vote during a division; he does so from his seat rather than in a lobby. In the event that the votes are equal, then the following principles apply, but are implemented by the Standing Orders of the House rather than by convention:

 Legislation remains unchanged unless there is a majority in favour of amendment,
 Legislation is allowed to proceed to the next stage unless there is a majority in favour of rejection, and
 All other motions are rejected unless there is a majority in favour of passage.

The quorum for divisions is three Lords on a procedural vote and thirty Lords on a substantive one.

Northern Ireland Assembly

The Northern Ireland Assembly maintains a lobby voting system based on that used in the UK House of Commons, this is in contrast to other devolved legislatures in the United Kingdom and was inherited by the Assembly from the House of Commons of Northern Ireland for whom the current Assembly debating chamber was originally constructed.

When a vote is required the Assembly Speaker will state "The Question is put ..." and then note the question that the members are asked to vote upon. The speaker will then conduct a voice vote and if the result of that vote is not conclusive, the Speaker will declare "The Assembly will divide" and call for the lobbies on either side of the chamber to be cleared of non-members and Tellers appointed for both aye and noe. Members vote by entering the appropriate lobby on either side of the chamber, ayes to the Speaker's right, noes to the Speaker's left, with the result reported to the Speaker by the tellers and announced to the Assembly by the Speaker.

As in the UK House of Commons, it is possible for members to vote in both lobbies, registering two votes that cancel each other out, in order to signify an active abstention

United States

In the United States Congress, divisions are used to give a more accurate estimate of a vote than a voice vote. Typically, a division is taken when the result of a voice vote is challenged or when a two-thirds vote is required.

A division is also called a rising vote, where members stand up from their seats. According to Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised (RONR), the numbers for and against are not counted in a division. However, they may be counted by order of the chairman or by order of the assembly through majority vote. The assembly may also have a rule that the division is counted.

Unlike the British Parliament, in Congress, lobbies are not used, and the division is not a final determination of the question. The vote is first taken by voice vote, as is the case in Parliament. Then, any member may demand a division. If a division is demanded, then the Speaker of the House of Representatives (or, more commonly, a Representative of the majority party designated by the Speaker to preside as Speaker pro tempore) or the Presiding Officer of the Senate asks those voting Yea to rise and remain standing until counted, and then asks those voting Nay to do the same. A division is the least common method of voting in the Senate.

A recorded vote must take place upon the demand of one-fifth of members present under Article I, Section 5 of the United States Constitution: "the Yeas and Nays of the Members of either House on any question shall, at the Desire of one fifth of those Present, be entered on the Journal." In the Senate, a recorded vote is accomplished by the clerk's call of the roll. In the House, an electronic voting device is typically used to take recorded votes, although occasionally roll calls take place; the House is historically too large to conduct roll calls on a regular basis (435 members versus 100 in the Senate). When voting to override a Presidential veto, the yeas and nays are required under Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution.

See also
 Voting methods in deliberative assemblies

References

Legislatures
Parliamentary procedure

Division of the assembly


Flamman (meaning The Flame in English), also known as Norrskensflamman (meaning The Flame of the Aurora Borealis in English), is a Swedish socialist weekly newspaper.

History and profile
Flamman was founded in 1906 by the workers in Malmfälten and was the regional newspaper of the Swedish Social Democratic Workers' Party. The circulation of the paper reached its peak in the 1920s, with 11,000 daily copies.

After the Social Democratic Party was divided in 1917, the newspaper became a regional organ of the Swedish Social Democratic Left Party (SSV) in Norrbotten County, and later the Swedish Communist Party (SKP). When the Communist Party split in 1977, the newspaper became the voice for the Workers Party - The Communists (APK). In 1989, it changed from being a daily to a weekly newspaper.  In 1990, the newspaper broke with APK and became an independent socialist weekly.

The paper was originally named Norrskensflamman (The Flame of Northern Lights), before a change of name in 1998.

Flamman is based in Stockholm and Emil Persson is among its editors. The current editor Leonidas Aretakis was appointed in 2021.

The 1940 arson attack
On the night of 3 March 1940, an arson attack was made against the offices of Norrskensflamman in Luleå. The attack was the biggest political attack during the 1900s and considered a terrorist attack. Five persons were killed, including two children, and another five persons were injured. The newspaper's offices were completely destroyed. It was carried out by Ebbe Hallberg, Uno Svanbom, a military captain, three other officers, as well as Gunnar Hedenström, a journalist from the right-wing newspaper, Norrbottens-Kuriren. The attack was planned in the offices of Norrbottens-Kuriren.

The arson attack had financial support from Andreas Lindblom, manager of Skansen, and Paul Wretlind, chairman of the Stockholm section of the Liberal People's Party.

References

External links
Flammans official website

1906 establishments in Sweden
Arson in Sweden
Communist newspapers published in Sweden
Newspapers established in 1906
Newspapers published in Stockholm
Socialist newspapers
Swedish-language newspapers
Weekly newspapers published in Sweden

Flamman


The simple station Humedal Córdoba is part of the TransMilenio mass-transit system of Bogotá, Colombia, which opened in the year 2000.

Location
The station is located in northwestern Bogotá, specifically on Avenida Suba, between las Calles 120 and 121.

It serves the Niza, Niza II, and Malibú neighborhoods.

History
In 2006, phase two of the TransMilenio system was completed, including the Avenida Suba line, on which this station is located.

The station is named Humedal Córdoba due to its proximity to this important body of water.

Nearby are the Ley store of Niza, the San Juan Crisóstomo church (Catholic), a Blockbuster, and the Bahía 123 shopping center.

On the night of April 25, 2011, an ambulance rammed one of the railings of the entry of this station, which suffered damage.

Station Services

Main Line Service

Feeder routes

This station does not have connections to feeder routes.

Inter-city service

This station does not have inter-city service.

External links
TransMilenio

See also
Bogotá
TransMilenio
List of TransMilenio Stations

TransMilenio

Humedal Córdoba (TransMilenio)


Vivienne Rae-Ellis, FRGS (23 July 1930 – 29 March 2015) was an Australian writer, who also wrote under the pseudonym Antonia Bell.

Early life
Rae-Ellis was born in Wynyard, Tasmania, Australia, in 1930, the only daughter of four children.  Her parents were Linda, née James (1908–1982) and Donald Thurstans (1904–1988). Soon after her birth the family moved to Hobart, where they lived first at Sandy Bay and then at New Town, where Rae-Ellis attended Ogilvy High School. While at school she played the violin and was a member of the school basketball team.

After leaving school she worked as a secretary in various Hobart businesses before joining the administrative staff of the School of Physics at the University of Tasmania.  There she met, and in 1952 married, William Frank Ellis (1928–2015). They had two children, Niki Maree Ellis (born 1955) and William Mark Ellis (born 1956). They divorced in 1978.

Career
Since 1952, Vivienne Rae-Ellis worked as a newspaper columnist, radio scriptwriter and broadcaster, television program host and public relations officer.  For many years she also worked as an actress in various performing companies including the Launceston Players. In 1954 she undertook the unusual assignment of standing in for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II during rehearsals for the 1954 Royal Tour of Tasmania. Her last performance as an actress in a play was in 1969 when she played Mrs. Earlynne in Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan.

Rae-Ellis began writing biographies and novels in the 1960s.  In 1967, while promoting a local history exhibition for the Launceston Public Library, she became fascinated by a photograph of the pioneer and philanthropist Louisa Anne Meredith whose biography she decided to write. Louisa Anne Meredith: A Tigress in Exile was published by Blubberhead Press in 1979, by which time Rae-Ellis had also published several other books.

She wrote in many genres including biography, children's fiction, romance, historical fiction and non-fiction, and she continued to produce articles and broadcasts for newspapers and journals in the UK and Australia.

In 2012 she completed a biography of the wife of the painter Thomas Gainsborough, and shortly before her death she completed a novel set in the whaling industry of the 1800s.

In 1982 Vivienne Rae-Ellis relocated from Australia to the United Kingdom. For several years she lived at Layer Marney Tower, the stately home in Essex. From 1988 she lived in Bath, Somerset, in a house once occupied by the painter Thomas Gainsborough and his family. Following her move to England, she was a keen advocate of urban conservation there. In 2003 she began researching the social history of The Circus, a famous example of Georgian architecture in Bath, during the period 1760–1780. She died at her home on 29 March 2015, taking her own life after developing a terminal illness.

Vivienne Rae-Ellis was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a member of the Society of Authors.

Published works

Non-fiction
Lively Libraries (1975)
True Ghost Stories of Our Own Time (1990)

Historical fiction
Queen Trucanini (1976; with Nancy Cato)

Children's fiction
Menace at Oyster Bay (1976)
The Tribe With No Feet (1978)

Biography
Trucanini: Queen or Traitor? (1976)
Louisa Anne Meredith: A Tigress in Exile (1979)
Black Robinson, Protector of Aborigines (1988)

Romance fiction
The Cavendish Affair (1980; as Antonia Bell)

References

External links
Vivienne Rae-Ellis' blog

1930 births
2015 deaths
Australian biographers
Australian emigrants to England
Australian historical novelists
Australian romantic fiction writers
Australian women novelists
Fellows of the Royal Geographical Society
People from Wynyard, Tasmania
Writers from Tasmania
Australian women biographers
Women romantic fiction writers
20th-century Australian novelists
20th-century Australian women writers
20th-century biographers
Suicides in England
Women historical novelists
2015 suicides

Vivienne Rae-Ellis


Hammed Animashaun (born 6 May 1991) is a British stage, film and television actor.

Early life
Animashaun was born into a Nigerian family in Whitechapel in London. His father was a bus driver and his mother a voluntary worker. He had a growth spurt in college and one summer grew five inches. His younger brother is 6 ft 9". Animashaun himself is 6 ft 3". He was encouraged by his school drama teacher to join the Half Moon Children's Theatre in London's Limehouse. He studied philosophy with drama at university but dropped out when offered theatre roles.

Career

Stage
He received second prize in the 2021 Ian Charleson Awards which recognise actors under the age of 30 in classical roles, for his role as Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Bridge Theatre. He also won Best Supporting Actor at the WhatsOnStage Awards for the same production. Other stage roles have included "Master Harold"...and the Boys, Athol Fugard's drama set in apartheid South Africa, one of the Ugly Sisters in Cinderella at the Lyric Hammersmith, The Producers at the Manchester Royal Exchange, the original production of the Barber Shop Chronicles, Rufus Norris's staging of The Threepenny Opera at the National and Michael Longhurst's revival of Amadeus.

Television
Animashaun appeared as Loial in the Amazon Prime Video series The Wheel of Time beginning in 2021. He stars in the 2023 BBC One comedy television series Black Ops, alongside Gbemisola Ikumelo and Akemnji Ndifornyen, playing an undercover policeman woefully out of his depth. His character, Kay, has been described as a "glass-half-full, God-fearing gentle giant and the opposite of street-smart." He described the role on the show as a "dream come true" and that he kept expecting to be replaced for a bigger named actor in the role. He has been praised for his chemistry with Ikumelo.

Writing
In 2023, he was awarded one of two scripted creators in residence for BBC Studios TalentWorks to work with producers on scripted comedy and drama.

Partial filmography

References

External links

Living people
Black British male actors
English people of Nigerian descent
Male actors from London
People from Whitechapel
1991 births

Hammed Animashaun


Centwine († 685) was King of Wessex from  to 685. He appears to have been one of several underkings of Wessex after the death of Cenwalh. But at some point he united the kingdom of Wessex under his rule.

King of Wessex

Centwine was the probable son of Cynegils and grandson of Ceolwulf, King of Wessex. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Centwine became king . Also that he succeeded Aescwine. Bede wrote that after the death of King Cenwalh: "his under-rulers took upon them the kingdom of the people, and dividing it among themselves, held it ten years". Bede's view of Aescwine and Centwine as underkings may represent the views of King Ine. His family ruled Wessex in Bede's time. If the kingdom did fragment following Cenwalh's death, it was reunited during Centwine's reign. An entry under 682 in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that "Centwine drove the Britons to the sea". Aldhelm wrote Centwine won three major victories but does not say who he defeated. Centwine is reported to have abdicated and became a monk. The date of his death is unknown.

Family

Centwine married Eangyth, niece of Eorcenbert of Kent. Her sister, Eormenburh was married to King Egfrith of Northumbria. Together they had:

 Bugga, Abbess of Eanburh.
 Oshere († bef. 720)

Notes

References

Other websites
 Britannia: Kings of Wessex

Year of birth unknown
680s deaths
Kings of Wessex

Centwine of Wessex


Bangal (;  Purbô Bôngiyô; ) is a term used to refer to the Bengali people of East Bengal (usually from the areas of Mymensingh, Dhaka, Barisal, Sylhet, Comilla and Chittagong), now in Bangladesh (as opposed to the Ghotis of West Bengal). The term is used to describe Bengalis from the east, who are marked by a distinct Bengali accent. It is usually assumed that the Bramhaputra-Padma river system is the demarcation line between the Western and Eastern wings of the Bengal region. The areas to the East of the Bramhaputra-Padma river system are traditionally held to be the homeland of the Bangal people.

Overview
Going by the more strict definition, the Bangals are those people whose ancestry is connected to the Eastern Bengal plains of Mymensingh, Dhaka, and Comilla. Further, some opinions exist that among the East Bengal Plains origin people, only people belonging to the more affluent economic groups should be classified as Bangal. Going by this opinion, the designation Bangal has an ethno-geographic as well as a social connotation.

Some of the people from East Bengal, mainly Hindus, migrated to West Bengal during the Partition of India in 1947. These refugees were sometimes referred to as Bangals by the native population of West Bengal.  As such, the terms Ghoti and Bangal are mostly used in West Bengal while in Bangladesh, the usage of these is rare except in regions with relatively high concentrations of immigrants from West Bengal. In modern times, amongst  Bengalis, "Bangal" and "Ghoti" are used as social sub-groups. Those whose families came from East Bengal at the time of Partition are Bangals and those whose families were staying in West Bengal at that time are Ghotis. Similarly, the people who came to West Bengal from East Bengal before the Independence of India in1947 are also known as Ghotis as they were staying in West Bengal, India, at the time of Independence. The term as used here has little relation to actual geography since most members of these groups all now live in India. Historically, in addition to marrying within their castes, people from these groups also preferred to marry within the group, whether Bangal or Ghoti.  Bangals and Ghotis keep up their cultural rivalry through their respective support of the football clubs East Bengal (Bangals) and Mohun Bagan (Ghotis). They also cherish a rivalry through a claim of the supremacy of their respective cuisines and especially river-food delicacies, i. e., Chingri (prawn) for Ghotis and Ilish (hilsa) for Bangals.

See also
Partition of India
Partition of Bengal (1947)
Bengali language
East Bengal
Habul Sen

References

Bangal


Agustín Drake Aldama (1 September 1934 – 4 August 2022) was a Cuban metal sculptor.

Born in Matanzas, he graduated at the Escuela Provincial de Artes Plásticas Alberto Tarascó, Matanzas, Cuba in 1953 and years later he was a director of this school between 1963–1968. He developed different art forms like drawing, painting, sculpture and graphic design.

Individual exhibitions
Drake made various exhibitions, among them we can quote Exposición de Esculturas de Agustín Drake at Liceo de Matanzas, Matanzas, Cuba in 1959; Sculpture sur la Faune Fantastique at Anasy Antananarivo, Madagascar and Fauna fantástica. Esculturas de Agustín Drake at Salao Internacional do Departamento Nacional de Museus e Monumentos, Luanda, Angola and Museu Nacional de Arte, Maputo, Mozambique, both in 1981.

Collective exhibitions
Drake also formed part of many collective exhibitions: for example at Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, La Habana he shows his work in 1954, 1955, 1956, 1959 and 1964 in different exhibitions.
Also he formed part of other shows at Centro de Arte Internacional, La Habana, Cuba in 1980; at Museo de Arte Moderno "La Tertulia", Cali, Colombia in 1976; at Centro D'Arte "Il Meloziano", Géneve, Italy in 1989, etc.

Awards
During his life he obtained different recognitions like Prize at V Salón Provincial de Artes Plásticas, Galería de Arte, Matanzas in 1983 and Sculpture Prize at VIII Salón Provincial "El Arte es un Arma de la Revolución"'' in Galería de Arte, Matanzas, Cuba at 1986.

Collections
Drake's work can be found in collections such as Museo de la Escultura, Las Tunas, Cuba, and Oficina de Asuntos Históricos, State Council, Havana, Cuba.

References

1934 births
2022 deaths
Cuban contemporary artists
People from Matanzas

Agustín Drake Aldama


Vladimir Plungian (; born September 13, 1960) is a Russian linguist, specialist in linguistic typology and theory of grammar, morphology, corpus linguistics, African studies, poetics.

Vladimir Plungian is a Doctor of Philology (1998), full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (2016, corresponding member since 2009), member of Academia Europaea (2017). He has worked at the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Russian Language Institute. He is also Professor at the Moscow State University.

Life
Son of Alexander Plungian (1924—2019), air engineer and interpreter, a friend of Yuri Knorozov and Valentin Berestov.

In 1982, Vladimir Plungian graduated from the Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics of the Philological faculty of the Moscow State University. During his student years, he took part in a number of linguistic field trips organized by the department, in particular those which studies Tabasaran, Andi, Chamalal languages of Dagestan. The topic of his diploma was Evaluation of probability as a type of modal meaning (supervisor: Alexander Kibrik).

Plungian acquired his Candidate Degree in 1987 at the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the topic of his work being Morphological derivation and inflection in the verbal system of an agglutinative language (based on Dogon data) (supervisor: Natalia Okhotina). In 1998, he obtained his Doctoral Degree at the Moscow State University, with the thesis Grammatical categories, their counterparts and substitutes.

Plungian is currently the head of the Typology department at the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences (since 2004) and the head of the Department of corpus linguistics and linguistic poetics of the Russian Language Institute (since 2006). Since 2013, he is also the deputy director of the Russian Language Institute. He teaches at the Department of theoretical and applied linguistics of the Philological faculty of the Moscow State University (since 1989), and was the head of the department in 2013–2017. He has also taught at various other universities in Moscow, including the Russian State University for the Humanities. He has worked in various research centres in Europe (Belgium, Germany, Spain, Norway, France, Sweden etc.) and conducted fieldwork in Africa (Mali), Dagestan, Armenia, northern parts of Russia, in the Volga region and Pamir.

He is the main editor of the journal Voprosy Jazykoznanija ("Issues in Linguistics") since 2016, and member of editorial boards of various other journals in Russia. He is a member of the international Association for Linguistic Typology, of the Society of Slavic Linguistics and the Societas Linguistica Europaea. In 2017, he was elected as a member of the Academia Europaea.

Vladimir Plungian is married to fellow linguist Ekaterina Rakhilina. Their elder daughter Nadezhda Plungian is an art expert and feminist activist.

Research
The main areas of Vladimir Plungian's research interests are morphology, theory of grammar and grammatical typology (first of all, typology of verbal categories). He has also published on grammatical and lexical semantics, lexicography, linguistic fieldwork and poetics. He is a specialist in African languages, and worked at the Department of African languages of the Institute of Linguistics for more than 20 years. Since 1984, he has systematically studied Dogon languages in Mali, and took part in an international field trip to Mali (1992). He published a series of articles and two monographs on Dogon languages (he was the first person to describe one of the largest languages of this family, Tommo-so). Apart from African languages, he conducted research on various languages of the Caucasus, Oceania, Finno-Ugric languages of Russia, etc. Many of his publications are dedicated to Russian grammar and lexicon.

In the field of grammatical typology, Vladimir Plungian made contributions to the classification of grammatical categories in the languages of the world, described several new verbal categories, proposed a new classification of modal (together with J. van der Auwera), aspectual and evidential meanings. According to Scopus, his most cited journal papers are Modality's semantic map (1998, with Johan van der Auwera), The place of evidentiality within the universal grammatical space (2001) and Towards a typology of discontinuous past marking (2006, also with van der Auwera).

Since 1990s, Plungian has paid attention to the development of corpus methods in linguistic research. He is one of the creators of the Russian National Corpus and of the East Armenian National Corpus, he also founded various projects on creating corpora for other languages of Russia and beyond (e.g. Beserman Udmurt and Yiddish). He is one of the leaders of the project on corpus grammar of the modern Russian languages since 2015.

Since late 1980s, Plungian has taught linguistic subjects at universities. His main theoretical course for the students of the Department of theoretical and applied linguistics at the Moscow State University is "General morphology". On the basis of this course, he wrote a textbook General morphology: introduction (1st ed., 2000), which remains his most cited book according to Google Scholar. Apart from this course, he has taught various other courses, such as "Russian morphology", "Languages of the world and linguistic areas", "Introduction to language theory".

References

External links
 Profile at the Russian Academy of Sciences website
 Profile at Academia.edu
 Profile at the Academia Europaea website
 Official web-page at the Institute of Linguistics website
 Official web-page at the Russian Language Institute website
 Official web-page at the Department of theoretical and applied linguistics website

1960 births
Linguists from Russia
Linguists from the Soviet Union
20th-century linguists
21st-century linguists
Full Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Russian studies scholars
Caucasologists
Morphologists
Members of Academia Europaea
Russian Jews
Living people

Vladimir Plungian


Stepan Andreevich Neustroev (; 12 August 1922 – 26 February 1998) was a Soviet officer, commander of the 1st Battalion in the 756th Regiment of the 150th Rifle Division. His unit stormed the Reichstag.

At a young age, Neustroev worked in the local mine as a mechanic. At June 1941, shortly before the war with Germany, he was conscripted and sent to the Cherkasy Infantry School. Lieutenant Neustroev was dispatched to the front on November, joining the 166th Infantry Division. He was severely wounded in a battle near Gzhatsk. He was wounded again on August 1942 and spent several months in hospital. At April 1943, Captain Neustroev was appointed commander of the 1st Battalion in the 756th Regiment, a post he held to the end of the war. The Battalion took part in the fighting for Belarus, Poland and the Baltics.

On 22 April 1945, the Battalion reached Berlin. On 30 April, at noon, Neustroev's men stormed the Reichstag, breaking through the main entrance and clearing the building. The following day, roughly at 03:00, his deputy for political affairs, Lieutenant Alexei Berest, together with two scouts—Mikhail Yegorov and Meliton Kantaria—raised the Victory Banner atop the Reichstag, next to Wilhelm I's statue.

On 8 May 1946, Neustroev was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union (Medal no. 6971). He retired from the army at 1953, holding the rank of lieutenant colonel. From 1957 to 1962, he served in the Internal troops, holding his old rank. He was stationed at Novouralsk.

References

1922 births
1998 deaths
People from Sverdlovsk Oblast
Soviet military personnel of World War II
Heroes of the Soviet Union
Soviet colonels
Recipients of the Order of Lenin
Recipients of the Order of Alexander Nevsky
Recipients of the Medal "For Courage" (Russia)

Stepan Neustroev


In chemistry, isomerization or isomerisation is the process in which a molecule, polyatomic ion   or molecular fragment is transformed into an isomer with a different chemical structure. Enolization is an example of isomerization, as is tautomerization. When the isomerization occurs intramolecularly it may be called a rearrangement reaction.

When the activation energy for the isomerization reaction is sufficiently small, both isomers will exist in a temperature-dependent equilibrium with each other. Many values of the standard free energy difference, , have been calculated, with good agreement between observed and calculated data.

Examples and applications

Alkanes
Skeletal isomerization occurs in the cracking process, used in the petrochemical industry. As well as reducing the average chain length, straight-chain hydrocarbons are converted to branched isomers in the process, as illustrated the following reaction of n-butane to i-butane.
\overset{n-butane}{CH3CH2CH2CH3} -> \overset{i-butane}{CH3CH(CH3)CH3}

Fuels containing branched hydrocarbons are favored for internal combustion engines for their higher octane rating.

Alkenes
Trans-alkenes are about 1 kcal/mol more stable than cis-alkenes. An example of this effect is cis- vs trans-2-butene. The difference is attributed to unfavorable non-bonded interactions in the cis isomer.

Terminal alkenes isomerize to internal alkenes in the presence of metal catalysts. This process is employed in the Shell higher olefin process to convert alpha-olefins to internal olefins, which are subjected to olefin metathesis. In certain kinds of alkene polymerization reactions, chain walking is an isomerization process that introduces branches into growing polymers.

The trans isomer of resveratrol can be converted to the cis isomer in a photochemical reaction.

Thermal rearrangement of azulene to naphthalene has been observed.

Other examples
Aldose-ketose isomerism, also known as Lobry de Bruyn–van Ekenstein transformation, provides an example in saccharide chemistry.

An example of an organometallic isomerization is the production of decaphenylferrocene,  from its linkage isomer.

See also
Base-promoted epoxide isomerization
Epimerization
Racemization
Tautomerization
Linkage isomerism

References

Chemical reactions

Isomerization


Saints Victor and Corona (also known as Saints Victor and Stephanie) are two Christian martyrs. Victor was a Roman soldier who was tortured and killed; Corona was killed for comforting him. Corona is invoked as a patron of causes involving money; she was not historically associated with pandemics or disease, but has been invoked against the coronavirus pandemic.

Legend

Their legend states that Victor was a Roman soldier of Italian ancestry, who was tortured, including having his eyes gouged out, and was beheaded. Most sources state that he and Corona were killed in Roman Syria during the reign of Marcus Aurelius (around the 160s-170s AD), but various hagiographical texts disagree about the site of their martyrdom, with some stating that it was Damascus, while Coptic sources state that it was Antioch. Some Western sources state that Alexandria or Sicily was their place of martyrdom. They also disagree about the date of their martyrdom. They may have been martyred during the reign of Antoninus Pius, or Diocletian, while the Roman Martyrology states that it was in the third century when they met their death.

While he was suffering from the tortures, the sixteen-year-old wife of another soldier, named Corona or Stephanie (or Stefania or Stephana, from Greek στέφᾰνος, stéphanos, "crown", the Greek version of her Latin name, which also means "crown")<ref>Le martyrologe d'Usuard (1867), p. 270</ref> comforted and encouraged him. For this, she was arrested and interrogated. According to the passio of Corona, Corona was bound to two bent palm trees and torn apart as the trunks were released; the passio'' is considered largely fictional, and she herself may also be fictional. Other sources state that Victor and Corona were husband and wife.

There is also debate as to where Corona was from; differing accounts place her in Syria, Sicily, and Marseille.

Veneration
Victor and Corona's memorial day is 24 November (11 November in the Orthodox church calendar). Their feast day is 14 May. Outside the town of Feltre in northern Italy, on the slopes of Mount Miesna, is the church of SS. Vittore e Corona, erected by the Crusaders from Feltre after the First Crusade.

Corona is especially venerated in Austria and eastern Bavaria. There is a chapel dedicated to her in Sauerlach, near Munich. There are two churches named after her in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Passau and two towns named after her in Lower Austria. A statue of her stands in the Münster Cathedral.

Around 1000 AD Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor brought Corona's relics to Aachen in western Germany. Her relics were rediscovered during excavation work at Aachen Cathedral in 1910. The relics were removed from a crypt and placed in a shrine inside the cathedral.

Corona is the patroness of causes involving money, such as gambling and treasure hunting, a result of a later treasure hunter who credited his success to invoking her. She is called upon by a treasure hunter to bring treasure, and then sent away through a similarly elaborate ritual. She was not historically a patron saint of or invoked against pandemics or disease, but has been invoked against the COVID-19 pandemic. Her relics will be available for public veneration once the pandemic has passed.

References

External links

St. Victor of Damascus at the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America
Selected Lives of Saints of November and December
 Santi Corona e Vittore.
 Basilica Santuario dei Santi Vittore e Corona.

170s deaths
160 deaths
2nd-century births
2nd-century Christian martyrs
Ante-Nicene Christian female saints
Folk saints
Groups of Roman Catholic saints
Military saints
Saints duos
Saints from Roman Syria
Legendary Romans
Treasure hunting

Victor and Corona


Hugh Clark (May 6, 1867 – May 13, 1959) was an educator, newspaper editor and political figure in Ontario, Canada. He represented Bruce Centre in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1902 to 1911 and Bruce North from 1911 to 1921 as a Conservative.

He was born in Kincardine Township, Canada West, the son of Donald Clark and Mary McDougall, both Scottish immigrants, and was educated there. Clark taught school for several years. From 1890 to 1925, he published the Kincardine Review. In 1894, he married Katherine McKay Ross. Clark was editor for the Walkerton Herald in 1890 and managing editor for the Ottawa Citizen from 1897 to 1898. His election to the Ontario assembly in 1902 was overturned but he was elected again in the by-election which followed in 1903. Clark served as lieutenant-colonel for the Bruce militia from 1906 to 1911. He resigned his seat in the Ontario assembly in 1911 to enter federal politics. From 1917 to 1921, he was a member of the Tory-led Unionist Party. He was parliamentary secretary of Militia and Defence from 1918 to 1920. Clark was defeated when he ran for reelection as a Conservative in 1921, 1925 and 1926.

Clark was the great uncle of former prime minister Joe Clark.

References

External links

1867 births
1959 deaths
Conservative Party of Canada (1867–1942) MPs
Members of the House of Commons of Canada from Ontario
Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario MPPs
Unionist Party (Canada) MPs

Hugh Clark (politician)


Many types of flowering plants are available to plant in flower gardens or flower beds. The floral industry calls these plants, bedding plants. These fast-growing plants in seasonal flower beds create colourful displays, during spring, summer, fall or winter, depending on the climate.  Plants used for bedding are generally annuals, but biennials, tender perennials, and succulents are used.

Flowering bedding plants are also grown in containers and pots positioned on patios, terraces, decks and other areas around houses. Large containers of bedding plants are used in public displays along city streets, plazas and hanging from city light posts.

Types of gardens with bedding plants
Formal, large gardens of bedding plants, as seen in parks and municipal displays, where whole flower beds are replanted two or three times a year, is a costly and labor-intensive process. Towns and cities are encouraged to produce impressive displays by campaigns such as "Britain in bloom" or "America in Bloom". Home gardeners usually have bedding plants in containers or in beds in the front yard or back yard.

Spring, fall, winter gardens - temperatures are moderate to cool

Plants used for spring bedding are often biennials (sown one year to flower the next), or hardy, but short-lived, perennials. Spring-flowering bulbs such as tulips are often used, typically with forget-me-nots, wallflowers, winter pansies and polyanthus. Hardy annuals sown directly into the ground early in the season (poppy, stock, sunflower, clarkia, godetia, eschscholzia, nigella, dianthus) or transplanted after purchase at a local garden centre. Hardy biennial plants, or perennials treated as biennials, sown in one year to flower the next, and discarded after flowering (antirrhinum, polyanthus, wallflower, daisy, foxglove, some dianthus, some poppies, campanula, delphinium, aubrieta, aquilegia, cornflower, pansies). Planted in autumn to give a display until early spring, the plants used for winter bedding are mainly hardy perennials. Spring flowering bulbs (tulip, narcissus, hyacinth, etc.) are also planted in the fall. Winter-hardy ornamental vegetables such as cultivars of kale and cabbage with coloured or variegated foliage are increasingly common. Primula cultivars (polyanthus and primroses) are commonly used, as are winter-flowering heathers and winter pansies.

Summer gardens - temperatures are moderate to hot
Plants used for summer bedding are generally annuals or tender perennials. They are available in retail greenhouses, farmers' markets, nurseries, garden centres and hardware stores during spring and continuing into summer. Experienced gardeners keep an eye on the weather forecasts at that time of year and are on standby to protect their gardens overnight with horticultural fleece (or a sheet or blanket) if frost threatens. Tender annual or perennial plants treated as half-hardy annuals, purchased as young plants, and hardened-off outdoors when all danger of frost has passed (begonia, lobelia, petunia, vinca, zinnia, dahlia, gerbera, argyranthemum, chrysanthemum, pelargonium, nicotiana, cosmos, fuchsia, etc.). Corms, rhizomes, bulbs and tubers of summer flowering plants, such as gladiolus, dahlia, canna, etc., are planted each year and lifted after the plant has died down and stored in winter, or discarded.

Carpet bedding
Carpet bedding employs two or more contrasting plant cultivars with a neat, dwarf habit and distinct colouring (of flower or foliage) to create geometric displays. It is often used to form such things as lettering, logos or trademarks, coats of arms, or floral clocks. Suitable plants are rosette-forming succulents such as Echeveria or fairly slow-growing or mat-forming foliage plants, such as colored-leaved Alternanthera cultivars, which are tolerant of clipping; such plants may also be used in three-dimensional sculptural forms or pseudo-topiary.

William Morris was an early critic, writing in 1882 that it was: "an aberration of the human mind ... when I think of it even when I am quite alone I blush with shame at the thought".

Larger tender houseplants or foliage plants may also be moved out from hobby greenhouses or indoors and planted out in borders (or left in their pots in sheltered positions) for the warmer months, then returned to shelter for the winter.

The modern bedding plant industry breeds and produces plants with a neat, dwarf habit, which flower uniformly and reliably. They are bred primarily for use in large-scale bedding schemes where uniformity and predictability is of paramount importance, but this is often achieved by losing the plants' individual character, and has been criticized by such notable plantsmen as the late Christopher Lloyd, who championed an informal style of bedding. This position has not been in vain, in recent years, bedding plant retailers have happily engaged his informal philosophy with the use of "thrillers, fillers and spillers" for container gardens. A number of websites have lists of the plants that can be used to add excitement and diversity to containers of garden flowers.

Bedding plants
Many diverse plants are grown specifically to produce continuous colour throughout the seasons; plants may be discarded after flowering.  There are many taxa and thousands of cultivars, so they will be divided into (1) prefer cool temperatures or (2) prefer warm temperatures. Cool temperate climates may only see cool temperature plants or see some warm temperature plants during the warmest weather. Warm temperate to tropical climates may only see warm temperature plants or see some cool temperature plants during the coolest part of the year.

Prefer cooler temperatures (0°–20 °C, 32°–75 °F)

Prefer warmer temperatures (10°–35 °C, 50°–95 °F)

Bedding plant production
The production of bedding plants has changed dramatically over the last 50 years. In the U.S. in 1970, cut flowers were the top sellers, by far. Bedding plant production was increasing, but slowly. As cut flower production moved off-shore, greenhouse operators began to expand into bedding plant production. It seemed bedding plants might, also, move off-shore, but the plant quarantine standards prevented plants in soil from being shipped into the U.S. Local production of bedding plants was protected in the U.S. by important plant quarantine standards that protected all of U.S. agriculture. The quarantine laws helped, but the U.S. consumer wanted bedding plants, so production increased every year. Relatively inexpensive, seasonal greenhouses with a roof of polyethylene film were developed and optimized in the 1960s and 1970s and helped the business as well. In 2022, the wholesale value of bedding plants in the U.S. was nearly US$ 2.5 Billion.

The basic science for controlled-environment agriculture was started at universities and in industry in the Netherlands, the U.K., Germany, Denmark, etc. for vegetable, cut flower and potted flowering plants in the 1970s and 1980s. U.S. universities and industry applied the same science to bedding plants and potted flowering plants at the same time. This research developed environmental control practices, structures and equipment to optimize bedding plant production over the last 50 years. Plant breeders and plant collectors added new taxa annually to foster industry growth.

Greenhouse systems for bedding plants

1960
Bedding plants were grown in old glass greenhouses that had been used for cut flowers. The greenhouse had a coal boiler, hot water or steam system for heat, distributed through fin tubing on the periphery and possibly under benches. Ventilation was manual through ridge vents and possibly side vents. Environment control was based on the thermostat that controlled the heat. Almost all plants were grown from seed, hand transplanted into wooden flats with potting compost. Geranium cuttings were saved from a portion of the plants each year. Each operator had to make their own potting soil, usually 50% field soil, composted manure and possibly leaves, in a process that required 2-3 years to prepare. Plants were grown on the floor or on benches, hand watered with a hose and the compost supplied most nutrients to the plants. The old greenhouses had many structural posts so the plants had to be hand carried in and out of the greenhouse. Most plants were sold from the greenhouse directly to customers (a retail greenhouse), plants had to be manually removed from the wooden flats for the customers. The selling season lasted 4-6 weeks.

1970

Many bedding plants were grown in the same old glass greenhouses with a boiler, fin tubing and manual ventilation. But the new greenhouses on the same property or at a new site were simpler and cheaper. The new greenhouses were made with pipe bows and covered with air-inflated double polyethylene roofs. These greenhouses could be erected by the greenhouse crew and allowed many new entrepreneurs to enter the bedding plant business. The structure, with a gravel floor, was usually 30 feet (9 m) wide and 100 feet (30 m) long, with an overhead heater (propane or natural gas) and fan ventilation. Thermostats operated the fan(s) and heater(s) for better environmental control. There were no internal supports for the greenhouse roof so carts and tractors could be used to move plants and supplies. Vacuum formed plastic trays and packs were now available and made bedding plant production more versatile. Some growers used soil-based potting soil (1 part sterilized field soil:1 part peat moss:1 part perlite) but progressive growers were using the Cornell peat-lite mix (1 part peat moss:1 part vermiculite). Most plants were grown from seed at the greenhouse and cuttings of geraniums, mums, etc., were available from specialty producers. The plastic trays and plastic hanging baskets were easy to transport in light trucks to garden centers and farm stores.

1990
Only a few old greenhouses were used for bedding plants. Greenhouse manufacturers had developed gutter-connected double polyethylene greenhouses and added concrete walkways through the middle of the structure for cart transport. The structures are 1 to 10 acres (4000 - 40,000 m2) in size with a large headhouse as a work space, material storage and loading dock. Overhead heaters, fan ventilation, air mixing fans and thermostats control the environment. Department stores and hardware stores have opened garden departments so bedding plant production continues to increase. There are multiple manufacturers of plastic trays, packs and pots that can be filled with standardized packaged potting soil with flat filling machines. Seedlings (plugs) and cuttings (young plants) are shipped to the production greenhouse from specialized propagation greenhouse businesses. The young plants are hand transplanted but mechanized transplanting is on the horizon. Drip irrigation is standard for large pots and hanging baskets. Water soluble fertilizer metered by injectors and standard soil (growing medium) tests help optimize plant nutrition. Pesticide applications are standard for insect, mite and disease management. Chemicals to control plant size are often applied to bedding plant cultivars. These bedding plant greenhouses would be used to grow garden mums for fall sales and poinsettias for Christmas.

2010
Bedding plant production has been consolidated into larger operations, 20 to 100 acres (80,000 - 400,000 m2) in size, driven by ever increasing sales at hardware and department stores. Many large growers have built modern glass greenhouses, typical of controlled-environment agriculture, with open-roof natural ventilation to reduce summer energy consumption. Internal curtains were installed to reduce winter heating cost and to manage summer light levels. The structures have concrete floors throughout with in-floor heating and ebb-flood sub-irrigation. The concrete floors create a closed system for fertilizer and chemical runoff to meet water safety standards. The greenhouse environment is controlled by a computer management system. Bedding plant production begins with cool season plants for early sales and moves forward with warm season plants for later sales. Plugs and cuttings are shipped from specialty producers and transplanted by robotic transplanting machines into potting soil formulated on-site that is transferred to flat/pot filling machines just before transplanting. Robotic machines label every container with bar codes for cash registers at the point of sale. Plants are put on carts, transported to the greenhouse and placed on the floor. Bedding plants are usually watered with boom irrigation rather than ebb flood. Water soluble fertilizer metered by injectors and standard soil (growing medium) tests help optimize plant nutrition. Growth regulating chemicals are applied to control plant height. Pests and diseases are managed with pesticides and biological controls.

References

Horticulture

Bedding (horticulture)


The Hindu marriage () is the most important of all the samskaras, the rites of passage described in the Dharmashastra texts.

Variously defined, it is generally described to be a social institution for the establishment and regulation of a proper relationship between the sexes, as stated by Manu. Marriage is regarded to be a sacrament by Hindus, rather than a form of social contract, since they believe that all men and women are created to be parents, and practise dharma together, as ordained by the Vedas. The Brahmanas state that a man is only said to be "complete" after marrying a woman, and acquiring progeny.

Aspects

Conception
The ideal conception of marriage that was laid down by the ancient Indians is one in which it is a ceremonial gift of a bride (Vadhū) by her father, or another appropriate family member, to a bride-groom (Vara), so that they may fulfil the purposes of human existence together. In such a conception, vivaha, which originally meant the wedding ceremony, but has to acquire the definition of marriage as a whole, is meant for procreation, and the establishment of a family (kutumba). After one's wedding, one is believed to have entered the second stage of life, the grihastha ashrama, performing the duties of a householder.

Goals
In Hinduism, the four goals of life (Purusarthas) are regarded to be righteousness (dharma), wealth (artha), pleasure (kama), and liberation (moksha). Marriage is considered to be necessary to fulfil these goals. The three goals of marriage include allowing a husband and a wife to fulfil their dharma, bearing progeny (praja), and experiencing pleasure (rati). Sexual intercourse between a husband and wife is regarded to be important in order to produce children, but is the least desirable purpose of marriage in traditional Hindu schools of thought.

Age
The Manusmriti states that following menarche, a maiden may wait for three years, after which she may marry. Girls are usually considered to have achieved puberty when they are 16 years old, and are allowed to choose their own husbands if a suitable groom is not procured for them.

Gotra
While Hindu texts prescribe marrying within one's own community, they prohibit individuals from marrying those who belong to their own gotra, or lineage from the same Vedic sage:

Horoscope

The use of jatakam or janmakundali (natal and astrological chart at the time of birth) of one's son or daughter to arrange a marriage with the help of a priest is common, but not universal. Parents also take advice from Brahmin astrologers called 'Jothidar' in Tamil, 'Panthulu or Siddanthi' in Telugu, and Kundali Milan in Hindi, who holds astrological data of those individuals looking to get married. Some communities, like the Brahmins in Mithila, use genealogical records ("Panjikas") maintained by the specialists.

A jatakam or kundali chart is drawn based on the placement of the stars and planets at the time of one's birth. Those individuals who subscribe to Hindu astrology believe that the position of these celestial objects at the time of their birth, and their benefic or malefic influence, influence the auspicious compatibility between a bride and groom. For instance, the planet Venus is believed to be a benefic planet, and influential in terms of marriage. The maximum points for any match can be 36, and the minimum points for matching is 18. Any match with points under 18 is not considered as an auspicious match for a harmonious relationship, but they may still marry if they so choose. If the astrological chart of the two individuals (male and female) achieve the required threshold in points, then further talks are considered for a prospective marriage. The man and woman are given a chance to talk, and understand each other. If both parties consent, an auspicious time is chosen for the wedding to take place.

Types of marriages
Hindu texts such as the Atharvaveda and the Manusmriti III.20-34, identify eight forms of marriage. They are traditionally presented, as here, in order of their religious appropriateness (prashasta). They also differ very widely in social acceptability.

While all of these marriages are recognised, not all have religious sanction; four of them are declared to be righteous, and the other four are stated to be non-righteous.

Brahma marriage
The Brahmavivaha is a righteous form of marriage. It refers to the marriage of one's daughter to a man of good conduct, learned in the Vedas, and invited by oneself. Originally intended only for the Brahmins, a Brahma marriage is where a boy is able to get married once he has completed his education in the first stage of life, the Brahmacharya. Brahma marriage holds the supreme position of the eight types of Hindu matrimony. When the parents of a boy seek a suitable bride, they consider her family background, and the girl's father would ensure that his daughter's prospective groom is a scholar, one who is well-versed in the Vedas.

Daiva marriage
The Daivavivaha is a righteous form of marriage. It is a form of marriage unique to the ancient Brahmins, where a man gifts his richly bedecked daughter's hand in marriage to a priest who officiates at the former's sacrifice ceremony, in lieu of paying the latter a nominal sacrificial fee. This form of a marriage, ranked as the second most meritorious, is regarded to redeem the sins of seven ascendants and descendants. It is called such because it is believed to be worthy of the devas themselves.

Arsha marriage
The Arshavivaha is a righteous form of marriage. It is a form of marriage where a man gifts his daughter as a bride, after receiving one pair of cattle, a cow and a bull, or two pairs from a groom, the exchange being perceived as a matter of the law, rather than the sale of the former's daughter. The sage Yajnavalkya prescribes offering one's maiden daughter as a bride in exchange for a pair of cows.

Prajapatya marriage
The Prajapatyavivaha is a righteous form of marriage. It is a form of marriage where a girl's father gives her hand in marriage to a bridegroom, treating him with respect, and addressing them with the following words: 'May both of you perform together your religious duties' (Sanskrit: Hyā kanyēśīṃ dharmācēṃ ācaraṇa kara, or Prajōtpādanārtha kanyārpaṇa). In a Prajapatya marriage, the bride's father goes in search of a groom, rather than the other way around.

Gandharva marriage
The Gandharvavivaha is a non-righteous form of marriage. It is a form of love marriage that arises out of the mutual love shared between a youth and a maiden, where the primary purpose is sexual intercourse. It is not approved because no consultation of one's family members or the performance of ritual ceremonies take place. It is considered to be permissible to the members of the Kshatriya varna, and only the Vaishya and the Shudra varnas according to Smriti texts, though it has grown increasingly common in the present-day due to the practice of dating among the newer generations.

Asura marriage
The Asuravivaha is a non-righteous form of marriage. It is a form of marriage where a bridegroom receives a maiden, after having given of his own free will as much wealth as he can afford, to the bride, and her kinsmen. As a form of marriage performed by paying a bride price, it is generally stated to be forbidden.

Rakshasa marriage
The Rakshasavivaha is a non-righteous form of marriage. It is the marriage performed after a non-consenting maiden is seized by force or abducted by a man. When such a maiden is abducted, she is described to weep as her relatives are assaulted and slain, and their house is wrecked. The marriage is then celebrated in the absence of the father of the bride by the family of her abductor. It is a reprehensible form of a marriage that is condemned by the Manusmriti, and is punished by law in society in the present-day.

This form of a marriage is different from answering the marriage proposal of a bride, and eloping with her during her svayamvara, the ancient Indian ceremony where a bride chooses her groom from an approved assembly of suitors. For instance, in Hindu mythology, when the deity Krishna elopes with the princess Rukmini during her svayamvara, it is not a form of Rakshasa marriage; while he does take her away in his chariot and fights her attacking family members, she had sought to marry him, and hence consent was present.

Paishacha marriage
The Paishachavivaha is a non-righteous form of marriage. When a man stealthily rapes a woman who is asleep, intoxicated, or mentally challenged, it is regarded to be a marriage, though only to preserve the honour of the woman. This is condemned in the Manusmriti as a sinful act. In modern times, this is classified as a form of date rape, and is a crime in most countries.

James Lochtefeld comments that these last two forms were forbidden, but the marriages themselves were still recognised in ancient Hindu societies, not to allow these acts, but rather to provide the woman and any resulting children with legal protection in the society.

Conjugal forms
While Monogamy was dominant and prevailed in Hinduism and most Hindus of the Indian subcontinent predominantly practise monogamy today, polygamous marriages have also characterized Hindu society for millennia.

Polygyny
Polygyny refers to a form of marriage where a man is married to more than one woman during the same period of time. While monogamy was and still is a sacred form of Hindu cultural ideas, having more than one wife was seen as a deviation from this ideal with some exceptions in the cases where it was tolerated such as if Women turns out to be infertile, deficient, etc. Furthermore, Polygyny was confined to the members of royalty and the aristocracy who were often polygamous for political reasons, prestige, and social status. The Apastamba Dharmasutra, the oldest of the four Dharmasutras encourages practicing monogamy and discourages polygamy if the wife is able to participate in the ritual activities and have children.  Polygyny was also sanctioned by ancient law-makers such as Manu and Yajnavalkya and allowed under special circumstances. As per the scholar, The rishis(ancient sages) unequivocally made it clear that the first marriage in its accepted form was a dharmic marriage, a marriage for dharma. Other marriages and unions could not claim this quality. Over time all legal distinctions between them disappeared, but in earlier days polygamous marriages were considered to be somehow deficient in religious quality unless the first wife was lacking in dharmic aspects.
Until the passage of the Hindu Marriage Act of 1955, every Hindu in India was theoretically allowed to have multiple wives.

Polyandry
Polyandry refers to a marriage where a woman is married to more than one man during the same period of time. This form of marriage was exceedingly rare among Hindu society in Indian history, and the Mahabharata's polyandrous marriage of Draupadi to the five Pandava brothers is the most cited example of this custom. Vyasa in Mahabharata, however, does state that it is unusual and not great for a woman to have multiple husbands but it was to be "accepted as the default" referring to certain event. The Aitareya Brahmana too prohibits a woman from having two husbands. The practice of polyandry has historically existed among the Nair community of Kerala, called Sambandam, though its practice is sporadic in the modern period. The Todas of the Nilgiris, the Khasa of Dehradun, and a few communities of northern India are also cited to have been polyandrous. Polyandry is viewed with contempt in India today, a practice little removed from promiscuity on the part of a woman.

Monogamy
Monogamy refers to a marriage where a man is married to only one woman during a given period of time. Ever since the Vedic period, monogamy has been the dominant form of conjugal relationship and form of marriage in India. Monogamy is counselled to men by Vatsyayana, a philosopher and an authority of the Kama Sutra, with the belief that a man is only capable of physically, psychologically, and spiritually pleasing one woman at a time. Hindu texts that permit bigamy and polygyny recommend the monogamous marriage as the most appropriate form of the concept. It is exemplified in Hindu texts such as Ramayana, where Rama is believed to have taken the ekapatnivrata, literally meaning the, 'vow of one wife', the act of fidelity to one wife, Sita, and forbidding himself from engaging in sexual relations with other women.

History
For most of Indian history, women were seen as subservient to the will of her father, and it was thought that unmarried women could not be kept at home – this belief is still held by some. It was – and in some places, still is – thought that one's daughter is only temporary, and that she is meant to be her husband's. The main duty of a girl's parents was, and is, regarded to arrange her marriage. After marriage, a woman is seen as a guest when visiting her natal home, and no longer a member of that family. In Hinduism, the main duty of a woman is serving her husband and family, and several Hindu festivals reflect this, by reinforcing the tradition of a woman fasting, or performing other rituals, to pray for her husband's long life. Dowry, the practice of the bride's family gifting property or money to her husband, is still prevalent despite the enactment of the Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961. Historically, if the amount of dowry was seen as insufficient, the groom's family would take it as an insult, and harass the new bride to ask her family for more dowry.

Contemporary period
Many people believe that arranged marriage is the traditional form of marriage in India; however, the concept of love marriage has gained popularity as well, especially in urban areas. Love marriage differs from arranged marriage in that the couple, rather than the parents, choose their own partner, and that the consent of their parents is not asked for before marrying. The concept of a love marriage is not a novelty in India, as it is regarded to be the equivalent of the gandharva marriage, which is still perceived as not righteous today. Hindu literature does indicate that love marriages were recognised and accepted in ancient times, for example, the legend of Dushyanta and Shakuntala in the Mahabharata. Somewhere in the course of time, arranged marriages became predominant, and love marriages became unacceptable or at least frowned upon.

Despite the rise in the count of Hindus marrying for love, arranged marriages still remain the norm: In a 2012 survey conducted by Ipsos for the TV channel NDTV, 74% of the respondents said that they preferred an arranged marriage. While the vast majority of Hindus continue to have arranged marriages, the prospective spouses usually have more agency in the match today than they did historically.

In a 2014 survey conducted by the United Nations Population Fund and International Center for Research on Women, 11.7% of men and 8.5% of women in India surveyed claimed that they chose their partners, and married with, or without, the consent of their families. The boundaries between the two types of marriage are believed to have started to blur. The term love-arranged marriage is used to describe a new emerging form of marriage, which contains elements of both an arranged marriage and a love marriage. Love marriages are sometimes seen as imposition of the younger generation's will over the older generation's wishes.

Shuddhikaran

In India, when a Hindu and a non-Hindu marry under the Hindu Marriage Act and for the Hindu marriage to be valid, both partners must be Hindu amongst other conditions that also need to be fulfilled, and the non-Hindu partner must convert to Hinduism. A specific kind of ancient ritual is performed before the Hindu marriage called Shuddhikaran which is also practised by members of the Arya Samaj community who started the socio-political Shuddhi Movement that was derived from this ancient rite. The non-Hindu partner is converted to Hinduism through this purification rite before marrying, or else the marriage is regarded to be void, or not legally binding. The Hindu wedding ceremony that follows includes the vows and the saptapadi, the ritual of circling the sacred fire seven times; the completion of the seventh round binds the marriage. This is accepted as a complete, valid marriage in all states of India, and needs no registration with the exception of Goa, that is governed by a single code called Goa civil code, where the registration of marriage is made compulsory as it is accepted as the only proof of marriage.

Same-sex marriage
Hindu literature does not sanction marriage between members of the same sex. The Manusmriti classifies sexual intercourse between men to be an offence in Hinduism, stating that it would lead one to lose their jati.

There are both conservative and liberal views about homosexuality and same-sex marriages in Hinduism, with Hindu priests having performed marriage of same-sex couples. In 2004, Hinduism Today asked Hindu swamis (teachers) their opinion of same-sex marriage. The swamis expressed a range of opinions, positive and negative.

See also

Hindu wedding
Pativrata
Buddhist view of marriage
Weddings in India
Shuddhikaran
Shuddhi (Hinduism)
Interfaith marriage
Jewish views on marriage
Christian views on marriage
Marriage in Islam

References

Family
Vedic customs

Marriage in Hinduism


Collectibles is a compilation album released by Canadian singer-songwriter Willie P. Bennett.  Originally released in 1991 by Dark Light Records (who also released Bennett's album Take My Own Advice), on cassette and compact disc, it was re-released with a new cover and the title Collectibles Vol. 1 in 1996.

Bennett chose to release this "best of" collection with songs from his first three albums because these albums were, at the time, long out of print and had never been available on CD.  The tracks were digitally remastered from analog by Peter Moore.

Track listing
 "You"
 "Lace and Pretty Flowers"
 "Come on Train"
 "Willie's Diamond Joe"
 "Blackie and the Rodeo King"
 "If You Have to Choose"
 "Me and Molly"
 "Summer Dreams Winter Sleep"
 "Storm Clouds"
 "Country Squall"
 "My Pie"
 "Music in Your Eyes"
 "Down to the Water"
 "Hobo's Taunt"
 "Pens and Paper"

All words and music by Willie P. Bennett.

Tracks 4, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13 from Tryin' to Start Out Clean, originally released in 1975.

Tracks 1, 2, 3, 6, 9  14 from Hobo's Taunt, originally released in 1977.

Tracks 5, 8, 15 from Blackie and the Rodeo King, originally released in 1978.

References

Willie P. Bennett albums
1991 greatest hits albums
1991 albums

Collectibles Vol 1