The leek is a vegetable, a cultivar of Allium ampeloprasum, the broadleaf wild leek (syn. Allium porrum). The edible part of the plant is a bundle of leaf sheaths that is sometimes erroneously called a stem or stalk. The genus Allium also contains the onion, garlic, shallot, scallion, chives, and Chinese onion. Three closely related vegetables, elephant garlic, kurrat and Persian leek or tareh, are also cultivars of A. ampeloprasum, although different in their uses as food.

Etymology
Historically, many scientific names were used for leeks, but they are now all treated as cultivars of A. ampeloprasum. The name leek developed from the Old English word , from which the modern English name for garlic also derives.   means 'onion' in Old English and is a cognate with languages based on Old Norse; Danish , Icelandic , Norwegian  and Swedish . German uses  for leek; in Dutch,  is used for the whole onion genus, Allium.

Cultivation
Leeks must be grown in soil that is loose and drained well; they can be grown in the same regions where onions can be grown. Leeks may be seeded directly, but are more typically sown at high density in seed-beds before being transplanted into the field. This happens at 12 weeks, when they have reached the thickness of a pencil.

The optimum temperature for growth is around . Leeks are more cold-tolerant than other cultivated Allium species and can be produced year-round in Europe. They tolerate standing in the field for an extended harvest, which takes place up to 6 months from planting.

Pests and diseases
Leeks suffer from insect pests, including the thrips species Thrips tabaci and the leek moth. Leeks are also susceptible to leek rust (Puccinia allii). Damage from thrips is greatest when under water stress in hot, dry weather. In these conditions, insect reproduction occurs quickly while plant growth is slowed. Thrips can be controlled by chemical pesticides and by intercropping with legumes or other plants.

Varieties
Leek cultivars may be treated as a single cultivar group, e.g., as A. ampeloprasum 'Leek Group.'  The cultivars can be subdivided in several ways, but the most common types are "summer leeks", intended for harvest in the season when planted, and overwintering leeks, meant to be harvested in the spring of the year following planting. Summer leek types are generally smaller than overwintering types; overwintering types are generally more strongly flavored. Cultivars include 'King Richard' and 'Tadorna Blue.'

Cuisine

Leeks have a mild, onion-like taste. In its raw state, the vegetable is crunchy and firm. The edible portions of the leek are the white base of the leaves (above the roots and stem base), the light green parts, and to a lesser extent, the dark green parts of the leaves. The dark green portion is usually discarded because it has a tough texture, but it can be sautéed or more commonly added to stock for flavor. A few leaves are sometimes tied with twine and other herbs to form a bouquet garni.

Leeks are typically chopped into slices 5–10 mm thick. The slices tend to fall apart due to the layered structure of the leek. The different ways of preparing the vegetable are:

 Boiling turns it soft and mild in taste. Whole boiled leeks, served cold with vinaigrette, are popular in France, where leeks are nicknamed asperges du pauvre 'poor man's asparagus'.
 Frying leaves it crunchier and preserves the taste.
 Raw leeks can be used in salads, doing especially well when they are the prime ingredient.
 In Turkish cuisine, leeks are chopped into thick  slices, then boiled and separated into leaves, and finally filled with a filling usually containing rice, herbs (generally parsley and dill), onion, and black pepper. For sarma with olive oil, currants, pine nuts, and cinnamon are added, and for sarma with meat, minced meat is added to the filling. In Turkey, especially zeytinyağlı pırasa (leek with olive oil), ekşili pırasa (sour leek), etli pırasa (leek with meat), pırasa musakka (leek musakka), pırasalı börek (börek with leek), and pırasa köftesi (leek meatballs) are also cooked.
 Papet Vaudois consists of boiled leeks and potatoes. It is the emblematic dish of the Canton of Vaud.
 Keftikas de Prasa, or leek patties, are a staple of Sephardic Jewish cuisine and are served on holidays such as Rosh HaShana and Passover.

Leeks are an ingredient of cock-a-leekie soup, leek and potato soup, and vichyssoise, as well as plain leek soup.

Because of their symbolism in Wales (see below), they have come to be used extensively in that country's cuisine. Elsewhere in Britain, leeks have come back in favor only in the last 50 years, having been overlooked for several centuries.

Nutrition
Raw leek (bulb and lower leaves) is 83% water, 14% carbohydrates, 1% protein, and contains negligible fat (table). A  reference amount supplies  of food energy and is a rich source (20% or more of the Daily Value, DV) of vitamin K (45% DV) and manganese (23% DV). It is a moderate source (10–19% DV) of vitamin B6, folate, vitamin C, and iron (table).

Historical consumption
The Hebrew Bible talks of , identified by commentators as leek, and says it is abundant in Egypt. Dried specimens from archaeological sites in ancient Egypt, as well as wall carvings and drawings, indicate that the leek was a part of the Egyptian diet from at least the second millennium BCE. Texts also show that it was grown in Mesopotamia from the beginning of the second-millennium BCE.

Leeks were eaten in ancient Rome and regarded as superior to garlic and onions. The 1st century CE cookbook Apicius contains four recipes involving leeks. Raw leeks were the favorite vegetable of the Emperor Nero, who consumed it in soup or oil, believing it beneficial to the quality of his voice. This earned him the nickname "Porrophagus" or "Leek Eater".

Cultural significance

The leek is one of the national emblems of Wales, and it or the daffodil (in Welsh, the daffodil is known as "Peter's leek", Cenhinen Bedr) is worn on St. David's Day. According to one Welsh mythology, King Cadwaladr of Gwynedd ordered his soldiers to identify themselves by wearing the vegetable on their helmets in an ancient battle against the Saxons that took place in a leek field. The Elizabethan poet Michael Drayton stated, in contrast, that the tradition was a tribute to Saint David, who ate only leeks when he was fasting.

The leek has been known to be a symbol of Wales for a long time; Shakespeare, for example, refers to the custom of wearing a leek as an "ancient tradition" in Henry V. In the play, Henry tells the Welsh officer Fluellen that he, too, is wearing a leek "for I am Welsh, you know, good countryman." The 1985 and 1990 British one pound coins bear the design of a leek in a coronet, representing Wales. One version of the 2013 British one pound coin shows a leek with a daffodil.

Alongside the other national floral emblems of countries currently and formerly in the Commonwealth or part of the United Kingdom (including the English Tudor Rose, Scottish thistle, Irish shamrock, Canadian maple leaf, and Indian lotus), the Welsh leek appeared on the coronation gown of Elizabeth II. Norman Hartnell designed it; when Hartnell asked if he could exchange the leek for the more aesthetically pleasing Welsh daffodil, he was told no.

Perhaps the most visible use of the leek, however, is as the cap badge of the Welsh Guards, a battalion within the Household Division of the British Army.

In Romania, the leek is also widely considered a symbol of Oltenia, a historical region in the country's southwestern part.

Gallery

See also

Allium tricoccum, a North American plant commonly known as "wild leek"
Culture of Wales
Farfetch'd and Sirfetch'd,  Pokémon that carry spring leeks as weapons
Hatsune Miku, whose character item, Green Onion, is often confused with a leek
Kurrat, Egyptian leek
Laukaz, a rune that has been speculated to mean "leek"
List of vegetables
Loituma Girl, also known as "Leekspin"
Scallion
Welsh onion

References

External links

 Allium ampeloprasum L. on US National PLANTS Database
 Allium porrum L. on US National PLANTS Database
 Allium ampeloprasum, Porrum on Floridata

 Food Museum page
 National Symbols of Wales

Allium
Leaf vegetables
National symbols of Wales
Root vegetables
Welsh cuisine
Welsh folklore

Leek


State Route 852 (SR 852) is a north–south state highway in the southern portion of the U.S. state of Ohio.  Its southern terminus is at the Kentucky state line on the Carl Perkins Memorial Bridge over the Ohio River near Portsmouth, and its northern terminus is at an interchange with the State Route 73/State Route 104 concurrency, just north of a complex interchange with U.S. Route 52 about  west of Portsmouth.

Route description
SR 852 begins on the Carl Perkins Memorial Bridge over the Ohio River. The route heads north as a two-lane highway, passing through farmland and woodland. The highway passes the Portsmouth Raceway Park and has an interchange with U.S. Route 52 (US 52), US 23 Truck, SR 73 east, and SR 104 south. The road has a traffic light at an access road from northbound SR 73 and SR 104. SR 852 ends at a partial interchange with SR 73 and SR 104.

The only section of SR 852 that is included as a part of the National Highway System (NHS), is that from the Kentucky state line north to the interchange with US 52. The NHS is a system of routes determined to be the most important for the nation's economy, mobility and defense. The highway is maintained by the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) like all other state routes in the state. The department tracks the traffic volumes along all state highways as a part of its maintenance responsibilities using a metric called average annual daily traffic (AADT). This measurement is a calculation of the traffic level along a segment of roadway for any average day of the year. In 2011, ODOT figured that the lowest traffic levels were present on the section between the Kentucky state line and the interchange with US 52, where only 5,240 vehicles used the highway daily. The peak traffic volume was 12,730 vehicles AADT along a section of SR 852 on the bridge over US 52

Major intersections

References

External links
State Route 852 Endpoint Photos

852
Transportation in Scioto County, Ohio
State highways in the United States shorter than one mile

Ohio State Route 852


The last complete piano concerto by Sergei Prokofiev, Piano Concerto No. 5 in G major, Op. 55, dates from 1932.

Background
Prokofiev's last piano concerto dates from 1932, a year after he finished the fourth piano concerto, whose solo part is for left hand only. According to the composer, he was then inspired to write another for two hands, whose intended simplicity was reflected in the desire to call it, not a concerto, but rather 'Music for Piano and Orchestra.' However, as the piece grew in complexity, Prokofiev decided to include it among his numbered concerti instead. It is in five short movements. The longest, a Larghetto, is around seven minutes in length. The remaining four movements are all in a fast tempo and feature virtuoso keyboard writing; the third movement, only around two minutes long, functions as a variation on the first.

Movements
The concerto lasts 20–25 minutes, with five movements:
Allegro con brio (4–5 min) (G major)
Moderato ben accentuato (3–4 min) (C major)
Toccata: Allegro con fuoco (1–2 min) (G major)
Larghetto (6–7 min) (B-flat major)
Vivo (5–6 min) (B-flat minor-G major)

Instrumentation
The work is scored for solo piano, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, timpani, bass drum, snare drum and strings.

Analysis
The concerto exudes a particularly boisterous, even blustering atmosphere. The movements one to three feature similar themes, the first and third begin similarly, all three captivate largely by their rhythm. The second begins with lightning glissandi, introducing a dancing theme, later contrasted by more spreading motions. It ends in curiosity.
The fourth movement comes as a bit of a surprise after what seems to be a fairly closed work. It is the longest and accordingly the slowest of all and has a climax of heroic grandeur. The Vivo opens poignantly, then goes over into a quieter mood, making use of the unconventional Locrian mode. The concerto ends at a blazing volume.

Premiere
It was performed by Prokofiev himself at the piano on October 31, 1932, accompanied by the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler.

Recordings
Sviatoslav Richter's recording of this concerto with Witold Rowicki on Deutsche Grammophon is widely admired.

References

External links
 The Prokofiev Page

Piano concertos by Sergei Prokofiev
1932 compositions
Compositions in G major

Piano Concerto No. 5 (Prokofiev)


The Focke Wulf Fw 159 was an experimental German fighter of the 1930s, designed by Kurt Tank which never reached production, as it was considered inferior to the He 112 and Bf 109. It was a heavier variant of the Focke-Wulf Fw 56, with several improvements, such as a retractable landing gear and enclosed cockpit.

Design and development
The Focke-Wulf company designed the aircraft as one of the four entries for the Rüstungsflugzeug IV ("Armed Aircraft IV") 1934 fighter competition. Its parasol wing configuration was based on the company's successful trainer product, the Focke-Wulf Fw 56 Stösser, and it used a Junkers Jumo 210 engine. The plane had an enclosed cockpit and a rearward-retracting lever-action suspension main undercarriage which retracted completely into the lower fuselage. This mechanism was complicated, fragile and endlessly troublesome. The first prototype, the Fw-159 V1, was ready in the spring of 1935 but was destroyed when it crash-landed following the failure of the main undercarriage to deploy properly.

The second prototype, the V2, had a reinforced undercarriage. The general flight characteristics were good but the rate of climb and rate of turn were unsatisfactory, and the aircraft suffered greater drag than its competitors in the contest, the Arado Ar 80, Heinkel He 112 and Messerschmitt Bf 109. The competition was won by the Bf 109.

Specifications (V2)

See also

References

External links

1930s German fighter aircraft
Fw 159
Single-engined tractor aircraft
Parasol-wing aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1935

Focke-Wulf Fw 159


Armscote is a small village, some three miles north of Shipston-on-Stour in Warwickshire, England. It is located a mile off the A429 road which is the modern line of the Fosse Way Roman road. Population details can be found under Tredington. A major event of interest in the history of the village was the visit of George Fox, the famous Quaker founder. It was here in 1673 that he preached and was then arrested. The barn where the event of 1673 took place was demolished in 1680 to make way for a stone meeting house which still stands.

References

External links

Villages in Warwickshire

Armscote


The first memorial service following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968, took place the following day at the R.S. Lewis Funeral Home in Memphis, Tennessee.  This was followed by two funeral services on April 9, 1968, in Atlanta, Georgia, the first held for family and close friends at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King and his father had both served as senior pastors, followed by a three-mile procession to Morehouse College, King's alma mater, for a public service.

President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a national day of mourning for the lost civil rights leader on April 7.

Background

Martin Luther King Jr., a civil rights activist, Baptist preacher, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was assassinated on April 4, 1968, by a gunshot wound to the right side of his jaw, neck and shoulder in Memphis, Tennessee, where he had been leading a strike of waste management workers. The news of the murder sent shockwaves of emotion in many African American communities in a number of cities, resulting in deadly riots between the day of the murder and the day of the funeral.

A state funeral or lying in state was refused to King by then-governor of Georgia Lester Maddox, who had considered King an "enemy of the country" and had stationed 64 riot-helmeted state troopers at the steps of the state capitol in Atlanta to protect state property. He also initially refused to allow the state flag to be lowered at half staff, but was compelled to do so when told that the lowering was a federal mandate.

There were concerns that U.S. president Lyndon Johnson might be the subject of protests, over the conduct of the war in Vietnam, which would disrupt the funeral. Vice President Hubert Humphrey attended on his behalf.

Service in Memphis

After the shooting, King was taken by ambulance to the emergency room at St. Joseph's Hospital and was pronounced dead at 7:05 p.m.  King's closest aides contacted Robert Lewis Jr.—a local funeral director who had first met King two days prior—to retrieve the body and prepare it for viewing.

Coretta Scott King arrived in Memphis the following morning on a plane personally arranged by Robert F. Kennedy.  Hundreds began arriving at the funeral home, where a viewing and memorial service took place.  Ralph Abernathy offered a prayer, while tears streamed down Andrew Young's face.  Time magazine wrote:
In Memphis, before it was carried south toward home, King's body lay in state at the R.S. Lewis & Sons Funeral Home in an open bronze casket, the black suit tidily pressed, the wound in the throat now all but invisible. Many of those who filed past could not control their tears. Some kissed King's lips; others reverently touched his face. A few people threw their hands in the air and cried aloud in ululating agony.  Mrs. King was a dry-eyed frieze of heartbreak.

Later that day, police and National Guardsmen escorted the long procession of cars which carried King's body to the airport for the flight to Atlanta.

Services in Atlanta
The first, private service began at 10:30 a.m. EST at Ebenezer Baptist Church, and was filled with some 1,300 people; among the dignitaries present were labor leaders, foreign dignitaries, entertainment and sports figures and leaders from numerous religious faiths. The service began with Reverend Ralph Abernathy delivering a sermon which called the event "one of the darkest hours of mankind".

At his widow's request, King eulogized himself: His last sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church, a recording of his famous "Drum Major Instinct" sermon, given on February 4, 1968, was played at the funeral. In that sermon he makes a request that at his funeral no mention of his awards and honors be made, but that it be said that he tried to "feed the hungry", "clothe the naked", "be right on the [Vietnam] war question", and "love and serve humanity".

Per King's request, his good friend Mahalia Jackson sang his favorite hymn, "Take My Hand, Precious Lord" (the hymn that King requested to musician Ben Branch to play at a meeting moments before his assassination), though not as part of the morning funeral service but later that day at a second open-air service at Morehouse College.

Procession

The private funeral was followed by the loading of King's casket onto a simple wooden farm wagon pulled by two mules named Belle and Ada from Gee's Bend. The procession down the three-and-a-half miles from Ebenezer Baptist Church to Morehouse College was observed by over 100,000 people; the Southern Christian Leadership Conference commissioned a security detail to manage the crowd, while the Atlanta Police Department limited their participation to management of automobile traffic and to accompany dignitaries attending the events. The procession was silent, although it was accompanied on occasion by the singing of freedom songs which were frequently sung during the marches in which King had participated.

Among the persons leading the procession, besides the immediate family of the civil rights leader, were Jesse Jackson, who held the flag of the United Nations, John Lewis, and Andrew Young the future mayor of Atlanta and ambassador to the United Nations. Labor leader and civil rights activist Walter Reuther also participated in King's funeral procession.

The procession passed by the Georgia State Capitol building.

At the conclusion of the ceremony, the group sang "We Shall Overcome".

Morehouse

The public and final service was held at Morehouse College, where King was eulogized by college president Benjamin Mays, who had given the benediction after King's "I Have a Dream" speech.

Following the funeral, King's casket was loaded into a hearse for his final trip to the South-View Cemetery, a burial place predominantly reserved for African Americans. His remains were exhumed in 1970 and reburied at their current location at the plaza between the King Center and Ebenezer, and his widow Coretta was buried next to him in 2006.

References

External links
Photo of mourners at R.S. Lewis funeral home

1968 in Georgia (U.S. state)
1968 in Tennessee
April 1968 events in the United States
Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
King, Martin Luther
1960s in Atlanta
African-American history in Memphis, Tennessee
Funerals of American people
African-American history in Atlanta

Funeral of Martin Luther King Jr.


Epiphanius of Salamis (; c. 310–320 – 403) was the bishop of Salamis, Cyprus, at the end of the 4th century. He is considered a saint and a Church Father by both the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Churches. He gained a reputation as a strong defender of orthodoxy. He is best known for composing the Panarion, a compendium of eighty heresies, which included also pagan religions and philosophical systems. There has been much controversy over how many of the quotations attributed to him by the Byzantine Iconoclasts were actually by him. Regardless of this he was clearly strongly against some contemporary uses of images in the church.

Life
Epiphanius was either born into a Romaniote Christian family or became a Christian in his youth. Either way, he was a Romaniote Jew who was born in the small settlement of Besanduk, near Eleutheropolis (modern-day Beit Guvrin in Israel), and lived as a monk in Egypt, where he was educated and came into contact with Valentinian groups. He returned to Roman Palestine around 333, when he was still a young man, and he founded a monastery at Ad nearby, which is often mentioned in the polemics of Jerome with Rufinus and John, Bishop of Jerusalem. He was ordained a priest, and lived and studied as superior of the monastery in Ad that he founded for thirty years and gained much skill and knowledge in that position. In that position he gained the ability to speak in several tongues, including Hebrew, Syriac, Egyptian, Greek, and Latin, and was called by Jerome on that account Pentaglossos ("Five tongued").

His reputation for learning prompted his nomination and consecration as Bishop of Salamis, Cyprus, in 365 or 367, a post which he held until his death. He was also the Metropolitan of the Church of Cyprus. He served as bishop for nearly forty years, as well as travelled widely to combat differing beliefs. He was present at a synod in Antioch (376) where the Trinitarian questions were debated against the heresy of Apollinarianism. He upheld the position of Bishop Paulinus, who had the support of Rome, over that of Meletius of Antioch, who was supported by the Eastern Churches. In 382 he was present at the Council of Rome, again upholding the cause of Paulinus.

Origenist controversy and death

During a visit to Palestine in 394 or 395, while preaching in Jerusalem, he attacked Origen's followers and urged the Bishop of Jerusalem, John II, to condemn his writings. He urged John to be careful of the "offence" of images in the churches. He noted that when travelling in Palestine he went into a church to pray and saw a curtain with an image of Christ or a saint which he tore down. He told Bishop John that such images were "opposed . . . to our religion" (see below). This event sowed the seeds of conflict which erupted in the dispute between Rufinus and John against Jerome and Epiphanius. Epiphanius fuelled this conflict by ordaining a priest for Jerome's monastery at Bethlehem, thus trespassing on John's jurisdiction. This dispute continued during the 390s, in particular in the literary works by Rufinus and Jerome attacking one another.

In 399, the dispute took on another dimension, when the Bishop of Alexandria, Theophilus, who had initially supported John, changed his views and started persecuting Origenist monks in Egypt. As a result of this persecution, four of these monks, the so-called Tall Brothers, fled to Palestine, and then travelled to Constantinople, seeking support and spreading the controversy. John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople, gave the monks shelter. Bishop Theophilus of Alexandria saw his chance to use this event to bring down his enemy Chrysostom: in 402 he summoned a council in Constantinople, and invited those supportive of his anti-Origenist views. Epiphanius, by this time nearly 80, was one of those summoned, and began the journey to Constantinople. However, when he realised he was being used as a tool by Theophilus against Chrysostom, who had given refuge to the monks persecuted by Theophilus and who were appealing to the emperor, Epiphanius started back to Salamis, only to die on the way home in 403.

The curtain incident
Letter LI in Jerome's letters gives Jerome's Latin translation, made at Epiphanius' request, of his letter, originally in Greek from c. 394, "From Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis, in Cyprus, to John, Bishop of Jerusalem" (see previous section for wider context).  The final section covers the often quoted incident of the curtain, which unlike other passages attributed to Epiphanius and quoted by the Iconoclasts, is accepted as authentic by modern scholars:
9. Moreover, I have heard that certain persons have this grievance against me: When I accompanied you to the holy place called Bethel, there to join you in celebrating the Collect, after the use of the Church, I came to a villa called Anablatha and, as I was passing, saw a lamp burning there. Asking what place it was, and learning it to be a church, I went in to pray, and found there a curtain hanging on the doors of the said church, dyed and embroidered. It bore an image either of Christ or of one of the saints; I do not rightly remember whose the image was. Seeing this, and being loth that an image of a man should be hung up in Christ's church contrary to the teaching of the Scriptures, I tore it asunder and advised the custodians of the place to use it as a winding sheet for some poor person. They, however, murmured, and said that if I made up my mind to tear it, it was only fair that I should give them another curtain in its place. As soon as I heard this, I promised that I would give one, and said that I would send it at once. Since then there has been some little delay, due to the fact that I have been seeking a curtain of the best quality to give to them instead of the former one, and thought it right to send to Cyprus for one. I have now sent the best that I could find, and I beg that you will order the presbyter of the place to take the curtain which I have sent from the hands of the Reader, and that you will afterwards give directions that curtains of the other sort—opposed as they are to our religion—shall not be hung up in any church of Christ. A man of your uprightness should be careful to remove an occasion of offence unworthy alike of the Church of Christ and of those Christians who are committed to your charge. Beware of Palladius of Galatia—a man once dear to me, but who now sorely needs God's pity—for he preaches and teaches the heresy of Origen; and see to it that he does not seduce any of those who are intrusted to your keeping into the perverse ways of his erroneous doctrine. I pray that you may fare well in the Lord.

Writings

Panarion

His best-known book is the Panarion (from Latin panarium, "bread basket" < panis, "bread"), also known as Adversus Haereses, "Against Heresies", presented as a book of antidotes for those bitten by the serpent of heresy. Written between 374 and 377, it forms a handbook for dealing with the arguments of heretics.

It lists, and refutes, 80 heresies, some of which are not described in any other surviving documents from the time. Epiphanius begins with the 'four mothers' of pre-Christian heresy – 'barbarism', 'Scythism', 'Hellenism' and 'Judaism' – and then addresses the 16 pre-Christian heresies that have flowed from them: four philosophical schools (Stoics, Platonists, Pythagoreans and Epicureans), and 12 Jewish sects. There then follows an interlude, telling of the Incarnation of the Word. After this, Epiphanius embarks on his account of the 60 Christian heresies, from assorted gnostics to the various trinitarian heresies of the fourth century, closing with the Collyridians and Messalians.

While Epiphanius often let his zeal come before facts – he admits on one occasion that he writes against the Origenists-based only on hearsay (Panarion, Epiphanius 71) – the Panarion is a valuable source of information on the Christian Church of the fourth century. It is also an important source regarding the early Jewish gospels such as the Gospel according to the Hebrews circulating among the Ebionites and the Nazarenes, as well as the followers of Cerinthus and Merinthus.

One unique feature of the Panarion is in the way that Epiphanius compares the various heretics to different poisonous beasts, going so far as to describe in detail the animal's characteristics, how it produces its poison, and how to protect oneself from the animal's bite or poison. For example, he describes his enemy Origen as "a toad noisy from too much moisture which keeps croaking louder and louder." He compares the Gnostics to a particularly dreaded snake "with no fangs." The Ebionites, a Christian sect that followed Jewish law, were described by Epiphanius as "a monstrosity with many shapes, who practically formed the snake-like shape of the mythical many-headed Hydra in himself." In all, Epiphanius describes fifty animals, usually one per sect.

Another feature of the Panarion is the access its earlier sections provide to lost works, notably Justin Martyr's work on heresies, the Greek of Irenaeus' Against Heresies, and Hippolytus' Syntagma. The Panarion was first translated into English in 1987 and 1990.

Other works
His earliest known work is the Ancoratus (the well anchored man), which includes arguments against Arianism and the teachings of Origen. Aside from the polemics by which he is known, Epiphanius wrote a work of biblical antiquarianism, called, for one of its sections, On Weights and Measures (περὶ μέτρων καὶ στάθμων). It was composed in Constantinople for a Persian priest, in 392, and survives in Syriac, Armenian, and Georgian translations (this last is found in Shatberd ms 1141 along with Physiologus and De Gemmis). The first section discusses the canon of the Old Testament and its versions, the second of measures and weights, and the third, the geography of Palestine. The texts appear not to have been given a polish but consist of rough notes and sketches, as Allen A. Shaw, a modern commentator, concluded; nevertheless Epiphanius' work on metrology was important in the history of measurement.

Another work, On the Twelve Gems (De Gemmis), survives in a number of fragments, the most complete of which is the Georgian.  The letter written by Epiphanius to John, Bishop of Jerusalem, in 394 and preserved in Jerome's translation, is discussed above.  The collection of homilies traditionally ascribed to a "Saint Epiphanius, bishop" are dated in the late fifth or sixth century and are not connected with Epiphanius of Salamis by modern scholars.

Such was Epiphanius's reputation for learning that the Physiologus, the principal source of medieval bestiaries, came to be widely falsely attributed to him.

Works
The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis, Book I (Sects 1–46) Frank Williams, translator, 1987 (E.J. Brill, Leiden)
The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis, Book II and III (Sects 47–80, De Fide) Frank Williams, translator, 1993 (E.J. Brill, Leiden)
The Panarion of St. Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis Philip R. Amidon, translator, 1990 (Oxford University Press, New York) (This translation contains selections rather than the full work.)
Epiphanius' Treatise on Weights and Measures: The Syriac Version, James Elmer Dean, ed, 1935. (Chicago) [English translation of On Weights and Measures; available at Epiphanius of Salamis, Weights and Measures (1935) pp.11-83. English translation]
Epiphanius de Gemmis: the Old Georgian Version and the Fragments of the Armenian Version. ed. Robert Pierpont Blake; de Vis, H. (1934). London: Christophers.
Epiphanius von Salamis, Über die zwölf Steine im hohepriesterlichen Brustschild (De duodecim gemmis rationalis). Nach dem Codex Vaticanus Borgianus Armenus 31 herausgegeben und übersetzt by Felix Albrecht and Arthur Manukyan (Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies 37), 2014 (Gorgias Press: Piscataway)  (German edition).
Anacephalaiosis (originally thought to be the work of Epihanius of Salamis, although this opinion is now disputed).

Notes

References
Kitzinger, Ernst, "The Cult of Images in the Age before Iconoclasm", Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Vol. 8, (1954), pp. 83–150, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, JSTOR
Kim, Young Richard. Epiphanius of Cyprus: Imagining an Orthodox World. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2015.
Jacobs, Andrew S. Epiphanius of Cyprus: A Cultural Biography of Late Antiquity. Christianity in Late Antiquity. Oakland: University of California Press, 2016.

External links

St Epiphanius of Salamis Orthodox Icon and Synaxarion

Epiphanius, On Biblical Weights and Measures English translation of a Syriac text
Some excerpts from the Panarion
(The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis Book I Sects 1-46)
Letter from Epiphianus, Bishop of Salamis, in Cyprus, to John, Bishop of Jerusalem
Opera Omnia by Migne Patrologia Graeca with analytical indexes
 Stephen Craft Goranson, The Joseph of Tiberias Episode in Epiphanius: Studies in Jewish and Christian Relations (1990)

4th-century births
403 deaths
4th-century Byzantine bishops
4th-century Christian saints
5th-century Byzantine bishops
Ancient Christians involved in controversies
Christian anti-Gnosticism
Archbishops of Cyprus
Church Fathers
Cypriot Jews
Cypriot non-fiction writers
Cypriot Roman Catholic saints
Doctors of the Church
Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire
People who died at sea
Romaniote Jews
Saints from the Holy Land
Year of birth unknown
Aniconism
4th-century Byzantine writers

Epiphanius of Salamis


Bear's Den (also called by the name of its most outstanding landmark, Bear's Den Falls) is a  nature reserve in New Salem, Massachusetts.  The reservation is close to the Quabbin Reservoir and is owned by the Trustees of Reservations.

Name
The property takes its name from a large black bear once shot here "though more romantic – yet unsubstantiated – stories exist" according to the Trustees of Reservations.

Description
The Middle Branch of the Swift River passes through the steep granite cliffs of Bear's Den reservation on its way to the Quabbin Reservoir.  The gorge is 75' deep and rimmed with hemlock.  At one point, a change in elevation creates a waterfall.  According to one description:So as you walk the 150 yard path from the road and bear left through the jagged opening in the ridge, you have a limited sense of the waterfall being there until you step through and into this amphitheater of Mother Nature. Once inside, you sense an isolation from the rest of the world. It's a great experience and unique for a location so close to the road.
A short path leads from Neilson Road into the reservation and immediately splits into a leftward path towards the gorge and a rightward path leading to a small cave (the eponymous "Bear's Den") and a stream. These trail is less than one quarter mile of easy hiking.  The reservation is  "a tranquil spot for hiking and picnicking."  Seasonal hunting is allowed on the property subject to all state and local laws.

Camping, fires, and unleashed dogs are prohibited.  Swimming is discouraged.  Bear's Den reservation is open from dusk until dawn.  The property abuts watershed land and wetlands to the west connecting to the Quabbin Reservoir and owned by the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority.

History
Metacomet, sachem of the Wampanoag Indians and their war chief during King Philip's War, is believed to have met here with neighboring other Nipmuck chieftains in 1675 to plan attacks the nearby English towns of Deerfield, Hadley and Northampton ( see note).   Much later, the falls provided waterpower for grist mills in the area as water was carried by a sluice box, through a channel cut in the eastern cliff, and onto an overshot water wheel.  Trustees of Reservations first acquired the property through the 1968 bequest of Mrs. Grais Poole Burrage.  In 1988, Mrs. Dorothy Fittz donated additional land.

References

External links

The Trustees of Reservations: Bear's Den
360° views of the falls
QuickTime movie

Landforms of Franklin County, Massachusetts
The Trustees of Reservations
Waterfalls of Massachusetts
Open space reserves of Massachusetts
Protected areas of Franklin County, Massachusetts
Protected areas established in 1968
1968 establishments in Massachusetts

Bear's Den


The Stirling Sill is an outcropping of a large quartz-dolerite intrusion or sill that underlies a large part of central Scotland, and may be contiguous at great depth. The sill is of very late Carboniferous age or more probably Permian, as it penetrates the coal measures, often in bedding planes between the various strata. In places, it rises through fractures in the strata to a new level, forming features that, at the surface, would be called dikes.

At its outcrop on the west, the sill generally lies towards the base of the Carboniferous sequence, and just above the calciferous sandstone deposits and lavas, as can be seen in the upper part of the valley of the Bannock Burn. However, to the consternation of miners, it occupies a higher position amongst the useful strata towards the east, and in places has destroyed the coal, while in others the effect of the sill has been to convert the coal to more valuable anthracite.

The slope of the Abbey Craig, or the Stirling Castle rock, gives a general idea of the angle of dip of the coal measures at the extremity or the coalfield, and the thickness of the sill can also be seen, which is approximately 100 metres.

Geologists have had various theories about the formation of anthracite, as the coal has been most effectively baked near the Ochil Fault, however the theories are not necessarily incompatible.

The source of the sill, where the molten rock rose from below, is not known; however it is known that there are risers in the Ochil Fault, although these are inconsistent with the overall structure. The main origin of the sill may be in the region of the eruptive centre that formed the Ochil Hills in a much earlier period, which geologists postulate is somewhere to the east of Stirling, possibly in the region of Kincardine. This ties in with subsidence following the first round of eruptive activity that lead to the formation of the coal basins, with a much later outbreak of intrusive activity from the same magma feeders, however the truth will remain unknown because it would take very many deep bores in hard rock to probe the depths and find the necessary evidence.

The western extremities of the sill can be seen at the Abbey Craig, Stirling Castle, Kings Park, Gillies Hill, Sauchieburn and various points to the south.

The quartz-dolerite was once quarried at several places including Cambusbarron and Murrayshall, but is quarried today at Northfield, primarily for roadstone.

References

Hills of the Scottish Midland Valley
Geology of Scotland
Mines in Scotland
Sills (geology)
Geography of Stirling (council area)
Landforms of Stirling (council area)

Stirling Sill


Yu Chuansu (庾傳素) was an official of the Chinese Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period state Former Shu, serving two terms as chancellor.

During Wang Jian's reign
It is not known when Yu Chuansu was born or what his familial origins were.  It was said that while he served under Former Shu's founding emperor Wang Jian, he served initially as the prefect of Shu Prefecture (蜀州, in modern Chengdu, Sichuan).  As of 910, Yu was serving as deputy minister of census (戶部侍郎, Hubu Shilang) and the acting director of treasury (判度支, Pan Duzhi) when Wang Jian gave him the title of Zhongshu Shilang (中書侍郎, deputy head of the legislative bureau of government (中書省, Zhongshu Sheng)) and gave him the designation Tong Zhongshu Menxia Pingzhangshi (同中書門下平章事), making him a chancellor.

In 917, the powerful eunuch Tang Wenyi (唐文扆) was in conflict with Yu's political ally Mao Wenxi the director of palace communications, and when Mao played music at a feast held in preparation for the marriage between Mao's daughter and Yu's son without previously informing the emperor, Tang used the opportunity to accuse Mao of crimes.  Mao was exiled, while Yu was removed from his chancellor position and made the minister of public works (工部尚書, Gongbu Shangshu).  He was later made the minister of defense (兵部尚書, Bingbu Shangshu).

During Wang Yan's reign
Wang Jian died in 918 and was succeeded by his son Wang Zongyan who was later renamed Wang Yan.  Later, Wang Yan made Yu Chuansu Zhongshu Shilang and chancellor again, as well as gave him the honorary title of Taizi Shaobao (太子少保).  It was said that Yu was without significant accomplishments in this second term as chancellor.  In particular, he and fellow chancellor Wang Kai were described as concerned with protecting themselves and failing to correct the wasteful and frivolous ways of the young emperor.  After Former Shu was invaded by its northeastern neighbor Later Tang in 925, Yu followed Wang Yan in surrendering to Later Tang and was made a prefectural prefect.  Nothing further was said about him in history, including when he died.

Notes and references

 Spring and Autumn Annals of the Ten Kingdoms, vol. 41.
 Zizhi Tongjian, vols. 267, 270, 272.

9th-century births
10th-century deaths
Former Shu chancellors
Later Tang government officials
Political office-holders in Sichuan

Yu Chuansu


Rudolf Mildner (10 July 1902, Janov – unknown) was an Austrian-German SS-Standartenführer. He served as the chief of the Gestapo at Katowice and was the head of the political department at Auschwitz concentration camp, conducting "third degree" methods of interrogation from March 1941 until September 1943. As such, he frequently sent prisoners to Auschwitz for incarceration or execution. He visited Auschwitz on several occasions. In December 1944, he was appointed chief of the SiPo, Gestapo and SD in Vienna. After the war, Mildner testified at the Nuremberg Trials and remained in custody until 1949.

Early life
Born in Johannestal, Austrian Silesia, Mildner served as a volunteer in the Austro-Hungarian Navy during World War I. After the war, Mildner served in the Freikorps Sudetenland. Mildner trained to become a police officer in Salzburg. In 1925, he entered the Austrian police service. During that time Mildner furthered his education by attending night school.

Nazi career
He became a member of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in 1931 with number 614,080. He achieved a doctorate of law at the University of Innsbruck in 1934. In 1935 he was forced to leave Austria and move to Germany. There he became a German citizen and entered the SS (number 275,741). Milder obtained a position in the political police department in Munich.

After the 1938 Anschluss, Mildner became chief of the Gestapo in Linz and in 1939 in Salzburg, Austria. From December 1939 to early 1941 he led the Gestapo at Chemnitz. In March 1941 he was named as the head of the Gestapo in Katowice. It was through this office that Mildner became connected with the Auschwitz concentration camp and served as head of a "kangaroo court", which sentenced some 2,000 Poles to death. At the Nuremberg Main Trial on 2 January 1946, a letter dated 3 December 1941 from the Prosecutor General in Katowice to the Reich Minister of Justice on police executions without criminal proceedings was submitted as part of the indictment:

"About 3 weeks ago, in Tarnowitz, in connection with the destruction of a highly treacherous organization of 350 members, the 6 (partly Ethnic Germans)main perpetrators were hanged by the police without the judiciary being aware of it. Such executions have already taken place in the past on criminal perpetrators in the district of Bielitz without the knowledge of the responsible law enforcement authority. On December 2, 1941, the head of the Katowice State Police Department, Oberregierungsrat Mildner told the undersigned orally that he had ordered these executions with the authorization of the Reichsführer of the SS as a necessary immediate measure by public hanging at the scene of the crime, and that the deterrence measures had to be continued in the future until the criminal and activist anti-German forces in the incorporated eastern area had been smashed or other immediate measures, possibly also of the courts, ensured the same deterrent effect. Thus, even today, in the area in and around Sosnowitz, 6 main ringleaders of another Polish highly treabar organization were publicly hanged as a deterrent."

Mildner's ad hoc court hearing was described by Auschwitz SS-Unterscharführer and war criminal, Perry Broad: A 16-year-old boy was brought into the room. An unbearable famine led to him stealing some food from a store, so he was tried in a "criminal" case, like a criminal. After reading the death sentence, Mildner slowly put the document on his desk and directed a penetrating look at the pale and poorly dressed boy. "Do you have a mother?" he asked. The boy lowered his eyes and in a quiet voice replied, "Yes." "Are you afraid to die?" asked the merciless, fat butcher, who seemed to enjoy the suffering of his victim. The boy was silent, but he was shaking on his body. "Today you will be shot," Mildner said, trying to set an unrelenting tone to his voice, "Someday they would hang you anyway. In an hour you will be dead." According to Broad, Mildner particularly psychologically abused women, telling them in drastic detail how they would be shot.
In 1942, he received the War Merit Cross, 2nd class for fighting the enemies of the Reich.

In September 1943, Mildner was transferred to occupied Denmark as Gestapo chief to fight the Danish resistance movement and organize the deportation of the Danish Jews. Mildner oversaw security in Denmark in 1943 when the deportation of the Jews failed. 95% of them succeeded in sailing safely to neutral Sweden. Mildner tried to regain status by participating in the killing of Danish playwright, priest and Nazi opponent Kaj Munk.  However, the failure in deportation of the Danish Jews was held against Mildner and he was transferred out of Denmark in January 1944. He then served as Inspector of the SiPo and SD in Kassel.

From March 1944 to June 1944 he was Deputy Chief of sub-offices IVA and IVB (Enemies of the Regime & Activities of the Sects and Churches) in the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA). In December 1944, he was appointed the successor of Franz Josef Huber as chief of the SiPo, Gestapo and SD in Vienna. In this capacity, he was responsible for the court-martial and subsequent execution of resistance fighters Major Karl Biedermann, Captain Alfred Huth and First Lieutenant Rudolf Raschke, who had tried to save Vienna from destruction by handing the city over to the Allies. After Vienna was captured by the Soviets, Mildner returned to Linz where he was the deputy of Franz Josef Huber. In May 1945, he escaped to the west and was arrested by U.S. Army soldiers and testified at the Nuremberg Trials. The American army detained Mildner and "saved him from landing in the hands of war crimes investigators, because his knowledge of communist subversion was considered useful."

Nuremberg trials
At Nuremberg he testified with regards to RSHA chief Ernst Kaltenbrunner. Mildner declared that while he was Gestapo leader at Katowice he frequently sent prisoners to Auschwitz for imprisonment or execution. He visited Auschwitz on several occasions and was shown the extermination installations. Mildner stated that he had tried to prevent the Jewish persecution in Denmark, but was overruled by Himmler. He was released in 1949 and disappeared to escape prosecution. According to A declassified CIA Report, Mildner was allowed to escape to South America Adolf Eichmann claimed to have met Mildner in Argentina in 1958, but this claim has not been verified. The date and place of his death is unknown.

See also
List of people who disappeared

Bibliography
Goldensohn, Leon N., and Gellately, Robert (ed.): The Nuremberg Interviews, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2004

References

1902 births
1950s missing person cases
20th-century Freikorps personnel
Auschwitz concentration camp personnel
Austrian Nazi lawyers
Austro-Hungarian military personnel of World War I
German prisoners of war in World War II held by the United States
Gestapo personnel
Holocaust perpetrators in Poland
Year of death unknown
Naturalized citizens of Germany
People from Austrian Silesia
People from Bruntál District
Reich Security Main Office personnel
SS-Standartenführer
University of Innsbruck alumni

Rudolf Mildner


Country rock is a subgenre of country music. It was formed by the wave of rock musicians who began to record country-flavored records in the late 1960s and early 1970s. These musicians recorded rock records using country themes. They used vocal styles and additional instrumentation, in particular pedal steel guitar. Country rock began with Bob Dylan. It reached its greatest popularity in the 1970s with artists like Emmylou Harris, the Eagles and The Doobie Brothers. Country rock also influenced artists in other genres. This included The Band, Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Rolling Stones, and George Harrison's solo work. It also played a part in the development of Southern rock.

References

Rock music

Country rock


Triokinase/FMN cyclase is an enzyme that in humans is encoded by the DAK gene.

Function

This gene is a member of the family of dihydroxyacetone kinases, which have a protein structure distinct from other kinases. The product of this gene phosphorylates dihydroxyacetone, and also catalyzes the formation of riboflavin 4',5'-phosphate (aka cyclic FMN) from FAD. Several alternatively spliced transcript variants have been identified, but the full-length nature of only one has been determined.

References

Further reading

DAK (gene)


Mortal Engines is a young-adult science fiction novel by Philip Reeve, published by Scholastic UK in 2001. The book focuses on a futuristic, steampunk version of London, now a giant machine striving to survive on a world that is running out of resources.

Mortal Engines is the first book of a series, the Mortal Engines Quartet, published from 2001 to 2006. It has been adapted as a 2018 feature film by Peter Jackson, though its movie universe is different from that of the book.

The book won a Nestlé Smarties Book Prize and the 2003 Blue Peter Book Award. It was shortlisted for the 2002 Whitbread Award, the 2004 ALA's Notable Books for Children award and the 2020 Blue Peter Awards 20th anniversary prize.

Synopsis

Setting
The book is set in a post-apocalyptic world, ravaged by the "Sixty Minute War", a global conflict so violent it caused massive geological upheaval. To escape earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and other natural threats, a Nomad leader called Nikola Quercus (known throughout the Quartet as Nicholas Quirke, and revered as a deity) installed massive engines and wheels on London, enabling it to dismantle (or eat) other cities for resources. The technology rapidly spread and evolved into what is known as "Municipal Darwinism". Although the planet has since become stable, Municipal Darwinism has spread worldwide. Because scientific progress has almost completely halted and much technological and scientific knowledge was lost during the war, "Old Tech" is highly prized and recovered by scavengers and archaeologists. Europe, some of Asia, North Africa, Antarctica, and the Arctic are dominated by Traction Cities. In contrast, North America - often identified as "the dead continent" due to the extensive destruction it suffered during the war - and the rest of the world is the stronghold of the Anti-Traction League, which seeks to keep cities from moving and thus stop the intense consumption of the planet's remaining resources.

London is the principal Traction City in the novel, which has returned to a Victorian-era society. London's society is divided into four major and several minor Guilds. The Engineers are responsible for maintaining the machines necessary for the survival of London, many of which are found by the Guild of Historians. The Historians are in charge of collecting and preserving highly prized, often dangerous artifacts. The Navigators are responsible for steering and plotting the course of London. The Merchants are in charge of running London's economy. London is officially ruled by an elected Mayor. The Lord Mayor is Magnus Crome, who is also the head of the Guild of Engineers. Like most Traction Cities, London is built on a series of tiers. This encourages the system of social classes, with the wealthier nobles at the top of the city and the lower classes further down, closer to the noise and pollution of the city's massive engines. Atop the whole of London sits St Paul's Cathedral: the only building known to have survived the Sixty Minute War.

Plot
The book starts with the traction city of London chasing and catching a small mining town called Salthook. Tom Natsworthy, a teenage Apprentice Historian, is sent, as punishment for skipping a chore, to the "Gut" of London, where captured Traction cities or towns are stripped of resources. Tom incidentally meets the Head of the Guild of Historians, Thaddeus Valentine, along with his daughter, Katherine. One of Salthook's residents, teenager Hester Shaw, attempts to assassinate Valentine, but Tom interferes and chases her. She reveals a disfiguring scar on her face and claims Valentine caused it, before escaping the London police through a chute. When Tom informs Valentine of her name, Valentine pushes him down into the chute. Tom and Hester recover outside of London within the Hunting Ground and, after an argument, they start following the city's tracks to reboard it.

The pair eventually boards a small town called Speedwell, where the owner Orme Wreyland drugs them and plans to sell the pair as slaves for profit at a trading cluster. Tom and Hester escape from Wreyland, meeting a friendly airship pilot called Anna Fang, who takes them in her airship the Jenny Haniver to the neutral flying city of Airhaven where they can find passage to London. At Airhaven, they are then attacked by a cyborg "Stalker" called Shrike, who was sent after them by the London Mayor Magnus Crome to kill them and bring their bodies to him.

Tom and Hester escape by stealing a hot-air balloon and drift over the Hunting Ground. Hester reveals that when she was a child, her parents were killed by Valentine as they would not give up an Ancient machine. Valentine then injured her and believed that she was dead. Hester escaped, and Shrike took care of her for most of her childhood. Despite the fact that Shrike was not supposed to have feelings, he developed a fatherlike bond with her. Wanting to avenge her parents, Hester left Shrike despite his pleas for her to stay and travelled to London. Shrike followed her, reaching London first, but was captured by Crome and used to create more Stalkers for London.

Hester sees that a London-built scoutship is following them and lowers the balloon onto the Hunting Ground. The scoutship, with Shrike on board, finds the pair and the Stalker confronts them. Before he can explain why he wants Hester to die, two chasing towns run over him, and Tom and Hester manage to board the second of these, a pirate town called Tunbridge Wheels. The mayor, Chrysler Peavy, who knows Hester from her days with Shrike, frees Tom as he is a resident of London and Peavy wishes to learn etiquette worthy of a Londoner gentleman. Tom convinces him to free Hester, and Peavy informs them that he plans to consume the downed Airhaven. While charging at it over shallow water, Tunbridge Wheels beaches on a coral reef, sinking it whilst the survivors escape inland with Tom and Hester. Whilst attempting to feebly retake Airhaven, Peavy gets stuck in a bog and his pirate subordinates shoot him, then attempt to execute Tom and Hester, but Shrike intervenes and kills the remaining pirates. Shrike explains to Hester that Crome had agreed to resurrect her as a Stalker similar to him after he brings back her body. She agrees to this, but Tom intervenes by stabbing Shrike in the eye, shutting him down, and saving her life.

Valentine is sent away by Crome on a "secret mission", much to Katherine's dismay. Suspicious of her father, Katherine begins investigating events in London with the help of Apprentice Engineer Bevis Pod, whom she befriends after discovering he witnessed Tom chasing Hester. They discover that Valentine salvaged a monstrous ancient weapon called MEDUSA for London and that the Guild of Engineers had reassembled it inside St Paul's Cathedral. The Cathedral's dome splits open to reveal MEDUSA, which is then used to destroy a much larger city pursuing London.

Tom and Hester are rescued by Fang, who is revealed to be an Anti-Traction League agent and takes them to the Shield Wall of Batmunkh Gompa which protects the nation-state of the League. Fang suspects that the weapon that London has reassembled will be used to destroy the Shield Wall, and warns League Governor Khan of MEDUSA. Khan is skeptical that London will attack, but Fang insists that they should bomb London to destroy the weapon. Convinced that the League will kill innocent people and angry at the idea of destroying his home, Tom storms out and discovers Valentine has infiltrated Batmunkh Gompa as a monk. Tom raises the alarm, but Valentine successfully cripples the League's northern fleet of airships. Valentine duels and kills Fang by stabbing her in the neck, before escaping in his own airship the 13th Floor Elevator. Tom and Hester take the Jenny Haniver and fly it back to London in the hope of stopping Valentine and MEDUSA themselves.

With MEDUSA finally launched, Crome begins guiding London east towards the Anti-Traction League's base behind the Shield Wall of Batmunkh Gompa to destroy their defenses and devour all of their settlements. After Valentine returns, Katherine learns that MEDUSA was originally found by Hester's mother, Pandora and that he had killed her to steal it for London. He also admits that Katherine was likely Hester's half-sister. Disillusioned, and horrified by the destructive power of the weapon, Katherine and Bevis conspire to plant a bomb to destroy MEDUSA but are caught in their attempt.

The Guild of Historians, led by Tom's boss Chudleigh Pomeroy, come to their aid, and battle with the Engineers. Katherine travels up to the Top Tier to Saint Paul's Cathedral, with Bevis disguised as her captor. Tom and Hester arrive, and Hester attempts to fight her way to Valentine to avenge her parents. Tom is attacked by the 13th Floor Elevator above London and shoots it down. Bevis is killed when the airship crushes him, but Katherine is able to reach Saint Paul's Cathedral. Inside, she sees Hester brought before Valentine. When he attempts to kill her, Katherine jumps in her father's way and is fatally wounded. She falls onto a keyboard, interrupting the firing sequence of MEDUSA, and causing it to malfunction. Valentine and Hester, briefly putting aside their differences, try to take Katherine to Tom to get help, but she dies before they can reach him.

Hester leaves with Tom in the airship, while Valentine chooses to stay behind in London. MEDUSA finally misfires, obliterating most of the city and killing Valentine. Hester tries to comfort a grief-stricken Tom as they fly away in the Jenny Haniver, apparently the only survivors of the incident, and make their way to the Bird Roads.

Characters

A few of the people in Mortal Engines are named after places in Devon, where Reeve lives, including Chudleigh, Tamerton Foliot and the River Plym. In the quartet, Miss Plym and Chudleigh Pomeroy are both in the Guild of Historians, and Tamarton Foliot is an "Alternative" historian. Both Shrike and Smew are named after birds, and Pennyroyal is named after a flower.

Tom Natsworthy, a 15-year-old boy who is a Third-Class Apprentice Historian who is unwittingly brought along with Hester.
Hester Shaw, a 15-year-old short-tempered assassin whose parents were murdered by Valentine and seeks vengeance.
Anna Fang, a friendly but deadly aviatrix and Anti-Tractionist agent who rescues Hester and Tom from being sold into slavery.
Thaddeus Valentine, the dashing and handsome famous archaeologist and Head of the Guild of Historians on London, formerly a scavenger, and father to Katherine.
Katherine Valentine, Thaddeus Valentine's daughter who begins to become suspicious about her father's activities.
Bevis Pod, an Apprentice Engineer who assists Katherine in her investigations.
Shrike (also known in the American release of the series as Grike), an ancient Stalker who raised Hester after her parents were killed and seeks to turn her into a Stalker so she can be with him forever.
Magnus Crome, the Lord Mayor of London and the Head of the Guild of Engineers, who seeks to make London the greatest traction city in the world by using a mysterious superweapon called MEDUSA.
Chrysler Peavey, the ambitious pirate mayor of Tunbridge Wheels, who Hester knew before she left Shrike.
Chudleigh Pomeroy, the Deputy Head of the Guild of Historians and Tom's overzealous boss, who assists Katherine.

Title
The title is a quotation from Act III, Scene iii of William Shakespeare's play Othello ("Othello: And O you mortal engines whose rude throats/Th'immortal Jove's dread clamors counterfeit..." – Line 352). In the novel, it refers to the fact that the society of Municipal Darwinism is not sustainable living and that the cities' engines are indeed mortal.

Development
Philip Reeve has stated that his plans to write a science fiction novel were laid in the late 1980s.

The original drafts were intended to be an adult novel but after several rejections, Scholastic said they might be interested in Mortal Engines as a children's story. In the refactoring the story was simplified, removing several characters and much content such as the city politics that Reeve thought would not be interesting to children.

The Mortal Engines world was originally written as an alternative universe set in the early 1900s, but Reeve has stated this turned out to require just too much explaining as how and where history could have diverged. He was inspired to start then due to The War of the Worlds.

Critical reception
At Goodreads, Mortal Engines has a score of 3.92 out of 5.

Publishers Weekly praised the book, calling it "staggering feat of engineering ... [that] ... offers new wonders at every turn".

Adaptation

A film adaptation by Peter Jackson was announced in 2009. In October 2016, Jackson announced that the film would be his next project as producer and co-writer, alongside long-time collaborators Fran Walsh (also his wife) and Philippa Boyens. The film was directed by Jackson's long-time collaborator Christian Rivers. The film premiered on 27 November 2018. It was released in the UK on 7 December 2018 and on 14 December 2018 in the US. It received generally negative reviews and was a commercial failure. It was criticized for changing the book's climax and ending, removing the book's social commentary and satire, and its portrayal of Hester Shaw as a more traditionally heroic character. However, the design of the traction cities and Robert Sheehan's performance were praised.

On November 18, 2020, upon asked whether Mortal Engines would be rebooted for television, Reeve responded that, while that would be nice, it seemed unlikely.

Legacy
Critics have suggested that the 2019 Amazon Prime Video series Carnival Row is influenced by the Mortal Engines series of novels, amongst other influences.

See also
 Mortal Engines Quartet

References

Citations

External links
 Official website
 Goodreads
 SF Site review
 Reading Matters review

Mortal Engines
2001 British novels
2001 science fiction novels
British steampunk novels
British young adult novels
Novels by Philip Reeve
Novels set in London
Post-apocalyptic novels
post-apocalyptic
Children's science fiction novels
Predator Cities
Debut speculative fiction novels
British novels adapted into films
2001 debut novels
Scholastic Corporation books

Mortal Engines


Bob Law (22 January 1934 – 17 April 2004) was a founding father of British Minimalism concerning painting and sculpture. A prolific artist throughout his lifetime, Law struggled with ideas surrounding the legitimacy and significance of abstract art.

Life and work
Law was born in Middlesex, England in 1934, and moved to St Ives in 1957 where he painted and made pots. He had been particularly influenced by meetings with Peter Lanyon and Ben Nicholson in the late 1950s. In 1960 Bob Law moved away from Cornwall.

Bob Law's artistic career started in the late 1950s when he moved to St.Ives. Inspired by the landscape, these seemingly simple outlines around the perimeter of the paper lead to a minimalist exploration of lines, shapes and forms. He was influenced in this direction by his discovery of the abstract paintings of Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko that he saw in 1959 at the Tate Gallery. Law then went on to make a series of black paintings out of different combinations of dark colours that were exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art Oxford in 1974.

He took up sculpture in the 1970s, which extended and expanded his oeuvre.

He returned to live in the west of Cornwall in 1997 and died in April 2004.

Retrospective
2009 saw the publication of Bob Law: A Retrospective by Ridinghouse, a comprehensive monograph that introduces the artist, his history and his work. This publication brings together the largest group of paintings, drawings and sculpture by Bob Law to date. In addition to 300 images, 6 texts present different moments and themes in Law's work. Anna Lovatt explores the role of drawing throughout; Jo Melvin introduces pivotal exhibitions during the 1960s and 70s; Anthony Bond provides an overview of the work and its relationship to art history and David Batchelor revisits his 1999 essay which describes visual and conceptual themes throughout Law's work. Richard Cork's 1974 interview with Bob Law as well as Giuseppe Panza's recollection of the artists are both reproduced in this volume.

See also
 List of minimalist artists
 Abstract Imagists
 Formalism (art)
 Geometric abstraction
 Lyrical Abstraction
 Monochrome painting
 List of St. Ives artists

Footnotes

1934 births
2004 deaths
20th-century English painters
English male painters
21st-century English painters
St Ives artists
20th-century British sculptors
British male sculptors
20th-century English male artists
21st-century English male artists

Bob Law


Merton Park is a suburb in the London Borough of Merton. It is situated in Wimbledon and the nearest town centre is Wimbledon Town. Bordering areas are Colliers Wood, Morden, South Wimbledon and Raynes Park. It is 7.25 miles (11.7 km) southwest of Charing Cross.It lies 2.8 miles east of Kingston upon Thames, 3 miles west of Mitcham and 3.5 miles north of Sutton.

Roads in Merton Park include: Mostyn Road, Kenley road, Dorset Road, Windermere Avenue and Watery Lane. All of Merton Park which is in SW19 is part of Wimbledon Town Centre and some roads in SW20 are part of Bushey Park and Raynes Park Town Centre.

History

Until the last quarter of the 19th century, the parish of Merton was mainly rural. The area now known as Merton Park was farm land owned by City merchant John Innes who was the local "lord of the manor". The rapid development of Wimbledon to the north encouraged Innes to develop his land for housing. He took as his model the garden suburbs (particularly Bedford Park in Chiswick) and developed the tree-lined roads of detached and semi-detached houses for which the area is known.

The northern section of Merton Park each side of Kingston Road (A238) is now a conservation area.

Geography
The approximate boundaries of the Merton Park area can be considered to be Kingston Road (A238) to the north, Dorset Road (B285) and Morden Road (A24) to the east, Martin Way to the south and Cannon Hill Lane to the west. Additionally, the area north of Kingston Road between Merton Hall Road, Avebury Road and Kingswood Road is often included. This definition of the area does not correspond directly with the Local Government ward of the same name which for administrative convenience includes areas as far south as Morden South railway station.

The area contains two state schools: Merton Park Primary and Rutlish School (boys) and is almost entirely residential in character without shops or pubs except a bar at the Old Rutlishians ('Old Ruts') playing field and clubhouse in Poplar Road.

Merton Park is relatively rich in public transport, being served by National Rail, London Underground, and London Trams.

The area is served by Wimbledon Chase Railway Station, (located just outside the area), and South Merton Railway Station, both providing a 2 t.p.h. Thameslink service towards Central London or Sutton.

Morden tube station provides access to the Northern Line.

Wimbledon station provides access to London Waterloo and the District line.

The London Trams also serve the area from Merton Park tram stop.

The area is centred on the historic parish church, St Mary's. The church was founded in the 12th century by the Augustinian order of the nearby Merton Priory of which only the Western Gate remains.

Parks in the area include:

 John Innes Park & Recreation Ground
 Mostyn Gardens
 Kendor Gardens
 Church Lane Playing Fields
 St Mary's Glebe

Notable people
John Dimmer, recipient of the Victoria Cross in 1914, lived here.

In the arts, folk singer Sandy Denny was born here.

Ronnie Wood from the Rolling Stones lived on Mostyn Road with his wife Jo and their children after they moved back to the UK from America in 1986. They left the area in 1991.

See also
Merton Park Studios
The Merton Parkas

References

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/time-and-place-jo-wood-crgj2r9dmnz

External links
St. Mary the Virgin, Merton
Merton Park Ward Residents Association
Love Merton Park

Areas of London
Districts of the London Borough of Merton
Merton Park is part of Richmond and Wimbledon Village Parish.
House prices range from the lowest at £1,000,000 and a maximum of £12,000,000.

Merton Park


Lever-action firearms are guns that hold multiple bullets and are loaded by pulling and pushing a lever at the bottom of the gun.

Lever-action rifles first became important weapons during the American Civil War. Two rifles made during this time were the Henry and Spencer rifles. They fired much more quickly and could be loaded much faster than muzzleloading rifles. However, their use was limited because many generals felt that the ability to shoot many bullets without reloading would cause soldiers to shoot with less accuracy. However, after the Civil War, lever-action guns became much more popular. They were popular with not just soldiers, but also with hunters and even civilians. They were so popular that the most famous lever-action rifle, the Winchester Model 1873, was called "the gun that won the West".

Both the militaries of the United States and the Russian Empire used lever-action guns often until the beginning of the 20th century. Even though lever action guns can fire much faster than bolt-action rifles (lever-actions can fire 2 rounds a second in skilled hands,) the bolt-action rifle was chosen to be the main gun for most infantry. This was because bolt-action rifles could easily be fired when soldiers are lying on the ground, but lever-actions cannot do so easily.

Lever-action guns were made for many different types of bullets, both pistol and rifle bullets. Most lever-action guns are rifles, but there are also lever-action shotguns as well. The most famous of these are the Winchester Model 1887.

Firearms
Rifles

Lever-action firearms


Zaida Cantera de Castro (born 6 June 1977) is a Spanish retired military officer and politician currently affiliated with the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE). She has been a deputy for Madrid in the 11th and  Legislatures.

Military career
Zaida Cantera entered the General Military Academy in 1997, receiving her specialization in Signals at the , where she graduated in 2003, receiving her commission as lieutenant. She also holds master's degrees in Networks and Information Systems and Communication and Information Systems for Security and Defense.

She was assigned to the Signals Unit of the Armored Brigade and participated in international missions such as the conflicts in Kosovo and Lebanon, reaching the rank of major in the Army. After returning from the latter country she began to suffer sexual harassment from a superior, a fact that she denounced before the Central Military Court. In 2014, she requested her departure from the Armed Forces and was definitively discharged in 2015. Cantera recounted these episodes of harassment in the book No, mi general, in co-authorship with UPyD deputy Irene Lozano.

Political career
On 20 December 2015, Cantera was elected a member of the Congress of Deputies as part of the PSOE list for Madrid. In the investiture vote of Mariano Rajoy, she was one of the 15 socialist MP's not that abstained from voting against the party lines, and she joined the PSOE on 5 January 2017 in order to vote in the primaries of the 39th federal congress in favor of Pedro Sánchez.

References

External links

1977 births
20th-century Spanish military personnel
21st-century Spanish military personnel
21st-century Spanish women writers
Living people
Members of the 11th Congress of Deputies (Spain)
Members of the 12th Congress of Deputies (Spain)
Members of the 13th Congress of Deputies (Spain)
Military personnel from Madrid
Politicians from Madrid
Spanish army officers
Spanish Socialist Workers' Party politicians
Women members of the Congress of Deputies (Spain)
Members of the 14th Congress of Deputies (Spain)
20th-century Spanish women

Zaida Cantera


"The Thunder, Perfect Mind" is a text originally discovered in the Nag Hammadi library in 1945. It follows a poetic structure, and has received scholarly attention for its gnomic style and unclear subject. It speaks about the divine in paradoxical terms, as both honored and cursed, as life and death, and as both the cause of peace and war. The poem also emphasizes the idea that the divine exists both inside and outside of oneself, and that one's judgment and salvation are dependent on their relationship to the divine. It offers a unique perspective on the nature of the divine and the individual's relationship to it, and it highlights the idea of duality and the interconnectedness of opposing forces.

Some authors, such as George MacRae and Hal Taussig, contend against categorizing "The Thunder" as Gnostic literature.

Summary
The opening text announces the seemingly feminine speaker's power and presence. The speaker, who was sent forth from a power, has come to those who reflect upon them and has been found among those seeking after them. The speaker invites those waiting for them to take them in, but warns not to ignore or banish them. The speaker presents themselves as a complex figure, embodying seemingly contradictory qualities such as the first and the last, the honored and the scorned, and the bride and the bridegroom.

The speaker warns to not be arrogant or dismissive of their poverty and shame but also to not be afraid of their power. The speaker questions why they are hated for their obedience and feared for their power and asserts that they exist in all fears and have strength in trembling. They describe themselves as compassionate and cruel, senseless and wise. The speaker urges to be cautious and not to dismiss their fear or curse their pride.

The text continues describing opposite qualities, such as that the speaker is both loved and hated by all people. They are seen as wisdom by the Greeks and knowledge by the barbarians, life and death, law and lawlessness. The speaker is also described as Godless and unlearned but with great power, and those who know the speaker are encouraged to come forward to them and not despise smallness or turn away greatness from small things. It calls to come forward to childhood.

The speaker continues to mention paradoxical traits, such as being both honored and despised, both close and far away, both sinless and the root of sin. They are both the knowledge of their inquiry and the finding of those who seek them, the command of those who ask of them, and the power of powers. The speaker claims to be the one who is called Truth, yet they are also associated with iniquity. They describe themselves as a mute who speaks, a bread maker, and the knowledge of their own name. The speaker encourages listeners to hear them with gentleness and learn from them through roughness. They describe themselves as a crier who also listens, and who walks in the seal of their mind. The speaker is described as the defense and says that they are called Truth.

The conclusion sees the speaker describe themselves as the hearing attainable to all, the sound of a name, and the one who alone exists and has no one to judge them. They encourage the hearers to look at the speaker's words and writings, and to heed the message and find the speaker in their resting place, where they will live without dying again.

Form

The content of "The Thunder, Perfect Mind" (the title may alternately be translated "The Thunder, Perfect Intellect") takes the form of an extended, riddling monologue, in which an immanent divine saviour speaks a series of paradoxical statements alternating between first-person assertions of identity and direct address to the audience. These paradoxical utterances echo Greek identity riddles, a common early poetic form in the Mediterranean. Moreover, it is a non-epistolic, non-narrative unmediated divine speech.

It has been theorized that the text was originally composed in Greek due to its meter and phrasing, and it has been dated to a vaguely estimated period of time before 350 C.E., the date of the Coptic manuscript from which the text originates.

Structure and language
The work as a whole takes the form of a poem in parallel strophes, and the author, it may be surmised, has drawn on a tradition of such poems in both Egyptian and Jewish communities, in which a similarly female divinity (Isis or aspect of the divine Sophia respectively) expounds her virtues unto an attentive audience, and exhorts them to strive to attain her. Patricia Cox Miller suggests that it is the "self-revelation of a powerful goddess".

Parallels in Mandaic scriptures
In Book 6 (also known as the "Book of Dinanukt") of the Right Ginza, Ruha addresses a speech to Dinanukht, which is similar to "The Thunder, Perfect Mind" (see the poem in the Dinanukht article). Torgny Säve-Söderbergh (1949) also noted similarities with Psalms of Thomas 14, in which Hylē provides an answer of co-existing opposites (e.g., "death and life").

References

2nd-century texts
3rd-century texts
Texts in Coptic
Nag Hammadi library
4th-century texts

The Thunder, Perfect Mind


Alexander Bulygin ( – 5 September 1919) was the Minister of Interior of Russia from February 1905 until October 1905.

Biography
Graduate of the Imperial School of Law, he began work in the Tambov district court in 1871. He then held various administrative offices including that of Governor of Kaluga (1887), of Moscow (1893), and assistant to the Governor-General of Moscow, Grand
Duke Sergei Alexandrovich (1902).

Bulygin replaced Prince Pyotr Dmitrievich Svyatopolk-Mirsky on 20 January 1905 after strikes and protests in January. He was assisted by General Dmitri Feodorovich Trepov. Bulygin is most notable for the so-called 'Bulygin Constitution', developed in response to the 1905 Russian Revolution. Tentative proposals were made in February already. It was issued on 6 August 1905, and proposed a purely advisory Duma. According to his Memoirs Sergei Witte did not force the Tsar to sign this Manifesto; moreover he states nobody knew who wrote the Manifesto. Witte suggests a member of the Black Hundreds. The Tsar had no other choice than to accept the rescript, written by Bulygin.
It did not satisfy those who wanted a fully legislative assembly, and Bulygin's opponents, discontented, advocated the strikes of September and October. After these events, Bulygin (and Trepov) were sacked on 17 October 1905 and replaced by the reactionary Pyotr Nikolayevich Durnovo. After resignation Bulygin returned to the State Council.

He was shot and killed by Bolsheviks on 5 September 1919. The Ryazan Cheka were responsible.

References

Government ministers of Russia
Members of the State Council (Russian Empire)
Imperial School of Jurisprudence alumni
Victims of Red Terror in Soviet Russia
1851 births
1919 deaths
Executed Russian people
People executed by Russia by firearm
People from the Russian Empire

Alexander Bulygin


Shannon Price Minter (born February 14, 1961) is an American civil rights attorney and the legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights in San Francisco.

Early life and education
Minter is a 1993 graduate of Cornell Law School and he has been lead counsel in dozens of groundbreaking legal victories for the LGBT community. Raised in East Texas, Minter began transitioning at age 35. Minter did not change his birth name after he started living as a trans man.

Career
Minter first gained national attention in the United States in 2001 representing the lesbian partner of Diane Whipple, in a wrongful death case due to a dog mauling, which resulted in a landmark decision in California that extended tort claims to same-sex domestic partners; previously it was a right limited only to married couples. Marjorie Knoller was sentenced to serve 15 years to life for the death of Diane Whipple. Whipple's partner, Sharon Smith, succeeded in suing for $1,500,000 in civil damages, which she donated to Saint Mary's College of California to fund the women's lacrosse team.

In 2003, Minter gained national attention again when CourtTV aired the entire case of Kantaras v. Kantaras, where Minter represented Michael Kantaras, a transgender man who was trying to keep custody of his children. Though he won that case in 2002, it was reversed on appeal in 2004 by the Florida Supreme Court, upholding the claim that the marriage was null and void because her ex-husband was still a woman and same-sex marriages are illegal in Florida. The couple settled the case with joint custody in 2005.

In 2009 Minter was the lead attorney arguing before the California Supreme Court to overturn California Proposition 8. Ken Starr represented the opposing side on this case. Ruling that California's citizens held the inalienable right to amend their constitution, the 5 for 4 majority upheld Prop 8's ban on same-sex marriages though they agreed to recognize marriages that had already taken place under a "grandfather clause". Ultimately the entire statute was rendered moot after the Supreme Court ruled that all states must recognize gay marriage in 2015.

Minter has taught law at UCLA School of Law, Stanford University, Golden Gate University and Santa Clara University.

Awards
Minter won a Ford Foundation "Leadership for a Changing World" award in October 2005.

Personal life
Minter got married in 2001 and has a daughter. He said at the time that he was pained "by the injustice" that transgender people could legally marry in California while gay and lesbian couples could not.

References

External links

Living people
LGBT people from Texas
Transgender men
American transgender people
1961 births
Law in the San Francisco Bay Area
Lawyers from San Francisco
Activists from the San Francisco Bay Area
Cornell Law School alumni
Golden Gate University faculty
American LGBT lawyers
Transgender academics
Transgender studies academics
21st-century American lawyers
21st-century American LGBT people

Shannon Minter


Edwin Walter Kemmerer (June 29, 1875 – December 16, 1945) was an American economist, who became famous as an economic adviser to foreign governments in many countries (Philippines, Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, Germany, Chile, South Africa, Poland, Ecuador, Bolivia, China, Peru, and Turkey), promoting plans based on strong currencies, the gold standard, central banks, central bank independence, and balanced budgets. He helped design the U.S. Federal Reserve System in 1911, edited the American Economic Bulletin and the American Economic Review, and became president of the American Economic Association in 1926.

He graduated with honors and a Phi Beta Kappa key from Wesleyan University, and earned his Ph.D. from Cornell University, where he taught (1906-1912). At 28, was appointed Financial Adviser to the U.S. Philippine Commission. In 1912 he became a professor at Princeton University, where he was made the first director of its new International Finance Section; by then Kemmerer had a well established reputation as an international "money doctor." He was a member of both the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

"Money doctors"
All of the plans created by economic advisors like Kemmerer were aimed "towards the establishment of an internationally interconnected monetary and credit system based on stable national currencies in fixed value relationship with gold and other gold currencies." Consequently, the plans required among other things, central bank independence, the payment of all debts and balanced state budgets.

R. Nötel, in his essay on the International Credit and Finance of Eastern Europe, complains that the advice of these "money doctors" was "sometimes discordant", adding that their plans were written not only to have the debtors comply with the rules of the international financial system, but also to obtain the approval of much needed loans.

As a "money doctor" Kemmerer was not alone: in Poland he was followed by Charles Dewey; Romania had the Frenchmen Charles Rist and Roger Auboin; and for Hungary and Germany, the Americans Jeremiah Smith Jr and S. Parker Gilbert, respectively.

The Polish Stabilization – Context
After two failed attempts at bringing "galloping" inflation under control, in April 1924 a somewhat satisfactory stabilization scheme was established that reigned in inflation and laid the foundations for a modern financial system. This came at the cost of deflation and increasing political instability, exacerbated by the expiry in 1925 of the Upper Silesia convention obliging Germans to buy 6 million tons of Polish coal, which made for a quarter of Polish exports.

The political and increasingly economic instability came to an end with the coup d'état that brought general Pilsudski in May 1926, a popular military hero, to power. His increasingly right wing politics appealed to American diplomats and bankers, and the US at the time was attempting to "rebuild  Europe's war-torn economy and thereby protect crucial agricultural and industrial markets, block the spread of Bolshevism, and ease the danger of renewed war and revolution."

At the same time that Poland was seeking help with financial stabilization and new loans, the unresolved issue of the Polish corridor, which Versailles had given it to the chagrin of Germany, added some complexity to the issue of the nationality of any future economic advisors, for the British supported the Germans and wanted Poland brought under the control of their unpopular League of Nations Financial Committee. So the Poles, after consulting with Benjamin Strong, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, invited Kemmerer "to draw up a comprehensive plan for economic reform and stabilization."

Kemmerer's role in the Second Polish Stabilization

Unlike Charles Dewey, who would succeed him as economic advisor to the Polish government, Kemmerer only stayed in Poland a few months to write up his report, while Dewey stayed for more than two years. The New York Times describes Kemmerer's role as that of a doctor who visits the patient "only to diagnose and prescribe, and then come briskly away, leaving the patient to take his own doses or to depend on a foreign nurse".

Kemmerer completed an extremely detailed report on the condition of the Polish economy, taking account of its agriculture, industry and communications infrastructure; his report included detailed maps of the Polish Central Bank's offices around the country, together with a complex diagram of its organizational structure. He even went so far as to hold forth on Poland's security: "As long as Poland's international problems remain as they are … a strong army must, of course, be maintained."

But his recommendations apparently did not consider the particular circumstances of the Polish socioeconomic environment, which his report would have helped show. A mechanism for "automatic budgeting stability, restraint, and control", previously implanted in Colombia, Chile and Ecuador, was the same as the one that was to be implemented in Poland, a country that even with Pilsudski at the helm, was famous for its political instability.

In the end it all came down to the prestige brought by the advisor and the ceremony of the apparent implementation of his plan by the country that invited him, as Kemmerer himself admitted: "A country that appoints American financial advisers and follows their advice in reorganizing its finances, along what American investors consider to be the most successful modern lines, increases its chances of appealing to the American investor and of obtaining from him capital on favorable terms."

Though Kemmerer suggested that the Poles take out only a $15 million loan for stabilization of the national currency, they negotiated a private one with the American banks B.A. Tompkins and Bankers Trust for $61 million, of which $15 million were for development – leaving 45 million dollars for the stabilization of the zloty, or nearly four times what Kemmerer had recommended.

Though the loan was meant to lead to further ones that would strengthen Poland's financial system and promote its economic development, in mid-1928 foreign lending from Wall Street dried up as the Fed raised interest rates and a domestic speculative boom got underway. Kemmerer, and the US's attempts to stabilize the Polish economy failed as the country sank further into political instability.

Publications

"Economic Advisory Work for Governments," in American Economic Review 17, no. 1 (March 1927), 1-12.

Gold and The Gold Standard: The Story of Gold Money Past, Present, and Future  published in 1944.

References

Further reading

Drake, Paul W. The Money Doctor in the Andes: The Kemmerer Missions, 1923-1933. (1989)
Rosenberg, Emily S. Financial Missionaries to the World. (1999)
Seidel, Robert N. "American Reformers Abroad: The Kemmerer Missions in South America," in Journal of Economic History 32, no. 2 (June 1972): 520–545.

External links
 Edwin Kemmerer Papers at the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University

1875 births
1945 deaths
Cornell University alumni
Wesleyan University alumni
Cornell University faculty
Princeton University faculty
American economists
Presidents of the American Economic Association
Members of the American Philosophical Society

Edwin W. Kemmerer