Mario Scaramella (born 23 April 1970) is a lawyer and security consultant. He came to international prominence in 2006 in connection with the poisoning of the ex-Federal Security Service (FSB) agent Alexander Litvinenko. As responsible for intelligence analysis and production on KGB and military GRU espionage in Europe, he served as an investigator and adviser to the Mitrokhin Commission. Scaramella was a suspect by the Italian justice department for calumny.

While working for the Intelligence and Mitrokhin Dossier Investigative Commission at the Italian Parliament, Scaramella stated that Alexander Talik, a Ukrainian ex-KGB officer living in Naples, conspired with three other Ukrainians officers to assassinate Paolo Guzzanti, a senator and president of the Mitrokhin Commission. The Ukrainians were arrested and special weapons including grenades were confiscated; Talik said that Scaramella had used intelligence to overestimate the story of the assassination attempt, which brought the calumny charge on him. Talik also stated that rocket propelled grenades sent to him in Italy had in fact been sent by Scaramella himself as an undercover agent.

Career

Academic background
Between 1996 and 2000, Scaramella served as a full professor of international and environmental law at the Externado University and Del Rosario University in Bogotá, Colombia, where he served as advisor to the Head of National Police Gen. Rosso Serrano Cadena. He also held a post as Academic Director of the Environmental Crime Institute at the University of Naples and Full Professor of public law. Until 2006, Scaramella was best known for a memo stating that a Soviet submarine left nuclear mines in the Bay of Naples in 1970. Official reports by the Imnterational Atomic Energy Agency and International Maritime Organization confirmed his statement. He said that his team of experts had long been involved in investigating the smuggling of radioactive material by the KGB and its successors.

Environmental Crime Prevention Program

Between 2000 and 2002, Scaramella was appointed by Steven Hermann, the Assistant Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency as secretary general of the organization Environmental Crime Prevention Program (ECPP). On 12 October 2000, he signed a Memorandum of Understanding for cooperation with the secretariat of the Basel Convention on the environment, which is part of the United Nations Environment Programme. One of his few public appearances was at a 2002 security related conference, among with John Gannon, the CIA Deputy Director for Analysis and Production, for giving a lecture on "space anti-terror technologies". ECPP's observership's status to the London Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter meetings was withdrawn in July 2007.

Poisoning

On 1 November 2006, Scaramella met the Russian former FSB agent and defector Alexander Litvinenko for lunch at Itsu, a sushi restaurant in Piccadilly, London. Scaramella stated that he ate nothing and drank only water at the restaurant. On 1 December 2006, he was taken to University College Hospital, and it was confirmed that he had been exposed to polonium-210, the substance that was thought to have been eaten by Litvinenko at the aforementioned lunch, and which killed him. Although Scaramella initially denied having the substance in his body, his lawyer made a statement on the same day saying that they would make no comment until the results of the tests were finalised. A room at Ashdown Park Hotel in Sussex, where Scaramella is thought to have stayed whilst in the United Kingdom was sealed off due to possible contamination. Some news outlets have speculated that Scaramella may have been Litvinenko's assassin.

On 3 December, Italian senator Paolo Guzzanti was quoted after speaking with Scaramella by phone, saying health officials had told Scaramella the dose of polonium he had received is usually a lethal dose. Guzzanti told Reuters: "They also said so far, nobody could ever survive this poison, so it is very unlikely he could. But, if he doesn't collapse in three months, there is a kind of hope ... They said that every six months ... the radioactivity decreases by half." Later news suggested that he had only been exposed to minute traces of polonium.

Litvinenko's brother Maxim, who lives in Italy, told that Scaramella wanted to use his brother as a source for his research into Italian politicians and their alleged links to the Russian intelligence services. According to Maxim, one of the things Litvinenko did for Scaramella was sit down in front of a video camera in early 2006 in Rome. Litvinenko said that the video should not be leaked to the press. In front of the camera, he went on saying that former FSB deputy chief Anatoly Trofimov warned him in 2000 that he should not move to Italy because Romano Prodi was "one of their men". The allegations were rejected by Prodi. Litvinenko also said that "Trofimov did not exactly say that Prodi was a KGB agent, because the KGB avoids using that word." Maxim said that he was paid €200 in cash to translate on the day Scaramella recorded the video. Scaramella paid Litvinenko €500–600 to cover travel expenses.

Mitrokhin Commission

The Mitrokhin Commission was closed in 2006 with a majority and a minority report, without reaching shared conclusions, and without any concrete evidence given to support the original allegations of KGB ties to Italian politicians. Led by the centre-right coalition majority, it was criticized as politically motivated, as it was focused mainly on allegations against opposition figures. In November 2006, the new Italian Parliament with a centre-left coalition majority instituted a commission to investigate the Mitrokhin Commission for allegations that it was manipulated for political purposes.

In a December 2006 interview given to the television program La storia siamo noi, colonel ex-KGB agent Oleg Gordievsky, whom Scaramella claimed as his source, confirmed the accusations made against Scaramella regarding the production of false material relating to Prodi and other Italian politicians, and underlined their lack of reliability. Around the same period, there was the publication of telephone interceptions between Paolo Guzzanti,  the chairman of the Mitrokhin Commission and Forza Italia senator, and Scaramella. In the wiretaps, Guzzanti made it clear that the true intent of the Mitrokhin Commission was to support the hypothesis that Prodi would have been an agent financed or in any case manipulated by Moscow and the KGB. As a result, Scaramella was charged for calumny. In addition to the calumny charge, the result of the claim regarsing a Ukrainian official that he and Guzzanti were victim of an assassination attempt, he was charged of arms trafficking.

On 24 December 2006, Scaramella returned to Italy where he was immediately arrested by DIGOS, a division of the Italian national police. He was charged with calumny. According to prosecutor Pietro Salvitti, cited by La Repubblica and who indicted Scaramella, Nicolò Pollari, head of SISMI indicted in the Abu Omar case, as well as SISMI no. 2, Marco Mancini, who was arrested in July 2006 for the same reason, were some of the informers, alongside Scaramella, of Guzzanti. According to Salvitti, beside targeting Prodi and his staff, this network also aimed at defaming General Giuseppe Cucchi (the then director of the CESIS), Milan's judges Armando Spataro, in charge of the Abu Omar case, and Guido Salvini, as well as La Repubblica reporters Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe D'Avanzo. In February 2008, Scaramella struck a plea bargain deal to a four-year sentence; he did not serve any dail in jail due to a pardon.

References

External links
 Poison plotters claim their second victim by The Times, 2 December 2006
 Soviet Navy left 20 nuclear warheads in bay of Naples' by The Independent, 19 March 2005
 The Litvinenko murder: Scaramella – The Italian Connection by The Independent, 3 December 2006
 Environmental Crime Prevention Programme home page
 Statute of the Environmental Crime Prevention Programme by Mario Scaramella
 Meeting Scaramella by Rome-based journalist-writer Philip Willan

1970 births
20th-century Italian lawyers
Jurists from Naples
Living people
Prisoners and detainees of Italy

Mario Scaramella


Korbel Champagne Cellars is a winery based in Guerneville, California. Since 1882, Korbel has primarily manufactured California champagne, using the méthode champenoise process. In this process, sparkling wine is fermented inside the same bottle from which it is served. The company is a division of F. Korbel Brothers, and also makes brandy and still wine, and imports Prosecco from Italy.

F. Korbel & Bros. is a private company owned and operated by the Heck family. Brown-Forman has handled Korbel's marketing and sales since 1965.

History

Korbel was founded in 1882 by three Czech brothers named Korbel. It was purchased by Adolf Heck in 1954. Heck's son, Gary, took over in 1982, and over time increased production from 150,000 to 1.6 million cases per year, making Korbel the 16th largest wine producer in the United States as of 2022.

Use of "champagne" on labels

Korbel has  followed regulations – both in letter and in spirit – regarding use of the word "champagne" on wines made in and marketed in the United States, specifically regulations established by the U.S. Department of Treasury in the 1930s. These regulations allow U.S. producers to use names of geographical significance that also designate a class or type of wine. Such names – like champagne, sherry and port – are called semi-generics, and may be used on labels only in direct conjunction with an appropriate appellation of origin (place in the United States where the grapes were grown) and only on wines that conform to the standard of identity for that class or type.  In 2006, all 27 EU-member countries, including France, signed the Bilateral U.S.-EC Trade Agreement on Wine reaffirming this right.  This Agreement takes the laws of all involved nations into account, halts the development and use of new brands with semi-generic terms by U.S. wineries, while protecting U.S. producers – such as Korbel – who have made substantial long term investments in trademarks, brand names and marketing of their products.

Popularity
Korbel California champagnes have been served at 10 United States presidential inaugurations. It was also one of the wines served on January 20, 2009, at the Congressional Inaugural Luncheon for U.S. President Barack Obama.

Korbel's brandy has a particularly strong following in the State of Wisconsin, where over 50% of Korbel's brandy production is consumed.

References

External links

 – official site

Wineries in Sonoma County, California
Brown–Forman brands
Sparkling wines

Korbel Champagne Cellars


Frederick Temple Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 3rd Marquess of Dufferin and Ava,  (26 February 1875 – 21 July 1930), styled Lord Frederick Blackwood between 1888 and 1918, was a British soldier and politician. He died in an aircraft crash in 1930 at the age of 55.

Early life
Lord Dufferin was born on 26 February 1875 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, during his father's term as Governor General of Canada. He was the fourth son of Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava and Hariot Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava. While his father was Viceroy and Governor-General of India in the 1880s, his mother was known for leading an initiative to improve medical care for women in British India.

Career
Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood joined the 9th Lancers as a second lieutenant on 11 August 1897. He was promoted to lieutenant on 9 October 1899, and served with his regiment during the Second Boer War from 1899 to 1901, where he was present at the engagements at Belmont, Enslin, Modder River, Magersfonstein, the relief of Kimberley, and the advance to Bloemfontein and Pretoria. He was also present at the subsequent fighting in the Transvaal, Orange River Colony and Cape Colony, where he was badly wounded on Christmas Eve 1900. Twice mentioned in despatches (including 31 March 1900), he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) in November 1900 for his service during the war.

Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood retired from the army in 1913 with the rank of captain.

First World War
After leaving the army, Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood was appointed military secretary to the Governor General of Australia, Sir Ronald Munro-Ferguson (later Viscount Novar), who was his brother-in-law. Following the outbreak of the First World War, he rejoined his old regiment, the 9th Lancers, and was seriously wounded while serving on the Western Front in October 1914 and was subsequently transferred to the Grenadier Guards. He was again seriously wounded in the autumn of 1915, having returned to duty for only three days. He served as a staff captain in the Guards Division in 1916 and was seconded to the Machine Gun Corps as an instructor in 1918. After the war he was president of the Ulster Ex-Servicemen's Association.

Late career
Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood succeeded to the marquessate on the death of his elder brother, Terence Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 2nd Marquess of Dufferin and Ava, on 7 February 1918. His eldest brother Archibald, Earl of Ava had been killed in action at Waggon Hill in the Boer War in January 1900, while his other brother, Lord Basil Blackwood, had perished in an attack on German trenches in July 1917.

Lord Dufferin was elected to the Senate of the Parliament of Northern Ireland in 1921, where he served as Speaker from 1921 to 1930, and was sworn of the Privy Council of Ireland on 16 September 1921 and of the Privy Council of Northern Ireland on 12 December 1922. He was an Royal Naval Reserve (RNVR) aide-de-camp to King George V and was appointed Vice-Admiral of Ulster by the King in 1923, a post which his father had held.

Personal life
Lord Dufferin was married on 10 June 1908 to Brenda Woodhouse, only daughter of Major Robert Woodhouse, of Orford House, Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire. They had two children:

 Basil Sheridan Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 4th Marquess of Dufferin and Ava (1909–1945), who married Maureen Constance, the second daughter of Hon. Arthur Ernest Guinness (a son of Edward Guinness, 1st Earl of Iveagh).
 Lady Veronica Brenda Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood (1910–1971), who married firstly Antony Hornby, second son of St John Hornby, of Shelley House, Chelsea and Chantemarle, Dorset, on 17 December 1931 (div. 1940) and has issue by the marriage; secondly Squadron Leader E. H. Maddick of the Royal Air Force in October 1941 (div. 1947); thirdly Captain Thomas Andrew Hussey CBE of the Royal Navy on 15 June 1947 (div. 1956); and fourthly to Peter Rebuck Wolfe in July 1956.

On 21 July 1930, Lord Dufferin was flying with a party of friends from Berck, a small village in France near Le Touquet, back to England when the aircraft crashed outside Meopham, Kent, killing all those on board. The others in the party were Sir Edward Simons Ward, Bt.; Viscountess Ednam, the wife of Viscount Ednam (heir to the Earl of Dudley) and a daughter of Cromartie Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 4th Duke of Sutherland; and Mrs Loeffler, a well-known society hostess, along with the pilot, Lt. Col. George Lochart Henderson and the assistant pilot, Mr C. D. Shearing. Lord Dufferin was buried in the family burial ground at Clandeboye, County Down.

Lord Dufferin's widow married again after his death to Henry Charles Somers Augustus Somerset (1874–1945), the only son of Lord Henry Somerset (himself the brother of Henry Somerset, 9th Duke of Beaufort) on 28 January 1932. Mrs Somerset died on 17 July 1946.

Arms

References

External links

1875 births
1930 deaths
Members of the Privy Council of Ireland
Members of the Privy Council of Northern Ireland
Companions of the Distinguished Service Order
British Army personnel of the Second Boer War
British Army personnel of World War I
9th Queen's Royal Lancers officers
Grenadier Guards officers
Members of the Senate of Northern Ireland 1921–1925
Members of the Senate of Northern Ireland 1925–1929
Members of the Senate of Northern Ireland 1929–1933
Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in England
Frederick
Ulster Unionist Party members of the Senate of Northern Ireland
3
Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve personnel

Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 3rd Marquess of Dufferin and Ava


Spetskhran ( an abbreviation for "Special Storage Section", отдел специального хранения) were limited access collections and archival reserves in libraries and archives of the Soviet Union, as part of the system of censorship in the Soviet Union.

Access to materials from Special Storage was conditional on special permission: a person had to either have the corresponding level of security access or to have a written permission from the First Department from the person's job.

Special Storage was for two major types of publications: those deemed "ideologically dangerous" and classified information whose disclosure could threaten the economy and defense of the state. Examples:
Early Soviet publications associated with the "banned" names (Leon Trotsky, Nikolai Bukharin, etc.)
Early Russian non-communist publications
Russian émigré publications
Foreign language publications deemed threatening to the Soviet State.
Foreign scientific and technical publications were normally available to general readership, with "threatening" pages cut out, and full versions available from spetskhran.
Various classified publications, such as Soviet classified dissertations  ("Диссертация для служебного пользования"), classified technical references, etc.

See also
 Index Librorum Prohibitorum

References
Censorship in the USSR and the Russian State Library
Stelmakh, V. D. "Reading in the Context of Censorship in the Soviet Union", Libraries & Culture - Volume 36, Number 1, Winter 2001, pp. 143–151, University of Texas Press

Archives in the Soviet Union
Censorship in the Soviet Union

Spetskhran


Thomas Bradshaw  (1733–1774) was a British civil servant and politician who sat in the House of Commons between  1767 and 1774.

Early life
Bradshaw was born. 25 January 1733 in humble circumstances and became clerk to a contractor for forage. Around 1757, he obtained a post as Clerk in the War Office. He married Elizabeth Wilson, daughter of Robert Wilson, of Woodford, Essex and merchant of London, in November 1757. Elizabeth's sister had married Anthony Chamier who also became a public official at the War Office. In 1759 Bradshaw was promoted to first clerk at the War Office where he served under Lord Barrington. When Barrington became Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1761, he took Bradshaw to the Treasury as chief clerk in December 1761. In February 1763 Bradshaw became commissioner of taxes. As an important civil servant, he became connected with several influential politicians, including the Duke of Grafton.  When Grafton was first lord of the Treasury, he appointed Bradshaw Secretary to the Treasury in August 1767.

Political career
Grafton brought Bradshaw into the House of Commons  as Member of Parliament for Harwich, a Government borough, at a by-election on 30 November 1767.  Bradshaw helped Grafton with the 1768 general election and was returned himself unopposed as MP for Saltash. From then on he acted mainly as Grafton's confidential man of business in both public and private matters. He acted as Grafton's go-between with Lord North, and when Grafton wanted to divorce his duchess sought evidence of her adultery.

When Grafton resigned in January 1770 he obtained for Bradshaw the reversion for two lives of the office of auditor general of the plantations worth upwards of £2500 a year, and a pension of £1500 a year until the post became vacant. Bradshaw remained at the Treasury, at the request of Grafton and North to induct John Robinson into his duties. In April 1772 Bradshaw was made a Lord of the Admiralty but when he stood for re-election at Saltash was defeated. He was then returned on petition on 8 June 1772. He was returned unopposed for Saltash at the  1774 general election, shortly before his death. He is not known to have participated in parliamentary debates.

Later life and legacy
Bradshaw was noted for his "unbounded extravagance" and a "gay and social disposition".  He died on 6 November 1774, by one account from a fever and by another by shooting himself because he was burdened with debts. His will provided for his family on the strength of the auditorship-general of the plantations, but he never reached that office because it was only held only in reversion. His widow was given a secret service pension of £500 a year, and his two younger sons and daughter were given pensions of £100 a year. Bradshaw's son Robert Haldane Bradshaw was also a public servant and politician.

See also
Richard Lee Bradshaw ''Thomas Bradshaw (1733-1774): A Georgian Politician in the Time of the American Revolution'' Xlibris Corporation, 12 Aug 2011

References

External links

1733 births
1774 deaths
British MPs 1761–1768
British MPs 1768–1774
British MPs 1774–1780
Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for English constituencies
Lords of the Admiralty

Thomas Bradshaw (MP)


Robert Huw Morgan (born 1967) is a Welsh-born organist and choral conductor. He serves as the University Organist at Stanford University's Memorial Church.

Biography
A native of Newport, Wales, Morgan received his bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Cambridge, where he was an organ scholar at St. John's College under George Guest. He earned doctorates in organ performance and choral conducting from the University of Washington School of Music, studying with Carole Terry and Peter Erős.

As a conductor, he has led performances of several operas (Falstaff, Hansel & Gretel and Die Fledermaus, among others), as well as large-scale choral works including Bach's St. John Passion and Mass in B minor, Mozart's Requiem and Mass in C minor, and the Vespers of Rachmaninoff and Monteverdi. He has performed the complete organ works of J.S. Bach and Dieterich Buxtehude.

In addition to his duties at the Memorial Church, he holds the positions of Lecturer in Organ and Choral Studies and Director of the Stanford University Singers. He is a fellow of the Royal College of Organists.

External links
 Stanford University Music School Bio
 Stanford University Memorial Church Bio

American classical organists
British male organists
American choral conductors
American male conductors (music)
Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge
University of Washington College of Arts and Sciences alumni
Stanford University Department of Music faculty
1967 births
Welsh classical organists
Living people
Welsh conductors (music)
British male conductors (music)
Welsh choral conductors
Articles containing video clips
21st-century American conductors (music)
21st-century organists
21st-century American male musicians
21st-century American keyboardists
Fellows of the Royal College of Organists
Male classical organists

Robert Huw Morgan


Villa Cypris is a seaside villa in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin on the French Riviera.

The villa was built c. 1904 in Neo-Byzantine style by architect Edouard Arnaud for Cyprienne Dubernet, the widow of Grands Magasins du Louvre's proprietor Olympe Hériot. It is adjacent to Villa Cyrnos.

The gardens, laid out in 1909, slope steeply down to the sea. Designs for the gardens, as well as the villa interiors, were provided by Italian painter Raffaele Mainella, who did likewise for Villa Torre Clementina, also in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin. He built a cloister gallery overlooking the sea, linked to the villa by a bridge and a long flight of turfed steps lined with columns. This central stairway is flanked by two more, parallel stairways. Other garden features include a Venetian-style loggia, a pergola with columns and arches styled after the Mosque–Cathedral of Córdoba, and a sunken Dutch garden containing a long canal.

The gallery and other features provided viewpoints for Dubernet to watch her daughter Virginie Hériot, a competitive sailor, yachting in the bay below.

The villa, together with its gardens, was registered as a monument historique in 1990. It is not open to the public.

References

External links

French Riviera
Houses completed in 1904
Houses in Alpes-Maritimes
Gardens in Alpes-Maritimes
Monuments historiques of Alpes-Maritimes
Villas in France

Villa Cypris


Myitkyina () is a city in northern Myanmar. It is the capital of the Kachin State of Myanmar. Myitkyina for Burmese is near the big river.

History
In ancient times, Myitkyina was an important trading city between China and Myanmar. George J. Geis, an American Baptist missionary includinh his wife arrived in Myitkyina in late 1890. In 1900, they requesyed permission to build a mansion in Myitkyina. It is named Geis Memorial Church. Japanese soldiers and military army invaded Myitkyina during World War II in 1942. In August 1944, the city was recaptured by the World War II Allies under Joseph Stilwell, after a heavy fughtine between Nationalist Chinese divisions, the Chindits, and Merrill's Marauders of the Northern Combat Area Command, and the elements of the 33rd Imperial Japanese Army under General Masaki Honda.

Geography
Myitkyina lies in the northern Kachin State of Myanmar. The town is in the west bank of the Ayeyarwady River. It is 1,480 kilometers north of Yangon, 785 kilometers from Mandalay, and 818 kilometers from Naypyidaw.

Population
As of 2020, Myitkyina has over 92,543 people, making it the largest city in the northern Kachin State of the country.

Religion
Theravada Buddhism is the dominant religion in Myitkyina and all the rest of Myanmar, making it the 2nd largest country where the dominant religion is Buddhism, after Mongolia
(because Chinese folk religion is the dominant religion in China, Shintoism in Japan, Hinduism in India and Nepal, and there is no religion in South Korea and North Korea).

Myitkyina


Grand Pacific Glacier is a   long glacier in British Columbia and Alaska. It begins in Glacier Bay National Park in the St. Elias Mountains,  southwest of Mount Hay, trends east into the Grand Pacific Pass area of British Columbia, and then southeast to the head of Tarr Inlet at Alaska-Canada boundary, 68 miles (109 km) west of Skagway.

National Park Service Information
In 2004 Grand Pacific Glacier was about  wide at the terminus, averaging about  high at the ice face, up to  deep at the waterline and over  long. Much of the ice margin was then grounded at low tide; the calving section probably reached a water depth of only . The ice cliff was estimated to be  high where it was grounded, but about  and up to  high where it calved into Tarr Inlet. Behind the terminus, the ice may thicken to  or more. The western two thirds of the ice in the terminus of the Grand Pacific Glacier originate from the tributary Ferris Glacier, and flowed about  per year or about  per day. This latter estimate was based on measurements of aerial photographs taken between 1988 and 1990 and may be
higher than 2004 rates based on the fact that the ice had been thinning over the last 7 years or so. The eastern portion of Grand
Pacific Glacier moved only about  per year based on GPS measurements made by the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) in 1998–1999. It had advanced at a rate of about  per year for the last several decades, but it reached a maximum position when it joined Margerie Glacier around 1992. In 2004 those glaciers were no longer together due to recession of the Grand Pacific margin. A small stream flowed between the two termini. The eastern edge was then receding at about  per year and showed significant thinning and closure of crevasses. In about 1996, an embayment began to form in the center of Grand Pacific's terminus. Since then, the center of the ice cliff began to calve more rapidly and was slowly receding at perhaps  or less per year. In 2004 the CRREL anticipated that retreat would accelerate as the embayment enlarged and the depth at the waterline increased. In such a scenario, retreat was likely to continue until the terminus reaches a position where it will become grounded above mean tide. The grounded western edge of the glacier was also slowing receding and thinning. Rock debris from landslides and medial moraines cover much of this side of the glacier and extends across almost two-thirds of the ice face. Where this rock debris is more than an inch thick, it insulates the ice, slows melting and results in a thicker ice mass than where the ice is clean. In many areas on the glacier, the debris is more than  thick.

See also
 List of glaciers
 Glacier Bay Basin
 Tatshenshini–Alsek Provincial Park

References

Glaciers of Alaska
Glaciers of Hoonah–Angoon Census Area, Alaska
Glaciers of British Columbia
Glaciers of Yakutat City and Borough, Alaska
Glaciers of Unorganized Borough, Alaska
Cassiar Land District

Grand Pacific Glacier


On the City of God Against the Pagans (), often called The City of God, is a book of Christian philosophy written in Latin by Augustine of Hippo in the early 5th century AD. The book was in response to allegations that Christianity brought about the decline of Rome and is considered one of Augustine's most important works, standing alongside The Confessions, The Enchiridion, On Christian Doctrine, and On the Trinity. As a work of one of the most influential Church Fathers, The City of God is a cornerstone of Western thought, expounding on many questions of theology, such as the suffering of the righteous, the existence of evil, the conflict between free will and divine omniscience, and the doctrine of original sin.

Background

The sack of Rome by the Visigoths in 410 left Romans in a deep state of shock, and many Romans saw it as punishment for abandoning traditional Roman religion in favor of Christianity. In response to these accusations, and in order to console Christians, Augustine wrote The City of God as an argument for the truth of Christianity over competing religions and philosophies. He argues that Christianity was not responsible for the Sack of Rome but instead responsible for Rome's success. Even if the earthly rule of the Empire was imperiled, it was the City of God that would ultimately triumph. Augustine's focus was Heaven, a theme of many Christian works of Late Antiquity. Despite Christianity's designation as the official religion of the Empire, Augustine declared its message to be spiritual rather than political. Christianity, he argued, should be concerned with the mystical, heavenly city, the New Jerusalem, rather than with earthly politics.

The book presents human history as a conflict between what Augustine calls the Earthly City (often colloquially referred to as the City of Man, but never by Augustine) and the City of God, a conflict that is destined to end in victory for the latter. The City of God is marked by people who forgo earthly pleasure to dedicate themselves to the eternal truths of God, now revealed fully in the Christian faith. The Earthly City, on the other hand, consists of people who have immersed themselves in the cares and pleasures of the present, passing world.

Augustine's thesis depicts the history of the world as universal warfare between God and the Devil. This metaphysical war is not limited by time but only by geography on Earth. In this war, God moves (by divine intervention, Providence) those governments, political/ideological movements and military forces aligned (or aligned the most) with the Catholic Church (the City of God) in order to oppose by all means—including military—those governments, political/ideological movements and military forces aligned (or aligned the most) with the Devil (the City of the World).

This concept of world history guided by Divine Providence in a universal war between God and the Devil is part of the official doctrine of the Catholic Church as most recently stated in the Second Vatican Council's  document: "The Church ... holds that in her most benign Lord and Master can be found the key, the focal point and the goal of man, as well as of all human history ... all of human life, whether individual or collective, shows itself to be a dramatic struggle between good and evil, between light and darkness ... The Lord is the goal of human history the focal point of the longings of history and of civilization, the center of the human race, the joy of every heart and the answer to all its yearnings."

Structure
 Part I (Books I–X): a polemical critique of Roman religion and philosophy, corresponding to the Earthly City
 Book I–V: A critique of pagan religion
 Book I: a criticism of the pagans who attribute the sack of Rome to Christianity despite being saved by taking refuge in Christian churches. The book also explains good and bad things happen to righteous and wicked people alike, and it consoles the women violated in the recent calamity.
 Book II: a proof that because of the worship of the pagan gods, Rome suffered the greatest calamity of all, that is, moral corruption.
 Book III: a proof that the pagan gods failed to save Rome numerous times in the past from worldly disasters, such as the sack of Rome by the Gauls.
 Book IV: a proof that the power and long duration of the Roman empire was due not to the pagan gods but to the Christian God.
 Book V: a refutation of the doctrine of fate and an explanation of the Christian doctrine of free will and its consistency with God's omniscience. The book proves that Rome's dominion was due to the virtue of the Romans and explains the true happiness of the Christian emperors.
 Book VI–X: A critique of pagan philosophy
 Book VI: a refutation of the assertion that the pagan gods are to be worshipped for eternal life (rather than temporal benefits). Augustine claimed that even the esteemed pagan theologist Varro held the gods in contempt.
 Book VII: a demonstration that eternal life is not granted by Janus, Jupiter, Saturn, and other select gods.
 Book VIII: an argument against the Platonists and their natural theology, which Augustine views as the closest approximation of Christian truth, and a refutation of Apuleius' insistence of the worship of demons as mediators between God and man. The book also contains a refutation against Hermeticism.
 Book IX: a proof that all demons are evil and that only Christ can provide man with eternal happiness.
 Book X: a teaching that the good angels wish that God alone is worshipped and a proof that no sacrifice can lead to purification except that of Christ.
 Part II (Books XI–XXII): discussion on the City of God and its relationship to the Earthly City
 Books XI–XIV: the origins of the two cities
 Book XI: the origins of the two cities from the separation of the good and bad angels, and a detailed analysis of Genesis 1.
 Book XII: answers to why some angels are good and others bad, and a close examination of the creation of man.
 Book XIII: teaching that death originated as a penalty for Adam's sin, the fall of man.
 Book XIV: teachings on the original sin as the cause for future lust and shame as a just punishment for lust.
 Books XV–XVIII: the history or progress of the two cities, including foundational theological principles about Jews.
 Book XV: an analysis of the events in Genesis between the time of Cain and Abel to the time of the flood.
 Book XVI: the progress of the two cities from Noah to Abraham, and the progress of the heavenly city from Abraham to the kings of Israel.
 Book XVII: the history of the city of God from Samuel to David and to Christ, and Christological interpretations of the prophecies in Kings and Psalms.
 Book XVIII: the parallel history of the earthly and heavenly cities from Abraham to the end. Doctrine of Witness, that Jews received prophecy predicting Jesus, and that Jews are dispersed among the nations to provide independent testimony of the Hebrew Scriptures.
 Books XIX–XXII: the deserved destinies of the two cities.
 Book XIX: the end of the two cities, and the happiness of the people of Christ.
 Book XX: the prophecies of the Last Judgment in the Old and New Testaments.
 Book XXI: the eternal punishment for the city of the devil.
 Book XXII: the eternal happiness for the saints and explanations of the resurrection of the body.

English translations

 The City of God. Translation by William Babcock, notes by Boniface Ramsey. Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2012.
 The City of God against the Pagans. Translation by R. W. Dyson. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
 The City of God. Translation by Henry Bettenson. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1972.
 The City of God: Volumes XVI–XVIII Translation by Eva Matthews Sanford with William M. Green. Loeb Classical Library 415, 1965.
 City of God. Translation by William M. Green. Cambridge University Press, 1963
 The City of God. Translation by Gerald G. Walsh, S. J., et al. Introduction by Étienne Gilson. New York: Doubleday, Image Books, 1958.
 The City of God. Translation by Marcus Dods. Introduction by Thomas Merton. New York: The Modern Library, a division of Random House, Inc., 1950. First published: 1871.
 The City of God. Translation by John Healey. Introduction by Ernest Barker. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1945.
 Of the Citie of God. Translation by John Healey. Notes by Juan Luis Vives. London: George Eld, 1610.

References

Further reading

External links

 De civitate dei  – The Latin Library.
 The City of God – Dods translation, New Advent. Excerpts only.
  (Dods translation)
 The City of God – Marcus Dods translation, CCEL
 Lewis E 197 Expositio in civitatem dei S. Augustini (Commentary on St. Augustine's City of God) at OPenn

Texts about the work
 An introduction to The City of God by James J. O'Donnell
 Excerpts from The City of God
 Excerpts from The City of God

City of God, The
City of God, The
City of God, The
City of God, The
5th-century Christianity
Philosophy books
Political thought in ancient Rome
Neoplatonic texts
Works by Augustine of Hippo
Christian theology books

The City of God


Jeff Trachta (born October 6, 1960, in Staten Island, New York) is an American actor and singer, best known for portraying Thorne Forrester on the soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful from 1989 to 1996. He was the second of four actors to play this role; he was preceded by Clayton Norcross and succeeded by Winsor Harmon. In June 2008, Trachta was seen performing on the Holland America ship, M.S. Amsterdam heading to Alaska. He appeared in the twelfth season of America's Got Talent as "The Singing Trump", impersonating President Donald Trump. He advanced past auditions receiving three "yes" votes from the judges. However, he was eliminated in the quarterfinals.

References

External links

1960 births
20th-century American male actors
American male soap opera actors
Living people
Parodies of Donald Trump
Male actors from Staten Island
Musicians from Staten Island
Singers from New York City
America's Got Talent contestants

Jeff Trachta


Encore Books was a regional chain of bookstores based in the eastern United States until its closure in 1999.

Founding
Encore Books was started by David Schlessinger, who went on to found the Zany Brainy and Five Below retail chains. It enjoyed a prosperous early life and was sold to the Rite Aid Corporation, which later spun the company off.

Troubles
By the time of its closure, the 50 Encore Books locations were owned by Lauriat's, a 127-year-old company based in Canton, Massachusetts. Problems were legion in the company's final years. A leveraged buyout, rapid expansion, and difficulty working with publishers due to competition from Borders and Barnes & Noble had forced the company into bankruptcy. Lauriat's had already gone through a round of store closings by the time the closure of the entire chain was announced. In 1999, the company closed the 71 stores that operated under the Lauriat's, Book Corner and Encore names.

Stores
Most Encore Books locations were small operations, similar to the B. Dalton and Waldenbooks stores popular in the 1970s and 1980s. However, the company operated two large stores, dubbed Encore Books and Music—complete with a music section, plush chairs, and a coffee shop—in Princeton, New Jersey, and Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. Its two other largest stores operated in State College, Pennsylvania, and Middletown, New York. It operated a smaller, but very successful store on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

References
 Minzesheimer, Bob, "Even small chains are swallowed in battle of the bookstore giants," USA Today, August 12, 1999.
 Rulison, Larry, "Cohn closes on fund for Five Below chain," Philadelphia Business Journal, October 10, 2003.
 http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/stories/2003/10/13/newscolumn1.html
 "Lauriat's bookstore chain to close, liquidate inventory," The Associated Press, June 11, 1999.

Defunct retail companies of the United States
Retail companies disestablished in 1999
Bookstores in Massachusetts
Defunct companies based in Massachusetts

Encore Books


Plymouth Rock is the traditional site of disembarkation of the Mayflower Pilgrims who founded Plymouth Colony in December 1620.

The Pilgrims did not refer to Plymouth Rock in any of their writings; the first known written reference to the rock dates to 1715 when it was described in the town boundary records as "a great rock".

The first documented claim Plymouth Rock was the landing place of the Pilgrims was made by 94-year-old Thomas Faunce in 1741, 121 years after the Pilgrims arrived in Plymouth.

In 1774, the rock broke in half during an attempt to haul it to Town Square in Plymouth. One portion remained in Town Square and was moved to Pilgrim Hall Museum in 1834. It was rejoined with the other portion of the rock, which was still at its original site on the shore of Plymouth Harbor, in 1880. The date 1620 was inscribed at that time. The rock is now ensconced beneath a granite canopy.

History

Early identification
The two most significant primary sources on the founding of Plymouth Colony are Edward Winslow's 1622 Mourt's Relation and William Bradford's 1630–1651 history Of Plymouth Plantation, and neither refers to Plymouth Rock. The rock first attracted public attention in 1741 when the residents of Plymouth began plans to build a wharf which would bury it. Before construction began, a 94-year-old church elder named Thomas Faunce declared that the boulder was the landing place of the Mayflower Pilgrims. He asked to be brought to the rock to say a farewell. According to Plymouth historian James Thacher:

Faunce's father had arrived in the colony aboard the ship Anne in 1623, just three years after the Mayflower landing, and Elder Faunce was born in 1647, when many of the Mayflower Pilgrims were still living, so his assertion made a strong impression on the people of Plymouth. The wharf was built but the rock left intact, the top portion protruding from the dirt so as to be visible to curious visitors.

More recent generations have questioned Faunce's assertion, alleging that he invented the story or did not have the correct facts, given that he was not an eyewitness to the event. Journalist Bill Bryson, for example, wrote, "The one thing the Pilgrims certainly did not do was step ashore on Plymouth Rock", arguing that the boulder would have made an impractical landing spot. Others have pointed out that the Pilgrims landed at Provincetown to explore Cape Cod more than a month before they arrived in Plymouth harbor, which lessens the significance of where they set foot in Plymouth. In 1851, a group of Cape Cod residents formed the Cape Cod Association for the purpose of promoting Provincetown as the site of the original Pilgrim landing. Such efforts eventually led to the construction of the Pilgrim Monument in Provincetown, which was completed in 1910.

Movements
Col. Theophilus Cotton (son of Plymouth magistrate Josiah Cotton) and the townspeople of Plymouth decided to move the rock in 1774. It split in two, however, so the bottom portion was left behind at the wharf and the top portion was relocated to the town's meeting house.

Captain William Coit wrote in The Pennsylvania Journal of November 29, 1775 that he brought captive British sailors ashore "upon the same rock our ancestors first trod".

A large portion of the rock was relocated from Plymouth's meetinghouse to Pilgrim Hall in 1834. In 1859, the Pilgrim Society began building a Victorian canopy designed by Hammett Billings at the wharf over the portion of the rock left there, which was completed in 1867. The Pilgrim Hall section of the rock was moved back to its original wharf location in 1880, rejoined to the remaining portion, and the date "1620" was carved into it.

In 1920, the rock was temporarily relocated so that the old wharves could be removed and the waterfront landscaped to a design by architect Arthur Shurcliff, with a waterfront promenade behind a low seawall in such a way that, when the rock was returned to its original site, it would be at water level. The care of the rock was turned over to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and a new Roman Doric portico was constructed, designed by McKim, Mead and White for viewing the tide-washed rock protected by gratings.

During the rock's many journeys throughout the town of Plymouth, numerous pieces were taken and sold. Today approximately a third remains. It is estimated that the original Rock weighed . Some documents indicate that tourists or souvenir hunters chipped it down, although no pieces have been noticeably removed since 1880. Today there are pieces in Pilgrim Hall Museum and in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.

A  piece of the Rock is set on a pedestal in the cloister of historic Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims in Brooklyn Heights, New York.  The church was formed by a merger of Plymouth Church and Church of the Pilgrims and was originally pastored by Henry Ward Beecher, brother of author Harriet Beecher Stowe.

In 1835, French author Alexis de Tocqueville wrote:

State park attraction
Today, Plymouth Rock is managed by the Department of Conservation and Recreation for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as part of Pilgrim Memorial State Park. From April through November, Pilgrim Memorial is staffed by guides who inform visitors of the story of Plymouth Rock.

Panorama

See also
 National Register of Historic Places listings in Plymouth County, Massachusetts

Citations

General and cited references
 Arner, Robert, "Plymouth Rock Revisited: The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers", Journal of American Culture 6, no. 4, Winter 1983, pp. 25–35.

 Davis, Samuel, "Notes on Plymouth", Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, vol. 3, 2nd ser., 1815.
 McPhee, John, "Travels of the Rock", The New Yorker, February 26, 1990, pp. 108–117.

External links

 Pilgrim Memorial State Park

American folklore
Glacial erratics of Massachusetts
History of North America
History of Plymouth County, Massachusetts
History of the Thirteen Colonies
Individual rocks
Landforms of Plymouth County, Massachusetts
Monuments and memorials to the Pilgrims
National Register of Historic Places in Plymouth County, Massachusetts
Plymouth Colony
Plymouth, Massachusetts
Symbols of Massachusetts
Tourist attractions in Plymouth County, Massachusetts

Plymouth Rock


Traditional Brazilian medicine (Portuguese: Medicina indígena) includes many native South American elements, and imported African ones.  It is predominantly used in areas where indigenous groups and African descendants reside, like in the northeast coast, nearly all interior regions including Amazon regions, savannahs, rainforest, foothills, and Pantanal.  According to Romulo R. N. Alves, "although Brazil's health system is public...use of traditional remedies and rituals provide an economical way of healing for much of the populace, but that also does not mean that wealthy Brazilians don't seek it out as well. Traditional medicine is a deep part of Brazilian heritage."

The Aruak, Tupi, Yamomami, Krahô, Guarani and other Indians groups are among the native tribes that together with isolated descendants of Africans or Quilombola, and Indians integrated (Caboclo) that are known to almost exclusively practice traditional medicine.  Among the plants include edible foods like the cashew, peppers, mangosteen and coconut, but often include inedible parts like the fruits, leaves, husk, bark.  Neighboring nations like the Patamona of Guyana also use the cashew.

There is growing interest in Brazilian medicine as the Amazon rainforest is the largest tropical forest in the world, and is home to immense biodiversity, including cures or treatments for many ailments.  Japanese scientists have found strong anticancer activity in Brazilian traditional remedies.   In one study in 1997 published in The American Journal of Chinese Medicine, only 122 species existing in Brazil could be related to the Chinese species (or 14.35% of the samples), which means the vast majority of species are not known to Chinese traditional medicine.   Thousands and possibly millions of species remain unstudied and/or susceptible to extinction by habitat destruction.

Examples
Examples include psychoactive plants like Ayahuasca Epena and Jurema used in rituals currently being investigated for their potential use in psychiatry.

The Kambo cleanse is a practice that uses a secretion from the giant leaf frog used by indigenous groups, such as the Noke Kuin, that is injected into the bloodstream and used in traditional medicine to ward off bad luck. Multiple patents are pending for its use against ischemia and hepatic injury.

The Free Radicals and Oxidative Stress Group at the UPV/EHU's Faculty of Medicine and Nursing at the University of the Basque Country has published a study where traditionally infused Vismia baccifera has shown massive induction of oxidative stress in kidney cancer cells, with rapid death, but leaving healthy cells alone.

See also

 Health in Brazil
 Healthcare in Brazil
 Herbalism
 Indigenous peoples in Brazil
 List of plants of Amazon Rainforest vegetation of Brazil
 Pharmacognosy
 Shamanism
 Traditional medicine
 Tropical medicine

Notes

External links
 A comprehensive look at the use of animals in Brazilian medicine
 Antifungal properties of plants used in Brazilian traditional medicine against clinically relevant fungal pathogens (including those resistant to other medicines for HIV+ patients)
 Alves R. R. N. (2009). "Fauna used in popular medicine in Northeast Brazil". Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine 5: 1. .

Brazilian traditional medicine


Axel Dieter Becke  (born June 10, 1953) is a physical chemist and Professor of Chemistry at Dalhousie University, Canada. He is a leading researcher in the application of density functional theory (DFT) to molecules.

Early life
Becke was born in Esslingen, Germany. He graduated with a B.Sc. from Queen's University. He completed his M.Sc. and Ph.D. from McMaster University.

Academic career
From 1981 to 1983, Becke was a NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow at Dalhousie University. He took up his first faculty position at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario in the 1980s. In 2006, he relocated to Dalhousie University to serve as the Killam Chair in Computational Science.

Research
Becke contributed in the development of non-LCAO, grid-based numerical methodologies for molecular orbital calculations. He was also contributed in the development and benchmarking of exchange-correlation functionals in Kohn-Sham density-functional theory. He is known for his highly cited work on the density-functional theory of atomic and molecular structure.

Density functional theory (DFT) was originally designed to describe metallic solid state systems. Becke, along with his co-researcher John Perdew, demonstrated that DFT could be an effective tool in quantum chemistry as well, where it is used to describe the structure and energetics of molecules. He  developed a valuable computational technique (NUMOL) which allowed a new level of precision. His work has led to advancement in many areas of chemistry and physics, where his methods are used to calculate the molecular properties of large and complex molecular systems with greater accuracy.

He was a developer of the theory of the electron localization function (ELF).

Honours and awards
In 2000 he was awarded the Schrödinger Medal from the World Association of Theoretically Oriented Chemists. In 2006 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London.

In 2015, Becke was awarded the Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering. Part of the funds from this award were used to establish was the Herzberg–Becke Chair in Theoretical Chemistry at Dalhousie University, which is currently held by Erin Johnson, one of his former Ph.D. students.

He has also received several other notable awards:
 Canada Council Killam Prize in the Natural Sciences (2016)
 Chemical Institute of Canada Medal (2015)
 Theoretical Chemistry Award of the American Chemical Society (2014)
 Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (elected 2000)
 Fellow of the Royal Society of London (elected 2006)
 Killam Research Fellow, Canada Council for the Arts (2005–2007)
 Medal of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science (1991)

References

External links
 Personal webpage at Dalhousie University

1953 births
Living people
Dalhousie University alumni
Academic staff of the Dalhousie University
Theoretical chemists
Fellows of the Royal Society
Schrödinger Medal recipients
Computational chemists

Axel D. Becke