The Bombardment of Kagoshima, also known as the , was a military engagement fought between Britain and the Satsuma Domain in Kagoshima from 15 to 17 August 1863. The British were attempting to extract compensation and legal justice from daimyo Shimazu Tadayoshi for the 1862 Namamugi Incident, when a Royal Navy fleet commanded by Sir Augustus Leopold Kuper was fired on from Satsuma coastal batteries near Kagoshima. The British responded by bombarding the city in retaliation, but were unable to gain a conclusive victory and retreated two days later. The Satsuma declared victory and after negotiations fulfilled some British demands for the Namamugi Incident.

Background

On 14 September 1862, a confrontation occurred in Japan between a British merchant, Charles Lennox Richardson, and the entourage of Shimazu Hisamitsu, father and regent of Satsuma daimyo Shimazu Tadayoshi. After Richardson ignored warnings to stay out of the entourage's way while travelling on a road near Kawasaki, Kanagawa, he was killed by Hisamitsu's retainers under the traditional Kiri-sute gomen right, which allowed samurai to kill anyone in a lower social class for perceived disrespect. Richardson's murder sparked outrage from Westerners in Japan due to its violation of the extraterritoriality they enjoyed under terms of the "unequal treaties".

Edward St. John Neale, the British chargé d'affaires, demanded from the Bakufu (the central government of the Tokugawa shogunate) an apology and indemnity of £100,000 as reparations for Richardson's murder; the sum demanded by Neale represented roughly a third of the annual revenues of the Bakufu. Neale also threatened to the Japanese capital of Edo with a naval bombardment if the indemnity was not paid, and further demanded that the Satsuma Domain arrest and place on trial the perpetrators of Richardson's murder, along with £25,000 compensation for the surviving victims of the incident and the relatives of Richardson.

At the time, the Bakufu was led by Ogasawara Nagamichi, governing in the absence of Shogun Tokugawa Iemochi, who was then in Kyoto. Eager to resolve the dispute over Richardson's murder, Ogasawara entered into a negotiation with France and Great Britain on 2 July 1863 onboard the French Navy warship Sémiramis. The European participants in the negotiations were Neale, Gustave Duchesne de Bellecourt, Benjamin Jaurès and Sir Augustus Leopold Kuper. Ogasawara issued an apology for the murder and paid the indemnity demanded by Neale.

However, the Satsuma Domain refused to comply with Neale's demands for an apology, £25,000 in compensation and placing the two samurai responsible for Richardson's murder on trial, arguing that disrespect to the daimyo was typically sanctioned by the death of the offending parties. Legally, their argument was invalid, as Westerners in Japan were exempted from Japanese laws and customs due to extraterritoriality due to various treaties signed between the Bakufu and Western powers since the beginning of the Bakumatsu period.

Several violent confrontations between Westerners and the Japanese had already occurred throughout the country during this period, spurred on by Emperor Kōmei's 1863 "Order to expel barbarians". The Kanmon Straits had witnessed several attacks on American, Dutch and French merchant ships, which prompted punitive expeditions by these countries, with U.S. Navy frigate USS Wyoming, Dutch Navy warship Medusa, and French Navy warships Tancrède and Dupleix launching attacks on Japanese positions.

Further negotiations

Following protracted and fruitless negotiations with the Satsuma Domain that had taken over a year, Neale eventually had had enough. Under instructions from his superiors in the British government, he ordered Kuper to use military action to compel Satsuma into complying with his demands. After being informed of the British plans, the Bakufu asked for a delay in its implementation:

On the 5th, a Bakufu vice-minister from Edo visited Neale, but far from further opposing the planned British expedition against the Satsuma Domain, actually informed Neale that the Tokugawa shogunate intended to send one of its warships to join forces with Kuper's squadron. The steamer in question, however, ultimately did not join the expedition.

British departure

Kuper's Royal Navy squadron left Yokohama on August 6. It was composed of the flagship HMS Euryalus (with Neale on board), HMS Pearl, HMS Perseus, HMS Argus, HMS Coquette, HMS Racehorse and the gunboat HMS Havock. They sailed for Kagoshima and anchored in the deep waters of Kinko Bay on August 11. Satsuma Domain envoys came aboard Euryalus, and letters were exchanged, with Kuper pressing for a resolution satisfactory to his demands within 24 hours. The Satsuma Domain prevaricated, refusing to comply for various reasons.

Bombardment

After Kuper's deadline expired without a satisfactory conclusion to his demands, he decided to proceed with the plans to punish the Satsuma Domain. His squadron weighed anchor and proceeded to seize three British-built merchant steamers lying at anchor in Kagoshima harbour which were owned by the Satsuma Domain: the Sir George Grey, Contest and England, with the ships having an aggregate value of £200,000. Kuper intended to use the three seized merchantmen as a bargaining chip in any future negotiations.

In response, the Satsuma Domain's military forces responded by waiting until a typhoon started before launching an artillery bombardment from their coastal batteries towards the British (the city had been evacuated prior to the engagement). Surprised by the hostility, Kuper's squadron responded by confiscating as much valuable materiel as possible from the three captured steamers before setting them on fire.

The British then spent approximately two hours readying their ships for battle (as they had not expected to enter into a military confrontation) before forming a line of battle, which sailed along the Kagoshima coast and fired a combination of shells and round shot towards the coastal batteries. Artillery fire from the Havoc set five Ryukyuan trading junks, which were not involved in the engagement, on fire. The Satsuma coastal batteries were slowly silenced by the British, though the fact that Kuper's squadron was not expecting protracted resistance meant his ships slowly ran low on supplies and ammunition, and eventually he gave the order to retreat. The engagement resulted in 5 killed on the Satsuma side and 13 killed and 69 wounded on the British side, including Captain Josling of the Euryalus and his second-in-command Commander Wilmot, both decapitated by the same cannonball.

Additionally, roughly 500 Minka houses in Kagoshima, making up approximately 5% of the city's urban area, was destroyed by the bombardment, along with the Ryukyuan embassy. The British retreat was face-saving for the Satsuma Domain, who claimed the engagement as a victory by taking into account the relative number of casualties. Kuper's squadron did not land marines nor seize cannons from the coastal batteries (which would have signalled a clear British victory), Kuper having decided that the bombardment was enough.

Aftermath

Satsuma eventually decided to give in to Neale's demands and paid £25,000 to the British (which they borrowed from the Bakufu and never repaid due to the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate in 1869 and its replacement by the Meiji government). They never identified nor placed on trial Richardson's killers, but despite this, the reparation received was enough for Britain to sign a treaty with the Satsuma Domain to supply the latter with steam warships. Ironically, the conflict became the starting point of a friendly relationship between the Satsuma Domain and Britain, which became major allies in the ensuing Boshin War. From the start, the Satsuma Province had generally been in favour of the opening and westernization of Japan. An interesting historical footnote to this incident was that a teenage Tōgō Heihachirō was manning one of the cannons used to defend the port and is reported to have attributed his future career as head and "father" of the Imperial Japanese Navy to this moment.

See also

 Ishibashi Park
 Japan–United Kingdom relations
 Shimazu clan

Notes

Bibliography
 De Lange, William (2020).  The Namamugi Incident: The Murder that Sparked a War, Toyo Press.
 .
 .
 Polak, Christian (2001).  Soie et lumières: L'âge d'or des échanges franco-japonais (des origines aux années 1950). Tokyo: Chambre de Commerce et d'Industrie Française du Japon, Hachette, Fujin Gahōsha (アシェット婦人画報社).

 Rennie, David Field (2005), The British Arms in North China and Japan Originally pub. 1864.  Facsimile, Adamant Media Corporation,
 Satow, Ernest.  "The Bombardment of Kagoshima", Chapter VIII, A Diplomat in Japan.
 Totman, Conrad 1980 The collapse of the Tokugawa Bakufu, 1862–1868 University of Hawai Press, Honolulu,
 .

1863 in Japan
1863 in the British Empire
19th-century military history of the United Kingdom
August 1863 events
Bakumatsu
Kagoshima
Kagoshima
Conflicts in 1863
Foreign relations of the Tokugawa shogunate
Japan–United Kingdom military relations
Kagoshima
Punitive expeditions of the United Kingdom
Bombardment of Kagoshima
Wars involving Japan

Bombardment of Kagoshima


, born 1977, is a Japanese novelist.

She was born in Chiba Prefecture and studied Art at Meiji Gakuin University before dropping out and going on to study at the University of Brighton. In 2000 she won the 37th Bungei Prize for her novel, You Love Us, though the title has since been changed to Made in Japan. In 2003 she was nominated for the 16th Yukio Mishima Prize for her novel, Sekai ga Hajimaru Asa.

References

1977 births
21st-century Japanese novelists
Living people
Alumni of the University of Brighton
Japanese women novelists
21st-century Japanese women writers

Akira Kuroda


Berlin Hauptbahnhof (English: Berlin Central Station) is the central railway station of the German capital Berlin. It began full operation two days after a ceremonial opening on 26 May 2006.

It is on the site of the old Lehrter Bahnhof. Until it opened as a main line station, it was a stop on the Berlin S-Bahn suburban railway, temporarily named Berlin Hauptbahnhof - Lehrter Bahnhof in 2002.

The station has the largest traffic volume for a through-station in Europe. Paris Gare du Nord is the largest station in Europe measured by traffic volume but it is regarded as a terminus.

The longest route that runs through Berlin Central railway station is the Sibirjak. It links Berlin to some cities in Russia. It passes through Poland, Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan. The longest route offered goes to Novosibirsk. This takes almost four days to travel.

References

2006 establishments in Germany
Buildings and structures in Berlin
Railway stations in Germany

Berlin Hauptbahnhof


Cellica Nurrachadiana (born 18 July 1980) is an Indonesian politician and doctor who is the regent of Karawang Regency, West Java.

First holding political office in 2009 as a provincial councillor, she became deputy regent the following year, and was acting regent by 2014. She was reelected in 2015.

Background
Nurrachadiana was born in Bandung on 18 July 1980. After completing high school in Bandung, she earned a bachelor's degree in medicine from Maranatha Christian University and a master's degree in health law from Soegijapranata Catholic University.

Nurrachadiana is divorced with one child. According to her, her name was based on the Toyota Celica car, which her parents bought in the year of her birth.

Career
Before holding political office, Nurrachadiana served as director in several companies. She also featured in the 2011 film Surat Kecil Untuk Tuhan, taking on a minor role as a doctor treating the main character.

Politics
After being elected to the West Java Provincial Council in the 2009 election, Nurrachadiana was sworn in on 31 August 2009.

In 2010 local election, Nurrachadiana ran as a running mate to Ade Swara and won, securing 38.8% of the votes in a five-way race and defeating incumbent Sonny Gersona. They were sworn in on 27 December 2010, although Nurrachadiana's replacement in the council was not appointed until June the following year. When she was sworn in at the age of 30, she received an award from the Indonesian World Records Museum for being the youngest female vice-regent.

After Ade was arrested and charged for corruption and money laundering, Nurrachadiana was made acting regent on 24 December 2014, and remained so until the end of her term in December 2015. In the 2015 local election, she secured a slim majority (51.06%, 533,240 votes) in the six-candidate race with Ahmad Zamaksyari as running mate. She was officially sworn in by governor Ahmad Heryawan on 17 February 2016.

As regent, Nurrachadiana promoted vertical housing in the regency in order to reduce land use, with agricultural land already pressured by the expansion of industry. In 2018, she and her deputy entered a spat over the reassignment of hundreds of regency officials, with the latter declaring an intent to run against her in the 2021 local election.

During a book launch in March 2016, Nurrachadiana gave a speech which resulted in the leader of the local branch of the Islamic Defenders Front threatening to kidnap her. The issue was later clarified and resolved as an error by a local media in quoting her.

She tested positive for coronavirus disease 2019 during the 2020 pandemic, and was quarantined in a hospital.

References

1980 births
Living people
People from Bandung
People from Karawang Regency
Members of the West Java Regional House of Representatives
Women regents of places in Indonesia
Sundanese people
Indonesian Muslims
Regents of places in West Java

Cellica Nurrachadiana


Des Simplicius Simplicissimus Jugend is a German-language opera by Karl Amadeus Hartmann to a libretto by Hermann Scherchen, Wolfgang Petzet and the composer after Jakob von Grimmelhausen's picaresque novel Simplicius Simplicissimus. The opera was written 1934-1935 structured in three acts and more scenes, to which was added in 1939 an overture in homage to Prokofiev, and premiered in 1948. It was extensively revised as Simplicius Simplicissimus in 1957.

The title role of the Simplicius, a naive shepherd boy is sung by a soprano, the Einsiedler is sung by a baritone.

Recordings
1957 revised version, Helen Donath, Eberhard Büchner, König, Brinkmann, Scholze, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Heinz Fricke 1985 Wergo
1935 original version, Claudia Mahnke, Frank van Aken, Heinz Göhrig, Staatsorchester Stuttgart, conducted by Kwamé Ryan ArtHaus DVD 2008.
1948 version, Camilla Nylund, Christian Gerhaher, Will Hartmann, Michael Volle, Die Singphoniker, RO München, Ulf Schirmer BR-Klassik 2008
1957 revised version, Juliane Banse, Peter Marsch, Will Hartmann, Netherlands Radio Choir, Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, Markus Stenz Challenge Classics 2013

References

Compositions by Karl Amadeus Hartmann
1935 operas
German-language operas
Operas

Simplicius Simplicissimus (opera)


Messier 82 (also known as NGC 3034, Cigar galaxy or M82) is the nearby starburst galaxy about 12 million light years away in the constellation Ursa Major. It is five times brighter than the whole Milky Way and one hundred times brighter than our galaxy's center.

In 2005, the Hubble Space Telescope revealed 197 young massive clusters in the starburst core.  The average mass of these clusters is around 2 M⊙, hence the starburst core is a very energetic and high-density environment. Throughout the galaxy's center, young stars are being born 10 times faster than they are inside our entire Milky Way Galaxy.

Messier 81 triggering starburst
M82 is being physically affected by its larger neighbor, nearby spiral M81. Tidal forces caused by gravity have deformed M82, a process that started about 100 million years ago. This interaction has caused star formation to increase tenfold compared to "normal" galaxies.

Recently, M82 has undergone at least one tidal encounter with M81. This resulted in a large amount of gas being funnelled into the galaxy's core over the last 200 million years (myr).  The most recent such encounter is thought to have happened around 2–5 years ago and resulted in a concentrated starburst together with a marked peak in the cluster age distribution.  This starburst ran for up to ~50 myr at a rate of ~10 M⊙ per year. Two subsequent starbursts followed, the last  of which (~4–6 myr ago) may have formed the core star clusters.

Unknown object
In April 2010, radio astronomers at the Jodrell Bank Observatory of the University of Manchester reported an unknown object in M82. The object started sending out radio waves, and the emission did not look like anything seen anywhere in the universe before.
There have been several theories about the nature of this unknown object, but currently no theory entirely fits the observed data. The object is several arcseconds from the center of M82. It has an apparent motion of four times the speed of light relative to the galaxy centre.

References

Starburst galaxies

Messier 82


"Fifteen" is a song written and recorded by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. The song was produced by Nathan Chapman and Swift. The song is about heartbreak at age 15, being sad and coping with it. This single was a moderate hit in the United States. The release date was September 2009.

2009 songs
Taylor Swift songs

Fifteen (song)


The Nordic diaspora may refer to:

Old diaspora

Viking and Old Norse
"Scandinavian diaspora" during this era refers to explorations, conquests, emigrations, and pioneering settlements during the Viking expansion. Scrutinising the Viking Age through the lens of settlement offers a distinct perspective, highlighting their cultural profile distinct from their predatory reputation.

Modern diaspora
The term "Nordic diaspora" is also used to describe more recent emigrations and emigrants originating in one or more of the Nordic countries.

Swedish diaspora

Swedish diaspora communities include:
 Swedish Americans
 Swedish Argentines
 Swedish Australians
 Swedish Canadians
 Swedish Costa Ricans
 Ural Swedes (Russia)
 Gammalsvenskby (Ukraine)

Finnish diaspora

People emigrated to the United States, Canada, Ghana, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Italy, Ireland, United Kingdom, Sweden, Brazil and Argentina. They have also started Utopian communities in places including Australia, Brazil, Paraguay, France, Cuba, and Sierra Leone.

Finnish diaspora communities include:
 Finnish Americans
 Finnish Argentine
 Finnish Australians
 Finnish Canadians
 Forest Finns (Norway & Sweden)
 Kven people (Norway)
 Ingrian Finns (Russia)
 Sweden Finns
 Tornedalians (Sweden)
 Finns in Switzerland

Danish diaspora

Danish diaspora communities include:
 Danish Americans
Greenlandic Americans
Faroese Americans
 Danish Argentine
 Danish Australians
 Danish Canadians
 Danish minority of Southern Schleswig (Germany)
 Danish people in Greenland
 Danish New Zealanders

Icelandic diaspora

Icelandic diaspora communities include:
 Icelandic Americans
 Icelandic Australians
 Icelandic Canadians

Norwegian diaspora

Norwegian diaspora communities include:
 Norwegian Americans
 Norwegian Australians
 Norwegian Canadians
 Norwegians in Finland
 Norwegian New Zealanders
 Kola Norwegians (Russia)
 Norwegian South Africans
 Norwegian diaspora in Denmark
 Norwegian diaspora in Sweden

The first modern Norwegian settlement in the United States was Norwegian Ridge, in what is now Spring Grove, Minnesota.

See also

 Nordic and Scandinavian Americans
 Nordic Australians
 Scandinavian migration to Britain
 Nordic Brazilians
 Nordic and Scandinavian Canadians
 Early Scandinavian Dublin
 Scandinavian Mexicans
 Nordic New Zealanders
 Nordic Venezuelans

References

European diasporas

Nordic diaspora


Nusa Lembongan is an island to the southeast of Bali, Indonesia at . It's area is about 8 square kilometers and there are about 7,000 people living on the island year round. It is part of a group of three islands called Pulau Penida. This island group is part of the Lesser Sunda Islands. This island group is on the western side of the Wallace Line. This line marks a change in animals and plants. To the east of this line, the ecology changes to become Australasian.

Tourism is the most important part of the economy of the island. Most tourist development is on the western side of the island at Mushroom Bay and Jungut Batu. Most local residents live in the central village of Nusa Lembongan. The other major industry is seaweed farming along the southwest coast between Nusa Lembongan and Nusa Cenignan.

References

Other websites

Bali
Lesser Sunda Islands

Nusa Lembongan


The Astounding Award for Best New Writer (formerly the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer) is given annually to the best new writer whose first professional work of science fiction or fantasy was published within the two previous calendar years.  It is named after Astounding Science Fiction (now Analog Science Fiction and Fact), a foundational science fiction magazine. The award is sponsored by Dell Magazines, which publishes Analog.

Between its founding in 1973 and 2019, the award was named after Astoundings long-time editor John W. Campbell, one of the most influential figures in the early history of science fiction. In the aftermath of 2019 winner Jeannette Ng's acceptance speech, in which she described Campbell as a fascist, the science fiction fandom community discussed whether it was appropriate to continue honoring Campbell in this way; the editor of Analog subsequently announced that the award had been renamed.

The nomination and selection process is administered by the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS), represented by the current Worldcon committee, and the award is presented at the Hugo Award ceremony at the Worldcon, although it is not itself a Hugo Award. All nominees receive a pin, while the winner receives a plaque. Beginning in 2005, the award has also included a tiara; created at the behest of 2004 winner Jay Lake and 2005 winner Elizabeth Bear, the tiara is passed from each year's winner to the next.

Eligibility and voting
Writers are eligible for the Astounding Award for two years, and become eligible once they have a work of science fiction or fantasy published in a professional publication. Final decisions on eligibility are decided by the WSFS, but qualifying publications must meet at least one of the following criteria: be accepted by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association; have at least 10,000 readers; pay the writer at least 8 cents a word and a total of at least US$80; or be self-published or published through a small press, with earnings for the author of at least US$3,000 in one year.

Members of the current and previous Worldcon are eligible to nominate new writers under the same procedures as the Hugo Awards. Initial nominations are made by members in January through March, at which point a shortlist is made of the six most-nominated writers—five prior to 2017—with additional nominees possible in the case of ties. Voting on the ballot of six nominations is performed roughly in April through July, subject to change depending on when that year's Worldcon is held.

Works by winners and nominees of the award were collected in the New Voices series of anthologies, edited by George R. R. Martin, which had five volumes covering the awards from 1973 through 1977 and which were published between 1977 and 1984. Michael A. Burstein, who was nominated in 1996 and won in 1997, commented that the largest effect of winning or being nominated is not on sales but instead that it gives credibility with established authors and publishers. Criticism has been raised about the award that due to the eligibility requirements it honors writers who become well-known quickly, rather than necessarily the best or most influential authors from a historical perspective.

Over the 50 years the award has been active, 212 writers have been nominated. Of these, 52 authors have won, including one tie. There have been 59 writers who were nominated twice, 20 of whom won the award in their second nomination.

Winners and nominees

In the following table, the years correspond to the date of the ceremony, rather than the year when the writer's eligible work was first published. Each year links to the corresponding "year in literature". Although the award is not given explicitly for any particular work, and such works are not recorded by the World Science Fiction Society or Dell Magazines, a selection of works that the writer in question published in the eligibility period are listed. This list includes novels and short stories, and is not intended to be comprehensive. Entries with a blue background and an asterisk (*) next to the writer's name have won the award; those with a white background are the other nominees on the shortlist.

  *   Winners and joint winners

Citations

Cited references
 Clute, John; Langford, David; Nicholls, Peter, ed. (2011). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (3rd ed.). ESF Ltd.

American literary awards
American speculative fiction awards
Awards established in 1973
Fantasy awards
Lists of speculative fiction-related award winners and nominees
Science fiction awards
Worldcon
1973 establishments in the United States
Naming controversies

Astounding Award for Best New Writer


Colin Goodwin (born 18 August 1962) is a freelance motoring journalist who has worked for a number of magazines including UK titles Car and Autocar. He is currently best known for his 'Ask Goodwin' column in Autocar, where readers write in with their motoring problems and questions. His latest publication The Racing Driver's Pocket-Book is a nostalgic light-hearted look at motor racing before the arrival of Formula 1 and includes extracts from the diaries and memoirs of pioneering drivers, with a bit of interesting technical data from vintage service manuals.

He has built a reputation over the years for more unusual and adventurous stories, such as taking an amphibious vehicle across the English Channel; the vehicle caught fire halfway across. He also held the Guinness World Record for driving backwards the fastest, reaching 104 mph in a Light Car Company Rocket.

He is a keen motorbike rider, previously racing a Triumph Trident classic bike and has written for UK biking magazine TWO in recent years. He also writes about his classic Porsche 911 in Purely Porsche magazine.

Colin has a wife, Amelia and has one daughter, Rachel and is also a friend of Top Gear presenter and ex-Autocar staff member James May. They both recently gained their Private Pilot Licence (PPL).

Goodwin built a RV-7 in his back garden which he named Dumbo. The aircraft was finished in 2014.

References

British motoring journalists
Living people
1962 births

Colin Goodwin


The Pearls of Lutra (published as Pearls of Lutra in the US) is a fantasy novel by Brian Jacques, published in 1996. It is the ninth book published and eleventh chronologically in the Redwall series.

Plot summary
When gathering herbs near the quarry in Mossflower Woods, the young Redwallers Tansy and Arven come across a mysterious skeleton among the rocks. They are disoriented in a rainstorm and after failing to return to the abbey before the breaking of the storm are rescued by Martin II, son of Mattimeo and grandson of Matthias. Tansy quickly leads curious Redwallers back to the quarry to examine the mysterious skeleton, and along the way, they meet two travellers: the irrepressible hare Cleckstarr Lepus Montisle and his owl friend Gerul.

Meanwhile, far across the western sea on the tropical isle of Sampetra, trouble is brewing. Ublaz Mad-Eyes, a large, sinewy pine marten with a hypnotic stare, gathers an army of barbaric monitor lizards and trident-wielding searats. The stoat captain Conva is sent out to retrieve the Tears of All Oceans, six perfectly spherical rose-pink pearls, but after murdering the Holt Lutra who owned the pearls, the Tears are stolen by the weasel Graylunk, who flees into Mossflower Woods. Conva tracks him to Redwall Abbey, where Graylunk takes refuge, before returning to Sampetra.

Ublaz is not pleased and murders Conva. He then sends out an elite force of monitor lizards, headed by their general Lask Frildur, to Mossflower to retrieve the pearls. They are escorted by the ferret captain Romsca and her crew.

However, the daughter of the Lutra chieftain is not dead. Far away on the western shores, Grath Longfletch, a strong female otter, was at the gates of the Dark Forest before being found by a pair of bankvoles, who nurse her back to health. The otter fashions a powerful bow and a quiver of green-fletched arrows, with which she planned on wreaking her revenge. She eliminates a longboat-crew of searats and then takes their boat southward into Mossflower, where she hopes to find the corsairs that slew her family.

Presently, Conva's brother Barranca discovers that Ublaz has killed his brother, and he begins hatching a plan to overthrow the pine marten and take the island for himself. With the fearsome Lask and his lizards gone to Mossflower, Barranca decides to seize his chance.

Back at Redwall, the old bankvole recorder Rollo determines that the skeleton in the quarry was Graylunk. He had become gravely injured in a fight with the weasel Flairnose, whom he killed, over the pearls before seeking safety at Redwall. There he befriended an old squirrel called Sister Fermald before he went off to die in the woods. Fermald, a clever, though senile old beast, had expertly hidden the pearls throughout the abbey before passing away several seasons ago. Tansy, Rollo, and Martin II, along with the hedgehog maid's friends Craklyn the squirrel and Piknim the mouse, begin a search for the six exquisite pearls. The Dibbun Arven and his two partners in crime, the moles Diggum and Gurrbowl, occasionally help in the search.

When Abbot Durral takes young Viola Bankvole for a stroll in Mossflower Woods, they are captured by Lask and his troops. Lask binds the Abbot and the bankvole and attempts to ransom them for the pearls at Redwall. However, the pearls have not yet been found, and Lask and his lizards take the two Redwallers back to their ship to be captives at Sampetra.

Martin, Clecky, Gerul, and the Skipper of Otters pursue the lizards through Mossflower, slaying several but failing to rescue the captives. Gerul and Skipper become wounded and are sent back to the Abbey, but the others chase the lizards to the western shore. There, they meet up with the GUOSSSIM and Grath Longfletch, who had caught sight of Romsca's ship, the Waveworm, and attempted to pick off some of the vermin. Durral manages to help Viola get to safety on the shore, but the ship departs before he can escape. Viola is sent back to Redwall with two shrews to guide her, and Grath, Clecky, Martin, and the Log-a-Log's two sons use discarded vermin boats to form the Freebeast, a double-outrigger vessel in which they pursue Lask to Sampetra. Viola, who has sneaked aboard, also ends up coming along.

On Sampetra, Barranca has been slain by Rasconza, a clever fox corsair who takes over the rebellion against Ublaz. Initial attempts at negotiation fail, due to the double-dealing of the pair, and when Ublaz tries to have Rasconza assassinated, Sampetra is plunged into all-out war. Ublaz's trident-rats, led by his general Sagitar, desert him and switch to Rasconza's side, but they are unable to take Ublaz's fortress, which is still held by his monitor lizards. Under siege, Ublaz decides to hold out until Lask Frildur returns with reinforcements.

In the search for the six pearls, the Redwaller friends slowly but surely find them all, though not without paying the price. The young mouse Piknim ends up being slain by the cruel jackdaws at St. Ninian's while searching for a pearl. The church is burnt down to prevent evil-doers from ever using it again (it had been used as a base by Redwall's enemies twice before in Redwall and Mattimeo), and the search resumes, with all the pearls eventually being found.

Martin, Grath and their friends closely follow Romsca and Lask across the ocean, and end up meeting the otters of Holt Ruddaring along the way. Inbar Trueflight, another skilled otter archer, and the seal Hawm tag along on the quest.

On the Waveworm, Durral is underfed and mistreated, but the ferret captain Romsca protects him from the fierce violence and hunger of Lask's cruel monitor lizards. Lask and Romsca, who had been at odds with one another since the beginning, finally battle on deck, with the forces of both being wiped out. Romsca ends up slaying Lask but is fatally injured in the process. Before dying, she gives the Abbot instructions on how to set the rudder to fix the ship toward Sampetra. As the last living creature aboard the ship, the old Abbot sails alone toward the evil isle. By the time the ship arrives, he is so weak from hunger and thirst that he is hallucinating; Ublaz, furious that the reinforcements he was waiting for are dead, takes the Abbot hostage.

When Martin, Clecky, Grath, Inbar, the shrews and Viola arrive on Sampetra, a battle ensues. Suspecting Sagitar and her trident-rats have betrayed him, Rasconza mortally wounds her, but she manages to kill him before dying herself, leaving the corsairs leaderless. Most of the monitor lizards and wave-vermin are killed, and Martin corners Ublaz alone in the caverns below his palace. They duel it out, but after wounding Martin, Ublaz accidentally steps on a poisonous coral snake (which he had hypnotised and kept as a pet to intimidate his enemies). The snake bites him, and he dies.

Durral is rescued and the warriors all return to Mossflower. They leave the island of Sampetra with no timber for ship building to force the vermin to learn to live in harmony with each other. Grath stays with Inbar at Holt Ruddaring, as the pair have fallen in love, but the others meet Tansy and her friends at the shore. The young hedgehog, realising the pearls lead only to greed and violence and bring nothing but misery and death to all who own them, casts them out into the sea to be forever lost. For her hard work, perseverance and aptitude, Tansy is made Abbess of Redwall to succeed old Durral. She becomes the first non-mouse abbot/abbess.

Characters in The Pearls of Lutra

 Tansy
 Arven
 Martin II
 Cleckstarr Lepus Montisle (Clecky)
 Gerul the Owl
 Ublaz Mad-Eyes
 Romsca
 Grath Longfletch
 Fermald the Ancient
 Rollo Bankvole
 Craklyn
 Piknim
 Conva
 Barranca
 Rasconza
 Abbot Durral
 Viola Bankvole
 Sagitar
 Graylunk
 Hawm Seal
 Lask Frildur
 Inbar Trueflight

Book divisions (English)
 Book 1: Six Tears for an Abbot
 Book 2: Westward the Warriors
 Book 3: When Tears Are Shed

Translations
 (Finnish) Jalokivien jäljillä
 (French) Rougemuraille : Les Perles de Loubia
 Tome 1 : L'Empereur aux yeux fous
 Tome 2 : Six larmes pour un abbé
 Tome 3 : L'Âme-Libre
 Tome 4 : La Vengeance de Loubia
 (German) Die Geiseln des Kaisers
 (Italian) Le Perle di Lutra
 (Swedish) Lutras pärlor
 (Russian) Жемчуг Лутры (Zhemchug Lutry)

References

External links

 Plot summary

Children's fantasy novels
British children's novels
British fantasy novels
Redwall books
1996 British novels
Hutchinson (publisher) books
Children's books about squirrels
Fictional hedgehogs
Children's books about mice and rats
Fictional lizards
1996 children's books
1996 fantasy novels
Children's novels about animals

The Pearls of Lutra


Maximo Yabes (January 29, 1932 – February 26, 1967) born in Lodi, California, was a United States Army soldier who posthumously received the Medal of Honor — the United States' highest military decoration — for his actions near Phu Hoa Dong in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Yabes distinguished himself when he used his body as a shield to protect others in a bunker, moved two wounded men to a safer position where they could be given medical treatment and destroyed an enemy machine gun position before being mortally wounded.

Early years
Yabes was born in Lodi, California, and at a young age moved with his family to Oakridge, Oregon, where he received his primary and secondary education. In 1950, he dropped out of Oakridge High School and joined the United States Army.

Vietnam War
By 1967, Yabes was a First Sergeant with a total of 17 years in the Army.  He was assigned to Company A, 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry, of the 25th Infantry Division in South Vietnam. The division had been stationed at Củ Chi Base Camp, northwest of Saigon, since January 1966.

Yabes' company — Alpha Company — was assigned to protect a squad of Army engineers whose assignment was to bulldoze a swath between the village and a plantation.  The objective of this assignment was  to deny the enemy ambushers and snipers the protective cover of the lush jungles.

On February 26, 1967, waves of Vietcong attacked Company A's position, blowing whistles and laying down deadly automatic weapons fire. The Vietcong, who penetrated the barbed wire perimeter, hurled grenades towards the command bunker. Yabes ran inside the bunker and covered its occupants with his body, all the while receiving wounds from numerous grenade fragments. Yabes then moved to another bunker and with a grenade launcher fired upon the enemy, halting a further penetration of the perimeter. Yabes then assisted two fallen comrades before he noticed an enemy machine gun within the perimeter which threatened the whole position.  Yabes then proceeded to attack the enemy machine gun crew.  He was able to kill the entire crew before falling mortally wounded. 24 American soldiers and over 113 Vietcong were killed in the attack.

Secretary of the Army, Stanley Resor, presented Yabes' wife and children with the Medal of Honor in a ceremony held at the Pentagon in October 1968.

Medal of Honor citation

Citation:
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. 1st Sgt. Yabes distinguished himself with Company A, which was providing security for a land clearing operation. Early in the morning the company suddenly came under intense automatic weapons and mortar fire followed by a battalion sized assault from 3 sides. Penetrating the defensive perimeter the enemy advanced on the company command post bunker. The command post received increasingly heavy fire and was in danger of being overwhelmed. When several enemy grenades landed within the command post, 1st Sgt. Yabes shouted a warning and used his body as a shield to protect others in the bunker. Although painfully wounded by numerous grenade fragments, and despite the vicious enemy fire on the bunker, he remained there to provide covering fire and enable the others in the command group to relocate. When the command group had reached a new position, 1st Sgt. Yabes moved through a withering hail of enemy fire to another bunker 50 meters away. There he secured a grenade launcher from a fallen comrade and fired point blank into the attacking Viet Cong stopping further penetration of the perimeter. Noting 2 wounded men helpless in the fire swept area, he moved them to a safer position where they could be given medical treatment. He resumed his accurate and effective fire killing several enemy soldiers and forcing others to withdraw from the vicinity of the command post. As the battle continued, he observed an enemy machinegun within the perimeter which threatened the whole position. On his own, he dashed across the exposed area, assaulted the machinegun, killed the crew, destroyed the weapon, and fell mortally wounded. 1st Sgt. Yabes' valiant and selfless actions saved the lives of many of his fellow soldiers and inspired his comrades to effectively repel the enemy assault. His indomitable fighting spirit, extraordinary courage and intrepidity at the cost of his life are in the highest military traditions and reflect great credit upon himself and the Armed Forces of his country.

Honors
First Sergeant Maximo Yabes was buried with full military honors at Fort Logan National Cemetery in Denver, Colorado.

Dozens of individuals, businesses and organizations in Oakridge, Oregon, donated time, money, labor and supplies to build a memorial to honor Yabes. They hired sculptor Tim Outman to create the memorial which features a fountain, a flagpole and a bronze bust with the likeness of Yabes set on a granite pedestal. Engraved on the base are the details of Yabes' Medal of Honor exploits. The memorial is located in Greenwaters Park, on the east side of Oakridge, south of highway 58.  The city of El Paso, Texas, also honored Yabes by naming an avenue after him.  His name can be found on panel 15E, line 102 of the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C.

Awards and recognitions
Among Maximo Yabes' decorations and medals were the following:

See also

List of Medal of Honor recipients
List of Medal of Honor recipients for the Vietnam War
Hispanic Medal of Honor recipients

Notes

Further reading
References to First Sergeant Maximo Yabes exploits can be found in the following books:

External links

1932 births
1967 deaths
United States Army Medal of Honor recipients
American people of Mexican descent
United States Army non-commissioned officers
People from Oakridge, Oregon
People from Lodi, California
Vietnam War recipients of the Medal of Honor
Burials at Fort Logan National Cemetery
United States Army personnel killed in the Vietnam War

Maximo Yabes


Abbie Farwell Brown (August 21, 1871March 5, 1927) was an American writer.

Biography
Brown was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the first of two daughters of Benjamin F. Brown, a descendant of Isaac Allerton, and Clara Neal Brown, who contributed to The Youth's Companion. Her sister Ethel became an author and illustrator under the name Ann Underhill.  Her family, for ten generations, had only resided in New England, and Brown herself spent her entire life in her family's Beacon Hill home.

Brown was valedictorian of the Bowdoin School in 1886. She then attended the Girls' Latin School, where she was friends with Josephine Preston Peabody.  She was the driving force behind the newly created school newspaper, The Jabberwock, named by Brown after the poem by Lewis Carroll.  They wrote to Carroll for permission to use the name and Carroll wrote back, wishing them "all success to the forthcoming magazine". The school, now Boston Latin Academy, still publishes The Jabberwock.  After graduating in 1891, she attended Radcliffe College, graduating in 1894.

While at Girls' Latin School, she was contributing pieces to St. Nicholas Magazine, some illustrated by her sister.  Starting in 1898, under the pen name Jean Neal she wrote articles for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat.  She also wrote a one-act comedy called Quits (1896) set at a women's college.

Her first children's book, The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts (1900) was inspired by her first trip abroad, specifically by the carved choir stalls in Chester Cathedral depicting the life of Saint Werburgh.  The book retells Christian stories of the animal encounters of various saints.  Brown would write other collections retelling old tales for a contemporary child audience.  Her In the Days of Giants (1902) featured stories from Norse mythology and remained a standard text in libraries for several generations.  Tales of the Red Children (1909), co-written with James MacIntosh Bell, featured Canadian Indian folklore.

Original stories by Brown include The Lonesomest Doll (1901), The Flower Princess (1904), John of the Woods (1909), and The Lucky Stone (1914).  She wrote several volumes of children's poetry, including A Pocketful of Posies (1901) and Fresh Posies (1908).  Her books of adult poetry, including Heart of New England (1920) and The Silver Stair (1926), were less successful.

Brown wrote song lyrics for the Progressive Music Series by Silver, Burdett and Co. She and composer Mabel Wheeler Daniels wrote the song "On the Trail", which became the official song of the Girl Scouts of the USA.  Daniels set Brown's war poem "Peace with a Sword" to music and it was performed by the Handel and Haydn Society in 1917.  Brown's only juvenile biography was of a composer, The Boyhood of Edward MacDowell (1924).

Brown was active in New England literary life.  She edited the 20-volume Young Folks Library for the publisher Hall and Locke.  She was a member of the Boston Authors' Club, the Boston Drama League, the American Folklore Society, the Poetry Society of America, and was president of the New England Poetry Club.

Brown died of cancer at the age of 55.

 Works
 The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts (1900)
 In the Days of Giants: A Book of Norse Tales (1902)
 A Pocketful of Posies (1902)
 The Curious Book of Birds (1903)
 The Flower Princess (1904)
 The Star Jewels, and Other Wonders (1905)
 Brothers and Sisters (1906)
 Friends and Cousins (1907)
 John of the Woods (1909)
 The Christmas Angel (1910)
 Songs of Sixpence (1914)
 Kisington Town (1915)
 Surprise House (1917)
 Heart of New England (1920)
 Round Robin (1921)
 The Lights of Beacon Hill: A Christmas Message (1922)
 The Silver Stair: Poems'' (1926)

References

External links

 Abbie Farwell Brown Papers, Schlesinger Library, Harvard University

 MyNDIR (My Norse Digital Image repository) illustrations from Abbie Farwell Brown's works. Clicking on the thumbnail will give you the full image and information concerning it.

1871 births
1927 deaths
Radcliffe College alumni
American women poets
Writers from Boston
Poets from Massachusetts
American children's writers
Children's poets
People from Beacon Hill, Boston

Abbie Farwell Brown


Trigger may mean:
 Trigger (firearms), a mechanism that actuates the firing of firearms
 Trigger pad, a device used in electronic percussion
 USS Trigger (SS-237), a submarine
 USS Trigger (SS-564), a submarine
 Trigger (horse), owned by cowboy star Roy Rogers.
 Trigger (guitar), the Martin N-20 guitar played by Willie Nelson.
 Trigger (Only Fools and Horses), a fictional character from the BBC sit-com Only Fools and Horses

In psychology and ethology:
An event which starts other events, or incites a response. See also releaser.

In computing:
 Trigger function in event-driven programming
 Database trigger, procedural code that is automatically executed in response to certain events on a particular table in a database
 Trigger circuit, IBM's name for a flip-flop.

In physics:
 Trigger (particle physics), hardware or software based device for the (online-)selection of specific event classes from large datasets (see also: ATLAS trigger system)

In music:
 Trigger (EP), an EP by the Swedish band In Flames
 "Trigger", a bonus song by The Rasmus from their 2005 album Hide from the Sun

Trigger


Christine Sadler (1902–1983), born in Silver Point, Putnam County, Tennessee, was an American writer, journalist, and magazine editor.

Biography
Christine Sadler received her undergraduate degree from Peabody College (now an affiliate of Vanderbilt University) and her master's degree in journalism from Columbia University in 1937.

Originally a journalist for the Nashville Banner (1930–1936), she was a reporter, national news bureau staffer and Sunday Editor for The Washington Post from 1937 until 1946. She was president of the Women's National Press Club early in her career in Washington. Sadler was the first woman to cover a national political convention for the Washington Post.

She was appointed and served as a charter member of The Defense Department Advisory Committee on Women in the Services from 1956 through 1959.

While continuing to write for the Post on a freelance basis for many years, Sadler became Washington, D.C. editor of McCall's magazine in 1944 until her retirement from that position in 1971. Sadler covered the White House for both the Post and McCall's, and authored two books, America's First Ladies and Children in the White House.

She was survived in death by her husband, Richard L. Coe, theater critic emeritus for the Post.

1902 births
1983 deaths
People from Putnam County, Tennessee
Vanderbilt University alumni
Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism alumni
American reporters and correspondents
Journalists from Tennessee
The Washington Post people
The Washington Post journalists
Writers from Tennessee
20th-century American non-fiction writers
20th-century American journalists

Christine Sadler


Honoré François Marie Langlé (1741–1807) was a French theorist of music of Monegasque origin, composer, and author of a Traité d'harmonie et de modulation (Paris: Boyer, 1795). Napoleon named him to the newly founded Paris Conservatoire.

Born to a family originally from Picardy that was established at Monaco in the 18th century, Langlé showed so much early promise in music that Honoré III of Monaco sent him with an endowment to Naples at the age of fifteen. There he studied harmony and counterpoint at the Conservatorio della Pietà dei Turchini under the direction of Pasquale Cafaro. He remained for more than eight years, composing Masses and motets that gained him a sufficient reputation in Italy that he was appointed to direct the city theatre of Genoa.

In 1768, Langlé left for France. In Paris he supported himself by giving harpsichord and singing lessons and taught musical composition to private pupils, while he gained a reputation through participating in Anne Danican Philidor's Concerts spirituels, the most prominent venue for secular concert music in Paris. There several of his compositions premiered successfully, including a sung monologue, Alcide and a cantata Circé.

In the following decade his reputation spread from the Parisian musical world of Versailles, where as Langlois, the spelling preferred by his son and grandson, he gave clavecin and fortepiano lessons to Queen Marie Antoinette. When the baron de Breteuil formed the École Royale de Chant et de Déclamations in 1784, Langlé was entrusted with teaching singing, a position he retained until the institutional changes that came with the French Revolution. With the creation of the Paris Conservatoire in 1795, Langlé was instituted as librarian, a place he held until 1802.

His theoretical Traité d'harmonie et de modulation was published at Paris in   1795.

His success in the field of opera was less than secure. In 1786 his opera
Antiochus et Stratonice failed to please at Versailles. Five years later, during the Revolution, his three-act opera Corisandre, presented at the Académie de musique, sank without a trace. Undeterred, though unable to get them publicly mounted, Langlé continued to compose operas in private for the rest of hid life. His songs achieved more success: his "Hymne à Bara et à Viala" (1794) continued to be taught in music schools through the 19th century.

In retirement towards the end of his life at his property, Villiers le Bel, Langlé devoted himself passionately to gardening. His posthumous reputation has supported François-Joseph Fétis, who found his music lacked qualities of genius, but his Traité d'harmonie et de modulation long remained a staple in academic teaching.

Notes

External links

1741 births
1807 deaths
French music theorists
French male non-fiction writers
Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery

Honoré Langlé


Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawar (, born 1958) is an Iraqi politician. He was the vice president under the Iraqi Transitional Government in 2006, and was interim president of Iraq under the Iraqi Interim Government from 2004 to 2005. He also served as the president of the Governing Council of Iraq in 2004 following the US-led coalition invasion.

Al-Yawar was originally a member of the Iraqi Governing Council created following the US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq. In 2004 he was appointed by the council to serve as interim President of Iraq following the 28 June return of Iraqi sovereignty from the Coalition Provisional Authority.

Early life and education
Born in Mosul, Iraq in 1958, al-Yawar completed his primary and secondary education in Iraq. He then went on to study in King Fahd University for Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) for two years before completing his BSc in civil engineering in the UK. Al-Yawar enrolled in an English language program at American University in Washington, D.C., and then received his master's degree from George Washington University in the mid 1980s.

The House of Yawar has been the head of the Shammar tribe for centuries. The Shammar is one of Iraq's biggest tribal confederations with more than 1.5 million people covering vast territories from Iraq into Syria and Saudi Arabia. Composed of both Sunnis and Shiites, the Shammar are generally religiously and politically moderate. "My mother would take me to visit the holy shrines in Najaf and Karbala, in addition to the Sunni mosques in Baghdad and St. Mary's Church," Yawar told the Iraqi paper Al Zaman. This had an impact on al-Yawar's leadership approach later in his political career, and one that made a lasting impression. According to Jaffar Saheb Said, an elder at the northern Baghdad shrine of Imam Kadhem, a Shiite saint, "he's deep-rooted and well-known among Arab clans. He's able to navigate between both Shias and Sunnis and solve their problems."

His uncle, Sheikh Mohsen Ajil al-Yawar, is the current head of the Shammar tribe and his grandfather played a role in guiding Iraq towards independence in the 1920s, later serving as a member of the king's parliament. When al-Yawar's uncle refused to sanction Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 the family went into exile in London. Al-Yawar, who was then residing in Saudi Arabia, eschewed politics and instead established a successful telecommunications company. He spent much of the past two decades in Saudi Arabia, where he became vice president of a telecommunications company High Capabilities Co. (HiCap).

Presidency
After the toppling of Saddam Hussein in April 2003, al-Yawar returned to Iraq at the request of his uncle, Mohsen al-Yawar. Following the assassination of Iraqi Governing Council President Ezzedine Salim on 17 May 2004, Ghazi al-Yawar assumed the May rotating presidency for the Governing Council. During his term as interim president, leading up to the dissolution of the Governing Council, al-Yawar spoke out against the misperception that Arab Sunnis in Iraq enjoyed huge privileges under Saddam Hussein's rule. Al-Yawar adamantly affirmed that "Saddam did not believe in any religion or sect – his injustices were inflicted on Sunnis, Shi'is, Kurds and all other national groups and sects. He did not differentiate between one Iraqi and another."

Al-Yawar was scheduled to be the last holder of the rotating council presidency, with a term lasting until 30 June 2004, the date of the expected transition to official Iraqi sovereignty. Instead, he was chosen at an earlier date to be Iraq's formal Head of State, and occupy the largely symbolic post of "State President" of Iraq. Adnan Pachachi was preferred by UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, but most members of the Governing Council had favored al-Yawar. Members of the council had accused the UN of trying to impose a new Iraqi president against their wishes. The dispute delayed the announcement of the interim government that would lead Iraq from the end of the month, but on 1 June 2004 the special envoy to Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi, confirmed Sheikh Ghazi's appointment as interim president. Ayad Allawi, who served as Prime Minister during al-Yawar's presidency, is a Shiite Muslim. The two collectively represented Iraq's largest Muslim sects. Al-Yawar and the Iraqi Interim Government were sworn in on 28 June 2004, when the U.S.-led coalition handed over power two days early.

Sheikh Ghazi's selection as interim president, at first resisted and then accepted by the American administrators in Iraq, is further recognition of the tribal revival at this time. Although this post was described as largely ceremonial, it in fact exercised both symbolic and political sway. As a Sunni tribal leader, he reassured his fellow Sunnis while also representing a familiar type of authority figure for the tribal Kurds, and embodying traditional values esteemed by Shiite religious figures. Faleh A. Jabar, a senior fellow at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, called Sheikh Ghazi "a tribal figure who knows modern ways, not a modern leader who knows tribal ways. He is clever, cautious in choosing words and values the seniority of age, a supreme value in tribal people. Being a sheikh, you have to give the lead to each and everyone except yourself."

L. Paul Bremer in his memoirs indicated that George W. Bush himself urged the appointment of al-Yawar, as Bush "had been favorably impressed by Ghazi's open thanks to the Coalition for overthrowing Saddam and by his determination to continue the process to sovereignty and eventual democracy."

But to many Iraqis, Sheikh al-Yawar was part of the Governing Council, which had lost virtually all legitimacy after its inability to solve the military and political crisis that had erupted across Iraq in April. Al-Yawar had been openly critical of the sectarian Governing Council, often acknowledging that the council was more focused on survival than on serious issues, adding only to the country's problems. "We sit in the council while the country is burning and argue over procedure," Sheikh Ghazi told the Christian Science Monitor. "We're like the Byzantines in Constantinople, debating whether angels are male or female with the barbarians at the gate." Like Ayad Allawi, the prime minister, and many of the council members appointed to new jobs in the cabinet and ministries, he faced a struggle to live down his role as a former council member.

Al-Yawar proved determined not to appear as a puppet of the Coalition forces. He pulled no punches when criticizing the United States for the dismal lack of security in Iraq. "We blame the United States 100 percent for the security in Iraq," he said. "They occupied the country, disbanded the security agencies and for 10 months left Iraq's borders open for anyone to come in without a visa or even a passport."

In addition, Sheikh Ghazi condemned the U.S. for remaining in Saddam Hussein's former Republican Palace presidential compound and converting it to their embassy, as some reports suggested. "This is like someone who pokes his finger in another's eye," he declared.

As the Coalition-led siege in Fallujah peaked during his term as interim president, al-Yawer openly disparaged the assault that only a few months earlier led him to almost resign from the Governing Council in protest of the Coalition's actions. He told Reuters "I completely disagree with those who see a need to decide the [Fallujah] matter through military action. The Coalition's handling of the crisis is wrong. It's like someone who fired bullets at his horse's head just because a fly landed on it; the horse died and the fly went away." He condemned the actions of the coalition forces, holding them completely accountable (according to the UN resolution) for delivering safety and aid to the Iraqi people.

Post-presidency
Al-Yawar held the position as President of Iraq in an interim capacity until an elected Iraqi Parliament could select a new permanent president, as mandated in the Law of Administration for the State of Iraq for the Transitional Period. This happened on 6 April 2005 when Jalal Talabani was elected president, and al-Yawar, after much negotiation, accepted to serve as one of Iraq's two vice-presidents.

As vice-president, Sheikh Ghazi addressed some of the many challenges faced by the new government. Due to the boycott of elections by Iraqi Sunnis, al-Yawar stood by his conviction that the new constitution should not be written in light of the past elections that created a unique situation – a complete sector of the Iraqi people were unable to partake in them. The election results were to be taken as the basis for a balance in drafting a constitution for all Iraqis. The constitution, as al-Yawar said in an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, "was meant to be always for all the Iraqis and to look after them all and not be 100 percent the whims of a group, religion, or ideology but must have more common ground and denominators for the Iraqi people." At this time, al-Yawar called for a separation between religion and politics, believing religion is too sacred to be polluted by politics. "Religion directs the country towards the public welfare and love while politics is much planning, maneuvers, prevarications and compromises and it is inappropriate for it to put on the cloak of religion."

In the January 2005 Iraqi election for the Iraqi National Assembly, he was the leader of The Iraqis (Iraqioun), the largest secular list of candidates with a Sunni leader.  His list won about 150,000 votes, 2% of the national vote. Al-Yawar, one of only a handful of Sunni leaders that did not boycott the elections and the only Sunni figure of national standing who appeared to have secured a place in the assembly, took five seats in Parliament.

In the January 2006 election, he joined the Iraqi National List coalition with other secular politicians Ayad Allawi and Adnan Pachachi. He then became a member of the Iraqi Parliament and after a short period of time resigned from the Parliament to return to his private life. Although it was hard to find research or polling on the subject, a few Sunni commentators, such as "Riverbend" of Baghdad Burning, suggested that Ghazi al-Yawer's poor showing in the elections was largely because he was held in low esteem by common Sunni Iraqis, being called by the epithet "al Baqara al dhahika", which translates roughly as "the laughing cow".

Personal life
Al-Yawar has been married since 1984 and has four children.

References

External links

|-

1957 births
Living people
American University alumni
George Washington University alumni
Iraqi Sunni Muslims
Members of the Council of Representatives of Iraq
People from Mosul
Presidents of Iraq
Vice presidents of Iraq
King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals alumni

Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer


Antoine Adrien (1922 – 13 May 2003) was a Catholic Priest and liberation theology advocate who served as Father Superior of the Holy Ghost Order in Haiti. He also served as Director of the "Petit Séminaire Collège Saint-Martial", attended primarily by children of the country's elite. Adrien was expelled from Haiti in 1969 by the Francois Duvalier regime which accused the Holy Ghost Order of harboring communists working to overthrow the regime.

Along with Father Jean-Marie Vincent who was assassinated in 1994, Antoine Adrien is credited by former Haitian president and Catholic priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide as having laid the groundwork for much of the liberation theology activism which led to his watershed election as the first democratically elected President of Haiti.

Exile (1969-1987)
During his exile post 1969, Adrien ministered to the Haitian community in New York, was active in organizations such as the Haitian Centers Council (HCC) in the 1980s and the National Coalition for Haitian Rights (NCHR) but returned to Haiti after the fall of Jean-Claude Duvalier i.e. "Baby Doc", François Duvalier's son and successor.

He coalesced with "The Haitian Fathers", the group of Holy Ghost priests who had been exiled along with him in 1969, at 333 Lincoln Place in Brooklyn.

In the early 1980s, Adrien—then settled in Brooklyn—denounced discriminatory policies against Haitian refugees under the Carter administration along with Father Gérard Jean-Juste of Miami. At a protest in front of the White House in 1980, Adrien said the following in a speech: "For eight years Haitian refugees have been knocking at America's door. Within ten days, 25,000 Cubans have arrived and have been granted everything. We simply cannot understand Mr. Carter."

During anti-Duvalier activist Jean Dominique's exile in New York from 1980 to 1986, he and Adrien met often and worked together on how to raise awareness about the excesses of the Duvalier dictatorship.

Return to Haiti
In 1987, Adrien is credited with having mediated a face-off between the Catholic church hierarchy, Haitian economic elites and the U.S. Embassy on the one hand and youth activists on the other over the planned removal of firebrand liberation theologian priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide from the parish of St-Jean Bosco in Port-au-Prince. Upon announcement that Aristide would be assigned to another parish, youth activists occupied the cathedral in Port-au-Prince and started an unprecedented hunger strike. Father Adrien intervened and convinced the archbishop to reconsider the removal. He had known Aristide for years and had welcome the then student at 333 Lincoln Place in Brooklyn during his exile in New York.

On July 23, 1987, Father Adrien was present at a celebration in memory of the victims of the highly controversial Jean-Rabel Massacre along with Fathers Jean-Bertrand Aristide and Jean-Marie Vincent.

In the historic 1990 election, Aristide is believed to have raced past rival Victor Benoît of FNCD to become the most popular candidate when Antoine Adrien supported his candidacy and his rallying of  FNCD and the Ti Legliz (Mini Church) liberation theology movement. As a result, Aristide garnered  an easy victory in the presidential election of December 16, 1990, which he allegedly won with 67% of the vote.

Death

Father Adrien died on May 13, 2013, from the complications of a stroke. He had been incapacitated for several years after an earlier stroke in 1996.

References

Haitian exiles
Haitian revolutionaries
20th-century Roman Catholic priests
21st-century Roman Catholic priests
Liberation theologians
1922 births
2003 deaths
Haitian expatriates in the United States
Haitian Roman Catholic priests

Antoine Adrien


Lo-fi (also typeset as lofi or low-fi; short for low fidelity) is a music or production quality in which elements usually regarded as imperfections in the context of a recording or performance are present, sometimes as a deliberate choice. The standards of sound quality (fidelity) and music production have evolved throughout the decades, meaning that some older examples of lo-fi may not have been originally recognized as such. Lo-fi began to be recognized as a style of popular music in the 1990s, when it became alternately referred to as DIY music (from "do it yourself").

Harmonic distortion and "analog warmth" are sometimes confused as core features of lo-fi music. Traditionally, lo-fi has been characterized by the inclusion of elements normally viewed as undesirable in professional contexts, such as misplayed notes, environmental interference, or phonographic imperfections (degraded audio signals, tape hiss, and so on). Pioneering, influential, or otherwise significant artists include the Beach Boys (Smiley Smile and Wild Honey), R. Stevie Moore (often called "the godfather of home recording"), Paul McCartney (McCartney), Todd Rundgren, Peter Ivers, Jandek, Daniel Johnston, Guided by Voices, Sebadoh, Beck, Pavement, and Ariel Pink.

Although "lo-fi" has been in the cultural lexicon for approximately as long as "high fidelity", WFMU disc jockey William Berger is usually credited with popularizing the term in 1986. At various points since the 1980s, "lo-fi" has been connected with cassette culture, the DIY ethos of punk, primitivism, outsider music, authenticity, slacker/Generation X stereotypes, and cultural nostalgia. The notion of "bedroom" musicians expanded following the rise of modern digital audio workstations, leading to the invention of the nearly synonymous term bedroom pop. In the late 2000s, lo-fi aesthetics served as the basis of the chillwave and hypnagogic pop music genres.

Definitions and etymology

Evolution of "lo-fi"

Lo-fi is the opposite of High fidelity.
Music educator R. Murray Schafer, in the glossary for his 1977 book The Tuning of the World, defined the term as "unfavourable signal-to-noise ratio."

There was virtually no appreciation for the imperfections of lo-fi music among critics until the 1980s, during which there was an emergent romanticism for home-recording and "do-it-yourself" (DIY) qualities. Afterward, "DIY" was often used interchangeably with "lo-fi".  By the end of the 1980s, qualities such as "home-recorded", "technically primitive", and "inexpensive equipment" were commonly associated with the "lo-fi" label, and throughout the 1990s, such ideas became central to how "lo-fi" was popularly understood. Consequently, in 2003, the Oxford Dictionary added a second definition for the term—"a genre of rock music characterized by minimal production, giving a raw and unsophisticated sound".

The identity of the party or parties who popularized the use of "lo-fi" cannot be determined definitively. It is generally suggested that the term was popularized through William Berger's weekly half-hour radio show on the New Jersey-based independent radio station WFMU, titled Low-Fi, which lasted from 1986 to 1987. The program's contents consisted entirely of contributions solicited via mail and ran during a thirty-minute prime time evening slot every Friday. In the fall 1986 issue of the WFMU magazine LCD, the program was described as "home recordings produced on inexpensive equipment. Technical primitivism coupled with brilliance."

A third definition was added to the Oxford Dictionary in 2008: "unpolished, amateurish, or technologically unsophisticated, esp. as a deliberate aesthetic choice." In 2017, About.coms Anthony Carew argued that the term "lo-fi" had been commonly misused as a synonym for "warm" or "punchy" when it should be reserved for music that "sounds like it's recorded onto a broken answering-machine".

Bedroom pop
The notion of "bedroom musicians" first emerged in the 21st century following the rise of laptop computers in many forms of popular or avant-garde music. Since then, there had been an increasing tendency to group all home-recorded music under the umbrella of "lo-fi". From these developments came "bedroom pop", a loosely-defined music genre referring to artists who record at home, rather than at traditional recording spaces.

"Bedroom pop" has also been invoked to describe a distinct aesthetic. Writing in 2006, Tammy LaGorce of The New York Times identified "bedroom pop" as "bloglike music that tries to make the world a better place through a perfect homemade song". By the 2010s, journalists would indiscriminately apply the term to any music with a "fuzzy" production quality,

Daniel Wray of The Guardian defined the term in 2020 as a genre of home-recorded music with a "dreamy, introspective and intimate" sound, and one which spans "across indie, pop, R&B and emo". Jenessa Williams of The Forty-Five called "bedroom pop" almost synonymous with "lo-fi", having been traditionally used as "a flattering way to dress up homespun demos and slacker aesthetics" before being recontextualized in later years as "midwestern emo without the thrashing; Soundcloud rap without the braggadocio."

Many of the associated artists have rejected the label.

Characteristics

Lo-fi aesthetics are idiosyncrasies associated with the recording process. More specifically, those that are generally viewed in the field of audio engineering as undesirable effects, such as a degraded audio signal or fluctuations in tape speed. The aesthetic may also extend to substandard or disaffected musical performances. Recordings deemed unprofessional or "amateurish" are usually with respect to performance (out-of-tune or out-of-time notes) or mixing (audible hiss, distortion, or room acoustics). Musicologist Adam Harper identifies the difference as "phonographic" and "non-phonographic imperfections". He defines the former as "elements of a recording that are perceived (or imagined to be perceived) as detrimental to it and that originate in the specific operation of the recording medium itself. Today, they are usually the first characteristics people think about when the subject of 'lo-fi' is brought up."

Recording imperfections may "fall loosely into two categories, distortion and noise", in Harper's view, although he acknowledges that definitions of "distortion" and "noise" vary and sometimes overlap. The most prominent form of distortion in lo-fi aesthetics is harmonic distortion, which can occur when an audio signal is amplified beyond the dynamic range of a device. However, this effect is not usually considered to be an imperfection. The same process is used for the electric guitar sounds of rock and roll, and since the advent of digital recording, to give a recording a feeling of "analogue warmth". Distortion that is generated as a byproduct of the recording process ("phonographic distortion") is typically avoided in professional contexts. "Tape saturation" and "saturation distortion" alternately describe the harmonic distortion that occurs when a tape head approaches its limit of residual magnetization (a common aspect of tape recorder maintenance that is fixed with degaussing tools). Effects include a decrease in high-frequency signals and an increase in noise. Generally, lo-fi recordings are likely to have little or no frequency information above 10 kilohertz.

"Non-phonographic" imperfections may involve noises that are generated by the performance ("coughing, sniffing, page-turning and chair sounds") or the environment ("passing vehicles, household noises, the sounds of neighbours and animals"). Harper acknowledges that the "appreciation of distortion and noise is not limited to lo-fi aesthetics, of course, and lo-fi aesthetics ... does not extend to all appreciations for distortion and noise. The difference lies in the ways in which distortion and noise are understood to be imperfections in lo-fi." He also distinguishes between "recording imperfections" and "sonic imperfections [that] occur as a result of imperfect sound-reproduction or - modulation equipment...  Hypothetically, at least, lo-fi effects are created during recording and production itself, and perceptibly remain in master recordings that are then identically copied for release."

Bruce Bartlett, in his 2013 guide Practical Recording Techniques, states that "lo-fi sounds might have a narrow frequency response (a thin, cheap sound), and might include noise such as hiss or record scratches. They could be distorted or wobbly in pitch." He offers the following methods for replicating lo-fi sounds: mixing levels so that they are unbalanced; placing obstructions between a microphone and the sound sources; placing the microphone in an unusual spot, such as in a wastebasket; recording with older, lower-quality instruments or equipment; and highlighting spill and sound reflections.

History

1950s–1970s: Origins and influential works

DIY music predates written history, but "lo-fi" as it was understood after the 1990s can be traced to 1950s rock and roll. AllMusic writes that the genre's recordings were made "cheaply and quickly, often on substandard equipment. In that sense, the earliest rock & roll records, most of the garage rock of the '60s, and much of the punk rock of the late '70s could be tagged as Lo-Fi."

Released in 1967, the Beach Boys' albums Smiley Smile and Wild Honey were lo-fi albums recorded mostly in Brian Wilson's makeshift home studio; the albums were later referred to as part of Wilson's so-called Bedroom Tapes. Although Smiley Smile was initially met with confusion and disappointment, appreciation for the album grew after other artists released albums that reflected a similarly flawed and stripped-down quality, including Bob Dylan's John Wesley Harding (1967) and the Beatles' White Album (1968). Pitchfork writer Mark Richardson credited Smiley Smile with inventing "the kind of lo-fi bedroom pop that would later propel Sebadoh, Animal Collective, and other characters." Editors at Rolling Stone credited Wild Honey with originating "the idea of DIY pop".

In the early 1970s, there were a few other major recording artists who released music recorded with portable multi-tracking equipment; examples included Paul McCartney and Todd Rundgren. Produced shortly after the Beatles' break-up, the home-recorded solo release McCartney was among the best-selling albums of 1970, but was critically panned.  In 2005, after an interviewer suggested that it was possibly "one of the first big lo-fi records of its day", McCartney commented that it was "interesting" that younger fans were "looking back at something like that with some kind of respect", before adding that the album's "sort of ... hippie simplicity ... kind of resonates at this point in time, somehow."

Something/Anything? (released in February 1972) was recorded almost entirely by Rundgren alone. The album included many of his best-known songs, as well as a spoken-word track ("Intro") in which he teaches the listener about recording flaws for an egg hunt-type game he calls "Sounds of the Studio". He used the money gained from the album's success to build a personal recording studio in New York, where he recorded the less successful 1973 follow-up A Wizard, a True Star. Musicologist Daniel Harrison compared the Beach Boys' late-1960s albums to Wizard, a record "which mimics aspects of Brian's compositional style in its abrupt transitions, mixture of various pop styles, and unusual production effects. But it must be remembered that the commercial failure of the Beach Boys' experiments was hardly motivation for imitation." In 2018, Pitchforks Sam Sodsky noted that the "fingerprints" of Wizard remain "evident on bedroom auteurs to this day".

Among other notable examples, writers of The Wire credit Skip Spence's Oar (1969) as "a progenitor of both the loner/stoner and lo-fi movements", adding that the album "would not find a real audience for decades."  Record Collectors Jamie Atkins wrote in 2018 that many lo-fi acts would be indebted to the reverb-saturated sound of the Beach Boys' 1970 song "All I Wanna Do". Pitchfork writer Madison Brooke crowned Peter Ivers, a 1970s Los Angeles musician, as "the weirdo king of bedroom pop, decades before the genre existed."

1970s–1980s: Indie, cassette culture, and outsider music

With the emergence of punk rock and new wave in the late 1970s, some sectors of popular music began to espouse a DIY ethos that heralded a wave of independent labels, distribution networks, fanzines and recording studios, and many guitar bands were formed on the then-novel premise that one could record and release their own music instead of having to procure a record contract from a major label. Lo-fi musicians and fans were predominantly white, male and middle-class, and while most of the critical discourse interested in lo-fi was based in New York or London, the musicians themselves were largely from lesser metropolitan areas of the US.

Since 1968, R. Stevie Moore had been recording full-length albums on reel-to-reel tape in his parents' basement in Tennessee, but it was not until 1976's Phonography that any of his recordings were issued on a record label. The album achieved some notoriety among New York's punk and new wave circles. Matthew Ingram of The Wire wrote that "Moore might not have been the first rock musician to go entirely solo, recording every part from drums to guitar ... However, he was the first to explicitly aestheticize the home recording process itself ... making him the great-grandfather of lo-fi."  Asked if he supported the "DIY/lo-fi pioneer label", Moore explained that his approach resulted from "happenstance" rather than a calculated artistic decision, although he agreed that he "should be recognized as a pioneer". When a 2006 New York Times reporter referenced Moore as the progenitor of "bedroom pop", Moore responded that the notion was "hilarious" in light of his "bitter struggle to make a living and get some notoriety, I scoff at it."

In 1979, Tascam introduced the Portastudio, the first portable multi-track recorder of its kind to incorporate an "all-in-one" approach to overdubbing, mixing, and bouncing. This technology allowed a broad range of musicians from underground circles to build fan bases through the dissemination of their cassette tapes. Music critic Richie Unterberger cited Moore as "one of the most famous" of the "few artists in cassetteland [that] established a reputation, if even a cult one." From 1979 until the early 1980s, Moore was a staff member on WFMU, hosting a weekly "Bedroom Radio" show. Berger's "Low-Fi" program followed thereafter and effectively established lo-fi as a distinct movement associated with the spirit of punk. JW Farquhar's home-recorded 1973 album The Formal Female, according to critic Ned Raggett, could also be regarded as a forerunner to "any number of" independent lo-fi artists, including R. Stevie Moore and the underground Texas musician Jandek.

In 1980, the Welsh trio Young Marble Giants released their only album, Colossal Youth, featuring stark instrumentation, including a primitive drum machine, and a decidedly "bedroom" aura. Davyd Smith of the Evening Standard later wrote, "It's hard to imagine a more lo-fi, unambitious sound." Throughout the following decade, the indie rock spheres of the American underground (bands such as college radio favorite R.E.M.), along with some British post-punk bands, were the most prominent exports of lo-fi music. According to AllMusic, the stylistic variety of their music often "fluctuated from simple pop and rock songs to free-form song structures to pure noise and arty experimentalism." Similar scenes also developed among DIY cassette-trading hip-hop and hardcore punk acts. One of the most recognizable bands was Beat Happening (1984–1992) from K Records, an influential indie pop label. They were rarely known as a "lo-fi" group during their active years, and were only noted for their pioneering role in the movement after the term's definition evolved in the mid 1990s.

Elsewhere, WFMU DJ Irwin Chusid was responsible for inventing and popularizing the "outsider music" category — much of it overlapping with lo-fi. Adam Harper credits the outsider musicians Daniel Johnston and Jandek with "form[ing] a bridge between 1980s primitivism and the lo-fi indie rock of the 1990s. ... both musicians introduced the notion that lo-fi was not just acceptable but the special context of some extraordinary and brilliant musicians." Hailing from New Zealand, the Tall Dwarfs' mid-1980s records are credited with anticipating the lo-fi sound. AllMusic wrote that Tall Dwarfs' home-recorded releases presaged "the rise of what was ultimately dubbed 'lo-fi' as the sound began to grow in prominence and influence over the course of the decades to follow."

1990s: Changed definitions of "lo-fi" and "indie"

Relation to "alternative" music

During the 1990s, the media's usage of the word "indie" evolved from music "produced away from the music industry's largest record labels" to a particular style of rock or pop music viewed in the US as the "alternative to 'alternative'". Following the success of Nirvana's Nevermind (1991), alternative rock became a cultural talking point, and subsequently, the concept of a lo-fi movement coalesced between 1992 and 1994. Centered on artists such as Guided by Voices, Sebadoh, Beck, and Pavement, most of the writing about alternative and lo-fi aligned it with Generation X and "slacker" stereotypes that originated from Douglas Coupland's novel Generation X and Richard Linklater's film Slacker (both released 1991) which led to the genre being called "slacker rock". Some of the delineation between grunge and lo-fi came with respect to the music's "authenticity". Even though Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain was well known for being fond of Johnston, K Records, and the Shaggs, there was a faction of indie rock that viewed grunge as a sell-out genre, believing that the imperfections of lo-fi was what gave the music its authenticity.

In April 1993, the term "lo-fi" gained mainstream currency after it was featured as a headline in The New York Times. The most widely-read article was published by the same paper in August 1994 with the headline "Lo-Fi Rockers Opt for Raw Over Slick". In contrast to a similar story ran in the paper seven years earlier, which never deployed "lo-fi" in the context of an unprofessional recording, writer Matt Deihl conflated "lo-fi" with "DIY" and "a rough sound quality". He wrote:

The main focus in the piece was Beck and Guided by Voices, who recently become popular acts in the indie rock subculture. Beck, whose 1994 single "Loser" was recorded in a kitchen and reached the Billboard top 10, ultimately became the most recognizable artist associated with the "lo-fi" tag.  As a response to the "lo-fi" label, Guided by Voices bandleader Robert Pollard denied having any association to its supposed movement. He said that although the band was being "championed as the pioneers of the lo-fi movement," he was not familiar with the term, and explained that "[a] lot of people were picking up [Tascam] machines at the time ... Using a four-track became common enough that they had to find a category for it: DIY, lo-fi, whatever."

At the time, music critic Simon Reynolds interpreted the seeming-movement as a reaction against grunge music, "and a weak one, since lo-fi is just grunge with even grungier production values." In turn, he said, lo-fi inspired its own reaction in the form of "post-rock". A reaction against both grunge and lo-fi, according to AllMusic, was chamber pop, which drew heavily from the rich orchestrations of Brian Wilson, Burt Bacharach, and Lee Hazlewood.

Genre crystallization

"Lo-fi" was applied inconsistently throughout the 1990s. Writing in the book Hop on Pop (2003), Tony Grajeda said that by 1995, Rolling Stone magazine "managed to label every other band it featured in the first half [of the year] as somehow lo-fi." One journalist in Spin credited Sebadoh's Sebadoh III (1991) with "inventing" lo-fi, characterizing the genre as "the soft rock of punk". Additionally, virtually every journalist referenced an increasing media coverage of lo-fi music while failing to acknowledge themselves as contributors to the trend.

Several books were published that helped to "canonize" lo-fi acts, usually by comparing them favorably to older musicians. For example, Rolling Stone's Alt-Rock-a-Rama (1995) contained a chapter titled "The Lo-Fi Top 10", which mentioned Hasil Adkins, the Velvet Underground, Half Japanese, Billy Childish, Beat Happening, Royal Trux, Sebadoh, Liz Phair, Guided By Voices, Daniel Johnston, Beck and Pavement. Richie Unterberger's Unknown Legends of Rock 'n' Roll: Psychedelic Unknowns, Mad Geniuses, Punk Pioneers, Lo-Fi Mavericks & More and "the community of like-minded critics and fans surrounding him" were especially pivotal in establishing modern notions of the lo-fi aesthetic. According to Adam Harper: "In short, Unknown Legends bridges the interests of the [1980s] and the [Cassette Culture] Generation and those of [the 2000s], providing an early sketch, a portent – a 'leftfield blueprint', perhaps – of 00s movements like hauntology and hypnagogic pop".

The "lo-fi" tag also extended to acts such as the Mountain Goats,  Nothing Painted Blue, Chris Knox, Alastair Galbraith, and Lou Barlow.  "Other significant artists often aligned with 1990s lo-fi", Harper wrote, "such as Ween, the Grifters, Silver Jews, Liz Phair, Smog, Superchunk, Portastatic and Royal Trux have been largely omitted owing either to the comparative paucity of their reception or to its lesser relevance to lo-fi aesthetics."

From the late 1990s to 2000s, "lo-fi" was absorbed into regular indie discourse, where it mostly lost its connotations as an indie rock subcategory evoking "the slacker generation", "looseness", or "self-consciousness". Pitchfork and The Wire became the leading publications on music, while blogs and smaller websites took on the role previously occupied by fanzines.

2000s–2010s: Hypnagogic pop and chillwave

The rise of modern digital audio workstations dissolved a theoretical technological division between professional and non-professional artists. Many of the prominent lo-fi acts of the 1990s adapted their sound to more professional standards and "bedroom" musicians began looking toward vintage equipment as a way to achieve an authentic lo-fi aesthetic, mirroring a similar trend in the 1990s concerning the revival of 1960s space age pop and analog synthesizers. R. Stevie Moore was increasingly cited by emerging lo-fi acts as a primary influence. His most vocal advocate, Ariel Pink, had read Unknown Legends, and later recorded a cover version of one of the tracks included in a CD that came with the book ("Bright Lit Blue Skies"). At the time of his label debut, Pink was viewed as a novelty act, as there were virtually no other contemporary indie artists with a similar retro lo-fi sound.

Previous lo-fi artists generally rejected the influence of 1980s pop radio that informed most of Pink's sound. Afterward, a type of music dubbed "hypnagogic pop" emerged among lo-fi and post-noise musicians who engaged with elements of cultural nostalgia, childhood memory, and outdated recording technology. The label was invented by journalist David Keenan in an August 2009 piece for The Wire, which included Pink among his examples. Pink was frequently referred to as the "godfather" of hypnagogic, chillwave or glo-fi as new acts that were associated with him (aesthetically, personally, geographically, or professionally) attracted notice from critics. According to Pitchforks Marc Hogan, each of those tags described what was essentially psychedelic music. Adam Harper reflected in 2013 that there was a growing tendency among critics such as Simon Reynolds to overstate Pink's influence by failing to acknowledge predecessors such as R. Stevie Moore and the Cleaners from Venus' Martin Newell.

In the late 2010s, a form of downtempo music tagged as "lo-fi hip hop" or "chillhop" became popular among YouTube music streamers. Several of these YouTube channels attracted millions of followers. The foundation of this style came mainly from producers such as Nujabes and J Dilla.

See also

References

Further reading

Lo-fi music
Indie music
DIY culture
Noise music
Cassette culture 1970s–1990s
1950s in American music
1960s in American music
1970s in American music
1980s in American music
1990s in American music
2000s in American music
2010s in American music
2020s in American music
Outsider music
American styles of music

Lo-fi music


Ambelau () is an Austronesian language; in 1989, it was spoken by about 5,700 Ambelau people, of whom more than 5,000 lived on the Indonesian island Ambelau () and most others in the village Wae Tawa of the nearby island Buru ().

The language is traditionally classified in a Central Maluku branch of Malayo-Polynesian languages; more recent classifications have placed it with the Sula–Buru languages. Although Ambelau island is only 20 km away from the much larger Buru island (population 135,000), the Ambelau language is rather different from all languages and dialects of Buru. The preservation of the language was also unaffected by the fact that Ambelau people compose only half of the Ambelau island population, and the communication with the Bugis and Javanese people composing the other half usually occurs in the official language of the country, Indonesian. The Ambelau language has no dialectal variation; so the Ambelau community on Buru island speaks identical language to that used on Ambelau. The language has no writing system.

The most detailed study of Ambelau language was conducted in the 1980s by Charles E. Grimes and Barbara Dix Grimes – Australian missionaries and ethnographers, active members of SIL International (they should not be confused with Joseph E. Grimes and Barbara F. Grimes, Charles' parents, also known Australian ethnographers).

References

Central Maluku languages
Languages of the Maluku Islands

Ambelau language


The Lagos State Environmental Sanitation Corps (LAGESC) is a government agency that is responsible for facilitating a clean environment in Lagos, Nigeria and to enforce notices such as 'Seal up Notice', 'Demolition Notice' etc.

History
LAGESC was established by a law signed by the former governor of Lagos State Akinwunmi Ambode on 1 March 2017. It is an agency under the Lagos State Ministry of Environment.

The Kick Against Indiscipline (KAI) Brigade was replaced with LAGESC with inauguration on 30 June 2017. The Agency is run by a Governing Board.

Activities
One of the major duties of LAGESC is to tackle street trading, indiscriminate dumping of refuse, pollution and crossing of highways. In January 2020, 36 people were arrested for allegedly crossing express highways instead of using the safer overhead pedestrian bridges. During the ban of street traders in Oyingbo, LAGESC was commissioned around the market area and surrounding streets to arrest street traders. On 21 February 2022, the agency collaborated with the Lagos State task force agency on an exercise to remove waste along the Mushin/Olosha road associated with roadside traders. Roadside traders impede vehicular movement leading to traffic congestion. This exercise demolished shanties and kiosks on the walkways. Traders found displaying their goods on the road were arrested.

See also

 Lagos State Ministry of Environment
 Lagos State Executive Council

References

Government of Lagos State
Government agencies established in 2017
2017 establishments in Nigeria

Lagos state environmental sanitation corps


Mittelzentrum Artern is a former Verwaltungsgemeinschaft ("collective municipality") in the district Kyffhäuserkreis, in Thuringia, Germany. The seat of the Verwaltungsgemeinschaft was in Artern, itself not part of the Verwaltungsgemeinschaft. It was disbanded in January 2019.

The Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Mittelzentrum Artern consisted of the following municipalities:
Borxleben
Gehofen
Heygendorf
Ichstedt
Kalbsrieth
Mönchpfiffel-Nikolausrieth
Nausitz
Reinsdorf
Ringleben
Voigtstedt

Former Verwaltungsgemeinschaften in Thuringia

Mittelzentrum Artern