NFL Primetime is a sports television program that has aired on ESPN since 1987. The show is presented similarly to ESPN's own SportsCenter, featuring scores, highlights, and analysis of every game of the week in the NFL.

When it debuted in 1987, the show aired every Sunday night during the NFL season. When NBC acquired the rights for Sunday night games beginning in the 2006, NBC also negotiated for exclusive rights for extended highlights during its Football Night in America pregame show, causing ESPN to begin airing NFL Primetime on Mondays. In 2019, the program was moved to ESPN+.

History

Format (1987–2005)
Until the 2006 season, Primetime aired every Sunday night during the NFL season and it preceded ESPN's coverage of Sunday Night Football (it even aired when ESPN did not have a Sunday night game, especially from 1990 to 1997 when TNT had Sunday night games the first half of the season). The show was hosted by Chris Berman, with analysis from Tom Jackson. Berman and Jackson recapped Sunday afternoon's NFL games with highlights, statistics, and commentary.

Pete Axthelm was a regular from 1987 until his death in 1991. Through the show's history, other co-hosts included John Saunders, Robin Roberts, Bill Pidto, and Stuart Scott. Pidto was often the target of good-natured ribbing by Berman, since Pidto often did recaps of games featuring losing teams. Roberts also seemed to be assigned to recap almost every game the Tampa Bay Buccaneers played between 1990 and 1992, when the Bucs were fielding some of the worst teams in NFL history. The position of co-host was dropped prior to the start of the 1998 season.

Presentation
Rather than provide the usual package of scoring highlights, NFL Primetime presented extended highlights which also showed less dramatic plays. This provided context for the greater depth of analysis of each game.  A common non-dramatic play that would be shown would be a game-clinching first down while a team was running out the clock.  Some of the less dramatic plays would be used to demonstrate an overall large accomplishment.  During the highlights for the Chicago Bears-San Francisco 49ers matchup in 2000, when Terrell Owens broke an NFL record by catching 20 passes in a game (since broken by Brandon Marshall), all 20 of Owens's receptions were shown.  Other examples involved seemingly unsuccessful plays ultimately benefitting a team.  For the highlights of the Buccaneers-Miami Dolphins game in 2000, a contest marred by heavy rains which came down to the final minute, a play where Bucs running back Warrick Dunn broke a tackle in his own end zone to avoid a safety was shown to demonstrate it as one of the biggest plays contributing to the Bucs's victory.

The show began with Berman welcoming viewers and then giving a quick rundown of the late games before beginning the highlights of the early games.  They were generally shown in a relatively chronological order, with the 1:00 games shown first and the 4:00/4:15 games shown near the end of the program.  However, on some occasions (particularly in Week 17 when teams would be making their final push for the playoffs), the highlights would be presented less chronologically.  For Week 17 games, the highlights would instead be sorted by conference, with teams competing against each other for a playoff spot or a division title shown back-to-back.  Probably the show's most notable occurrence with this scenario came in Week 17 of the 1999 season, when the Green Bay Packers and Carolina Panthers tied in overall record, division record, conference record, and common opponent record, meaning that a spot involving the two teams would come down to point differential.  As a result, both teams ran up the score against their opponents in their final games in order to try to outscore the other team in the race.  For this scenario, the Arizona Cardinals-Packers and the New Orleans Saints-Panthers highlights were shown simultaneously, with scoring by the teams in both games shown chronologically while a graphic would be shown featuring which team was leading at the time based on point differential.  When ESPN aired the Sunday Night game, the broadcast usually featured a preview of that game.  Later airings of NFL Primetime featured a SportsCenter highlight of that game.

Starting in 2003, a game with either high stakes for both teams or an exciting finish (typically a 1:00 game) would be chosen by Berman, Jackson, and their staff as that week's "Prime Cut."  This game would be shown in the middle of the program with an extended lead-in by Berman.  Also in 2003, a segment entitled "T.J.'s Extra Point" was introduced, where Jackson would demonstrate greater analysis over a strategy a team used to great success.  At the end of the show, a segment entitled "Primetime Players" would feature both Berman and Jackson choosing a player or team unit that particularly impressed them from that week's games.  At the turn of the millennium, a fan vote for that week's primetime player would also be conducted for the show on ESPN's website.

Music
A staple of the show was the various FirstCom Music instrumental pieces that played in the background during the highlights, while Berman and Jackson recapped each game. This often gave the games, even in highlight form, a more epic feel overall. This feature continues during highlights on The Blitz.

For the most part, highlights from the show would feature FirstCom Music scores over the highlights.  Some songs were even played on a consistent basis for certain teams.  The Buffalo Bills, for example, often had their game played out (regardless of outcome) to a dramatic piece entitled "Powersurge," featuring triumphant passages of brass instruments.  The Oakland Raiders, meanwhile, were often represented by an ominous-sounding piece called "Bad Company," that featured extensive use of minor-key strings, horns, and keyboards.  Other songs were commonly used for certain situations.  "International Statement," an epic-sounding song complete with a climactic build-up of low brass and strings that was arguably NFL Primetime's signature song, was often used for a high-stakes game, while "Grid-Lock," a lighter song featuring a more subdued introductory horn riff and an extended guitar solo (unusual for a song utilized in the program), was utilized for relatively unexciting games involving teams at the bottom of the standings.

On rare occasions, however, the standard FirstCom Music themes would be replaced by other music themes.  For the Raiders-Pittsburgh Steelers matchup in 2000, which marked their last meeting at Three Rivers Stadium as well as the stadium's second to last game, the music was replaced by classic NFL Films themes by Sam Spence including "A Golden Boy Again" and "The Raiders," while Berman confused then-current Raiders and Steelers with legendary ones.  A similar example involved the San Diego Chargers-St. Louis Rams matchup earlier in 2000, when the music was replaced by the William Tell Overture to underscore the Rams as the "Greatest Show on Turf" (with the music subsequently muted when the Chargers were shown making a good play).  On other occasions, non-standard music themes would interrupt the themes being played on the highlights. For the Washington Redskins' final game at RFK Stadium in 1996, a 36–10 win over the Dallas Cowboys, the music was briefly replaced by their fight song "Hail to the Redskins" before returning to the previous standard theme for the final stats. In 2000, when the Baltimore Ravens scored a touchdown after having failed to score one in their previous five games, the music was briefly interrupted with celebratory music before returning to the standard FirstCom theme for the remainder of the highlights.

Finally, music was occasionally altered on the program, particularly in situations involving injured players.  On some occasions where a serious injury or other tragic event occurred, the music would be played at a noticeably softer volume than usual, or would be muted entirely until the highlight resumed.  After then-Indianapolis Colts head coach Tony Dungy's son James committed suicide in 2005, the highlights for the Colts's first game after his death began with silence while tributes taking place during the game were shown, with the music only playing for the actual game itself.

Format (2006–present)
When NBC acquired the rights for Sunday night games beginning in the 2006 season, NBC negotiated for exclusive rights for extended highlights during its Football Night in America pregame show. ESPN responded by moving the show to Mondays and splitting the program into two versions. ESPN shows NFL Primetime in its old format during the playoffs.

Early showing
Originally, the first version aired two-and-a-half hours before ESPN's telecast of Monday Night Football, normally 6p.m. Eastern Time.  It was hosted by Stuart Scott along with analysts Ron Jaworski and Mike Ditka and aired from the site of the Monday night game preceding Monday Night Countdown.  (The program broadcast from a parking lot set, in contrast to Monday Night Countdown, which takes place inside the stadium.  When the package began with two Monday night games on September 11, 2006, Primetime aired from McAfee Coliseum in Oakland, California, while Countdown originated at FedExField in Landover, Maryland).

Due to low ratings (partially due to the repositioning of what was a Sunday evening staple), this early edition of NFL Primetime was relocated to the ESPN studios in Bristol, Connecticut every other week starting October 16.

In 2007, this show gained a new time slot, 4p.m. ET, switching with SportsCenter Monday Kickoff, all programs were moved to the Bristol studio, and the second version's hosts (see below) were also assigned to the earlier show.  Scott was sent to a new remote set used by Monday Night Countdown.

Late showing
The second version airs ninety minutes after Monday Night Football ends, and it originates from the ESPN studios.  This edition is hosted by the NFL Live team of Trey Wingo and analysts Merril Hoge, and occasionally Mark Schlereth or Mike Ditka. In 2008, Trent Dilfer joined as an analyst. In 2011, Tim Hasselbeck replaced Dilfer. This is the only version of the show to actually be in primetime, albeit only on the West Coast at 10:00 p.m. PT or slightly later.  This version re-airs Tuesday afternoons at 2:00 p.m. ET.

Both versions show highlights, but for a shorter period of time than on the older program and with more extended analysis segments. The highlights on the current incarnation of NFL Primetime tend to be more story driven, emphasizing key player performances or game storylines as opposed to a normal recap that is found on SportsCenter. Both shows are presented by Miller Lite.

On December 24, 2011, during week 16 of the 2011 NFL season, ESPN aired Primetime in its classic timeslot and format, with Berman and Jackson recapping the action. This was due to the weekend's NFL games being played on Saturday of that weekend, and with the NBC contract running for Sundays only, ESPN its first original Primetime in 6 years.

2019–present: NFL Primetime on ESPN+
On September 13, 2019, ESPN announced that Berman and Jackson would return for a new digital-only edition of NFL Primetime, streaming weekly throughout the NFL season on ESPN+ beginning on September 15, 2019 (in time for Week 2 highlights). The program streams live at 7:30p.m. ET on Sundays and is updated with highlights for the Sunday and Monday night games upon their completion. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, in 2020 Jackson opted out of the program. He was replaced by Booger McFarland.

As for ESPN itself, this show was replaced with a new program, NFL Rewind (also hosted by Wingo with Tim Hasselbeck and former NFL head coach John Fox as analysts), which follows the same format as NFL Primetime.

The Blitz (2006–2016)
Following the re-tooling of NFL Primetime, Chris Berman and Tom Jackson were given an extended segment of the Sunday night edition of SportsCenter (11 p.m. ET) called The Blitz. The segment follows the same structure as the original version of NFL Primetime, featuring Berman and Jackson using the same player nicknames, catch phrases, and back-and-forth banter as the original show.

On January 8, 2007, Chris Berman and Tom Jackson returned to NFL Primetime to present highlights of the 2006 NFL Playoffs games between the New York Jets and the New England Patriots and the New York Giants and the Philadelphia Eagles, and they remained for the entire postseason that followed.

ESPN has not used the NFL name or logo in the official segment name or in advertising, leading to unconfirmed rumors of not being given permission to do so by the league. In 2007, however, on-screen graphics surrounding the set has referred to both "The Blitz" and "NFL Blitz."

Nike sponsored the segments in both years in 2006 and '07; it was replaced by Old Spice in 2008.

Early SportsCenter (2008–2016)
In 2008, an extended version of The Blitz has aired as part of SportsCenter from 7 to 8 or 8:15 p.m. ET.  The hosts are Berman, Jackson, Saunders and Trent Dilfer.  In addition to highlights, the network has extended additional game statistics, standings, and leaderboards on the right-hand portion of the screen.  It is in direct competition to Football Night in America, although it is believed that FNIA still has the official advantage in percentage of the show devoted to highlights.  Coincidentally, the revamp of SportsCenter came after NBC hired Dan Patrick to team with Keith Olbermann on FNIA highlights; Patrick and Olbermann were the premier anchor team on that show in the 1990s.

Personalities

Current
 Chris Berman (Full season host, 1987–2005 and 2019–present, contributor and playoff host 2006–present)
 Booger McFarland (Full season analyst, 2020–present)
 Scott Van Pelt (Late game host, 2019–present)
 Ryan Clark (Fill-in analyst, 2019–present)
 Wendi Nix (Host, 2020–2022)
 Marcus Spears (Analyst, 2020–present)
 Steve Young (Super Bowl analyst)
 Randy Moss (Super Bowl analyst)

Former
 Tom Jackson (Full season analyst, 1987–2005 and 2019–2020, contributor and playoff analyst 2006–2016)
 Pete Axthelm (Host, 1987–1990)
 John Saunders (Host, 1987–1989)
 Bill Pidto (Host, 1995–1996)
 Robin Roberts (Host, 1990–1994)
 Stuart Scott (Host, 1997–2006)
 Mike Golic (Analyst, 2006)
 Ron Jaworski (Analyst, 2006)
 Mike Ditka (Analyst, 2006–2007)
 Mark Schlereth (Analyst, 2006–2007)
 Trent Dilfer (Analyst 2008–2010)
 Merril Hoge (Analyst, 2006 – 2016)
 Trey Wingo (Host, 2006 – 2019)
 Tim Hasselbeck (Analyst, 2011 – 2020)
 John Fox (Analyst, 2019)
 Jeff Saturday (Analyst, 2017–2018 and 2020–2022)

See also
 Monday Night Countdown
 Monday Night Football
 NFL Insiders
 NFL Live
 NFL Matchup
 Sunday NFL Countdown

References

 Press Release

External links
 Official show page

ESPN original programming
1987 American television series debuts
1990s American television series
2000s American television series
2010s American television series
2020s American television series
Sunday Night Football
National Football League pregame television series

NFL Primetime


Memoir of Japanese Assassinations (日本暗殺秘録, Nihon ansatsu hiroku) is a 1969 Japanese historical drama film written and directed by Sadao Nakajima. The movie was based on a 1958 novel Secret Assassination by historian Tadashi Suzuki. This anthology film consists of nine incidents in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when assassins changed the course of Japanese history.

Much like the more well-known movie Tora! Tora! Tora!, which would premiere a year later in 1970, Memoirs of Japanese Assassins in a docudrama, which some might find boring, but  have a certain love for these types of historical films. Unlike Tora Tora Tora, this movie has no overall plot or protagonist and is just a series of scenes.

Despite being a country with low crime, political assassination has a long history in Japan. Although not nearly as common before World War II, there have been assassinations post-1945, most notably when 17 year old nationalist Otoya Yamaguchi killed chairman of the Japan Socialist Party Inejiro Asanuma on live TV in 1960.

Japanese assassins occupied a special place in the Japanese psyche. Often times, the sincerity of their beliefs were given consideration, and if they were motivated by selfless causes, their punishments were often less severe than a nonpolitical murder. That being said, this was not the case of all assassinations, with Japanese society far more divided than some postwar historians have portrayed it as, i.e. a regimented military dictatorship.

The assassinations depicted alternate between cold detachment and a sympathetic biopic.

Overview
The film set during the 19th and 20th centuries such as the bakumatsu era, the Meiji Restoration, the Taishō period, and the Shōwa period. Throughout the whole story, it depicts a young assassins who is full of pure and beautiful energy of the dissident and confronts the power of time with the spirit of abandoned stones

This work focuses on the sadness of joining the clan and turning into a terrorist from the birth of the main character, Shō Onuma (played by Sonny Chiba), and the League of Blood Incident from the assassination of Junnosuke Inoue in 1932.

Chiba took a break from the TV drama "Key Hunter", which he starred in, and devoted himself to it, awakening while suffering , and politely played Onuma in his youth. Chiezō Kataoka for Nissho Inoue, a radical Buddhist preacher of Nichirenism who leads Onuma, Jiro Tamiya for Hitoshi Fujii, a cadet officer of the Imperial Japanese Navy who participate in the May 15 Incident, and Sumiko Fuji for Takako, an employee whom Onuma meets again. it was arranged and the sides are solidified.

Of the 142 minutes of screening time, the shooting for the League of Blood Incident chapter was about 100 minutes, and the rest is mainly the moment of assassination on the omnibus. These incidents are the Sakuradamon Incident (1860), the Kioisaka Incident (1878), the Assassination of Ōkuma Shigenobu (1889), the Attack on Hoshi Tōru (1901), the Killing of Yasuda Zenjirō (1921), the Guillotine Society Incident (1924), the League of Blood Incident (1932), the Aizawa Incident (1935), and the February 26 Incident (1936) in that order.

Cast
Chapter 1: Sakuradamon Incident (桜田門外の変, Sakuradamon-gai no Hen)

Date: March 24, 1860

Location: Sakurada Gate, Edo Castle, present-day Tokyo, Japan

Period time: Bakumatsu era

 Plot: Infuriated by his unequal treaties with the West and perceived slights against certain daimyo lords, these samurai marked him for death, killing him outside the Sakurada Gate of Edo Castle. The late Tokugawa Era – Bakamatsu – from 1853 – 1868 was notorious for political assassinations, bordering on civil war.

Characters:

 Tomisaburō Wakayama as Arimura Jisaemon: A lone samurai of the group who was not from Mito since he was a samurai from Satsuma Domain.  Drawing the injured and likely paralyzed Ii out, Arimura decapitated Ii and then performed seppuku.
 Shintaro Nasu as Ii Naosuke: daimyō of Hikone and also Tairō of the Tokugawa shogunate, Japan, a position he held from April 23, 1858, until his death.
 Takaya Shimoyama as Hidenojō Ogawara: A close follower of Arimura and a Mito assassin who fired the Japanese-made Colt 1851 Navy Revolver at the palanquin containing Ii inside.

Chapter 2: Kioisaka Incident (紀尾井坂の変, Kioi-zaka no hen)

Date: May 14, 1878

Location: Kojimachi. Tokyo Prefecture

Period time: Meiji era

 Plot: In 1878, one of the Three Great Nobles of the Restoration and statesman Ōkubo Toshimichi, had his carriage surrounded by disgruntled samurai from the former Kaga Domain led by Shimada Ichirō, a samurai who remained loyal to Saigo Takamori. Okubo was from Satsuma, the western province that played an important part in toppling the Tokugawa Shogunate and restoring the Emperor to power. In 1877, a rebellion broke out were a group of former samurais under the command of Takamori revolt against the Meiji government. This is known as the Satsuma Rebellion. Okubo sided with the government and when Saigo died in the final battle, many people in Satsuma considered Okubo a traitor and marked him for death. His servant Taro Nakamura was also violently stabbed to death by two samurais, Otogiku Sugimoto and Chō Tsurahide.

Characters:

 Jūrō Kara as Shimada Ichirō: A samurai from the Kaga Domain and follower of Saigo Takamori. He is also the lead assassin on Ōkubo Toshimichi.
 Masao Hori as Ōkubo Toshimichi: Statesman and one of the Three Great Nobles regarded as the main founders of modern Japan. Ōkubo was a samurai of the Satsuma Domain and joined the movement to overthrow the ruling Tokugawa Shogunate during the Bakumatsu period. Upon the founding of the new Empire of Japan, Ōkubo became a leading member of the Meiji Restoration and a prominent member of the Meiji oligarchy.
 Isamu Tsuchihashi as Taro Nakamura: A servant of the first Lord of Home Affairs Okubo Toshimichi. As he jumps out of the carriage and told the two men who are blocking the road. he was killed when Sugimoto unhinged his katana and cut his forehead, killing him.
 Yasumori Hikita as Yoshikichi Odaka: Okubo's personal coachman who was also the victim of the incident.
 Toshio Tomogane as Otogiku Sugimoto: One of the assassin who sliced Nakamura's forehead.
 Keiichi Noda as Hisaatsu Asai: Another assassin who stabbed Toshimichi in the stomach before cutting him down.

Chapter 3: Okuma Shigenobu Case Incident  (大隈重信遭難事件, Ōkuma shigenobu sōnan jiken)

Date: October 18, 1889

Location: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kasumigaseki, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo

Period time: Meiji era

 Plot: In 1889, Foreign Minister Ōkuma Shigenobu was attempting to renegotiate some of the "unequal treaties" with Western countries. Like China, Japan was forced to accept some of these lopsided agreements, though they were never as humiliating as what the West inflicting upon China. Added to that was the "weak-kneed" foreign policy like not interfering with Korea's internal politics that enraged right-wing nationalists. Chief among them was the infamous Dark Ocean Society (Genyosha) which led to one of its members, Tsuneki Kurashima, lobbed a bomb at Okuma, which only succeeded in blowing off his leg, before committed a grisly suicide.

Characters:

 Teruo Yoshida as Tsuneki Kurashima: A right-wing nationalist, activist, ex-social class samurai from the former Fukuoka Domain and a terrorist. He is also a member of the Chikuzen Kyoai Public Association and the assassin for the Genyosha. Although he attempted to assassinate with a bomb, Okuma was seriously injured by losing his right leg, and Kurushima, who had failed to complete his task, committed suicide by slitting his throat with a dagger.
 Kunijiro Yanagi as Ōkuma Shigenobu: Statesman and a prominent member of the Meiji oligarchy. He served as Prime Minister of the Empire of Japan in 1898 and from 1914 to 1916. Ōkuma was also an early advocate of Western science and culture in Japan, and founder of Waseda University. He served as Foreign Minister to deal with the difficult issue of negotiation revisions to the "unequal treaties" with the Western powers.
 Michimaro Otabe as Police officer at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Chapter 4: Hoshi Tōru Case Incident (星亨暗殺事件, Hoshi tōru ansatsu jiken)

Date: June 21, 1901

Location: Tokyo City Hall

Period time: Meiji era

 Plot: In 1901, a middle-aged fencing instructor named Iba Sōtarō brutally murdered cabinet minister Hoshi Tōru. A local politician, Hoshi was mired in a corruption scandal, but ultimately acquitted. He was stabbed to death while talking with the mayor, assistants, and council members. Sōtarō, who entered the room with a sword, said "I am killing the wrongdoers for the sake of the world."

Characters:

 Toshio Chiba as Toru Hoshi: A politician and cabinet minister in Meiji period Japan. He was accused by the Mainichi Shimbun of involvement in a corruption scandal within the Tokyo City Assembly. Although he protested his innocence, he was forced to resign three months later due to a relentless campaign against his name by the newspaper. In March, he was found innocent due to lack of evidence, but during the middle of the trial, he was assassinated by Iba Sōtarō.
 Masaaki Okabe as Iba Sōtarō: A fencing instructor, director of Bunyukan Private School and 10th generation of the shingyōtō-ryū swordsmanship. He is also the perpetrator who killed corrupt politician Toru Hoshi in 1901. Sōtarō was guilty for first degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. He was transferred to the Kosuga Prison in 1902 for the rest of his life until his death in 1907.
 Hideo Fujimoto as the Meeting attendees who tries to stop Sōtarō from killing Hoshi.

Chapter 5: Assassination of Yasuda Zenjirō Incident (安田善次郎暗殺事件, Yasuda zenjirō ansatsu jiken)

Date: September 28, 1921

Location: Oiso, Kanagawa

Period: Taishō era

 Plot: In 1921, the head of the Yasusa Zaibatsu Conglomerate – Yasuda Zenjirō – was assassinated by Heigo Asahi, leader of the patriotic society Righteousness Corps of the Divine Land. It has a better ring in Japanese. Determined to build a hotel for poor laborers, Asahi requested a financial donation from the wealthy Yasuda, but was turned down. Whether motivated by greed or pure ideals, Asahi proceeded to slaughter Yasuda with a yoroi-doshi sword.

Characters:

 Bunta Sugawara as Heigo Asahi: Political activist, right wing populist and leader Righteousness Corps of the Divine Land, a labor society group for the workers. Known as the assassin who murdered Yasuda Zenjirō, a businessman and founder of Yasusa Zaibatsu Conglomerate
 Yasuhiko Shima as Yasuda Zenjirō: Entrepreneur and founder of the Yasuda zaibatsu (安田財閥). He is also the great-grandfather of Yoko Ono.

Chapter 6: Guillotine Society Incident (ギロチン社事件, Girochin-sha jiken)

Date: September 10, 1923

Location: Osaka

Period: Taishō era

 Plot: In 1923, a young nationalist named Daijirō Furuta formed an anarchist group known as the Guillotine Society (ギロチン社, Girochin-sha). In the aftermath of the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, the government murdered several prominent anarchists, including Ito Noe and Osugi Sakae – out of fear that they might take advantage of the chaos to overthrow Emperor Taishō. Outraged and seeking revenge, 26 year old Furata conspired with like-minded anarchists in his Guillotine Society to assassinate Crown Prince Hirohito. Lacking funds, Furata targeted a bank teller transporting funds in a briefcase. The awkward and bumbling Furata haphazardly stab the teller over and over, before finally wresting the briefcase from the dead man's hands. Needless to say, this incompetent amateur was soon arrested, tried, and executed for treason.

Characters:

 Choei Takahashi as Daijirō Furuta: A 26 year old nationalist who formed his own group in revenge the death of two anarchists. He and his close college friends, Yoshio Ogawa and Kinichi Uchida are coming up with an idea of taking down members of government officials. But after he accidentally murder the banker in order to acquired funds, he was arrested by the police and judge sentenced him to death. On October 15, 1925, Furata wrote his last dairy entry called The Repentance of Death (死の悔い改め, Shi no kuiaratame) before he was hanged at Ichigaya Prison.
 Yoshihiro Igarashi as Yoshio Ogawa: A close friend of Daijirō Furuta and a nationalist.
 Ryozo Maekawa as Kinichi Uchida: Another nationalist and fellow member of the group
 Toshimitsu Mori as the banker who was stabbed by Furuta
 Tensaku Murata as the bank assistant who tries to stop the three nationalist
 Tatsumi Hijikata as Jailer at Ichigaya Prison

Chapter 7: League of Blood Incident (血盟団事件, Ketsumeidan Jiken)

Date: 1932

Location: mainland Japan

Period: Showa era

Japanese movies
1969 movies
Movies based on books
Movies based on real life events
Movies about miscarriage of justice
Movies about assassinations

Memoir of Japanese Assassinations


Marc Lièvremont (born 28 October 1968) is a former rugby union footballer and was the head coach of the French national rugby union team. He played as a back-row forward for France, gaining 25 caps from 1995 to 1999, and was selected in France's 1999 Rugby World Cup squad. He also played with the French Rugby Sevens team and with the French Barbarians.

Born 28 October 1968 in Dakar, Senegal to a military father from the Franche-Comté and a mother from Lorraine, he was raised in Argelès-sur-Mer with his six younger brothers and one younger sister who all play or played rugby at different high levels. Two are or have been international rugby players: Thomas (who was also part of France's 1999 Rugby World Cup squad and is now coach of Dax) and Matthieu. The only girl of the family, Claire, was a semi-professional, winning a French Championship with Toulouges in 2005. The two younger twins, Pierre and Luc are also playing for l'Avenir Castanéen, a Fédérale 2 side (4th Division), as a centre and openside flanker respectively. Finally, François used to play for USA Perpignan, during the 1990s.

Lièvremont began his rugby career with amateur club Étoile sportive catalane. He then played for Perpignan, Stade Français (Top 14), in 1998 and 2000, as well as Biarritz Olympique.

After retiring from rugby, Lièvremont turned to coaching at US Dax, whom he guided to promotion to the Top 14 in 2007. In a surprise move, French Rugby Federation president Bernard Lapasset, who is now chairman of the IRB, appointed Lièvremont as the new head coach of the French national side after the 2007 Rugby World Cup, replacing Bernard Laporte. As assistants, former French teammate Émile Ntamack was appointed to coach the backs, while Didier Retière was nominated as the new forwards coach.

In 2010 Lièvremont coached France to win the 2010 Six Nations Championship and Grand Slam beating England 12–10. The following year, however, pressure began to mount on him after Six Nation losses to England 17–9 and Italy 22–21 – the latter of which was the first time Italy had beaten France, and came after France had led by twelve points with twenty minutes remaining and the next week France beat Wales 28–9.
At the 2011 Rugby World Cup, he guided France to the final where they played hosts New Zealand, losing 8-7 after a very well played game. Lièvremont branded a section of his squad "spoilt brats" after he discovered some players went out to celebrate the semi-final win against Wales. He also did not make an appearance for the after-match interview, sending his assistant instead.  However, veteran back-rower Imanol Harinordoquy, who publicly criticized Lièvremont during the tournament for browbeating the team in the media, indicated after the tournament that the team had rebelled against him after the pool stage, and had effectively managed themselves in the knockout rounds.

Honours
 Stade Français
French Rugby Union Championship/Top 14: 1997–98

Notes and references

External links
Statistics at scrum.com
Photo sporting-heroes

1968 births
Living people
French rugby union players
France international rugby union players
Rugby union flankers
Biarritz Olympique players
Sportspeople from Dakar
US Dax coaches
France national rugby union team coaches
Sportspeople from Pyrénées-Orientales
Rugby union players from Occitania (administrative region)
USA Perpignan players
French rugby union coaches
Stade Français Paris players
1999 Rugby World Cup players

Marc Lièvremont


Ube crinkles, also known as purple yam crinkles, are Filipino cookies made from purple yam, flour, eggs, baking powder, butter, and sugar. They are characteristically deep purple in color and are typically rolled in powdered sugar or glazed. They have a crunchy exterior and a soft chewy center.

References

Cookies
Philippine desserts
Crinkles

Ube crinkles


Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones (born Elizabeth Huntingdon Jones; November 8, 1885 – December 26, 1968) was an American painter who lived in New York City, Philadelphia, and Paris, France. She had a successful career as a painter at the turn of the century, exhibiting her works internationally and winning awards. She had a mental breakdown that caused a break in her career, and she returned to have a successful second career, creating modern watercolor paintings. She was a resident at three artist colonies, with notable artists, writers, and musicians. Sparhawk-Jones' works are in American art museums, including the Art Institute of Chicago, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Museum of Modern Art.

Personal life

Family

Elizabeth Huntingdon Jones was born on November 8, 1885, the daughter of Rev. John Sparhawk Jones, D.D. and Harriet Sterett Winchester, who grew up in Northern Baltimore County on the Clynmalira estate. John Sparhawk Jones was a clergyman at the Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church in Baltimore's Bolton Hill until 1890. The Sparhawk-Joneses moved to Philadelphia after John suffered a deep depression and he became the pastor of the Calvary Church in 1894.

Her mother was a domineering woman who nonetheless believed in allowing children to follow their talents and interests. She introduced Elizabeth and her sister Margaret to classic literature. Both of her parents encouraged Elizabeth to pursue her interest in art, which began at about seven years of age. She won first place in a nationwide art contest as a child and left school at about 15 years of age to attend the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA).

Elizabeth's first love was Morton Livingston Schamberg, who was a fellow artist and student at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Her parents, though, did not approve of her relationship with Schamberg, likely because he was Jewish. In 1906, she was persuaded by her parents to turn down the coveted two-year traveling scholarship from PAFA, which would have had her in Paris at the same time as Schamberg. Their relationship then ended.

In 1907, Elizabeth changed her name to Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones to honor her father's mother.

While the family of four was on vacation, Elizabeth's father died on August 20, 1910, in Vermont at Bread Loaf. That year, Margaret graduated from University of Pennsylvania with a Master's Degree. Margaret married Bayard Turnbull in Paris in October 1913 against her mother's wishes. Harriet pressed Elizabeth to side with her, which resulted in a strained relationship between the sisters for many years. Elizabeth became exhausted from her career efforts, the strain in the relationship with her sister Margaret, and family financial losses.

Mental breakdown
Sparhawk-Jones struggled with depression, like her father, and when she was not well she burned her paintings, which reduced the number of works available for sale. In 1913, Sparhawk-Jones had a mental breakdown and lived in the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane for three years. The experience was hard on her and she was forever changed. Sparhawk-Jones was terrified and lonely at the asylum, and may have been subject to opium or sedative drugs. She moved in with her mother after she was released from the hospital in 1916. Sparhawk-Jones dealt with the losses of her teacher William Merritt Chase, who died in 1916, and Morton Shamburg, who died in 1918. She said that she did not work as an artist for about 12 years.

Relationships

Sparhawk-Jones appreciated the company of writers over other artists, and enjoyed the periods when she lived at artist retreats, like MacDowell Colony and Yaddo, which had resident writers, musicians, and artists. Edwin Arlington Robinson (1868–1935), a Pulitzer Prize winning poet, and Sparhawk-Jones visited the MacDowell Colony at the same times over a cumulative total of ten years. They had a romantic relationship in which she was in love with him, devoted to him, understood him, and did not press for a more intimate relationship. He called her Sparhawk and was courteous towards her. They had a relationship that D. H. Tracy described as "courtly, quiet, and intense." When he died, Sparhawk-Jones attended his vigil and then painted several paintings in his memory. She described him as a charming, sensitive, and emotionally grounded man with high moral values.

Sparhawk-Jones was a friend of Nancy Cox-McCormack, with whom she corresponded between 1935 and 1956, Marsden Hartley, and Hudson Walker (of the Hudson Walker Gallery). Sparhawk-Jones was known for her humor and wit, but confided in a 1964 oral history interview that she always felt lonely, preferring a quiet lifestyle.

Residences
Sparhawk-Jones lived part of her adult life in and around Philadelphia, including the rural Westtown Township, Pennsylvania. She visited Paris often for up to six months at a time, returning to spend time with her family. In the mid-1950s, she moved to Paris and lived there at least through the mid-1960s.

Education

Sparhawk-Jones studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA). From about 1900, when she was 15 through about 1903, when Thomas Anshutz, Charles Sheeler, and Morton Livingston Schamberg were there. Anshutz taught sketch classes with plaster cast models and dressed models. She received letters of encouragement and critiques by William Merritt Chase, who taught a portrait and life class. During one of the summers at PAFA, she studied in Paris at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere, where she found the life drawing classes freer than in the United States. In Paris, models included adolescents and pretty young women, and there was an openness and comfort with nudity. Sparhawk-Jones attended Darby School of Painting at Fort Washington, under Anshutz, who was co-founder of the summer school and taught there through 1910. She learned modern art through Schamberg, who was a romantic interest at PAFA.

Career

Early career

Sparhawk-Jones was supporting herself through the sales of her oil and watercolor paintings by the time she was eighteen. She painted scenes of women reading or shopping as well as mothers and children walking through a park. Her Impressionist works, known for their vivid colors, were exhibited internationally in 1908, like the Carnegie Institute's international exhibition where she was the only woman to win anything and the only artist from the United States to receive an honorable mention. That year, The New York Times called her "the find of the year", having found her painting The Porch to be the "most unforgettable canvas" in the exhibition that they reviewed. Her use of color and expressive brush strokes were compared by art critics to William Merritt Chase's style.

She exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and in 1908 and 1912 was awarded the Mary Smith Prize. The 1908 prize was won for Roller Skates and the 1912 prize was won for a painting of a flower shop in Paris entitled In the Spring, noted for its radiant colors. Sparhawk-Jones's portrait, painted by Alice Kent Stoddard before 1911, is in the collection of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

Shoe Shop, which she painted in 1911, captures the chaotic shopping excursions of the cosmopolitan New Women of the 20th century. This is compared to the more sedate painting by William Glackens entitled The Shoppers (1907). Both paintings, though, capture wealthy women who have a new-found interest in shopping in the city, evidenced by the crowded figures in the paintings. The Journal of the American Medical Association, which used Shoe Shop as its March 24, 1999 cover, described Sparhawk-Jones as "witty, spirited, and talented". She received positive critical attention for her paintings, but Sparhawk-Jones did not enjoy and avoided promoting her work.

Her painting Shop Girls  was exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago as part of an intention to pick "eye-popping" or "little masterpieces of compactness and stimulation" from American artists' works of the late 19th century and early 20th-century. Now in the Art Institute's collection, Shop Girls was the first woman's painting bought by the Friends of American Art of the Art Institute. It was purchased in 1913 from Sparhawk-Jones for $550. Women's paintings were not generally as revered as paintings by men, which could fetch several thousands of dollars per painting at that time. The painting was made into a poster in the 1980s by the New York Department of Labor, which had the following quotation:

Low point
She hit a low point in her career when she suffered from mental illness and was admitted to an asylum in 1913. She exhibited work in the mid 1910s, for example at the 1916 exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts when she exhibited The Gardener.

Artist colonies

She was one of the resident painters in the MacDowell Colony, run by Marian MacDowell in Peterborough, New Hampshire. Lilla Cabot Perry was another of the resident painters. The colony provided residence and a place for men and women to develop their literary, artistic, or musical talent. Sparhawk-Jones was identified as one of the "men and women who have gone on to enrich American life". Among the other named influential people were Puerto Rican Governor and poet Luis Muñoz Marín, novelists Willa Cather and Thornton Wilder, and poet Edwin Arlington Robinson. According to Starhawk-Jones, she was there for a sum total of about ten years, and Robinson was there during each of her stays.

In 1928, she was a resident at Yaddo, a 400-acre estate and artist community in Saratoga Springs, New York founded by Spencer and Katrina Trask. She continued to receive invitations to visit Yaddo for one- to two-month stays over the years, and her works were exhibited with those of Yaddo residents after her stays, such as in 1956 when two of her watercolor paintings incorporated in a Yaddo exhibit at Schenectady Museum while she was living in Europe. Other former Yaddo residents include Langston Hughes, Katherine Anne Porter, Truman Capote, and Sylvia Plath.

For two or three years, she lived and worked in Florida at the Research Institute (now Maitland Art Center), which was run by Mary Louise Curtis Bok, later the wife of Efrem Zimbalist, and Andre Smith. Her works were exhibited at the Research Studio Gallery in late March and early April 1940.

Later career
She encouraged gallery and Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts shows of the works of self-taught Horace Pippin, of whom she said: "For me he is one of the few real artists in our century, when he is at his best."

In the 1940 book Pennsylvania; a Guide to the Keystone State, Sparhawk-Jones was identified as one of the state's "important young artists". William Alexander Newman Dorland also identified her as a talented woman painter, along with Cecilia Beaux and other American and English painters in his book The Sum of Feminine Achievement. She reestablished a successful career of modern works in the 1940s, during which she lived in Philadelphia. Sparhawk-Jones has particularly had a following in Chicago and Philadelphia.

In 1940, she combined watercolor and oil in The Generations. Of her talent, realized in the painting, Marsden Hartley said, "It seems to be with something of a mental rapier that she conceives her subject matter for [her] pictures border on the exceptionally forceful and they are different in thought, as well as execution, from the work of most of the soft painters among men and women. She is a thinking painter with a rare sense of the drama of poetic and romantic incident."

She painted with watercolor in the 1940s, producing works such as The Dreamer which is in the permanent collection of the Delaware Art Museum.
Curator Heather Campbell Coyle compared it to Michelangelo's The Dream (c.1533) and Francisco Goya's Capricho 43: The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (1799). In Sparhawk-Jones' painting, the dreamer is a sleeping nude woman surrounded by images that seem to reflect her eerie nightmare. A skeleton lies against a stone in the foreground and above her nude women are carried by "winged creatures" into the darkness. Women are also carried away by men with wings, dressed in business suits. The painting has a composition similar to Michelangelo's painting, but Coyle states that, to her, the work is more similar to Goya's painting that also includes winged creatures above the sleeping subject of the painting.

Sparhawk-Jones was called a phenomenon in 1944 in an American Artist magazine, in which the author questioned, "Strange, that she is not recognized far and wide as among the ablest, most distinguished women painters in the United States." Sparhawk-Jones may not have attained greater fame, because at that time there was a "glass ceiling" for women artists that prevented them from attaining significant notoriety, according to biographer Townsend Ludington. Jerry Saltz of the Village Voice, for example, found that modern women painters, born 1879 to 1969, only accounted for 5% of the paintings in the Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection, which includes one of her paintings, Startled Woman. Barbara Lehmen Smith postulated about additional theories. For instance, it could also have been because she didn't promote her paintings, further complicated by her destruction of paintings when she was ill. Another theory is that she was not taken seriously because of her periods of mental illness.

An exhibition of her watercolor paintings was held at PAFA in April 1948. Beginning in the mid-1950s and into the mid-1960s, she lived and enjoyed painting in Paris at the Saint Roman hotel near Tuileries Garden and the Louvre. Her work was featured in a story in the summer 1954 issue of the New Mexico Quarterly. Sparhawk-Jones was described as an emotional painter who created spiritual works of art in the 1960s. She was interviewed in 1964 for an oral history project by Ruth Gurin Bowman, curator of New York University's art collection, who gave the interview materials to the Archives of American Art. That year she won an award for her painting of a seascape at the Silvermine Guild of Artists show in New England.

Death and legacy
Sparhawk-Jones died on December 26, 1968, in a hospital in Connecticut. She was buried in the same cemetery as her parents in Immanuel Episcopal Church, Glencoe, Maryland; her sister was later buried there too.

Papers about Sparhawk-Jones' career, including exhibition catalogs, sketches, artist's statements, and newspaper clippings are held at the Victor Building in the Smithsonian American Art Museum / National Portrait Gallery Library. In 2010, Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones: The Artist Who Lived Twice, a biography of her life, was written and published by Barbara Leham Smith. Her research included four boxes of materials that had originally belonged to Sparhawk-Jones that were inadvertently included with Smith's boxes during an office move from La Paix, the former home of Margaret Sparhawk Jones Turnbull, to another St. Joseph Medical Center location about 1993.

Collections

Actor Claude Rains was a collector of her works. Her works in private collections are valued up to $250,000 and are in the following public collections:
 Art Institute of Chicago
 Shoe Shop, , oil on canvas
 Shop Girls, , oil
 Delaware Art Museum – The Dreamer, , tempora on board
 Metropolitan Museum of Art – Caryatides, 1940 watercolor on linen
 Museum of Modern Art – Startled Woman, , oil on canvas
 Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
 The Market, before 1909, oil
 Woman with Fish, 1936 or 1937, oil on canvas
 Whitney Museum of American Art – The Sea Claims its Own, 1961, oil on canvas
 Wichita Art Museum – The Generations, , watercolor and oil on silk

Notes

References

Further reading

Exhibition catalogs

About Sparhawk-Jones

External links

1885 births
1968 deaths
20th-century American painters
American women painters
American watercolorists
20th-century American women artists
People from Baltimore County, Maryland
Painters from Philadelphia
Painters from Maryland
Students of William Merritt Chase
Women watercolorists
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts alumni

Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones


A highest averages method is a way of electing candidates that gives proportional representation. It works by looking at the number of votes that political parties have and giving seats to each party when a party can "average" more votes for each seat it gets than any other party. The D'Hondt method and the Webster method are two common highest average methods.

Voting systems

Highest averages method


A river valley civilization is an agricultural nation or civilization situated beside and drawing sustenance from a river. A river gives the inhabitants a reliable source of water for drinking and agriculture. Additional benefits include fishing, fertile soil due to annual flooding, and ease of transportation.

Overview
The Uruk period of Mesopotamia dates from about 4000 to  and provides the earliest signs of the existence of states in the Near East. Located along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the Middle East, the name given to that civilization, Mesopotamia, means "between rivers". The Nile valley in Egypt had been home to agricultural settlements as early as 5500 BCE, but the growth of Ancient Egypt as a civilization began around 3100 BCE. A third civilization grew up along the Indus River around 3300 BCE in parts of what is now India and Pakistan (see Bronze Age India). The fourth great river civilization emerged around 1700 BCE along the Yellow River in China.

Civilizations tended to grow up in river valleys for a number of reasons. The most obvious is access to a usually reliable source of water for agriculture and other needs. Plentiful water and the enrichment of the soil due to annual floods made it possible to grow excess crops beyond what was needed to sustain an agricultural village. This allowed for some members of the community to engage in non-agricultural activities, such as the construction of buildings and cities (the root of the word "civilization"), metalworking, trade, and social organization. Boats on the river provided an easy and efficient way to transport people and goods, allowing for the development of trade and facilitating central control of outlying areas.

History

Early civilizations

Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia was one of the earliest river valley civilizations, starting to form around 4000 BCE. The civilization was created after regular trading started relationships between multiple cities and states around the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Mesopotamian cities became self-run civil governments. One of the cities within this civilization, Ur, was the first literate society in history. Eventually, they constructed irrigation systems to exploit the two rivers, transforming their dry land into an agriculturally productive area, allowing population growth throughout the cities and states within Mesopotamia.

Nile River
Ancient Egypt also created irrigation systems from its local river, the Nile River, more complex than previous systems. The Egyptians would rotate legumes with cereal, which would stop salt buildup from the freshwater and enhance the fertility of their fields. The Nile River also allowed easier travel, eventually resulting in the creation of two kingdoms in the north and south areas of the river until both were unified into one society by 3000 BCE.

Indus valley
Much of the history of the Indus valley civilization is unknown. Discovered in the 1920s, Harappan society remains a mystery because the Harappan system of writing has not yet been deciphered. It was larger than either Egypt or Mesopotamia. Historians have found no evidence of violence or a ruling class; there are no distinctive burial sites, and there is not a lot of evidence to suggest a formal military. However, historians believe that the lack of knowledge about the ruling class and the military is mainly due to the inability to read Harappan writing.

Yellow River
The Yellow River was settled in 9500 BCE. Many tribes settled along the river, sixth-longest in the world, which was distinguished by its heavy load of yellow silt and its periodic devastating floods. A major impetus for the tribes to unite into a single kingdom by around 1700 BCE (Erlitou culture, a Yellow River civilization) was the desire to find a solution to the frequent deadly floods. The Yellow River is often called "The Cradle of Chinese Civilization".

Supe Valley
Caral-Supe (also known as Caral and Norte Chico) was a complex pre-Columbian-era society that included as many as thirty major population centers in what is now the Caral region of north-central coastal Peru. The civilization flourished between the fourth and second millennia BC, with the formation of the first city generally dated to around 3500 BC, at Huaricanga, in the Fortaleza area. It is from 3100 BC onward that large-scale human settlement and communal construction become clearly apparent, which lasted until a period of decline around 1800 BC. Since the early twenty-first century, it has been established as the oldest-known civilization in the Americas, and as one of the six sites where civilisation separately originated in the ancient world.

See also
Hydraulic empire
Ancient Egypt
Mesopotamia
Meluha

References

Sources

Further reading
Clayton, Peter A. & Dent, John (1973). The Ancient River Civilizations: Western Man & the Modern World. Elsevier.

Agriculture by type
Bronze Age civilizations

River valley civilization


Ameny was an ancient Egyptian official of the Twelfth Dynasty, most likely in office under king Amenemhat II. Ameny was a great overseer of the troops and is mainly known from a series of stelae (Paris, Louvre C 35, Cairo CG 20546, London, British Museum 162 once set up at Abydos and there adorning a chapel. On these stelae, he bears the most important ranking titles of a member of the elite, foremost of action, royal sealer and sole friend. As a great overseer of the troops, he was the leading official at the royal responsible for organizing manpower that was used in military enterprises, but also for building projects. Ameny was the son of a person called Qebu. On each stelae a different wife is mentioned. These are Itet, Renefankh and Medhu. His tomb was found at Lisht, but is not yet fully excavated. The stelae of Ameny are not dated by any king's name. However, on stylistic grounds, they most likely date under king Senusret I and Amenemhat II. Some of the biographical phrases on the stelae indicate a date more precisely under the latter king.

References

Ancient Egyptian overseers of the troops
Officials of the Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt

Ameny (general)


Ponta Negra (Portuguese: Black Tip) is a beach and neighborhood located in the Brazilian city of Natal, the capital of the state of Rio Grande do Norte. Located in the extreme south of the beach is the Morro do Careca (Portuguese: Bald Man's Hill), a large dune and a landmark of the city.  Located in the extreme north of the beach is the Via Costeira (Coastal Way), a coastal road that connects Ponta Negra with several other beaches of the city, such as Areia Preta and Praia dos Artistas.

The beach is completely urbanized and there are several shops, restaurants, bars, night clubs, and hotels. The sand itself is lined with "tents", or huts, called barracas, which serve food and drinks. A common sight on the beach are jangadas, simple, multicolored, local fishing boats typical of northeastern Brazil.

Beaches of Brazil
Landforms of Rio Grande do Norte
Tourist attractions in Rio Grande do Norte
Natal, Rio Grande do Norte

Ponta Negra


Jip Jip Conservation Park (formerly the Jip Jip National Park) is a protected area in the Australian state of South Australia located in the state's south-east in the gazetted locality of  Marcollat about  south-east of the state capital of Adelaide and about  north-east of the municipal seat of  Kingston SE.

The conservation park consists of land in section 86 in the cadastral unit of the Hundred of Peacock which is located on the northern side of Ballater Road, also known as the Kingston - Keith road.   On 20 March 1967, it was proclaimed under the National Parks Act 1966 as Jip Jip National Park.  On 27 April 1972, it was reconstituted as Jip Jip Conservation Park upon the proclamation of the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1972.  The land includes Jip Jip Rocks, a local landmark consisting of granite outcrops and a "gently sloping hill".  It is reported that the dedication of the national park followed a "protracted dispute and considerable public interest in protecting the granite outcrops."   As of 2018, it covered an area of .

In 1980, it was described as follows:
Jip Jip is best known for its granitic outcrops which are part of the Padthaway Rise.  However, the park also contains Asplenium flabellifolium which is an endangered fern and six other plant species which are rare in South Australia…  Over sixty species of birds have been recorded and one of the mammals recorded, Cercartetus lepidus (little pigmy possum), is uncommon in SA…  Jip Jip Conservation Park features granitic inselbergs surrounded by sandy swales and ridges.  The dominant plant community on the sandy areas is Eucalyptus baxteri/E. fasciculosa low open forest with heath understorey.  Smaller areas of E. fasciculosa/E. baxteri/E. diversifolia (open scrub) and Melaleuca gibbosa/Hakea rugosa (open heath) occupy the depressions.  Around the granitic outcrops Casuarina stricta is a prominent tree with the eucalypts and tall shrubs of Bursaria spinosa, Dodonaea viscosa, Melaleuca uncinata and Prostanthera behriana are common.  The park is relatively unmodified although it is a popular picnic spot.

As of 1992, visitors to the conservation park was "local residents for picnics, walking and viewing the granite outcrops, as well as by bird observers and field naturalists."

The conservation park is classified as an IUCN Category III protected area.  In 1980, it was listed on the now-defunct Register of the National Estate.

See also
Protected areas of South Australia

References

External links
Webpage for the Jip Jip Conservation Park on the Protected Planet website

 Conservation parks of South Australia
Protected areas established in 1967
1967 establishments in Australia
South Australian places listed on the defunct Register of the National Estate
Limestone Coast

Jip Jip Conservation Park


The GNU Free Documentation License (GNU FDL or simply GFDL) is a copyleft license for open content such as software. It was made by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) for the GNU project. It was initially created for use with software documentation, but can be applied to other types of works as well, such as Wikipedia.

As a copyright license, the GFDL is a type of contract between the creator of a copyrightable work (such as a book, an encyclopedia article, a painting, or a piece of music) and anyone else who might want to use it. The GFDL is considered "copyleft" because the license is meant to make it easier to use and re-use the copyrighted work, not to restrict its use.

If a copyrightable work is released under the GFDL, the creator of the work is saying that anyone else may reproduce, distribute, or modify the work, as long as they follow a set of requirements specified in the GFDL. Among the requirements of the GFDL are that any new work created from the original work is also licensed under the GFDL—that is, once something is licensed as GFDL, it will always stay licensed as GFDL, and anything which uses it also is licensed as GFDL.

The GFDL also says that in order to distribute or modify a work licensed with the GFDL, the re-user must give credit to any previous authors of the work, and include a list of changes they made to the work.

Finally, any work licensed with the GFDL must contain, somewhere, the entire text of the license. This provision has been criticized, because it is not always easy to include an entire, long license with a copyrighted work. In a book, for example, it is easy to include one extra page with the license, but if the work is something like a song, or a photograph, it is not easy.

The GFDL has other requirements that are more complicated. For example, if part of the work is labeled as an "invariant section," it cannot ever be removed or changed by someone using the work ("invariant" means "does not change").

Works licensed under the GFDL may be included in with non-GFDL-licensed works only if it is clear which parts of the work are licensed as the GFDL. For example, in a book of poetry it would be easy to label some poems as licensed under the GFDL and some not licensed under it. But it would not be easy to label if part of a song was licensed as GFDL and the rest was not, so this would not be allowed.

Any use of GFDL material which violates the terms of the GFDL is potentially copyright infringement. Infringement issues are managed through a community based approach with the approval and assistance of the Free Software Foundation.

A number of online projects use the GFDL. An online project to license its content under the GFDL is Wikipedia.

The GFDL has been criticized by many people who wish that it made it even easier for content to be re-used. Among the criticisms are that it is very hard to combine GFDL material with other copyleft licenses, that it is not always clear and easy to understand, and that some of its requirements, such as the "invariant sections", are not free at all.

History
The GFDL was released in draft form for feedback in September 1999. After revisions, version 1.1 was issued in March 2000, version 1.2 in November 2002, and version 1.3 in November 2008. The current state of the license is version 1.3.

Conditions
Material licensed under the current version of the license can be used for any purpose, as long as the use meets certain conditions.

All previous authors of the work must be credited.
All changes to the work must be logged.
All derivative works must be licensed under the same license.
The full text of the license, unmodified invariant sections as defined by the author if any, and any other added warranty disclaimers (such as a general disclaimer alerting readers that the document may not be accurate for example) and copyright notices from previous versions must be maintained.
Technical measures such as DRM may not be used to control or obstruct distribution or editing of the document.

Related pages

 BSD license
 Copyleft
 Copyright
 Free software license
 GNU
 Non-commercial educational
 Open content
 Simple English "translation" of the GFDL text
 Share-alike
 Software licensing

References

Other websites

 FSF guide to the new drafts of documentation licenses
 GFDL official text
 Free Software and Free Manuals, essay by Richard Stallman
 Apple's Common Documentation License , an alternative license
Software licences

GNU Free Documentation License


Colin Higgins (28 July 1941 – 5 August 1988) was an Australian-American screenwriter, actor, director and producer. He is best known for writing the screenplay for Harold and Maude (1971) and Silver Streak (1976), and for directing Foul Play (1978) and 9 to 5 (1980). Higgins was openly gay.

Life and career
Higgins was born in Nouméa, New Caledonia, France. His mother was an Australian and his father was an American. He grew up in Sydney, New South Wales. He later lived and worked in the United States.

After graduating he was working as a part-time chauffeur and pool cleaner for a wealthy family in Los Angeles. There he met film producer Ed Lewis and showed him a draft of Harold and Maude. Ed then showed the draft to Robert Evans at Paramount. Higgins collaborated with Hal Ashby to make this film.

On 5 August 1988, Higgins died of an AIDS-related illness in Beverly Hills, California. He was 47.

References

Other websites
Colin Higgins Foundation

1941 births
1988 deaths
Actors from Sydney
American LGBT people
American movie actors
American movie directors
American movie producers
American screenwriters
American stage actors
Australian LGBT people
Australian movie actors
Australian movie directors
Australian movie producers
Australian screenwriters
Australian stage actors
Deaths from AIDS
Gay men
Infectious disease deaths in Los Angeles County, California
LGBT actors
LGBT screenwriters
Writers from Sydney

Colin Higgins


Tiffany Shlain
Tiffany Shlain, filmmaker and business leader, was born on April 8th, 1970.

The Webby Awards
Tiffany Shlain is most well known for making the Webby Awards, the "leading international honors for websites". The Webby Awards take place every year and give awards to the best websites.

Shlain is on the Leadership Board for the Center on Media and Child Health at Harvard's Children's Hospital in Boston. Besides being a business leader, Shlain's films have won many awards, such as "The Future Starts Here", which has been chosen for an Emmy award. Her signature style of filmmaking includes lots of vibrant action shots and animations. She engages her audience with bright and vivid images, thought-provoking keynotes, and humorous observations.

Rewards
Tiffany has received rewards for her films from many organizations, including Steven Spielberg's Righteous Person's Foundation. Shlain also gives convincing speeches that encourage people to think about where we are in the world in terms of connection and technology. There were over 11,000 broadcasts in the world of 50/50 thinking the Past, Present, and Future of Women + Power, which were all brought together to an online discussion in which Shlain talked about supporting gender equality. She also has been the closing speaker for TED Women and TED MED. The Webby Awards will continue even after Shlain's death.

1970 births
Living people
People from California
American filmmakers
Writers from California

Tiffany Shlain


BRMB is a British radio station based in Aston, Birmingham, which is owned and operated by Murfin Music International. It broadcasts on 89.1FM in Aston and surrounding areas, on DAB throughout Birmingham, and online via the station's website and mobile apps.

Originally launched on 19 February 1974, BRMB was one of the first Independent Local Radio stations to go on air in the UK. It was acquired by Capital Radio in 1993, and subsequently sold to Orion Media in 2008. Orion announced a rebrand of BRMB and its sister stations to Free Radio in 2012, and the BRMB name disappeared in March 2012 when it became Free Radio Birmingham. On 17 August 2023, Ofcom gave approval for Big City Radio, a Birmingham based community radio station, to be rebranded as BRMB, and it was announced that BRMB would relaunch on FM in Aston and DAB across Birmingham, while Big City Radio would move online. BRMB was relaunched at 11.52am on 4 September 2023 with Paul Young and Come Back and Stay as the first song and Jimmy Franks as the first presenter.

The original 1974 station launched the careers of many presenters who went on to become household names, both in the Midlands and beyond. Past presenters on BRMB include Les Ross, Tony Butler, Ed Doolan, Graham Torrington, Jeremy Kyle, Phil Upton, Caroline Martin and Elliott Webb. Butler is regarded as the inventor of the football phone-in, while Kyle went on to become a television presenter. BRMB also launched the Birmingham Walkathon, an event first staged in 1983 to raise money for charity, and which continues to be held to the present day.

History

Original station: 1974–2012

Early days
BRMB was first launched on 19 February 1974, on 261 metres medium wave, (1152kHz) and 94.8 MHz FM, and was based in Aston Road North at Radio House, a building previously used as television studios by ATV and ABC Weekend Television. BRMB was the fourth independent local commercial radio station to begin broadcasting in Britain, after LBC, Capital Radio and Radio Clyde. Broadcasting a mix of popular music with local news, live football coverage, information and specialist output, the station became popular amongst residents in Birmingham and later changed its main FM frequency from 94.8 to 96.4 in 1987.

The original station name, BRMB, was not an initialism (contrary to popular belief – some believed it stood for Birmingham Radio, Midlands Broadcasting). Instead, the original company, Birmingham Broadcasting Ltd., wanted something that combined a US-style call-sign with the company name – e.g. Birmingham – (BRM) and broadcasting – (B); equalling BRMB.

In January 1978, BRMB began to advertise job vacancies available in the Birmingham area, doing so in association with the Job Centre in Erdington. The campaign won the support of John Goulding, the Minister for Employment at the time. In 1981, BRMB was approached by the spina bifida charity ASBAH and invited to join ATV in hosting a fundraising event in Birmingham's Chamberlain Square. The event, which featured appearances by Jasper Carrott and Noel Gordon, raised £82,000, and was considered to have been a huge success. BRMB were keen to hold other charity events after that, and in May 1983, staged the first Birmingham Walkathon. The walk, which took place around the city's Outer Circle bus route, saw around 24,000 participants raise £225,000 for Mencap. The Walkathon became an annual event until 1992, and has been staged sporadically since then.

Acquisition by Capital
In 1988, as a response to government disapproval of the simulcasting of programming on both FM and mediumwave, a sister station was launched on the 1152 kHz frequency. Xtra AM became BRMB's 'gold' service, playing classic hits, while BRMB itself began to cater for a younger audience. At this stage, BRMB was part of Midlands Radio plc, which was bought out along with Radio Trent, Leicester Sound and Mercia Sound by Capital Radio in 1993. However, they sold the other stations to the GWR Group whilst Capital kept hold of BRMB and Xtra AM. Xtra was on the air for nine years until the majority of its programming was switched to London, where it was simulcast with Capital Gold.

On 30 August 1993, and shortly after its acquisition by Capital Radio Group, BRMB held "Party in the Square", an event featuring a music concert in Birmingham's Centenary Square, which was attended by 23,000 people. Acts who participated in the event included Belinda Carlisle, Rick Astley, Lulu and Bad Boys Inc, and at the time it was the largest ever pop music event to be staged in Birmingham. Although the event was deemed to be a success, police had concerns over safety, as well as the disruption closing the square would cause, so in 1995 the event was renamed "Party in the Park" and moved to the city's Cofton Park. It would later move to Cannon Hill Park and finally Alexander Stadium. "Party in the Park" would feature many well known singers and groups of the day, including the Spice Girls, Eternal, East 17, Hear'Say and Westlife. The 1998 event, titled "People's Party", was held on 16 May to coincide with the 24th G8 summit, which was held in Birmingham that year. Acts at the People's Party included Lionel Richie, All Saints, Louise and 5ive. A concert was also held on the same day at Symphony Hall to entertain world leaders, and broadcast to Cannon Hill Park via satellite link. The concert featured Mick Hucknall, Chris Rea and Jools Holland.

In January 1999, BRMB staged its "Two Strangers and a Wedding" competition in which contestants entered a competition to marry a complete stranger. The event attracted criticism from church leaders, including The Rt Rev Mark Santer, the Bishop of Birmingham, who accused BRMB of "reducing a sacred decision to a media event". The winners, Greg Cordell and Carla Germaine, were married in a Registry Office ceremony at Birmingham's Hyatt Hotel, before embarking on an all-expenses paid honeymoon in the Bahamas, and being given a year's free use of a car and luxury apartment on their return to the UK. The couple separated three months later. Germaine later met and married Jeremy Kyle, then a BRMB disc jockey. BRMB ran the competition again in 2006. Craig Cooper and Rebecca Duffy, the couple chosen to get married, separated four months later.

In April 2001, presenter Tim Shaw was investigated by the Radio Authority over a suicide caller hoax on his late night show, when he appeared to leave the studio in order to talk the caller out of jumping from a bridge. In August 2001, four participants in a competition where contestants were invited to sit on blocks of dry ice to win tickets to a music festival were taken to hospital with burns. Three of them were required to undergo skin graft surgery and have prolonged hospital stays. BRMB's parent company, Capital Media Group, was fined £15,000 over the incident following a hearing at Birmingham Magistrates' Court in January 2003. In October 2007, BRMB was criticised by media watchdog Ofcom for running a competition "in a manner designed to obscure the true nature of the prize" after they had invited listeners to enter a contest to watch the 2007 UEFA Champions League final in Athens in May of that year. The venue had turned out to be a Greek restaurant in Birmingham named Athens rather than the Greek capital, something Ofcom described as a "serious breach" of its broadcasting regulations.

In 1998, BRMB moved from its Aston premises to studios at Brindleyplace near Broad Street In Birmingham City Centre. In September 2004, Capital Radio Group and GWR Group agreed a merger plan that would give them a 36% of the radio market. The deal, worth £700m, was given approval by the Office of Fair Trading in December 2004. The matter was not referred to the Competition Commission after the newly created GCap Media agreed to sell Century 106 in Nottinghamshire.

The Orion Years
On 6 June 2008, GCap Media was acquired by Global Radio. The Office of Fair Trading subsequently referred the acquisition to the Competition Commission due to potential "conflict of interests" issues in the West Midlands (and in other areas). On 8 August 2008, Global announced that BRMB would be sold along with other West Midlands owned GCap/Global stations Mercia FM, Wyvern FM, Heart 106 and Beacon Radio. In May 2009, the station was sold officially to a company backed by Lloyds Development Capital and Phil Riley, himself a former BRMB presenter during the 1980s who later became chief executive of Chrysalis Radio. Riley's company was named Orion Media.

Orion brought in Paul Kaye as programme director, who had previously held that post at Wyvern FM, and who helped to facilitate a refresh in 2010, bringing back some of the features BRMB listeners had enjoyed in the past, such as late night talk shows, football coverage and the BRMB Walkathon. In November 2010, the station held BRMB Live, a music concert at Birmingham's LG Arena at which 14 acts were featured, including The Script, The Saturdays, Olly Murs, Alexandra Burke, James Blunt and The Wanted. The event returned for November 2011, with acts including Cher Lloyd, Matt Cardle, Ed Sheeran, JLS, Pixie Lott, and Emeli Sande.

On 9 January 2012, Orion Media announced that BRMB would be rebranded as Free Radio Birmingham, along with its sister West Midlands stations Beacon, Mercia and Wyvern. At the time, Riley cited the difficulty in promoting several individual radio stations as the reason for the name change, as well as the rebranding of rivals such as Heart and Smooth. The decision to rename the station, along with the choice of new name, were questioned by Dorothy Hobson, senior media lecturer at the University of Wolverhampton, who cited an almost 100% brand recognition for BRMB in the West Midlands area: "All radio is free, this is not newspapers or subscription digital TV...This feels very much like a decision made by a committee." The BRMB brand, together with neighbouring stations Mercia, Beacon and Wyvern, were phased out on Wednesday 21 March 2012 in preparation for the rebrand, which took place at 7pm on Monday 26 March 2012. At the time of its rebrand, RAJAR estimated that BRMB reached an average weekly audience of 359,000 listeners. Orion Media was acquired by Bauer Media in May 2016, while Phil Riley went on to launch Boom Radio in February 2021. In November 2021, Bauer announced that Free Radio Birmingham would be moving out of Brindleyplace to smaller studios at 54 Hagley Road.

Relaunch: 2023
Following the successful relaunch of Radio Wyvern in Worcester, producer Muff Murfin began planning a BRMB relaunch, and hired Paul Ellery, Wyvern's Programme Director, to help facilitate the project. On 17 August 2023, it was announced that the UK's media regulator, Ofcom, had given Big City Radio, a community station in Birmingham, approval to rebrand as BRMB. The station, which relaunched on 4 September 2023 at 11.52am, broadcasts on Big City Radio's 89.1FM frequency, as well as on DAB in Birmingham, while Big City Radio continued as an online station. Andy Street, the Mayor of the West Midlands, took part in BRMB's first show following its relaunch, appearing alongside Les Ross.

Notable presenters
Presenters such as Les Ross, Tony Butler, Ed Doolan, Graham Torrington, Jeremy Kyle, Phil Upton, Caroline Martin and Elliott Webb became regulars on the station. Les Ross was the UK's longest-serving breakfast show presenter, presenting BRMB's flagship weekday show from March 1976 to March 1989, followed by a second
stint between August 1993 to September 2002. He was succeeded by Elliott Webb, who presented the show from 2002 to 2007. Webb was joined by Caroline Martin, who co-presented with him from 2006, then presented the show herself following his departure. Later breakfast show presenters included Jo Russell, who joined from Absolute Radio in late 2009 to present The Jo Show on weekday mornings, followed by John Fox and Giuliano Casadei, known as Foxy & Giuliano, who moved from drivetime to present the breakfast show in 2010, and continued to present the show following the rebrand to Free Radio. Giuliano left Free Radio Breakfast in May 2016, and Foxy in November 2016.

Sports broadcaster Tony Butler was regarded as the inventor of the football phone-in, presenting the format several years before it appeared on stations such as talkSPORT and BBC Radio 5 Live, while former heads of sport George Gavin and Tom Ross also found fame on the station when it began broadcasting live commentary of West Midlands football matches every Saturday afternoon. Ian Crocker was also involved in the coverage early on. Robin Valk was the station's head of music when it launched, and also he and John Slater presented programmes on BRMB, where they promoted local music. Brian Savin had several roles at BRMB, including as a presenter, producer, Head of Music, and Deputy Programme Controller; he was also Head of Creative Services for ten years and went on to launch Saga 105.7FM in 2001. An infamous row between Savin and Tony Butler led to Butler being sacked from the station in 1984 after he was alleged to have grabbed Savin around the neck during the argument. Jenny Wilkes joined BRMB from university to present a youth magazine programme, before moving to BBC WM in 1982, where she presented a long-running Soul and Motown show, as well as working on Midlands Today. Graham Torrington joined BRMB in the 1980s, and went on to present shows at a number of other radio stations, mostly as a late night presenter playing love songs. Andy Hollins and Brendan Kearney presented a Sunday morning show during the early 1990s. The programme made news headlines in December 1991 after the pair were heard to storm out of the studio following an on-air row which erupted during a review of the year. Margherita Taylor joined BRMB after winning a talent search for a new presenter. Television presenter Jeremy Kyle (known to listeners as Jezza) was also a disc jockey on BRMB, joining in 1997 to present a late night agony uncle-style phone-in after sending the station a demo tape. The show was a success and led to him presenting Jezza's Virgin Confessions, a similar programme airing throughout the UK on Virgin Radio.

Phil Upton did two stints as a BRMB presenter, starting in the 1990s while studying at the University of Central England, then again in 2003 following some time with Heart. Harriet Scott, who co-presented Heart Breakfast for a decade, presented a show for BRMB before being offered the role of drivetime presenter on Virgin Radio by its then owner, Chris Evans. Comedian Graham Mack presented a show on BRMB, but walked out in 2001 following an on air argument with his producer, Adam Bridge, over the Eminem track "Stan", which Mack did not want to play because the artist was on probation at the time for possession of a concealed weapon. Comedian Tom Binns worked for BRMB during the 2000s, but was sacked in December 2009 after interrupting the broadcast of that year's Queen's Speech to tell listeners "Two words: Bor-ing".

Among the presenters to appear on the relaunched BRMB is former BBC presenter Bob Brolly, who joined in October 2023 to present Bob Brolly's Irish Show on Sunday afternoons. During the same month it was also announced BRMB planned to hire a number of other former BBC Local Radio presenters, including Jimmy Franks, once the BRMB's "flying eye" traffic reporter who later worked at BBC WM, who would join initially to present a show on Saturday lunchtimes, and Ryan Kennedy, a former Beacon Radio breakfast presenter who later worked for BBC Radio Shropshire, who would join the weekend presenting team. Birmingham actor Andre Stewart Daniel would also join to present a soul vibes and R&B show on Friday and Saturday evenings.

References

External links
 Official Website

Radio stations in the United Kingdom
Radio stations in Birmingham, West Midlands
Radio stations established in 1974
Radio stations disestablished in 2012
Radio stations established in 2023

BRMB


.5: The Gray Chapter is the fifth studio album by American heavy metal band Slipknot. Released in Australia, Belgium and the Netherlands on October 17, 2014, the UK on October 20, 2014 and in North America on October 21, 2014 by Roadrunner Records. It was the first studio album by the band in six years and the first not to feature original founding members bassist Paul Gray and drummer Joey Jordison due to the death of Gray in 2010 (the title of the album being a reference to his surname), and Jordison being fired from the band in late 2013, as well as the only Slipknot album to feature original guitarist Donnie Steele on bass, although the tracks he played on are unknown, and the first Slipknot album to have Alessandro Venturella on bass and Jay Weinberg on drums. The album includes six singles and has received commercial success and acclaiming reviews. A standard and deluxe edition of the album was released. It is also the band's final studio album to feature their longtime percussionist Chris Fehn before his dismissal from the band due to a lawsuit in March 2019.

"The Negative One" received a nomination for Best Metal Performance at the 57th annual Grammy Awards. The album was nominated for Best Rock Album the following year, along with a Best Metal Performance nomination for the song "Custer".

Background

The writing process of the record began in late 2013. Wanting to dedicate more time to the album, guitarist Jim Root decided not to tour with Stone Sour in January 2014.

A new bassist and drummer were added to the lineup during live shows. Taylor told Loudwire that two similar masks were created for their appearances in music videos and stage performances, as, when the new members were given the opportunity to make their own masks, the results were, according to Taylor, "kind of cartoony" and did not fit the mind set of Slipknot. Both members were briefly shown in the music video for "The Devil in I", but their identities have not been announced by Slipknot amidst speculation. Root revealed in an interview that founding guitarist and former touring bassist Donnie Steele was involved in some of the studio sessions for the album, but that ultimately Steele declined to rejoin the band in favor of starting a family with his wife. Bassist Alessandro Venturella of Krokodil was identified by the unique tattoos on his hands, performing in the video for "The Devil in I". Jay Weinberg from the band Against Me! was brought in to audition on drums after Joey Jordison was fired from Slipknot. Jay Weinberg is the son of Max Weinberg, the drummer for Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band and Conan O'Brien's drummer and band leader for his late night talk show. Max Weinberg introduced Jay Weinberg to Slipknot and from there on he forged a friendship by going to several concerts and being invited backstage; the band liked what he brought to the table and told him he was free to join if he wanted and he accepted. The album was produced by Greg Fidelman and mixed by Joe Barresi. Fidelman is known for his work with Metallica, System of a Down, Audioslave and more, as well as mixing Slipknot's third album, Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses), in 2004.

Promotion and tour
On July 15, the band began releasing short teasers for the new album for over a two-week period that turned out to be clips from the official video along with samples from a song entitled "The Negative One". The song was released on August 1, 2014 and an accompanying video was released on August 5, 2014. It was directed by Shawn Crahan; however, it did not feature any of the band members.
On August 13, 2014, the band revealed the cover art for their official radio single entitled "The Devil in I", and the single premiered on August 24, 2014. The official video for the single was unveiled on September 12 featuring the members with new variations of their masks with the exception of Taylor who debuted a new mask and the new bassist and drummer's masks which were very similar.

Slipknot began their world tour at the second iteration of Knotfest as headliners on October 25 and the 26 with Anthrax, Five Finger Death Punch, Otep and Black Label Society among others in California. A co-headline North American and European tour with Korn dubbed the Prepare for Hell tour commenced afterwards with King 810 in support. Slipknot and Korn embarked on the British leg of the Prepare For Hell tour in January 2015. In addition to the standard edition, a deluxe edition featuring two listed and three unlisted bonus tracks, and a special edition featuring a T-shirt of the album cover have also been released.

Reception

Critical response

.5: The Gray Chapter received generally positive reviews, as most critics praised the return of their older sound from Slipknot and Iowa, while maintaining the melodies the band explored on Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses). Florino characterized it as "the most abrasive work since their self-titled debut," The Guardian's Dom Lawson as "every bit as warped and explosive as previous records" Ray Van Horn of Blabbermouth.net hailed the album as "a return to their punishing roots" and noted that "AOV" showcased some elements of thrash metal. Exclaim! critic Bradley Zorgdrager pointed out that Slipknot "wastes no time kicking it back to 2001's Iowa" while Metal Hammer's critic Dom Lawson noted that "there's plenty of [...] brutal, turbocharged Slipknot [...] here," while Rock Revolt mentioned that the album uses elements from their previous studio albums while "pushing the creative boundaries of [their] past albums into new territory." Q magazine's Tom Bryant complained that the album's lighter tracks, namely "Goodbye," "Killpop," and "The One That Kills The Least," were "disappointingly timid." However, he followed by commenting that "It's possible to entirely forget these when Slipknot play to their strengths: unrelenting darkness and attack," using "Custer," "The Devil in I," and "Lech" as examples.

Several critics praised the way the album acknowledged Gray's memory. Rock Revolt noted plenty of lyrical content relating to Gray. While Revolver magazine critic Dan Epstein and Gregory Heaney from AllMusic concluded that "they don't try to sugarcoat their loss, anger or grief anywhere on the album," and that "from that deep well of pain, another great Slipknot record has emerged," and that "they're able to channel their grief into a productive album, allowing them to continue moving forward [...] with one of the strongest albums of their career," respectively. Zorgdrager saw it as "it's a considerable accomplishment and a lovely eulogy to their fallen comrade." Several critics appreciated the composition of the album, with Van Horn characterizing it as "a largely dark, often moving listening experience." Loudwire critic Chad Childers wrote noted the "mix of all the different sounds" creating "a musical journey" and pointed that while the album "rocks and pummels you in all the right places like you would hope, it also shows a depth in emotion and some heavily personal moments on a much grander scale," while Artistdirect critic Rick Florino gave the album a perfect rating concluding that "by the time this journey ends, it feels as if Slipknot have come full circle." Billboard critic Gary Suarez was a little more critical of the album stating, "for such an emotionally loaded comeback, .5: The Gray Chapter is Slipknot's least gripping LP. [...] "Skeptic" is lyrically awkward, but the band recovers well on processional closer "If Rain Is What You Want." Emblematic of both Slipknot's strengths and its weaknesses, perhaps this album is the sort of warts-and-all eulogy Gray would have wanted."

Accolades
The album's lead single, "The Negative One", was nominated for the 2014 Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance at the 57th Grammy Awards. Additionally, the album was nominated for the Best Rock Album and "Custer" was nominated for Best Metal Performance at the 58th Grammy Awards.Year-end rankings

Commercial performance.5: The Gray Chapter landed in the number one spot in Australia on the ARIA Albums Chart with 14,188 first week sales. It was Slipknot's second album to debut at number one on the US Billboard 200 albums chart by selling 132,000 copies in its first week. The album also debuted at number one in Japan, Canada, Russia and Switzerland. It had top 5 debuts in the United Kingdom, Germany, Ireland, Austria, New Zealand, Mexico, Denmark and Finland.

Track listing
All songs credited to Slipknot. Writing credits taken from ASCAP.

Personnel

Slipknot
(#8) Corey Taylor – lead vocals, bass on 'Goodbye'
(#7) Mick Thomson – guitars, bass
(#6) Shawn "Clown" Crahan – percussion, backing vocals, additional drums on 'Goodbye' and 'If Rain Is What You Want', Intro vocals on 'XIX' and 'Custer', lead vocals on 'Be Prepared For Hell'
(#5) Craig "133" Jones – sampling, keyboards
(#4) Jim Root – guitars, bass
(#3) Chris Fehn – percussion, backing vocals
(#0) Sid Wilson – turntables
 Alessandro Venturella – bass
 Jay Weinberg – drums

Additional personnel
Donnie Steele – bass

Production
Greg Fidelman – production
Joe Barresi – mixing
Vlado Meller – mastering

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Singles

Other charting songs

Notes

A  "The Devil in I" did not enter the Billboard'' Hot 100, but peaked at number 23 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart, a 25-song extension to the Hot 100.

Certifications

References

2014 albums
Albums produced by Greg Fidelman
Roadrunner Records albums
Slipknot (band) albums

.5: The Gray Chapter


Stancho Belkovski (, 1891–1962), was a Bulgarian architect.

Belkovski is among the prominent names in the history of the Bulgarian architecture from the beginning and the middle of the 20th century. Some of the landmarks of Sofia were designed by him or with his participation most notably the complex "Bulgaria" at the city centre with a hotel, restaurant and a concert hall. He was the first elected rector (1944–45) of the newly founded Higher Technical School in Sofia which is the predecessor of the University of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy.

Biography and Career
Belkovski was born as Stancho Iliev Belkovski on August 11, 1891, in the Bulgarian capital city of Sofia. His parents were teachers. He enrolled architecture at the Berlin Institute of Technology, Germany, where he graduated in 1920. After the completion of the institute, he returned to Bulgaria and started working in cooperation with the eminent Bulgarian architect Ivan Vasilyov. From 1925 he briefly worked independently. From 1928 to 1939, Belkovski was a partner with Ivan Danchov, with whom he worked on many of his most famous projects.

In 1944-45, Stancho Belkovski was elected for rector of the Higher Technical School, Sofia where he later established the department of public buildings.

Belkovski died in a train crash during a business trip in 1962 near the city of Kraków, Poland.

Works
1923 - Vlado Georgiev house, nowadays the Austrian Embassy, Gladston str. 16, Sofia, (collaboration with Ivan Vasilyov)
1924 - Alliance française building, Slaveykov square, Sofia
1925 - Nikola Mushanov house (destroyed in 2005), Moskovska str. 47, Sofia
1930 - The Central Post Hall in Veliko Tarnovo, (collaboration with Ivan Danchov)
1931-32 - German school, nowadays the National Academy of Music, Sofia, (collaboration with Ivan Danchov)
1931-37 - Hotel Bulgaria with the Concert Hall Bulgaria, Sofia, (collaboration with Ivan Danchov)
1932-33 - G. Semerdzhiev house, later the embassy of Vietnam, nowadays the Libyan embassy, Oborishte str. 12, Sofia, (collaboration with Ivan Danchov)
1932-33 - Students palace, Narodno Sabrabie square, Sofia, (collaboration with Ivan Danchov)
1935-36 - Andzhelo Kuyumdzhiyski house, nowadays the American ambassador residence, Veliko Tarnovo str. 18, Sofia, (collaboration with Ivan Danchov)
1935-37 - Hotel Balkan with cinema hall, nowadays Youth theatre Nikolay Binev, Sofia, (collaboration with Ivan Danchov)
1936-47 - The Telephone Palace, Gurko street, Sofia
1943 - Aleko mountain hostel, Vitosha Mountain
1943 - Tintyava mountain hostel, Vitosha Mountain
1951 - The Physics and Mathematics faculty building, James Bourchier boulevard, Sofia

See also
List of Bulgarian architects

References

External links
 About the building of the Students House, Sofia designed by Belkovski

Bulgarian architects
Corresponding Members of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
1891 births
1962 deaths
Railway accident deaths in Poland

Stancho Belkovski