Yerself Is Steam is the 1991 debut album by Mercury Rev. The title is a malapropism of the phrase "Your self-esteem," and is taken from a recurring lyric in the opening "Chasing a Bee."  "Car Wash Hair" was released as a single to follow the album.  "Very Sleepy Rivers" is supposedly about a serial killer, with the river acting as a metaphor for the killer's relative calm and sudden tendency to snap.

A music video for the song "Chasing a Bee" was shot at an abandoned infectious disease hospital that once housed "Typhoid Mary" on North Brother Island in New York City, and was directed by Jim Spring and Jens Jurgensen.

Dean Wareham made a guest appearance on "Car Wash Hair" and helped with recording, supposedly after Fridmann spent the band's advance on a holiday package.

In 2016, Pitchfork ranked the album at number 16 in its list of "The 50 Best Shoegaze Albums of All Time," commenting that "Yerself Is Steam is really a shoegaze album in the inverse: Where their fuzz-pedaling peers obliterated the human presence in rock music through a cloud of distortion, Mercury Rev foregrounded the claustrophobic, panicky unease of being trapped inside it."

Track listing
All songs written by Mercury Rev.
 "Chasing a Bee" – 7:11 (4:27)
 "Syringe Mouth" – 4:04 (3:27)
 "Coney Island Cyclone" – 2:37 (3:27)
 "Blue and Black" – 6:00 (4:27)
 "Sweet Oddysee of a Cancer Cell t' th' Center of Yer Heart" – 7:41 (5:27)
 "Frittering" – 8:48 (4:27)
 "Continuous Trucks and Thunder Under a Mother's Smile" – 0:43 (2:27)
 "Very Sleepy Rivers" – 12:15 (13:15 on Sony/Columbia CD edition) (12:27)
 "Car Wash Hair (The Bee's Chasing Me)" – 6:44 (hidden bonus track on Sony/Columbia CD edition)

Formatting notes
 The back cover lists deliberately erroneous run times.  They are listed above in (parentheses and italics).
 On the American Sony/Columbia pressing of the album, "Very Sleepy Rivers" is divided amongst tracks 8 through 98. Track 8 contains the first 7:15, while the rest of the song is split amongst the following 90 4-second tracks, netting the song an additional minute in the process. The audio slowly fades out around track 83 and, around track 88, someone starts saying 'pick' repeatedly with some barely audible laughter.  During this quieter section, a low-level sub-bass signal (under 20 Hz) was mixed underneath. The unusual method of splitting the track was included in Pitchfork Media's 2010 list of "ten unusual CD-era gimmicks". The bonus song "Car Wash Hair" follows as track 99 on this pressing.

Lego My Ego
In 1992, Mint Films/Jungle re-released Yerself is Steam with a bonus LP/CD entitled Lego My Ego.  The title is a parody of the Eggo waffles ad slogan, and is taken from a piece of voice tape at the start of "Frittering," where one musician tells another to "let go of my fucking ego" after they tell him how to play a song.  It consists of rare tracks and a Peel Session.  Mint Films released another edition in 2007 consisting of both CDs plus an all-region DVD of the videos for "Chasing a Bee" and "Car Wash Hair."

CD version:
1 is a cover of the Sly and the Family Stone song, originally released on the A-side of a 7" single in March 1992 by the Rough Trade Singles Club.
2 is recorded live by the BBC Mobile Recording Studio at Finsbury Park, London, June 1992.  "Shhh/Peaceful" is a cover of the Miles Davis song (from In a Silent Way), which is only quoted briefly in the introduction.
3, 4, 6 and 8 are from a Peel Session recorded on August 27, 1991 and first broadcast on October 5, 1991.  8 is "Chasing a Bee" with some changed lyrics.  Some releases title it "Chasing a Girl (Inside a Car)," which is what is sung in the title line of this version.  The liner notes add about this song, "Guitars should be much louder, but what can you do?"
5 is the same recording as the single version, but with some extra material crossfaded in at the end.  1, 3, 4 and 8 also have unusual tapes (mostly voice) added and to the beginning and/or end of the songs.
7 is credited as being the "original theme from the 1991 motion picture 'Moonbuggy,' a film by Howard Nelson," and performed by Grasshopper.

 If You Want Me to Stay – 4:08
 Shhh/Peaceful / Very Sleepy Rivers – 14:52
 Frittering – 5:18
 Coney Island Cyclone – 3:20
 Car Wash Hair – 7:25
 Syringe Mouth – 3:11
 Blood on the Moon – 8:21
 Chasing a Bee (Inside a Car) – 10:09

LP version:
 Shhh/Peaceful / Very Sleepy Rivers – 14:52
 Blood on the Moon – 8:21
 Frittering – 5:18
 Coney Island Cyclone – 3:20
 Syringe Mouth – 3:11
 Chasing a Bee (Inside a Car) – 10:09

All songs written by Mercury Rev, except "If You Want Me to Say" by Sly Stone and "Shhh/Peaceful" by Miles Davis.  "Blood on the Moon" has no writer's credit, but is presumably also written by Grasshopper.

Radio Whipped promo edition
Sony/Columbia released a promo double-CD version of the album in 1992.  The first disc is the U.S. version of the album.  The second disc is the U.S. "Chasing a Bee" CD single.  A "Radio Whipped Sticker" on the back of the CD jewelbox numbers the nine tracks on the album as A, B, C, D, E, F, U, C, K, and the six tracks of the single as:

A.  Chasing A Bee (7:09)
B.  If You Want Me To Stay (3:37)
S.  Coney Island Cyclone (2:40)
U.  Frittering (4:26)
R.  Syringe Mouth (3:09)
D.  Chasing A Girl (Inside A Car) (6:56)

S, U, R, and D are the Peel Session recordings, and are actually one continuous track for 17:53.  The run times for B, S, U and D are shorter than on Lego My Ego because they don't contain the unusual tape material that was added to these songs on it.

Personnel
 Jonathan Donahue – silver pickup guitar, vocals
 Grasshopper – unafon guitar reels
 Suzanne Thorpe – point red flute
 Dave Fridmann – bass explore, majestic bellowphone, additional engineering
 David Baker – vocals
 Jimy Chambers – drumming, blue-line
 C. Gavazzi - trumpet on "Car Wash Hair"
 Dean Wareham - additional vocals, production on "Car Wash Hair"
 Keith Cleversley - engineer
 Kristin Peterson - photography
 Mooneyham - artwork

References

Mercury Rev albums
1991 debut albums
Albums produced by Dave Fridmann
Art pop albums
Art punk albums

Yerself Is Steam


A Little Princess is a children's novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett, first published as a book in 1905. It is an expanded version of the short story "Sara Crewe: or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's", which was serialized in St. Nicholas Magazine from December 1887, and published in book form in 1888. According to Burnett, after she composed the 1902 play A Little Un-fairy Princess based on that story, her publisher asked that she expand the story as a novel with "the things and people that had been left out before". The novel was published by Charles Scribner's Sons (also publisher of St. Nicholas) with illustrations by Ethel Franklin Betts and the full title A Little Princess: Being the Whole Story of Sara Crewe Now Being Told for the First Time.

Plot
Captain Ralph Crewe, a wealthy English widower, has been raising his only child and daughter, Sara, in India where he is stationed with the British Army. Because the Indian climate is considered too harsh for their children, British families living there traditionally send their children to boarding school back home in England. The Captain enrolls his seven-year-old daughter at an all-girls boarding school in London and dotes on his daughter so much that he orders and pays the haughty headmistress, Miss Minchin, for special treatment and exceptional luxuries for Sara, such as a private room for her with a personal maid and a separate sitting room (see Parlour boarder), along with Sara's own private carriage and a pony. Miss Minchin openly fawns over Sara for her money, but is secretly jealous and dislikes Sara almost from the outset.

Intelligent, imaginative and kind, Sara sees through flattery and remains unspoiled; she embraces the status of a 'princess' accorded by the other students, and lives up to it with her generosity. She befriends Ermengarde, the school dunce;  Lottie, a four-year-old student given to tantrums; and Becky, the stunted scullery maid.Four years later, Sara's eleventh birthday is celebrated at Miss Minchin's with a lavish party. Just as it ends, Miss Minchin learns of Captain Crewe's unfortunate demise due to jungle fever. Furthermore, the previously wealthy captain has lost his entire fortune, investing in a friend's diamond mines. Preteen Sara is left an orphan and a pauper with nowhere to go. Miss Minchin is left with a sizable debt for Sara's school fees and luxuries, including her birthday party. Infuriated and pitiless, she takes away all of Sara's possessions (except for an old black frock and her doll, Emily), and makes her live in a cold and poorly furnished attic, forcing her to earn her keep by working as a servant.

For the next two years Miss Minchin starves and overworks Sara, turning her into a menial servant and unpaid tutor, with the prospect of turning her into an under-paid teacher when she is old enough. Most of the students take their tone from Miss Minchin, but Sara is consoled by her few friends and uses her imagination to cope with her bleak existence. She continues to be kind and polite to everyone, even her abusers, in the belief that conduct, not money, make a true princess. On one of the bleakest days when she herself is ravenous, she finds a coin and buys six buns, but gives a beggar-child five of them because the latter is starving.

During this time Mr. Carrisford moves into the house next to the seminary. He is an  extremely wealthy invalid come from abroad and retains Mr. Carmichael, a solicitor who lives nearby. Sara has often observed Mr. Carmichael's big and loving family, whom she has dubbed the "Large Family" - while they are equally curious about her and call her "the little girl who is not a beggar."

Mr. Carrisford is revealed to have been Captain Crewe's partner in the diamond mine venture. Thinking all was lost and both suffering from severe illness, Carrisford abandoned Captain Crewe and himself wandered in a delirium. When he recovered it was to find Crewe dead - and the mines a reality. Extremely rich but suffering both ill health and pangs of conscience, he returns to England and makes it his mission to find Sara, though he does not know where to look.

Meanwhile Ram Dass, Mr Carrisford's Indian servant, climbs across the roof to retrieve a pet monkey which has taken refuge in Sara's attic. He sees the poor condition of her room and, touched by her courtesy and demeanor, sets out to discover her history. To distract his master from his own sorrows, he tells Mr Carrisford about the "little girl in the attic." Between them they devise a scheme whereby Mr Carrisford becomes "The Magician", a mysterious benefactor who transforms her barren existence with gifts of food and warmth and books – snuck in by Ram Dass.

One night the monkey again visits Sara's attic, and she decides to return it to Mr. Carrisford next morning. He learns that Sara is Captain Crewe's daughter; Sara also learns that Mr. Carrisford was her father's friend – and The Magician.

Miss Minchin pays a visit to collect Sara, but is informed that Sara will be living with Mr. Carrisford from now on; not only is her fortune restored, she is now heiress to diamond mines. Miss Minchin tries to retrieve the situation, going so far as to threaten legal action if she does not return to the school, and that she will never see any of her friends again, but Sara refuses and Mr Carrisford is adamant. Becky becomes Sara's personal servant and, with her newfound wealth, Sara makes a deal with a baker, proposing to cover the cost of food given to any hungry child.

Reception
Based on a 2007 online poll, the U.S. National Education Association listed the book as one of its "Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children". In 2012 it was ranked number 56 on a list of the top 100 children's novels published by School Library Journal.

Source material
The novella appears to have been inspired in part by Charlotte Brontë's unfinished novel Emma, the first two chapters of which were published in Cornhill Magazine in 1860, featuring a rich heiress with a mysterious past who is apparently abandoned at a boarding school.

Play

Burnett first introduced Sara Crewe in 1888 in print. She returned to the material in 1902, penning the three-act stage play A Little Un-fairy Princess, which ran in London over the autumn of that year. Around the time it transferred to New York City at the start of 1903 the title was shortened to A Little Princess. It was A Little Princess in London, but The Little Princess in New York.

Burnett said that after the production of the play on Broadway, her publisher, Charles Scribner's Sons, asked her to expand the story into a full-length novel and "put into it all the things and people that had been left out before". The book was illustrated by Ethel Franklin Betts and published in 1905 under the full title A Little Princess: Being the Whole Story of Sara Crewe Now Being Told for the First Time.

Adaptations

Film

 1917 version: Mary Pickford as Sara and Katherine Griffith as Miss Minchin.
 1939 version: Shirley Temple as Sara and Mary Nash as Miss Minchin. This Technicolor adaptation notably differs from the original, in that Sara's father is wounded and missing in action in wartime, and later is reunited with his daughter with the help of Queen Victoria.  Miss Minchin's younger sister Miss Amelia is replaced with "Mr Bertie", Miss Minchin's brother, a former music hall performer, who sings and dances with Temple. A substantial portion of the story is given over to Sara's abetting of an illicit romance between an under-teacher and the school's riding master, dramatized in an elaborate fairy-tale dream sequence.
 1943 Italian version: Principessina: Rosanna Dal as Anna and Vittorina Benvenuti as the Headmistress. It is a remake of the 1939 film set in Italy, in which Sara, now renamed Anna, is the daughter of a real prince.
 Harō Kiti no shōkōjo: 1994 OVA version starring Hello Kitty produced by Sanrio.
 1995 American version: Liesel Matthews as Sara and Eleanor Bron as Miss Minchin, this adaptation notably differs from the original and more closely resembles the 1939 version, in that Sara's father is wounded and missing in action in wartime, and later is reunited with his daughter. Another difference is that it takes place in New York City during World War I instead of London during the Boer War, and the character of Becky, canonically Cockney, is recast as African-American. The film is directed by Alfonso Cuarón.
 1995 Filipino version Sarah... Ang Munting Prinsesa: Camille Prats as Sara (name changed to "Sarah"), Angelica Panganiban as Becky, and Jean Garcia as Ms. Minchin. This adaptation was mostly based on the 1985 Japanese anime series Princess Sarah, which was hugely popular with Filipino audiences during the 1990s. The film was mostly shot in Scotland, with other scenes in Baguio, Philippines.
 1996 version: An animated direct-to-video film produced by Blye Migicovsky and directed by Laura Shephard. As in the 1995 film, Sara's father is later found alive, and, like in the 1995 film, Becky is black. The voice cast includes Melissa Bathory, Lawrence Bayne, Desmond Ellis, Nonnie Griffin, Marieve Herington, Sarena Paton, Katherine Shekter, and Colette Stevenson.
 1997 Russian film A Little Princess: Anastasiya Meskova as Sara and Alla Demidova as Miss Minchin.

Television
 1973 version: Deborah Makepeace as Sara and Ruth Dunning as Miss Minchin.
 Shōkōjo Sēra: a 1978 Japanese anime adaptation featured in episodes 105-115 (eleven 10-minute segments in total) of Manga Sekai Mukashi Banashi (1976-1979), an anthology series based on fairy tales and literature classics produced by Dax International and Madhouse. This adaptation is notable for the more cruel and violent script, focusing on the abuse that Sara and Becky have to suffer from Miss Minchin and Lavinia. It also adds some new characters and events while skipping over others from the novel, such as Mr. Carmichael and his family. Sara and Becky are friends with three orphaned boys that help them in several occasions, like when Becky gets seriously ill and Miss Minchin doesn't want to call a doctor. Sara has a love interest in Frederick, the son of a wealthy supporter of the school. Sara and Becky are thrown out of the school. In the ending Sara forgives everyone and return to the school with Becky after making a large donation to it.
 Princess Sara: a 1985 Japanese anime series, which was featured as part of Nippon Animation's World Masterpiece Theater collection. The series spanned 46 episodes, including a few new characters and adventures along the way, while following pretty closely the original plot. Some of the new additions resembles the 1978 anime version: the addition of a street boy among Sara's friends, Sara's dangerous illness, her departure from the institute, her forgiveness for every mean character and her huge donation to the school. Similarly to the 1978 adaptation, this version focuses more on the saddest aspects of the story and on the bullying, although in a more mildly and less violent way. Furthermore, Sara's personality has been made significantly more obedient and kind than in the novel. Veteran Japanese voice actress Sumi Shimamoto voiced Sara Crewe.
 1986 version: Amelia Shankley as Sara and Maureen Lipman as Miss Minchin. One of the most faithful adaptations, quoting many dialogues from the book and adding only a few new scenes, including a prologue set in India.
 Sōkō no Strain, a 2006 anime that completely reworks the story into a mecha series about "Sara Werec", who finds herself robbed of the ability to pilot the titular Strain when her brother, Ralph, betrays and disgraces her family.
 Princess Sarah, a Filipino 2007 remake, loosely based on the popular 1985 anime but with fantasy elements.
 Shōkōjo Seira, a 2009 remake with the main character Japanese and named Seira, aged 16 when her father dies, and as an Indian Princess. Becky is changed to a male and a romantic lead. The 1985 TV series by Nippon Animation has a similar title in Japanese, although the two adaptations are not related.
 "The Penniless Princess" (2012), a Veggietales episode

Musicals
Due in part to the novel's public domain status, several musical versions of A Little Princess have emerged in recent years, including:
 A Little Princess, Music and Lyrics by Eric Rockwell and Margaret Rose, Book by William J. Brooke. World premiere at the Sacramento Theater Company, April 2013.
 A Little Princess, Princess Musicals – Book and Lyrics by Michael Hjort, Music by Camille Curtis.
 Sara Crewe, premiered May 2007 at Needham (Boston, MA) Community Theater, first full production November 2007 at the Blackwell Playhouse, Marietta, Georgia; music, lyrics, and book by Miriam Raiken-Kolb and Elizabeth Ellor
 Sara Crewe: A Little Princess, Wheelock Family Theatre, Boston, 2006; music and libretto by Susan Kosoff and Jane Staab
 A Little Princess, TheatreWorks, Palo Alto, California, premiered 2004; music by Andrew Lippa; book by Brian Crawley; directed by Susan H. Schulman
 A Little Princess, Wings Theatre, (Off-Broadway, New York, 2003) Book and Direction by Robert Sickinger; music and lyrics by Mel Atkey, musical director/arranger/pianist Mary Ann Ivan
 A Little Princess, Children's Musical Theater San Jose, May 2002. Book and lyrics by Tegan McLane, music by Richard Link
 A Little Princess, Bodens Youth Theatre, London, premiering February 2012; music and lyrics by Marc Folan, book by Adam Boden
 Off-Broadway U.S. Premiere, The Hudson Guild Theater, NYC, May 2014
Some of these productions have made significant changes to the book, story and characters, most notably the Sickinger/Atkey version, which moves the action to Civil War-era America.

In addition, Princesses, a 2004 musical currently in development for Broadway, features students at a boarding school presenting a production of A Little Princess. Music and book by Cheri Steinkellner and Bill Steinkellner; lyrics and direction by David Zippel.

Other theatre
 The London Children's Ballet performed ballet adaptions in 1995 (Choreographer: Harold King), 2004 (Choreographer: Vanessa Fenton) and 2012 (Choreographer: Samantha Raine).
 A theatre adaptation by John Vreeke was produced by the New York State Theatre Institute and recorded as an audio book in 1999.
 A theatre adaptation by Belt Up Theatre was performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2012 as 'Belt Up Theatre's A Little Princess'.
 An adaptation of the book, entitled Sara Crewe: The Little Princess was written by Steve Hays and was featured at CityStage in Springfield MA, performing six shows and starred Carlie Daggett in The title role.
 A theatre adaptation was written by Lauren Nichols and performed by all for One productions, inc., with original music composed by a young girl, Torilinn Cwanek, at the Allen County Public Library Auditorium in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in February 2013, performing six shows.
 Hess Oster's adaptation for youth performers (StagePlays, 2013) has been performed by STARS Drama (2013), Actor's Youth Theatre (2013), Bordentown Theatre (2014), Fruits of the Spirit Academy (2015), Mosaic Children's Theatre (2015), and Shine Performing Arts (2017).

Related books
In 1995, Apple published a series of three books written by Gabrielle Charbonnet. "The Princess Trilogy" was an updated version of the classic, with the title character named Molly, rather than Sara. Molly Stewart's father was a famous film director who left his daughter in a posh upscale boarding school. There were three books in the series, which ended in a similar way as the original: Molly's Heart, The Room on the Attic, and Home at Last.

A sequel by Hilary McKay was published by Hodder Children's Books in September 2009: Wishing For Tomorrow: The Sequel to A Little Princess. It tells the story of what happened to the rest of the boarding school girls after Sara and Becky left ("life must go on at Miss Minchin's").

Games
 A Little Lily Princess is a retelling of the classic novel in visual novel form with a Yuri Genre twist. It was released for the PC in May 2016 by the independent video game development company Hanako Games.

References

External links

1905 American novels
1905 British novels
1905 children's books
American children's novels
American novels adapted into films
American novels adapted into plays
American novels adapted into television shows
British children's novels
British novels adapted into films
British novels adapted into plays
British novels adapted into television shows
Novels about bullying
Novels about orphans
Novels by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Novels first published in serial form
Novels set in boarding schools
Novels set in British India
Novels set in London
Works originally published in St. Nicholas Magazine
Children's novels set in schools
Children's books set in boarding schools
Children's books set in London

A Little Princess


A personalization management system (PMS) is an integrated software solution that enables users in an organization to manage and deliver personalized messages, campaigns, and interactive experiences to consumers across different communications channels and devices.

The term PMS was first used in a 2003 study on personalization, but it was later popularized by the startup Croct, which was the first company to use the term PMS to distinguish the emerging category of platforms and technologies focused on delivering personalized customer experiences. Previously, these services were typically included under the umbrella of CMS or CRM solutions, which did not adequately encapsulate the nuances of this new category.

History

The concept of personalization in marketing has been around for decades. But it all began with simple strategies, such as calling consumers by name in direct mail marketing.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the concept of personalization began to evolve with the use of cookies, which allowed websites to track a user's browsing history and behavior. This information could then be used to serve personalized content, such as recommended products or tailored advertisements.

As the internet and digital marketing continued to grow, the need for efficient and effective content management systems (CMS) became apparent.
One of the main challenges with traditional CMS systems was that they were designed for the web, which often meant that content had to be created multiple times to be delivered across multiple devices. That was both a time-consuming and inefficient process.

To address this issue, the concept of headless CMS was introduced. A headless CMS is a content management system that separates the backend (where content is stored and served) from the frontend (where content is displayed to the user). This allows content to be created once and delivered to any device or platform without creating multiple versions of the same content.

As personalization in marketing evolved, it became important not just to create personalized content but also to analyze and track its effectiveness. Headless CMSs were well-suited to handle this task, as they allow for more flexibility when integrating marketing technology, such as analytics and testing tools. Together, these capabilities led to the emergence of a specialized category known as a Personalization Management System (PMS).

As technology advanced, so has the ability to personalize marketing efforts. Modern PMS platforms now offer a range of sophisticated features and capabilities. Companies such as Microsoft, Netflix, and Spotify are some of the most successful examples of companies using modern personalized marketing strategies nowadays to offer tailored experiences to their customers.

Benefits
Personalization allows businesses to create more targeted, relevant, and timely interactions with their customers and prospects. This can have many benefits, such as:
 Improved customer engagement and loyalty
 Increased conversion rates
 Improved customer experience
 Increased customer lifetime value
 Improved Return on investment (ROI).

Features
Personalization management systems typically offer a range of features to manage and deliver personalized messages, campaigns, and experiences.

These features typically include:

 Real-time personalization to automate customer interactions
 Segmentation for creating and managing customer segments based on customer attributes and behavior
 A/B testing for choosing the best-performing content variations
 Recommendations of relevant products and content to customers
 Analytics and reporting to give marketers a deep view of their website or application's performance
 Customer data management for collecting and segmenting customer data to create user profiles and understand customer behaviors

Deployment

Personalization management systems are available as both on-premises and cloud-based solutions. On-premises solutions offer more control and customization. Yet, cloud-based (SaaS) solutions are more common due to their lower costs and ease of management.

Vendors
Some of the key vendors in the personalization management space are Adobe Target, Croct, Twilio, Responsys, and Monetate.

See also

 List of content management systems
 Content management
 Content Management Interface
 Content management system
 Document management system
 Dynamic web page
 Enterprise content management
 Headless content management system
 HTML
 Information management
 Knowledge management
 LAMP (software bundle)
 Personalization
 Revision control
 Web application framework
 Web content management system

References

Information systems
Website management
Records management
Records management technology
Human–computer interaction
User interface techniques
Personas
Information retrieval techniques

Personalization management system


CRE Finance Council (formerly the Commercial Mortgage Securities Association) is a trade organization for the commercial real estate finance markets. CRE Finance focuses on six Forums, market constituencies that encompass the commercial mortgage industry.  These Forums include Investment-Grade Bondholders, Issuers, Multifamily Lenders, Securities and Loan Investors, Portfolio Lenders and Servicers.  CRE Finance Council represents more than 300 member companies.

The CRE Finance Council is headquartered in New York City's financial district at 30 Broad Street.

History of Commercial Mortgage Securities Association

It changed its name on March 23, 2010 to CRE Financial Council.  Along with its name change, CRE Finance Council expanded its membership and focus and added six Forums, market constituencies that encompass the commercial mortgage industry.

The Commercial Mortgage-backed Securities Industry
Commercial mortgage-backed securities are bonds offered to investors that are collateralized by a pool of commercial mortgage loans from which all of the principal and interest paid on those mortgages flows to investors. To create these investment vehicles, mortgage loans of varying dollar amounts, property type, and location —and containing a myriad of individualized terms and conditions — are pooled and transferred to a trust. Bonds then are issued backed by the pool of assets held in the trust. Those bonds vary in yield (the amount of return on the bonds), duration (the length of time before the bond is expected to be paid off), and payment priority (the order in which investors are paid a return on their investment). Borrowers, lenders, and investors all benefit from CMBS.

Borrowers often benefit via access both to larger pools of capital than would otherwise be available in traditional lending markets and to lower interest rates. Lenders benefit from CMBS because the securitization enables them to access the capital markets with their loan products and to obtain new bonds to make new loans. Investors benefit because CMBS creates a potentially attractive and credit-worthy investment vehicle that caters to their desired risk profile, investment term, and yield.

Commercial Mortgage Securities Association is an international trade association dedicated to improving the liquidity of commercial real estate debt securities through access to the capital markets.

References

External links
CMBS.org, the official Commercial Mortgage Securities Association website
CMBS.org, Factual Background: The Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities Industry
Shared Ownership Mortgages
Commercial Mortgage: Commercial Loan TrueRate Services

Mortgage
Mortgage industry associations
International trade associations
Finance industry associations
1994 in economics
1994 establishments in New York (state)
Organizations established in 1994


Ernst Siemerling (September 9, 1857 – January 6, 1931) was a German neurologist and psychiatrist born in Müssow near Greifswald.

In 1882 he obtained his medical doctorate from the University of Marburg. In 1883-84 he was an assistant at the psychiatric clinic at Halle, and afterwards an assistant to Karl Westphal (1833-1890) at the Berlin psychiatric clinic.

In 1888 he became habilitated for neurology and psychiatry, later being appointed professor and director of the psychiatric clinic at the University of Tübingen (1893). In 1900 he accepted a similar position at the University of Kiel, where he remained until his retirement in 1926.

In 1923, with Hans Gerhard Creutzfeldt (1885-1964), he described adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD), a rare disorder that is sometimes referred to as "Siemerling-Creutzfeldt Disease". With Oswald Bumke (1877-1950), he was editor of the Archiv für Psychiatrie und Nervenkrankheiten, and with Otto Binswanger (1852-1929), was co-author of Lehrbuch der Psychiatrie, a textbook on psychiatry that was published in several editions.

References
 Ernst Siemerling @ Who Named It
 Parts of this article are based on a translation of an article from the German Wikipedia.

German neurologists
German psychiatrists
1857 births
1931 deaths
People from Vorpommern-Greifswald
Academic staff of the University of Tübingen
Academic staff of the University of Kiel
History of psychiatry

Ernst Siemerling


Colonel Sackville Tufton (11 June 1646 – 30 March 1721) was the son of John Tufton, 2nd Earl of Thanet and his second wife Margaret Sackville. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Ralph Wilbraham of Newbottle, Northumberland. They had twelve children:
John Tufton (25 May 1687 – 23 February 1689)
Sackville Tufton, 7th Earl of Thanet (1688–1753)
John Tufton (d. 12 September 1727)
Wilbraham Tufton (d. 20 October 1754)
Thomas Tufton (d. 9 December 1733)
Richard Tufton
Catharine Tufton (d. 27 June 1731)
Elizabeth Tufton (d. 19 June 1746)
Margaret Tufton (d. 24 July 1758)
Christian Tufton (d. 10 October 1746)
Mary Tufton (d. 19 April 1785)
Elizabeth Tufton (died an infant)

Tufton was an officer in the 1st Foot Guards. In 1673, he was wounded in the Battle of Schooneveld against the Dutch fleet. His right hand was shattered with muscles and tendons lacerated and bones broken. Recovery was slow and painful and he required several surgical operations to remove bone fragments, performed without the benefit of anaesthesia. He recuperated in Bath in the following spring where he was treated by Dr Robert Peirce. He returned to Bath over several years for further treatment under Peirce's direction and regained some use of his hand.

In 1687, he was appointed colonel of a regiment of foot, which later became the East Yorkshire Regiment. He was removed from his colonelcy at the end of 1688 for refusing to swear loyalty to William III after the Glorious Revolution.

References

1646 births
1721 deaths
East Yorkshire Regiment officers
English army officers
Grenadier Guards officers
Younger sons of earls
English MPs 1681
English MPs 1685–1687
Military personnel of the Anglo-Dutch Wars

Sackville Tufton


An enduro motorcycle is an off-road racing motorcycle used in enduros, which are long-distance cross-country, Trails, time trial competitions.

Types and features of enduro motorcycles
Enduro motorcycles closely resemble motocross, or "MX" bikes (upon which they are often based). They may have special features such as oversized gas tanks, engines tuned for reliability and longevity, sump protectors, and more durable (and heavier) components.  Enduro bikes combine the long-travel suspension of an off-road motocross bike with engines that are reliable and durable over long distances, and may be fitted with oversize gas tanks for adequate range.  Some enduro bikes have street-legal features such as headlights and quiet mufflers to enable them to use public roadways.  The engine of an enduro bike is usually a single cylinder 2-stroke between 125 cc and 360 cc, or 4-stroke between 195 and 650 cc.

A large and powerful engine is not always an advantage, and riders may prefer smaller bikes that are lighter and more maneuverable. In the UK, where enduros are often held in wet, boggy areas such as the Welsh hills, 250 cc may be sufficient.  In drier climates, where the dirt surface is firmer (albeit dusty), good riders can benefit from having a heavier bike with more power.

There may exist several design differences between enduro motorcycles and moto/supercross bikes, according to the rules of the particular competition.  For an enduro event such as endurocross (Enduro-X), these may include:
Headlight for on-road and after-dark use
Brake light/tail light for on-road use
Protective hardware such as brake and clutch handguards for protection against branches and leaves i.e. "bark busters"
Exhaust system that is street legal and meets regulations for noise and spark arresting
Wide-ratio gear box
Narrower handlebars so that the bike can fit between branches and trees easily
Roll chart holder/Enduro computer
Heavy flywheel

Manufacturers

Past and present enduro manufacturers include AJP, ATK, Beta, Bultaco, CCM, Fantic, Gas Gas, Hodaka, Honda, Husaberg, Husqvarna, Indian, Kawasaki, KTM, Maico, Montesa, MZ, Ossa, Penton, Sherco, Suzuki, SWM and Yamaha.

History
Motorcycles specifically intended for enduro competition first appeared at the International Six Day Trial (ISDT) now called the International Six Days Enduro (ISDE).  The ISDE was first held in 1913 at Carlisle, England.  The ISDE requires an enduro motorcycle to withstand over six days and upwards of 1250 km (777 miles) of competition; repairs are limited to those performed by the rider with limited parts.  The ISDE has occurred annually, apart from interruptions due to World War I and World War II, at various locations throughout the world.  The early events were a test of rider skill and motorcycle reliability.  The earliest ISDE courses used the dirt roads common in that era.  Today, most of the routes are off-road.  In 1980, the ISDT was renamed the International Six Day Enduro (ISDE).

Until 1973, the ISDE was always held in Europe.  In 1973 it was held in the United States, and since then it has been held outside Europe more frequently: twice in Australia (1992 and 1998), again in the USA (1994), Brazil (2003), New Zealand (2006) and Chile (2007).  The ISDE has attracted national teams from as many as 32 countries in recent years.

In the 1970s the term was used in US marketing applied to dual-purpose motorcycles regardless of their suitability for competition.

In the U.S., enduro motorcycles appeared in light and heavyweight classes during the Greenhorn Enduro hosted by the Pasadena Motorcycle Club (PMC).  The Greenhorn Enduro was a nationally recognized 500-mile, two-day desert off-road competition that pounded both rider and machine.  Veterans of the early Greenhorn Enduro included Bud Ekins and Steve McQueen.

Many current enduro motorcycles are built along the basic lines of a World Championship (WEC) machine, as used in the World Enduro Championship.  The WEC is a time-card enduro, whereby a number of stages are raced in a time trial against the clock over a course of at least 200 km (124 miles) consisting of both paved and unpaved trails and roads (up to 30% of the course may be on public or private asphalted roads).

Another popular type of enduro competition that has spurred enduro motorcycle development is endurocross, a hybrid event combining enduro and supercross.

In the UK, most enduro clubman bikes were 2-strokes, but many ACU events had a separate class for 4-stroke machines, such as the Honda XR series. Such 4-strokes tended to be effectively "sporty trail bikes" rather than de-tuned scramblers, but their much improved fuel economy (compared to 2-strokes) meant that they could complete lengthy laps of thirty miles or more without refuelling.  This obviated the need for a back-up team to man refueling stops, allowing 4-stroke clubmen to compete without a support entourage.

Technical developments
MX racing bikes have often been used as platforms for building enduro bikes.  This was partially driven by the conversion of MX from 2-stroke to 4-stroke engine designs to comply with regulatory trends, as well as the development of hybrid competition races such as Enduro-X. Compared to MX bikes, enduro and dual-sport bikes traditionally had a much higher proportion of 4-stroke motors.  Though powerful, MX-based off-road motorcycles can experience problems running full enduro courses, where an over-emphasis on light weight and high power may cause engine reliability problems when racing over distances that are much longer than an MX circuit.

Registration requirements for on-road use

As some enduro courses have portions on public roads as well as off-road tracks, competitors in such events will need enduro bikes that comply with local registration requirements for on-road use.  Modern enduro bikes are closely related to their MX counterparts, and the manufacturers may state that enduro machines are for non-highway use only.  Some countries refuse the registration of enduro bikes for on-highway use unless they are altered to meet local road-legal specifications. However, some enduro bikes, such as the Husqvarna TE250 and  some Husabergs are built to comply with on-road requirements, and it is fairly straightforward to register these machines for on-road use .

References

Off-road motorcycles
Dirt biking
Motorcycle classifications
1913 introductions

Enduro motorcycle


Khedive ( ; ; ) was an honorific title of Persian origin used for the sultans and grand viziers of the Ottoman Empire, but most famously for the viceroy of Egypt from 1805 to 1914.

It is attested in Persian poetry from the 10th century and was used as an Ottoman honorific from the 16th. It was borrowed into Ottoman Turkish directly from Persian. It was first used in Egypt, without official recognition, by Muhammad Ali Pasha, the ethnically Albanian governor of Egypt and Sudan from 1805 to 1848. The initially self-declared title was officially recognized by the Ottoman government in 1867, and used subsequently by Ismail Pasha, and his dynastic successors until 1914. The term entered Arabic in Egypt in the 1850s.

Etymology
This title is recorded in English since 1867, borrowed from French , in turn from Ottoman Turkish  , from Classical Persian   ("lord").

Egypt in the 19th and early 20th centuries

Wilāyah (1805–1867)

Following the French invasion of Egypt  in 1798 and Napoleon's defeat of Egyptian forces, which consisted largely of the ruling Mamluk military caste, the Ottoman Empire dispatched troops from Rumelia (the Balkan provinces of the Ottoman Empire) under the command of Muhammad Ali Pasha to restore the Empire's authority in what had hitherto been an Ottoman province. However, upon the French defeat and departure, Muhammad Ali seized control of the country, and declared himself ruler of Egypt, quickly consolidating an independent local powerbase. After repeated failed attempts to remove and kill him, in 1805, the Sublime Porte officially recognized Muhammad Ali as Pasha and Wāli (Governor) of Egypt. However, demonstrating his grander ambitions, he claimed for himself the higher title of Khedive (Viceroy), as did his successors, Abbas I, Sa'id I and Ibrahim Pasha.

Khedivate (1867–1914)

The Muhammad Ali dynasty's use of the title Khedive was not sanctioned by the Ottoman Empire until 1867 when Sultan Abdülaziz officially recognized it as the title of Ismail Pasha. Moreover, the Porte accepted Ismail's alteration of the royal line of succession to go from father to son, rather than brother to brother, as was the tradition in the Ottoman Empire, and Arab dynasties. In May 1879, the United Kingdom and France began pressuring the Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamid II to depose Ismail Pasha, and this was done on June 26, 1879. The more pliable Tewfik Pasha, Ismail's son, was made his successor as the new Khedive. Ismail Pasha left Egypt and initially went into exile to Naples, but was eventually permitted by Sultan Abdülhamid II to retire to his Palace of Emirgan on the Bosphorus in Constantinople. There he remained, more or less a state prisoner, until his death. He was later buried in Cairo.

After the nationalist Urabi Revolt of 1882, Britain invaded Egypt in support of Tewfik Pasha, and established an occupation over the country. During this period, the Muhammad Ali Dynasty under Tewfik Pasha and his son Abbas II continued to rule Egypt and Sudan using the title Khedive, whilst still under nominal (de jure) Ottoman sovereignty until 1914.

Abbas II of Egypt was deposed by the British in 1914, and Egypt was declared a protectorate of Britain, the Sultanate of Egypt, which was ruled by Abbas's uncle Hussein Kamel under the title of Sultan.

References

External links

Etymonline

Muhammad Ali dynasty
Egyptian nobility
Egyptian royal titles
Gubernatorial titles
Government of the Ottoman Empire
Positions of subnational authority
Titles of national or ethnic leadership

Khedive


A Family At War is a British drama series that aired on ITV from 1970 to 1972. It was created by John Finch and made by Granada Television for ITV. The original producer was Richard Doubleday, and with 13 directors during the series. The series examined the lives of the lower middle-class Ashton family of the city of Liverpool and their experiences from 1938 and through the Second World War.

Fifty-two episodes were produced, all but eight of them in colour. Episodes numbers 25 to 32 were recorded in black and white because of the ITV Colour Strike. The memorable theme tune is from the end of the First Movement (Allegro) of Vaughan Williams's Sixth Symphony. The programme opening titles show a scene of a beach with a child's sand castle, with Union Flag flying, slowly being approached by the encroaching tide, symbolic of a beleaguered Britain standing alone in 1940–1941.

Plot summary
The families Ashton, Briggs, and Porter live in Liverpool in 1938 and later. Edwin Ashton, the son of a mineworker, has moved up to the middle class by working for a printing company and by marrying Jean, the sister of company owner Sefton Briggs. The latter is a hard businessman who appoints his son Tony as the new manager of the workplace, rather than the experienced Edwin.

Edwin and Jean have five children: Philip, David, Robert, Margaret, and Freda. Philip is a leftist who fought as a volunteer in the Spanish Civil War. David joins the RAF because he cannot find another job. He is married to Sheila, but he impregnates Peggy. Robert, the youngest son, wants to join the Navy. Margaret, the eldest Ashton daughter, marries John Porter, but she has a troubled relationship with her mother-in-law Celia. All these events take place against the backdrop of the political conflict leading to the Second World War, which will have a major impact on their lives.

Cast
 Colin Douglas as Edwin Ashton
 Shelagh Fraser as Jean Ashton
 Colin Campbell as David Ashton
 Barbara Flynn as Freda Ashton
 Keith Drinkel as Philip Ashton
 David Dixon as Robert Ashton
 Lesley Nunnerley as Margaret Porter
 Coral Atkins as Sheila Ashton
 John McKelvey as Sefton Briggs
 T.R. Bowen as Tony Briggs
 Ian Thompson as John Porter
 Diana Davies as Doris Jackson
 John Nettles as Ian Mackenzie
 Mark Jones as Michael Armstrong
 Margery Mason as Celia Porter
 Patrick Troughton as Harry Porter
 Brett Usher as Ken Beaumont

DVD release
All episodes of A Family at War are available on DVD in the UK, distributed by Acorn Media UK, but with several of the episodes edited from their original running times. For example, in episode three, Margery Mason and Patrick Troughton are credited, but do not appear.

The series was released in the Netherlands in 2015 by Just Entertainment. Several brief scenes cut from the Acorn set  do appear in the Netherlands set, such as the scene referenced above.

The series is rated  PG  in New Zealand for violence, sex scenes and sexual references.

External links

1970s British drama television series
1970 British television series debuts
1972 British television series endings
British drama television series
ITV television dramas
Television series by ITV Studios
Television shows set in Liverpool
World War II television drama series
Television shows produced by Granada Television
English-language television shows

A Family at War


Billy the Bee, was a UK newspaper comic strip created by the cartoonist Harry Smith. It ran in the 1950s in The Evening Standard newspaper.

It also ran in a number of Scottish and provincial newspapers.

The Newcastle Evening Chronicle (NEC) carried the strip from 12 July 1954 to 13 June 1962 starting with first strip.

The Aberdeen Evening Express (AEE) also carried the strip from 30 August 1954 to 25 April 1958, again starting from the first strip.

The Western Mail published at least two Billy The Bee stories from 13 August 1959 to sometime in 1960. The first story was 'Billy and the Dodo's Egg' which had appeared earlier in NEC and AEE.

Beaverbrook Newspapers Ltd. collected two stories 'The Day the Worm Turned' and 'Billy and the Beast' and published them as 'Stories of Billy the Bee from the Evening Standard by Harry Smith'.

Billy also appeared in at least 2 Dutch compilation albums as Billy Di Bej, published in the early 1960s.

References

British comics
Fictional bees
British comics characters
Humor comics
Comic strips started in the 1950s

Billy the Bee


The "lost in the mall" technique or experiment is a memory implantation technique used to demonstrate that confabulations about events that never took place – such as having been lost in a shopping mall as a child – can be created through suggestions made to experimental subjects that their older relative was present at the time. It was first developed by Elizabeth Loftus and her undergraduate student Jim Coan, as support for the thesis that it is possible to implant entirely false memories in people. The technique was developed in the context of the debate about the existence of repressed memories and false memory syndrome.

Study methodology
Coan designed the first lost in the mall experiment as an extra-credit assignment for a course in cognitive psychology. The professor—Loftus—invited her students to design and execute an experiment implanting false memories in subjects. Coan enlisted his mother, sister and brother as subjects. He assembled booklets containing four short narratives describing childhood events, and instructed them to try to remember as much as possible about each of the four events, and to write down those details over the course of six days. Unknown to the participants, one of the narratives was false; it described Coan's brother getting lost in a shopping mall at around the age of 5, then being rescued by an elderly person and reunited with his family. During the experiment, Coan's brother unwittingly invented several additional details of the false narrative. At the conclusion of the experiment during a tape-recorded debriefing when told that one of the narratives was false, Coan's brother could not identify which one was false and expressed disbelief when told. Coan later refined the study methodology for his senior thesis where he reports "all subjects were able to identify the false memory"(p. 16). Coan, J.A., (1993, August 18), Creating False Memories, Senior Paper, Psychology Honors Program, University of Washington.

In a follow-up experiment, Elizabeth Loftus and Jacqueline Pickrell adapted the methods Coan had used on his brother in a formal study with 24 participants, about 25% of whom reported remembering the false event. The memory for the false event was usually reported to be less clear than the true events, and people generally used more words to describe the true events than the false events. At the end of the study when the participants were told that one of the 4 events was false, 5 out of the 24 participants failed to identify the lost in the mall event as the false event and instead picked one of the true events to be false. Loftus calls this study "existence proof" for the phenomenon of false memory creation and suggests that the false memory is formed as a result of the suggested event (being lost in a mall) being incorporated into already existing memories of going to the mall. With the passage of time it becomes harder for people to differentiate between what actually happened and what was imagined and they make memory errors. However, it remains to be seen how an older relative verifying the lost incident applies to what might happen in therapy.

The lost in the mall experiment has been replicated using claims by older relatives and extended with different ages of subjects. About 25 percent of the participants not only "remembered" the implanted memory but also filled in the missing details.

Criticism of methodology and conclusions

The Lost in the Mall technique is generally accepted as a memory implantation study that is useful for investigating the effect of suggestions on memory. However, some have argued that it is not generalizable to memories for traumatic events.

An article in the journal Child Development by Pezdek and Hodges described an extension of the experiment: by using the subjects' family members to do the interviewing, their study was able to replicate Loftus' findings that memories of being lost in the mall could be created and were more likely to occur in young children. However, a much smaller number of children reported false memories of another untrue incident: that of a painful and embarrassing enema. Pezdek argues that less plausible implanted memories, such as being given an enema, are of a different caliber than the memories used in Loftus' work; and that the capability to implant plausible memories cannot be generalized to the capability to implant implausible memories.

Another article by Kenneth Pope in American Psychologist suggested possible confounding variables in the study, questioning whether the technique's ability to generate a false memory could be compared with the ability of a therapist to create a pseudomemory of childhood sexual abuse.

In a 1999 article in the journal Ethics & Behavior, Lynn Crook and Martha Dean, psychologists who made their career in part with recovered memories, questioned Loftus' Lost in the Mall study, arguing that the methods used were unethical and the results not generalizable to real-life memories of trauma. Loftus responded to their criticism, noting "exaggerations, omissions and errors" in Crook and Dean's description of the technique and mistakes about the study's representation in the media. Loftus made it clear that the Lost in the Mall study (and other studies using memory implantation techniques) in no way claimed that all memories of childhood sexual abuse discovered in therapy were false; instead, they tried to show how easy it was to manipulate human memory if an older relative said they witnessed the incident. Loftus also accused Crook of writing the article as part of a long series of efforts to discredit her integrity as a researcher and her work.

A later paper published by Crook and McEwen in 2019   cites Loftus' testimony in a 2017 court deposition that the study failed to control for "the possibility the participants were lost without their relatives' knowledge,"  which allows for the possibility that participants were drawing upon details from true childhood experiences rather than experimental suggestion. Upon analyzing participants and conflicting data in the study, Crook and McEwen conclude that "the five subjects reported to the HSRC in 1995 were able to differentiate between events they experienced and events that were suggested to them" and that "our examination suggests the experiences of the two subjects did not qualify" as "existence proof for false memory formation."

In 2019, Ruth Blizard and Morgan Shaw, both private-practice clinical psychologists/psychoanalysts who have consulted on recovered memory cases, published a criticism of Loftus and Pickrell (1995) that was heavily sourced from Lynn Crook  in the trade journal Journal of Child Custody. They argue that False Memory Syndrome (FMS), along with Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS), were developed in defense of parents accused of child abuse, as part of a larger movement to undermine prosecution of child abuse. Blizard and Shaw argue that the results of Loftus and Pickrell (1995) are inapplicable to recovered memories of abuse, as recovered memories of childhood abuse often involved repeated instances and content that is traumatic and sexual in nature. Because family members who claimed to witness the event corroborated the false memories in the Lost in the Mall study, Blizard and Shaw argue that the results are not applicable to potential suggestion in therapeutic practice. In 2020, a study documenting the implanting of repeated instances of false memories was posted on the PsyArXiv preprint server that explicitly disputed the Bizzard and Shaw argument related to repeated instances of abuse.

See also
 Memory conformity
 Memory implantation
 Misinformation effect

Footnotes

References

Memory
Cognitive biases
Experiments

Lost in the mall technique


Urban Street Jam is an annual hip-hop culture festival that showcases music, art, dance, and fashion in the hip-hop community.

History
Craig Borja of Phaze1 Entertainment/owner and producer along with Marlon Shell of Stylz Dance Studio/Co owner and producer of Urban Street Jams first annual event was held on February 20, 2010, Urban Street Jam's original venue was scheduled to be outdoors at Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre (Irvine) at the Hidden Valley Park, but due to weather, the venue was changed last minute to Hilton Hotel in Costa Mesa, California. Urban Street Jam had a fashion show, choreography dance competition, 2 vs 2 all stylz dance battle, bboy dance competition, clothing venues, viewers choice battle, graffiti showcase and import show cars. Also, Stephen "Twitch" Boss from So You Think You Can Dance taught a dance workshop at the event.

Hosts

The entire festival was hosted by Stylz Dance Studio in Covina, California and Phaze1 Entertainment.
Emcees include 21XL Production's Myron Marten and Sick Step Dance Crew's Mookie, who have both hosted Vibe Dance Competition.
Sponsors include Power 106, World of Dance, and Hip Hop International, BOOGIEZONE.COM, Kallusive Clothing, DanceTag.tv, and Clubbing411.

Performers
Several celebrities in the dance community have performed for this event including those from America's Best Dance Crew and So You Think You Can Dance. Dancers include Stephen "Twitch" Boss, Dominic "D-Trix" Sandoval of Quest Crew, Hokuto "Hok" Konishi of Quest Crew, RJ KoolRaul of Supreme Soul, Smart Mark and Lil-O of Phresh Select, Kaba Modern Legacy, Mike Song and Victor Kim of Quest Crew.

Winners
2010

Choreography Dance Competition
1st: Common Ground from Irvine, California
2nd: 220 from San Diego, California
3rd: Main Ingredient from Los Angeles, California

All Stylz Dance Battle
 Mike Song of Kaba Modern and Victor Kim of Quest Crew
 D-Trix of Quest Crew and Hok of Quest Crew
 Smart Mark of Phresh Select/AOP and Lil-O of Phresh Select/AOP

2011

Choreography Dance Competition
1st: Choreo Cookies from Oceanside, California
2nd: Academy of Villains Northern California
3rd: Jungle Boogie from  Atlanta, Georgia

All Stylz Battle Dance Battle

1st: Miss Funk, Breeze Lee, & Full-Out of VersaStyle Dance Company

See also

List of hip hop music festivals
Hip hop culture

References

External links
 Urban Street Jam official website
  Stylz Dance Studio Host of the festival

Hip hop music festivals in the United States
Street dance competitions
Music festivals established in 2011
Music festivals in California

Urban Street Jam


Scorpion is a fictional character in the Mortal Kombat fighting game franchise by Midway Games and NetherRealm Studios. A ninja dressed in yellow, his primary weapon is a kunai rope dart, which he uses to harpoon opponents. Debuting in the original 1992 game, Scorpion has appeared as playable in every main installment except Mortal Kombat 3 (1995).

The series' original Scorpion is Hanzo Hasashi (), an undead Japanese warrior principally defined by his quest to avenge the deaths of himself, his family, and his clan; he kills Sub-Zero, the apparent murderer, in-between the original game and Mortal Kombat II (1993), leading to a bitter feud between himself and the new Sub-Zero Kuai Liang (the original's brother) spanning across most of the series, but subsequent games reveal that his family and clan were actually murdered by the sorcerer Quan Chi, causing his quest for vengeance to begin anew. He is often depicted as a neutral figure neither heroic nor villainous, who pursues his own objectives regardless of larger conflicts, although he sometimes takes whichever side can help him achieve his goals. While Hasashi remains the franchise's Scorpion throughout both the franchise's original and second timelines, the third timeline established in Mortal Kombat 1 (2023), instead establishes Kuai Liang as Scorpion, although Hasashi's Scorpion appears as timeline variants.

Scorpion has received critical acclaim since his debut and frequently appears in media outside of the games. He is regarded as Mortal Kombat most iconic fighter; series co-creator Ed Boon cites Scorpion as his favorite character.

Character design

Scorpion appeared in the first Mortal Kombat as one of three palette-swapped ninja characters along with Sub-Zero and Reptile. His early origins were revealed by the series' original chief character designer John Tobias in September 2011 when he posted several pages of old pre-production character sketches and notes on Twitter. Scorpion and Sub-Zero were simply described as "[a] palette swap for 2 ninjas—a hunter and the hunted," while Tobias also considered the concepts of either one of them fleeing their clan, or a "revenge story" involving the then-unnamed characters being part of rival clans. In regards to the game's strict memory limitations, co-creator and programmer Ed Boon recalled: "A lot of attention went into the economics of it, and so we knew that if we could take a character and change their color and use basically the same memory to create two characters, we'd save a lot of money and we'd have two characters."

Scorpion was given a yellow palette because the developers decided it symbolized fire in contrast to Sub-Zero's ice blue. Their similar appearance but opposite nature "prompted the story behind them being these opposing ninja-clan-type characters." A third ninja swap, Reptile, was added in the third revision as a hidden non-playable character who was outfitted in green and used Scorpion's spear (along with Sub-Zero's freeze) as part of his offensive arsenal; he was devised by Boon as "a cooler version of Scorpion." The original costume was created from a modified ninja-like outfit bought at a Chicago costume shop and was red for filming in the first game, but a different yellow one with a quilted vest and knee-high shin guards was utilized for Mortal Kombat II. This in turn made the other male ninja characters therein—Sub-Zero, Reptile, and hidden characters Smoke and Noob Saibot—palette swaps of Scorpion, with the latter two also using Scorpion's spear when players fought them separately in secret battles. Scorpion and the ninja characters were first played by Daniel Pesina, who was replaced by John Turk for Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 and the 1996 compilation Mortal Kombat Trilogy, while Sal Divita played the character in MK: Mythologies.

While his ninja-outfit template from the first generation of games has remained relatively unchanged over time, the improved graphics of the post-Mortal Kombat 4 three-dimensional releases have allowed more details to better differentiate the male ninja characters, and Scorpion's costumes were duly enhanced with objects such as two katana swords strapped to his back and his spear attached to a rope tied to his belt in Deadly Alliance, and a set of ornate shoulder epaulets in Deception, in which his alternate costume was a throwback to the two-dimensional MK titles. Scorpion's MK2011 costume was inspired by his namesake, such as the character's abdomen-shaped shoulder pads, the two stinger-handled swords crisscrossed on his back, and the exoskeletal pattern on his hard-shell face mask. Scorpion was included with Sub-Zero, Reptile and Ermac in a bundle of classic costumes from the first Mortal Kombat that was released as downloadable content for the 2011 reboot. For Injustice: Gods Among Us, he received a new costume designed by comic artist Jim Lee. In the original Mortal Kombats fighter-selection screen, Scorpion had regular human eyes, as his identity as a resurrected specter was meant to be a mystery, but he was given solid yellow or white eyes for every release thereafter starting with MKII, while actors portraying Scorpion in live-action media such as the feature films and the Mortal Kombat: Legacy web series were outfitted with opaque contact lenses in order to achieve this effect.

Scorpion yells one of two taunts — "Get over here!" and "Come here!" — at his opponents when he hits them with his spear. They were voiced by Boon in the games and both feature films, but only one of them ("Come here!") was included in the home ports of MK and MKII due to memory constraints. According to Boon, the second of the character's phrases originated because he thought "it would be funny to have him yell out 'Get over here!' when he [threw the spear]," and he was thus encouraged to get behind the studio microphone and record the taunts. Twenty years after the first MK game's release, Boon included creating the spear move as well as the character itself among his personal high points of the franchise's history, adding: "I remember people sitting in my office all day just doing this uppercut [on a speared enemy] again and again, like 'Oh my God, that feels so good.' It just became the cornerstone of [the game]." MKII saw the debut of the phrase "Toasty!", which was voiced by series sound designer Dan Forden during a variation of Scorpion's "Flaming Skull" Fatality or at random when any of the game's characters landed an uppercut. According to Tobias, it first originated as "You're Toast!", which was a taunt bandied among the designers during game-testing sessions.

Scorpion's signature special move throughout the series has him hurling a harpoon-like spear (described as a kunai) attached to a length of rope at his opponents. The spear impales his opponents through the chest before Scorpion then pulls them in to close range for a free hit. His other incumbent special move throughout the series, save for Deadly Alliance, has been his Teleport Punch, where he flies offscreen during battle and then reappears to strike his opponent from behind. Scorpion additionally gained a new leg-takedown maneuver in MKII that was not well-received (Sega Saturn Magazine called it a "ridiculous" move that "no one ever used"). He was considered a lower-tier character by GamePro in their 1993 MKII character rankings, rating him eighth out of the game's twelve playables and describing both him and Sub-Zero as "formerly a top-tier character [who] doesn't have much of a chance in MKII since all of the male ninjas have some poor matchups," with Scorpion faring the worst against Jax and Mileena. Ed Lomas of Sega Saturn Magazine described the character as having "simple yet effective" special moves in UMK3 that "make him good for beginners, [which] doesn't stop him from being a useful character," while his "trusty" spear was "perfect for setting up combos." GameSpy, in their Deception walkthrough, described the character as "a well-rounded character that has strengths in combos as well as in special and normal moves." They additionally described the spear as "useful as ever" in Armageddon, adding, "Between [that and his] other special moves ... Scorpion pretty much has everything covered." Prima Games' MK2011 strategy guide considered Scorpion to be well-balanced with no distinct weaknesses or advantages, while winning more than half of his fights against the game's other characters. He is also a playable character for both the versus and story modes in Shaolin Monks, where his move sets in this game are largely identical to Liu Kang's with some original techniques.

Scorpion's signature finishing move from the original game up until Mortal Kombat 4 was his "Fire Breath" Fatality, in which he removes his mask to reveal a skull right before immolating his opponent. A variation of this finisher was included in MKII: entering a different button/joystick combination added the spoken "Toasty!" phrase that simultaneously appeared on the screen. While the "Fire Breath" was brought back for Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe in 2008, his spear has otherwise served as his primary tool in his Fatalities in the three-dimensional games, from impaling his opponents through the head and then decapitating them in Deadly Alliance, using it to yank off their limbs in Deception, and plunging it into their chest before kicking them through a portal that left nothing but a skinned corpse hanging from the spear's chain in MK2011 ("Nether Gate"). His second Fatality in the reboot, "Split Decision", had Scorpion using one of his back-mounted swords to hack his opponent to pieces.

Scorpion would indirectly play a role in the fabrication of the-then nonexistent character Ermac when Electronic Gaming Monthly published a doctored screenshot of Scorpion from the original game in 1993. This subsequently spawned false player rumors of a glitch that would turn Scorpion's sprite red with the name "Error Macro" appearing in the energy bar. Ermac became playable in UMK3, in which he was a red palette swap of Scorpion who shared his Teleport Punch.

Appearances

Midway games
In Mortal Kombat (1992), Scorpion is an undead specter, a warrior who was killed by Sub-Zero, survived by a wife and child, and allowed to return to the physical realms in order to have his revenge. The same ending implies that the curse of Scorpion's supernatural existence means he can have revenge but cannot reunite with his still-living family.  By Mortal Kombat II (1993), another Lin Kuei warrior called Sub-Zero joins this tournament. When Scorpion sees him spare the life of an opponent, he realizes this is not the same Sub-Zero who killed him, but his younger brother. Scorpion decides to be the younger Sub-Zero's guardian in atonement for killing his older brother. In Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, Shao Kahn enlists Scorpion's aid. Scorpion's allegiance to the emperor dissolves when he discovers this puts him against Sub-Zero, who has allied with Earth's defenders.

The game Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero (1997) features Scorpion as an unplayable boss character who appears twice.  The game established Scorpion's real name and the name of his clan, cemented the Lin Kuei is a Chinese clan and its warriors do not consider themselves ninja, and explained the reason for Lin Kuei warriors and Shirai Ryu warriors wearing such similar costumes. Years before the original game's events, the still living Shirai Ryu ninja Hanzo Hasashi is enlisted by the necromancer Quan Chi to find a map hidden in a Shaolin temple. Quan Chi also gives this task to Sub-Zero, resulting in Hanzo's death. Quan Chi eliminates all members of the rival Shirai Ryu clan, including Scorpion's wife Harumi and his son Satoshi. The Lin Kuei Grandmaster applauds this action. Sub-Zero takes another assignment for Quan Chi, retrieving an amulet that, unknown to him, is the power source of Shinnok, the fallen Elder God who ruled the Netherrealm. In the Netherrealm, Sub-Zero briefly encounters Scorpion.

Mortal Kombat 4 (1997) Quan Chi releases Scorpion from the Netherrealm to kill younger Sub-Zero. If the player reaches Sub-Zero's victory ending, Quan Chi reveals he is personally responsible for the death of the Shirai Ryu clan. In Scorpion's victory ending, Quan Chi suddenly appears and boasts of his involvement in killing Scorpion's clan and family. The necromancer then attempts to banish Scorpion to the Netherrealm permanently, but the ninja grabs him, sending them both into the Hellish realm. In Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance (2002), Quan Chi escapes Scorpion and hires the Oni Drahmin and Moloch to protect him. In Mortal Kombat: Deception, Scorpion is depicted as having escaped the Netherrealm. The game's events lead Scorpion to accept a new role as the Elder Gods' servant, working as a protector of Earthrealm by helping prevent the merging of the realms by the villain Onaga.

In the 2005 beat 'em up spin-off Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks, set during the events of Mortal Kombat II, Scorpion is a boss character who attempts to kill the game's playable protagonists Liu Kang and Kung Lao.

In the training mode of Mortal Kombat: Armageddon (2006), Scorpion cuts a deal with the Elder Gods, offering to serve them in exchange for the resurrection of the Shirai Ryu, as well as his wife and son. Scorpion's clan and family are resurrected, but only as undead beings. Enraged, Scorpion seeks to destroy the Elder Gods' chance of preventing Armageddon by taking the elemental Blaze's power, but the Edenian demigod Taven defeats him.

Scorpion appears in the 2008 crossover title Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, participating in a war between the two titular franchises. In his ending, the essence of Dark Kahn finds a host in Scorpion's body, making him the most powerful being in the universe.

Netherrealm Studio games
Starting with the Mortal Kombat reboot game (2011), an alternative-timeline is created by revising certain events of the franchise's first three games. Raiden convinces Scorpion to spare Bi-Han's life in exchange for the Elder Gods resurrecting the Shirai Ryu clan. Quan Chi provokes Scorpion having him kill Bi-Han instead by showing his family's death. This leads Kuai Liang, who at the time calls himself "Tundra," to adopt the Sub-Zero mantle somewhat earlier than he did in the original timeline. The younger Sub-Zero later defeats Scorpion, but is prevented from destroying the undead warrior when his Lin Kuei comrades apprehend him on order by the clan's Grandmaster.

In Mortal Kombat X, which takes place two years after the previous game, Scorpion still serves Quan Chi. Raiden and his allies later restore him, Kuai Liang, and Jax to full life, freeing them from the necromancer's influence. Over the course of the next two decades, the restored Hanzo Hasashi reforms the Shirai Ryu, making a new clan dedicated to the protection of Earth, and trains Takeda Takahashi, son of his ally and fellow warrior Kenshi. When Sub-Zero reveals proof Quan Chi was responsible for the destruction of the Shirai Ryu clan, Scorpion accepts Kuai Liang as an ally. As the Special Forces capture Quan Chi, a revenge-driven Hanzo decapitates Quan Chi.

In Mortal Kombat 11, two years after MKX and Shinnok's defeat, Hanzo continues to lead the Shirai Ryu as its Grandmaster. When the keeper of time Kronika attempts to erase Raiden from history, she brings a past version of the undead Scorpion to the present, recruiting him by promising to resurrect his clan and family. Meanwhile, the present-day Hanzo works with Sub-Zero to foil the Lin Kuei assassin turned cyborg called Sektor and his plans to build a Cyber Lin Kuei army for Kronika. They are successful and learn Sektor also played a role in murdering Scorpion's clan and family. After Kronika's forces compromise or destroy most of the bases of Earthrealm's defenders, Scorpion succeeds in recruiting Kharon, ferryman of the dead, and convinces his younger self to turn away from Kronika. He is then killed by the Outworld villain D'Vorah. Dying, Scorpion urges his younger self to abandon vengeance and defend Earthrealm. The younger Scorpion joins the allied forces of Earthrealm and Outworld to stop Kronika.

In Mortal Kombat 1, the identity of Scorpion is rebooted to be Kuai Liang, while Hanzo Hasashi's incarnation of Scorpion appears as an assist-based kameo character. In the game's story, the Lin Kuei serves Fire God Liu Kang as the protectors of Earthrealm, but Scorpion leaves the clan alongside Smoke after his brother, Bi-Han, reveals that he let their father die and betrays them to Shang Tsung. After Titan Shang's forces are defeated, Scorpion and Smoke escape to Japan to establish the Shirai Ryu clan, which becomes Earthrealm's new guardians. This timeline's version of Hanzo Hasashi appears in Smoke's ending, where he is depicted as a young thief that Smoke recruits into the Shirai Ryu. An alternate version of Hanzo's Scorpion appears as the first boss in Invasion Mode, where he threatens Liu Kang's timeline after discovering the only timeline he found Harumi alive in was one where she married Kuai Liang. After he is defeated, Liu Kang sends him to an alternate timeline where Harumi lost her Hanzo and became Scorpion, leading the two to bond over their shared grief before joining to take on Quan Chi's evil forces.

Other games
Scorpion appeared as a guest character in Midway's NBA Jam Tournament Edition (1995), The Grid (2000), MLB Slugfest: Loaded (2004), and Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy (2004).

Scorpion joined the cast of 2013's Injustice: Gods Among Us as a downloadable character. In his single-player battle ending, wondering how he ended up in this world, Scorpion confronted the demon Trigon, who summoned him out of anger that he had left his demon army and robbed him the glory of defeating the One-Earth High Councilor (Superman). Scorpion fights and defeats Trigon before taking command of his demonic forces, which he plans to use to rule the world.

Other media

Literature
Scorpion has a supporting role in Jeff Rovin's 1995 non-canon novel Mortal Kombat, which is set before the events of the first game. He is depicted as a young man who gains his special powers after the soul of his deceased father merges with his body so it can be used as a vessel to seek revenge against Sub-Zero for his murder.

In Malibu Comics' Mortal Kombat miniseries "Blood and Thunder" (1994), Scorpion is simply a specter consumed by revenge against Sub-Zero, while his spear is changed to a spiked morning star attached to a length of chain or rope. Along with the main characters from the first game, he seeks to solve all the riddles inside Shang Tsung's mystical tome, the "Tao Te Zhan", in order to gain absolute power (which no one accomplishes). In the followup Battlewave miniseries (1995), Scorpion is returned to the living world by Outworld emperor Shao Kahn with a mystical gem called the Deathstone, and is put in command of an army of undead soldiers.

Scorpion plays a minor part in several issues of DC Comics' 2015 miniseries Mortal Kombat X: Blood Ties, set before the events of the game.

Film and television

Scorpion was played in a minor role by Chris Casamassa in the film Mortal Kombat (1995). The plot has him and Sub-Zero serving as slaves under Shang Tsung's command. He is killed by Johnny Cage in the Mortal Kombat tournament. In the sequel Mortal Kombat Annihilation (1997), Scorpion (played by J. J. Perry) again works for a higher power, this time Shao Kahn. Following a failed assassination attempt on Liu Kang and Kitana by Kahn's extermination squads, he then kidnaps Kitana.

In the 1995 animated film Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins, Scorpion is again depicted as a henchman to Shang Tsung opposite Sub-Zero, and their past connection is explored during the course of the film in a narrated computer-animated fight sequence.

Scorpion made one appearance in one episode of the 1996 animated series Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm His rivalry with Sub-Zero is vaguely explored as no explicit mention is ever made of Sub-Zero having killed him. Scorpion instead serves as an independent entity of evil, while his spear was depicted as a green snake-like head attached to a length of chain.

In the 1998 television series Mortal Kombat: Conquest, Scorpion (Chris Casamassa) commands his lover, Peron, to murder Sub-Zero's sister, and Sub-Zero kills Peron in retaliation, which culminates in a duel which ends in a stalemate due to the arrival of the show's main characters Kung Lao, Siro, and Taja.

In the 2010 live-action short film Mortal Kombat: Rebirth, directed by Kevin Tancharoen, Scorpion (Ian Anthony Dale)  is addressed by his real name and is a voluntary prisoner being questioned by Deacon City police captain Jackson Briggs regarding an underground tournament hosted by Shang Tsung.

 Dale reprised the role in Tancharoen's Mortal Kombat: Legacy web series. His story takes place in feudal Japan, when Hasashi is the leader of the Shirai Ryu and a family man training his young son, Jubei, in combat. Hanzo is later summoned to a meeting with the shogun that turns out to be a ruse by Bi-Han (Sub-Zero) of the rival Lin Kuei clan. After subduing Sub-Zero in battle, he returns to his village to find his family slain before he himself is killed from behind by Sub-Zero. Quan Chi resurrects Scorpion as a specter and promises him revenge against Sub-Zero in exchange for his services. The dialogue of Scorpion, his family, and Sub-Zero is in Japanese with English subtitles. In the 2013 second season, a flashback reveals that Hanzo and Bi-Han were childhood friends but driven apart by the mutual disdain of their clans. Two decades later, both clans have made some effort towards reconciliation, but Hasashi encounters Bi-Han's younger brother, Kuai Liang, who provokes a fight, but is killed by Hanzo offscreen. Hanzo and Bi-Han attempt to maintain the truce between their clans with no repercussions against the Shirai Ryu for Kuai's death, but after the events of season one, the resurrected Hanzo (now Scorpion) is wrongly convinced of Bi-Han's culpability in his family's and clan's deaths. In the present day, Bi-Han and Scorpion fight in the Mortal Kombat tournament, and Scorpion kills Bi-Han. Dale, who has a background in kung fu, said that after rehearsals, his "arms and shoulders felt like they had daggers in them," while the contacts he wore were "cumbersome"

Scorpion is the titular protagonist of the animated film Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion's Revenge. The film follows the basic contours of the first game's storyline, as well as Scorpion's origins and past life as Hanzo Hasashi and the murder of his family and clan by Sub-Zero (Quan Chi in disguise) and the Lin Kuei. He is shown to more explicitly aid the Earthrealm warriors in the Mortal Kombat tournament before achieving his goal of avenging his family and clan by killing Quan Chi in combat. He chooses to remain on the island, and dies as it is destroyed. Scorpion returns in the sequel Mortal Kombat Legends: Battle of the Realms.

Hiroyuki Sanada plays Scorpion in the reboot film Mortal Kombat (2021). With his wife, eldest child, and clan murdered at the hands of the Lin Kuei clan and their leader Bi-Han, Hanzo Hasashi seeks revenge. After swearing revenge and killing a number of Lin Kuei assassins, he is killed by Bi-Han as well. A vengeful spectre banished to the Netherrealm, Hasashi returns as Scorpion centuries later to fight Bi-Han, now as Sub-Zero, next to Cole Young, the descendant of Hasashi's surviving child. Sanada was not familiar with the Mortal Kombat franchise prior to the film's development, but researched the character, whom he called "a very tasty role for an actor: family man changed to fighting machine."

Merchandise and promotion
Along with the original series characters, Scorpion was highlighted on an individual track from The Immortals' album Mortal Kombat: The Album (1994), titled "Lost Soul Bent on Revenge".

Scorpion has featured in various types of merchandise during his tenure in the MK series, mostly action figures and sculptures. Hasbro released the first Scorpion figures in 1994: a 3.75" version in which his mask was blue and he was packaged with a plastic scorpion accessory, then a twelve-inch figure whose design and packaged weaponry were more in line with the games. Toy Island distributed a Scorpion figure in 1996 as part of their MK Trilogy collection, which included a pair of hookswords, and Infinite Concepts put out a Scorpion figure in 1999. Jazwares released a 6" Deception figure in 2005, and a 2006 Shaolin Monks figure that was also included as part of a Hot Topic-exclusive two-pack with Sub-Zero, in addition to a collection of figures in 2011: a 4" figure from their MK2011 line, a "Klassic" four-incher, and a "Retro" figure that featured an interchangeable skull head and which was packaged with Sub-Zero, Reptile and Smoke in a box set. Syco Collectibles released a host of Scorpion merchandise in 2011-2012: 10" (with glow-in-the-dark eyes) and 18" polystone statues, along with two busts—a 1:2 scale with a 15" base and light-up eyes; and a smaller bust with an 11" base that featured a detachable head. Pop Culture Shock distributed a life-sized bust in 2011 that featured removable shoulder pads and light-up eyes, as well as a 19" statuette based on his UMK3 design as part of their "Mortal Kombat Klassics" collection. A 16.5" mixed-media statue was released by the company in 2012, in which Scorpion was sculpted in a spear-throwing pose and was outfitted in all black.

Scorpion was one of thirteen MK2011 characters depicted on life-sized standing cardboard cutouts from Advanced Graphics. Funko released a Scorpion bobblehead in 2011, and he was one of twenty characters featured on 2.5" x 3.5" collectible magnets by Ata-Boy Wholesale that year. He appeared along with other Mortal Kombat series villains Kabal, Quan Chi, and Shao Kahn in a collection of 2.5" super-deformed figures released by Jazwares in 2012.

Reception and legacy

Cultural impact
Scorpion has made several cameo appearances in television programs, such as Drawn Together, Robot Chicken, and The Cleveland Show. The character was featured along with Raiden, Ermac, Jax, and Shang Tsung in a 2014 animated short film produced by Comedy Central that parodied the Mortal Kombat games.

Critical reception and popularity
Scorpion, along with Sub-Zero, is often regarded as one of the most popular and iconic characters in the Mortal Kombat franchise, and in the fighting-game genre in general. Game Informer rated Scorpion the third best fighting game character in 2009, while UGO Networks ranked Scorpion second only to the series' main protagonist Liu Kang in their 2012 list of the top characters in the franchise. PLAY magazine ranked him fourth on their list of top ninja characters in 2013. Lucas Sullivan of GamesRadar ranked him as the seventh best fighting game character in the genre's history due to the "coolness of his 'undead antagonist' factor. Despite the fact that he started out as a mere palette swap, Scorpion's appeal made him a frontrunner in every major MK game to date." Complex featured Scorpion in a whole host of best-of lists: he was ranked the fifth-most brutal fighter in the series and the 15th best video game mascot, in addition to Complex naming him the fourth-"most dominant" fighting game character.

As Scorpion is regularly intertwined with Sub-Zero throughout the series, they have often been paired together in regards to critical reception being praised by PC World, GameRevolution, and a GamesRadar article discussed their evolution across the Mortal Kombat series, citing them as its two most popular characters. Together, Scorpion and Sub-Zero were voted the fifth most iconic characters in the two-decade history of the PlayStation by readers of PlayStation Official Magazine – UK in 2015. GamePro ranked Scorpion, Sub-Zero, and the other ninjas from the series third in their 2009 list of the best palette-swapped video game characters, adding that Midway Games "has turned the art of making new characters from other, different-colored characters into a science."

Special moves and Fatalities have been mostly very well received. In 2010, IGN listed Scorpion's "Flaming Skull" as the second best MK Fatality without specifying any particular title in the series, due to how the player's perception of the character changes when he removes his mask. They called it an "enduring classic", noting that the finisher was notably unchanged in future games as a result of its connection with the character. His spear attack was ranked ninth in GameSpots 2002 list of the top ten fighting-game special moves of all time as the single most powerful yet balanced attack in the original game, as well as for its initial shock value, furthermore deeming it "the definitive Mortal Kombat move." The "Nether Gate" from MK2011 was included by FHM on their list of the game's nine most brutal Fatalities. His MKII Friendship, shared with Sub-Zero and Reptile, placed in Prima Games' list of the series' top 50 Fatalities, in addition to the "Nether Gate", his stage fatality from MK2011, and the "Flaming Skull" from the original MK. Paste rated it the fourth best Fatality from MK2011, in addition to rating the "Flaming Skull" as the third best finisher from the first game. However, his Animality from UMK3/Trilogy (a penguin that lays an exploding egg) tied with that of Rain as the eighth worst finisher in the series according to GamePro.

Scorpion's catchphrase "Get over here!" was listed in PLAYs joke list of ten best chat-up lines. According to PlayStation Universe in 2011, Scorpion "has spawned one of the most iconic catchphrases in gaming history" and "remains a firm fan favorite nineteen years since his debut."

The Escapist called the Scorpion and Sub-Zero-themed episode 7 "one of the best episodes" in the series, lending an emotional weight to the most famous tale in the franchise. On the other hand, Film School Rejects bemoaned the series' expectation that its viewers be knowledgeable about the franchise's history, explaining that without previous knowledge of the games, the viewer is left with too many questions that may never be answered. Critical reception to Scorpion's role in his spin-off was the subject of mixed commentary as Alessandro Fillari of GameSpot as it excelled when it focused on Scorpion, but felt the character-heavy storyline "makes for an overstuffed plot". Sam Stone of Comic Book Resources praised its development of the protagonist's backstory, However, Bob Chipman of The Escapist opined Scorpion's was the film's only grace as he overshadows the rest of the cast of the film. Joshua Yehl of IGN commented, "The movie's biggest problem is that it tries to do the epic Mortal Kombat tournament arc on top of a more personal Scorpion story and ends up doing justice to neither." Meanwhile, Scorpion's backstory from the 2021 live-action film was praised how violent it was without the need or ruining the film. IGN in particular liked the handling of Scorpion and Sub-Zero's rivalry across the movie's fight scenes, Grim Dark Magazine agreed while also liking how the film properly cast Sanada and his rival for the roles, making them faithful to the original material.

See also

Ninja in popular culture

References

External links

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Chapter V of the United Nations Charter contains provisions establishing the United Nations Security Council.

Article 23  establishes the composition of the Security Council, with five permanent members (the Republic of China, (currently People's Republic of China), France, the Soviet Union (Now Russian Federation), the United Kingdom, and the United States) and 10 non-permanent members elected by the General Assembly. The non-permanent members serve two year terms and cannot be immediately re-elected. In the selection process for these non-permanent members, the treaty calls for "due regard being specially paid, in the first instance to the contribution of Members of the United Nations to the maintenance of international peace and security and to the other purposes of the Organization, and also to equitable geographical distribution."

Article 24 gives the Security Council "primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security" and requires the  Security Council to act in accordance with the UN's purposes and principles.

Article 25 requires members to "accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council," a mandate that does not apply with respect to the decisions of any other UN body, with the exception of the World Court's decisions once a country has accepted its jurisdiction.

Article 26 reflects a pro-disarmament sentiment:
In order to promote the establishment and maintenance of international peace and security with the least diversion for armaments of the world's human and economic resources, the Security Council shall be responsible for formulating, with the assistance of the Military Staff Committee referred to in Article 47, plans to be submitted to the Members of the United Nations for the establishment of a system for the regulation of armaments.

Nonetheless, the language employed here is considerably softer than that of Article 8 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, which stated:
The Members of the League agree that the manufacture by private enterprise of munitions and implements of war is open to grave objections. The Council shall advise how the evil effects attendant upon such manufacture can be prevented, due regard being had to the necessities of those Members of the League which are not able to manufacture the munitions and implements of war necessary for their safety.

The Security Council made its first real effort on disarmament in June 1968 when it adopted Resolution 255, which contained assurances for non-nuclear weapon states. Some observers believe that today, the UNSC is not fulfilling its mandate under Article 26.

Article 27
Article specifies the UNSC's voting procedures. Nine of fifteen members, including all five permanent members, must concur in order for the UNSC to act on a non-procedural measure.

The requirement of the P-5's unanimous assent establishes the famous "great power veto," which deadlocked the UNSC throughout most of the Cold War and has prevented the UNSC from authorizing military action on many occasions, including the Iraq War. It was also used by the U.S. to block re-appointment of UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. There has been much debate on the veto. Some have interpreted its purpose as being primarily to prevent military action being taken against any member of the P-5; these observers therefore favor limiting the veto to that purpose and not using it for questions such as nomination of a UN Secretary-General.

Procedural measures are not subject to veto, which allows the Security Council to discuss topics over the objection of a veto holding member and even appoint the emergency special session, where no such veto applies.

1965 amendment
Originally, there were 11 members of the UN Security Council, with the assent of 7 (including the Permanent Five) being required for a decision. In 1965, in recognition of the growing membership of the organization, the Charter was amended to expand the UNSC to 15 members, with the assent of 9 (again including the Permanent Five) being needed to make a decision.

See also
Reform of the United Nations Security Council

References

Divisions and sections of the Charter of the United Nations
United Nations Security Council

Chapter V of the United Nations Charter


"100 Yard Dash" is a song by American recording artist Raphael Saadiq, released as a single on March 30, 2009, by Columbia Records. It was the second single from Saadiq's 2008 album The Way I See It. "100 Yard Dash" is an upbeat soul song about love as a fast, impulsive race. Although it did not chart, the song was well received by music critics.

Music and lyrics

"100 Yard Dash" is a short, upbeat song with a traditional soul style, tambourine shakes, and a stiff backbeat. Percussionist Jack Ashford played characteristically funky, tambourine shuffle notes on the song.

The song's lyrics express playful physicality, and liken love to a fast race that impels a man's heart: "My heart is pumping but still running in place". Arts critic Ken Tucker views "100 Yard Dash" as exemplary of "top-rate" soul songwriting, writing that, "Saadiq takes an unorthodox metaphor ... and he earns it by the variations he sustains verbally, increasing the tension in the song." Saadiq sings at an uncharacteristically high pitch, the highest of any song on the album.

Music video
A music video for the song was released on January 27, 2009. It was filmed in black-and-white and incorporated splashes of color in graphics inspired by classic Reprise and Blue Note Records album covers. Saadiq wanted the video to serve as an "extension" of the song's album and evoke the music era that inspired its sound.

Live performances
Saadiq performed the song on Live from the Artists Den on December 3, 2008. He also performed the song on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on February 10, 2009, and on Dancing with the Stars on May 13. Niccole Culver of Creative Loafing cited the song as a "crowd favorite" in a review of Saadiq's performance at the Variety Playhouse in Atlanta.

Reception
Luke Grundy of The Independent called "100 Yard Dash" "irrepressibly funky", and Time Outs Areif Sless-Kitain cited it as one of the "strongest tracks" on The Way I See It. Thomas Fawcett of The Austin Chronicle commented that it "demands a sprint to the dance floor." Misha Berson of The Seattle Times complimented "Saadiq's high, sweet voice" and the song's "slick soul arrangement," writing that it "evokes happy memories of '60s Motown stars like Marvin Gaye and The Temptations in their prime." Ken Tucker of NPR praised the song's "propulsive melody" and viewed it as "a brilliant take on Smokey Robinson and the Miracles." Michael Menachem of Billboard found the song to be "complemented by Saadiq's vocal, with emphasis in all the right places", and "recorded in the classic tradition of short R&B songs: It leaves listeners wanting more, so they play the record again and again."

Nate Chinen of The New York Times named "100 Yard Dash" one of the top-five singles of 2008. The single did not chart.

Track listing

Personnel
Credits adapted from liner notes for The Way I See It.

 Jack Ashford – bells, shaker, tambourine, vibraphone
 Charles Brungardt – recording engineer
 Tom Coyne – mastering
 Bobby Ozuna – co-producer, composer
 Raphael Saadiq – composer, instrumentalist, mixing, producer, recording engineer, vocals

References

External links

2009 singles
Columbia Records singles
Song recordings produced by Raphael Saadiq
Songs written by Raphael Saadiq
Raphael Saadiq songs
2009 songs
Songs written by Robert Ozuna

100 Yard Dash