Victoria Hall is located at 4626 Sherbrooke Street West in the City of Westmount, Quebec, Canada. It is situated adjacent to Westmount Public Library at the west side of Westmount Park. The original building, named Victoria Jubilee Hall, was destroyed by a fire in 1924 but was immediately rebuilt.

Original building
The original named building, named Victoria Jubilee Hall, opened in 1899. It was built after a citizen petition for a community centre. The architect was Robert Findlay. He designed it using the same materials and in the same style as the adjacent Westmount Public Library. It contained the following:

Public meeting room
Lodge room
Drill hall
Bowling alley
Billiard room
Gymnasium
Swimming pool

It was destroyed by fire in 1924.

Present-day building

The present-day building was opened in 1925, and was designed by architects  and George W. Wood.

Exterior
It is three storeys tall, and is made in the neo-Tudor style of sandstone lined with Indiana freestone. Made of sandstone are the Gothic details, the crenellated, square tower, the four corner turrets at the sides, the buttresses supporting the two wings, as well as the oriel window located above the ogival doors. It is similar to Westmount City Hall in that both have a Tudor influence.

Interior

In 1998, the architecture company Fournier, Gersovitz & Moss completely renovated and restored the building. This included the installation of an elevator and the creation of a gallery. The building contains a large hall with a balcony and stage. An upstairs room was once used for a Masonic lodge. The auditorium and stage are on the first and second floors, and is the main purpose of the building. This is atypical because the Traditionally, a town hall/opera house combination has an auditorium with a small stage located on the second floor, with the first floor being used for municipal offices and chambers.

Today, the building is used for meetings, social events, municipal courses, and concerts. Victoria Hall the main community centre for Westmount. It is also headquarters for the Community Events Division, which is responsible for coordinating local events, and also handling the administration of the building itself and the Gallery at Victoria Hall (see below).

Victoria Hall is also used as a venue for City Council events, cultural presentations, and recreational courses organized for all ages by the City of Westmount. Such courses and activities include bridge, tai chi, dance, fitness, music, and theatre.

Gallery at Victoria Hall

The Gallery at Victoria Hall is adjacent to Victoria Hall, situated between the conservatory to the southeast and Victoria Hall at the north side. It is connected to Victoria Hall by a pedestrian link. This space, also designed by Fournier, Gersovitz & Moss, was opened in 1999. It purposely matches the exterior of the main Victoria Hall with neo-Tudor style, and is made of building materials that are somewhat alike. The interior has geometric floor tiles that are in the traditional British style. The building has French doors that provide access to a conservatory forecourt. This forecourt has perennial plants and linden trees that were planted in 2001.

The Gallery is host to temporary visual arts exhibitions by Westmounters, children talking part in the visual arts centre programmes, and employees of the city. It is also sometimes used for social events and lectures.

References

External links

 Image of original building
 Victoria Hall Community Centre

Buildings and structures in Westmount, Quebec
Tudor Revival architecture in Canada
1899 establishments in Quebec
Buildings and structures completed in 1899

Victoria Hall (Westmount, Quebec)


Harry Lee (15 June 1907 – 14 April 1998) was a British tennis player. He was a two time Davis Cup winner  (1933-1934) and a semi finalist at the 1933 French Championships. Between 1927 and 1950 Lee won 12 career singles titles.

Career
In major tennis tournaments he was a semi finalist at the 1933 French Championships, a quarter finalist at the 1934 Australian Championships. He also reached the fourth round of Wimbledon Championships on four occasions as well as reaching the fourth round of the U.S. National Championships in 1930.

Lee played his first tournament in 1927 at the Wimbledon Championships where he reached the third round. In 1929 he won his first title at the Kent Championships at Beckenham on grass against Charles Kingsley.

In 1930 he won the singles title at the British Hard Court Championships after a four-sets victory in the final over Eric Peters, and the same year he won the Irish Championships at Dublin against Pat Hughes, and the Beaulieu International Championship at the Hotel Bristol at Beaulieu-sur-Mer, France against Bunny Austin.

In 1931 Harry entered seven tournaments and won three titles including the Priory Club tournament against Keats Lester, the West Kensington Hard Courts against Japanese player Iwao Aoki and the South Croydon Hard Courts against another Japanese player Ryuki Miki. This year he was also a finalist at the St.George's Hill Open losing to Ryuki Miki.

In 1932 he was a finalist at the Bermuda Championships at Hamilton and played on hard courts where he lost to Fred Perry. Lee was a semi finalist at the French championships in 1933, where he beat Daniel Prenn and Marcel Bernard before losing to Henri Cochet.

In 1933 and 1934, he was part of the Davis Cup team, including Fred Perry, Bunny Austin and Pat Hughes. They defeated the French team at Roland Garros in 1933 and the United States in 1934.

In 1936 he won the inaugural Palace Hotel Covered Courts at Torquay played indoors against Frank Wilde. In 1939 he won his last title at the Exmouth Open on grass against Henry Billington.

In 1950 Lee played his last event at the Bath tournament where he reached the final losing to British Ceylon player Doug Scharenguivel. Between 1927 and 1950 Lee won 12 career titles.

References

External links

1907 births
1998 deaths
English male tennis players
British male tennis players
People from Teddington
Sportspeople from the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames

Harry Lee (tennis)


Modliborzyce  is a town in Janów Lubelski County, Lublin Voivodeship, in eastern Poland. It is the seat of the gmina (administrative district) called Gmina Modliborzyce. It lies in the historic province of Lesser Poland, approximately  north-west of Janów Lubelski and  south of the regional capital Lublin. It has a population of 1,311.

Modliborzyce is picturesquely located at the point where three major geographical regions of Poland meet - Lublin Upland, Sandomierz Basin, and Roztocze. Southern part of the town belongs to the Landscape Park of Janów Forest, and northern is covered by the protected area of Roztocze.

Name
The name comes from Modliborzyce, Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, which had existed before the foundation of the town. The name Modliborzyce itself is based on an ancient Polish given name Modlibog.

History

The history of the town dates back to February 27, 1631, when a local nobleman Stanisław Wioteski of Rola coat of arms received King Sigismund III Vasa's permission to found a town in the area of the already-existing village of Słupie. The town was called Modliborzyce, and in 1644-1664, the church of St. Stanisław was built. The Wioteski family's Rota coat of arms is the town's official coat of arms since. After the Wioteski family, the town belonged to Mikołaj Słoniewski. In the second half of the 17th century, a synagogue was opened, due to a steady influx of Jewish settlers. During the Great Northern War, in 1706 Russian troops were garrisoned in Modliborzyce, which had a negative influence on the development of the town. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Modliborzyce belonged to several noble families - the Nahorecki, the Wierciński, the Doliński and the Gorzkowski. Since 1815 the town belonged to Russian-controlled Congress Poland. Modliborzyce burned in 1804 and 1841, and in 1855 its population was decimated by the cholera.

During the January Uprising, on initiative of a local nobleman Ignacy Solman, a regiment was formed, which was engaged in a skirmish with the Russians near Janów Lubelski. Solman was killed by the Cossacks, and in 1869 Russian government punished Modliborzyce by reducing it to the status of a village. Modliborzyce was again part of independent Poland since 1918, when the country regained sovereignty after World War I.

During the joint German-Soviet invasion of Poland, which started World War II in September 1939, the Luftwaffe twice bombed Modliborzyce (September 8 and 15). As a result, 87 people died and most of the buildings in the town were destroyed. The local wójt (head of the gmina) Karol Potocki was murdered by the Germans during large massacres of Poles committed in 1940 in Rury, Lublin as part pf the AB-Aktion. In 1940 German authorities brought some 1,200 Jews from Vienna to the Modliborzyce ghetto. This group later perished – with the local Jewish population of 1,200 Jews – at Bełżec extermination camp in October and November 1942. The Jewish community ceased to exist. Modliborzyce was one of local centers of the Home Army, and German occupation ended in July 1944.

Town rights of Modliborzyce were restored on 1 January 2014.

Sights
Due to its location, Modliborzyce is a tourist center of local importance. Its most important points of interest are the Baroque church of Saint Stanislaus (1644–1664), bell tower (1775), and a synagogue (1760), which now houses the center of culture.

References

Cities and towns in Lublin Voivodeship
1631 establishments in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
Populated places established in 1631
Lublin Governorate
Lublin Voivodeship (1919–1939)
Holocaust locations in Poland

Modliborzyce, Lublin Voivodeship


Dr. Mohammad Karamudini (born 1955) is an Iranian writer, translator, science journalist and lecturer. He is the writer and translator of numerous articles and books in Persian on biology and biology education. He authored or translated more than 37 science books and many more articles in Persian publications. He is the recipient of numerous awards including "The Best Book of The Year" (three times: 2006, 2010, 2011 and 2017), "Roshd Festival for The Best Educational Books" (three times: 2002, 2011 and 2013) and "Festival for Best University Textbooks" (in 2012).
Mohammad Karamudini is also a founder of Iranian Biology Olympiad and had been head of the national scientific committee of Iranian Biology Olympiad for 20 years.

Career
Mohammad Karamudini began his career in science education as a biology teacher in Iranian high schools in 1974. During his career, he has received numerous awards for his teaching performance among which is

 the "Distinguished Teaching Award" from the "Ministry of Education", (1991)
 Curriculum Development Center's outstanding educator and researcher, (2001)
 the most outstanding researcher of the Organization for Educational Research and Planning, (2002)
Before his retirement in July 2006, Mohammad Karamudini was head of Biology Department, Organization for Educational Research and Planning in Iran for 10 years.

Books and publications
Mohammad Karamudini has over 30 publications in the Persian. He has several papers in English, including:
 "Developing Biology Education in Developing Countries" presented in BioEd2000 in Paris, (2000)
 "Project-Based Learning in Science Education" presented in the 3ed International Conference on Science and Technology Education in East London, South Africa, (2003)

His book, the "Photosynthesis", brought to him the honor of being elected as the best author of educational publications for secondary students in 2003.

Some books in Persian
 "A Collection of Articles", Rahaveard, 1992;
 "Plant Biology, A Student Guide and Workbook", Fatemi Publisher, 2000;
 "Photosynthesis", Mehranb-e Ghalam, 2002;
 "Sokhan: Great encyclopedia of Persian Words", An 8 Volume Book, Elmi Publisher, (Group Work), 2002;
 "Biology", Madreseh Publisher, (Translated), 2003;
 "Animal Show", Ofogh, A 6 volume Book, (Translated), 2005;
 "Plants", Entesharat-e Fanni-e Iran, (Translated), 2005;
 "Ecology", Fatemi Publisher, (Translated), 2009;
 "Biological Sciences, A Textbook for 9th Graders", Chap Va Nashr Publication Co., (Group Work);
 "Biology and Lab(1), A textbook for 10th gradres", Chap Va Nashr Publication Co., (Group Work);
 "Biology and Lab(2), A textbook for 11th graders", Chap Va Nashr Publication Co., (Group Work);
 "Biology, A textbook for Preuniversity Students", Chap Va Nashr Publication Co., (Group Work);
 "Biological Sciences, A teachers book for Grade 9th", Chap Va Nashr Publication Co., (Group Work);
 "Biology and Lab, A Teachers Book for Grade 10th", Chap Va Nashr Publication Co., (Group Work);
 "Biology and Lab, A teachers Book for Grade 11th", Chap Va Nashr Publication Co., (Group Work);
 "Ecology and Animal Behavior", Fatemi Publisher,
 "Biology", Fatemi Publisher,
 "Encyclopedia of Science for Children", Ofogh Publisher, (Group Work), (Translated), Coming Soon;
 "Ethology", Fatemi Publisher;
 "Living as Butterlflies Do: A Collection of Articles", Khane-ye Zist Shensi, 2012

References

External links
karamudini.com, Mohammad Karamudini's website.
, The Teaching Aids Publication Bureau.
, Mohammad Karamudini's Blog.

Iranian educators
Iranian translators
1955 births
Living people
People from Sirjan
Iran's Book of the Year Awards recipients

Mohammad Karamudini


Anouk Teeuwe (Dutch pronunciation: [aːˈnuk ˈteːuʋə]; born 8 April 1975), professionally known by the mononym Anouk, is a Dutch singer-songwriter and record producer. After her breakthrough in 1997 with the single "Nobody's Wife", she had hit singles in the Dutch and Belgian charts. Her songs include "R U Kiddin' Me", "Michel", "Girl", "Lost", "Modern World", "Three Days in a Row", and "Woman".

1975 births
Living people
Dutch singer-songwriters
Record producers

Anouk (singer)


Marco McDonald (born 31 August 1977) is a Jamaican former football defender who last played for Waterhouse F.C.

Career
Nicknamed 'Snake', the no nonsense defender has also played for Tivoli Gardens F.C. in the Jamaica National Premier League.

The player turns out for the most celebrated team in West Kingston, Tivoli Gardens. He is a firm favorite with the highly political partisan crowds who flock to the Railway Oval game after game.

Marco is a player who demonstrates maturity on the playing field, be it in an attacking or defensive role. He is quite calm under pressure and displays good positioning and judgment. This perhaps explains why he is so infrequently booked. To focus on his defensive abilities would not be doing justice to this rising young star. He is extremely comfortable with the ball at his feet, and can be counted on to launch effective counterattacking moves.

International career
He made his debut for the Reggae Boyz in 1998 against Macedonia and played his last in 2003 against Mexico, collecting a total of 29 caps (no goals scored). McDonald is one of the players that is seen by many as the future to the Reggae Boyz back-line. He is a no-nonsense defender and hard-nose tackler who has been steadily improving as he moves from the junior to the senior ranks. During the ill-fated 2000 Olympic qualifiers in Mexico, Marco was given the captain's armband, justifying the views of many that he is one to watch for the future.

References

Jamaican men's footballers
Jamaica men's international footballers
Waterhouse F.C. players
2000 CONCACAF Gold Cup players
2003 CONCACAF Gold Cup players
Tivoli Gardens F.C. players
1977 births
Living people
Men's association football defenders

Marco McDonald


A ballistic shield, also called a tactical shield or bulletproof shield, is a protection device deployed by police, paramilitaries, and armed forces that are designed to stop or deflect bullets and other projectiles fired at their carrier. Ballistic shields also protect from less serious threats such as thrown items. Ballistic shields are similar to riot shields, but offer greater protection and are typically used by special units or in situations where riot shields would not offer adequate protection.

Overview

Shields small enough to be carried by a single person may be termed "personal shields", and may be carried in police cars in the United States as standard equipment. Whether or not a shield is used will depend on both policy and the individual situation. It may be the policy of a police force to use shields only in defensive situations, such as establishing a perimeter and waiting for reinforcements, while others may permit their usage in offensive situations, such as high risk traffic stops or approaching a suspect deemed to be dangerous.

Recommended features of ballistic shields for police include a carrying system that allows it to be held long-term without fatigue, and the ability to both reload a handgun while holding the shield and also fire it accurately with one hand. The carriage of a ballistic shield in one hand will limit  both the types of firearms that can be used with the other hand as well as certain methods of shooting.

Composition
Ballistic shields are similar to body armor plates in their construction, and are typically made out of fibre-reinforced plastic composites derived from ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene or aramid.   They may, like ceramic armor, incorporate a ceramic layer on their outer surface to enable them to defeat steel-core armor-piercing bullets.  They may have features such as bulletproof glass windows, ambidextrous handles, and spotlights for use at night, and may be either hand-held or mounted on wheeled frames. They vary in size, with some being designed to protect only the upper torso and others designed to protect the whole body. Unlike a ballistic vest, projectiles successfully stopped by a ballistic shield will not transfer trauma or pain to the bearer, as they are designed to not be in direct contact with the body.

See also
SWAT-Bot
Mobile personnel shield

References

Law enforcement equipment
Paramilitary equipment
Shields

Ballistic shield


Vasuki (also known as Vasuki Nag) is the second king of snakes after Sheesh Nag who is Vasuki Nag's elder brother in Hinduism. Sheesh Nag is also associated with Lord Vishnu. Vasuki Nag too is associated with the 6th Avatar of Lord Vishnu that is Krishna. It is said that Lord Krishna had Nartan (danced) on Vasuki Nag's Head. Vasuki Nag had 1000 heads. Vasuki Nag is also said to be mounted on Lord Shiva's neck.

Hinduism

Vasuki


Mariinsky Palace (), also known as Marie Palace, was the last neoclassical Imperial residence to be constructed in Saint Petersburg. It was built between 1839 and 1844, designed by the court architect Andrei Stackenschneider. It houses the city's Legislative Assembly.

Location

The palace stands on the south side of Saint Isaac's Square, just across the Blue Bridge from Saint Isaac's Cathedral. The site had been previously owned by Zakhar Chernyshev, and contained his home designed by Jean-Baptiste Vallin, which was built between 1762 and 1768. Chernyshev occasionally lent his home to foreign dignitaries visiting the capital, such as Louis Henri, Prince of Condé.

From 1825 to 1839, the Chernyshev Palace, as it was then known, was the site of the , where Mikhail Lermontov was known to have studied for two years. The palace was demolished in 1839, and materials were reused in the construction of the Mariinsky Palace.

Conception and style

The palace was conceived by Nicholas I as a present to his eldest daughter, Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna, on the occasion of her marriage to Maximilian de Beauharnais, Empress Joséphine's grandson.

Although the reddish-brown facade is elaborately rusticated and features corinthian columns arranged in a traditional Neoclassical mode, the whole design was inspired by the 17th-century French Baroque messuages. Other eclectic influences are visible in the Renaissance details of exterior ornamentation, and the interior decoration, with each room designed in a different historic style. The palace is now painted white.

State Council
The Mariinsky Palace returned to Imperial ownership in 1884, where it remained until 1917. During that period, the palace housed the State Council, Imperial Chancellery, and Committee of Ministers, which after 1905 became the Council of Ministers. The grand hall for the sessions of the State Council was designed by Leon Benois.

On April 15, 1902, Socialist Revolutionary Party member Stepan Balmashov assassinated the Minister of Internal Affairs, Dmitry Sipyagin, while the minister was between meetings at the palace.

In 1904, painter Ilya Repin completed Ceremonial Sitting of the State Council on 7 May 1901. The painting was commissioned as a commemoration of the State Council's centenary. The canvas is , and features 81 historical figures, including Nicholas II. Repin recorded in his journal the painting was on display at the Winter Palace for some time before its installation at Mariinsky Palace.

Government use
The Russian Provisional Government took full possession of the palace in March 1917, and gave it over to the Provisional Council soon after. Following the October Revolution, the palace housed various Soviet ministries and academies. During the war with Germany, the palace was converted to a hospital, and was subject to intense bombing.

After the war, the palace became the residence of the Petrograd Soviet. During the 1991 coup attempt, the Emergency Committee used the palace as a base of operations. Barricades and heavy fortifications were constructed along the palace's perimeter, which remained for some time after the coup was suppressed.

The palace has been the site of the Legislative Assembly of Saint Petersburg since 1994.

References
 Belyakova Z.I. Mariinsky dvorets. SPb, 1996.
 Petrov G.F. Dvorets u Sinego mosta: Mariinsky dvorets v Sankt-Petersburge. SPb, 2001.

Palaces in Saint Petersburg
Royal residences in Russia
Government buildings in Russia
City and town halls in Russia
Houses completed in 1844
Saint Isaac's Square
Neoclassical architecture in Russia
Neoclassical palaces
Legislative buildings in Europe
Cultural heritage monuments of federal significance in Saint Petersburg

Mariinsky Palace


Tony Robert Judt  ( ; 2 January 1948 – 6 August 2010) was an English-American historian, essayist and university professor who specialized in European history. Judt moved to New York and served as the Erich Maria Remarque Professor in European Studies at New York University and director of NYU's Erich Maria Remarque Institute. He was a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books. In 1996 Judt was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 2007 a corresponding Fellow of the British Academy.

Biography
Judt was born on 2 January 1948 in London, England, to secular Jewish parents, Isaac Joseph ("Joe") Judt and Stella S Judt. His mother's parents had emigrated from Russia and Romania, and his father was born in Belgium and had immigrated as a boy to Ireland and then subsequently to England. Judt's parents lived in North London, but due to the closure of the local hospitals in response to an outbreak of infant dysentery, Judt was born in a Salvation Army maternity unit in Bethnal Green, in the East End of London. When he was a small boy, the family moved from Tottenham to a flat above his mother's business in Putney, South London. When Judt was nine years of age, following the birth of his sister, the family moved to a house in Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey. The family's main language was English, although Judt often spoke French to his father and his father's family.

Judt won a place at Emanuel School in Wandsworth, and following his education at Emanuel, he went on to study as a scholarship student at King's College, Cambridge. He was the first member of his family to finish secondary school and to go to university. At Cambridge, Judt became close friends with Martyn Poliakoff, who later became well known as a chemist and star of The Periodic Table of Videos (Judt watched his videos and would regularly write to him about them). He obtained a BA degree in history in 1969 and after spending a year at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris completed a PhD in 1972.

As a high school and university student he was a left-wing Zionist, and worked summers on kibbutzim. He moved away from Zionism after the Six-Day War of 1967, later saying, "I went with this idealistic fantasy of creating a socialist, communitarian country", but that he came to realize that left-wing Zionists were "remarkably unconscious of the people who had been kicked out of the country...to make this fantasy possible". He came to describe his Zionism as his particular "ideological overinvestment" and he moved away from Marxism in the 1970s and 1980s. Judt wrote in February 2010, "Before even turning twenty I had become, been, and ceased to be a Zionist, a Marxist, and a communitarian settler: no mean achievement for a south London teenager". In later life, he described himself as "a universalist social democrat".

After completing his Cambridge doctorate, Judt was elected a junior fellow of King's College, Cambridge in 1972, where he taught modern French history until 1978. After a brief stint teaching social history at the University of California, Berkeley, he returned to the United Kingdom in 1980 to teach politics at St Anne's College, Oxford. He moved to New York University in 1987.

Judt's works include the highly acclaimed Postwar, a history of Europe after the Second World War. He was also well known for his views on Israel, which generated significant debate after he advocated a one-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. According to journalist David Herman, Judt's directorship of the Remarque Institute, Postwar and his articles on Israel made him "one of the best-known public intellectuals in America", having previously been "a fairly obscure British historian, specializing in modern French history".

In an interview a few weeks before his death, Judt said, "I see myself as first and above all a teacher of history; next a writer of European history; next a commentator on European affairs; next a public intellectual voice within the American Left; and only then an occasional, opportunistic participant in the pained American discussion of the Jewish matter".

Judt was married three times, his first two marriages ending in divorce. His third marriage was to Jennifer Homans, The New Republic'''s dance critic, with whom he had two children. In June 2010, Judt and his son Daniel wrote a dialogue about Barack Obama, politics and corporate behavior for The New York Times.

Writings

European history
Judt's experiences in Paris contributed to a long and fruitful relationship with French political culture. He translated his Cambridge doctorate into French and published it in 1976 as La reconstruction du parti socialiste: 1921–1926. It was introduced by Annie Kriegel, who along with Maurice Agulhon was an important influence on his early work as a French social historian. Judt's second book, Socialism in Provence 1871–1914: A Study in the Origins of the French Modern Left, an "enquiry into a political tradition that shaped a nation", was an attempt to explain early origins and the continuities of left-wing politics in the region. More than any other work by Judt, Socialism in Provence was based on extensive archival research. It was his only attempt to place himself within the social history that was dominant in the 1970s.

Modern French history
In the 1970s and 1980s, Judt was a historian of modern France. Marxism and the French Left: Studies in Labour and Politics in France 1830–1981 collects several previously unpublished essays on the 19th and 20th centuries, ending with a discussion of François Mitterrand. In Past Imperfect: French Intellectuals, 1944–1956, Judt moved away both from social history toward intellectual history, and from the endorsement of French Left and Marxist traditions to their critique. In Past Imperfect, he castigated French intellectuals of the postwar era, above all Jean-Paul Sartre, for their "self-imposed moral amnesia". Judt criticized what he considered blind faith in Joseph Stalin's communism. In Judt's reading, French thinkers such as Sartre were blinded by their own provincialism, and unable to see that their calls for intellectual authenticity should have required them to interrogate their own attachment to communism and criticize the Soviet Union for its policies in postwar eastern Europe. This was in some sense a criticism from within, using French sources and polemical style against famous French intellectuals. Judt made a similar case in some of his more popular writings.

After President Jacques Chirac recognized the responsibility of the French state during the collaboration in 1995, on the anniversary of the Vel' d'Hiv raid, Judt wrote in a New York Times op-ed, "people like Jean-Paul Sartre and Michel Foucault were curiously silent. One reason was their near-obsession with Communism. While proclaiming the need to 'engage', to take a stand, two generations of intellectuals avoided any ethical issue that could not advance or, in some cases, retard the Marxist cause. Vichy was dismissed as the work of a few senile Fascists. No one looked closely at what had happened during the Occupation, perhaps because very few intellectuals of any political stripe could claim to have had a 'good' war, as Albert Camus did. No one stood up to cry 'J'accuse!' at high functionaries, as Émile Zola did during the Dreyfus affair. When Simone de Beauvoir, Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida entered the public arena, it usually involved a crisis far away—in Madagascar, Vietnam or Cambodia. Even today, politically engaged writers call for action in Bosnia but intervene only sporadically in debates about the French past."

Postwar
In the years after the publication of Past Imperfect, Judt turned his attention to wider issues of European history. He spent the 1980s and much of the 1990s at Emory, Oxford, Stanford, and Vienna, where he taught political theory, learned Czech and became friendly with a number of east European intellectuals. Erich Maria Remarque's widow, actress Paulette Goddard, bequeathed her fortune to NYU, enabling the Institute of European Studies bearing Remarque's name to come into being under Judt's direction.

Judt's first broader book of this period—the result of a speech delivered at the Johns Hopkins-SAIS Bologna Center in 1995—was A Grand Illusion? In this extended essay, he dealt directly with the European Union and its prospects, which, in his view, were quite bleak. According to Judt, Europe's sense of its divisions had long been one of the "defining obsessions of its inhabitants". The benefits of European unity, he argued, were unevenly distributed and the regions that EU policy favored came to have more in common with each other than with their neighbors in the same state. The Baden-Württemberg region in southwestern Germany, the Rhône-Alpes region of France, Lombardy and Catalonia were invoked as examples of disproportionately rich "super-regions". Another division, Judt claimed, could be seen in the Schengen Agreement. Nothing more than a "highest common factor of discriminatory political arithmetic", the Schengen Agreement made Eastern European countries into barrier states designed to keep undesirable immigrants at bay. Similar dangers existed in eastern Europe, where former critics of Soviet universalism deftly recycled themselves into anti-European, nationalist agitators.

These problems, Judt wrote, could find resolution only in increased national intervention. States would be called upon to redistribute wealth and preserve the decaying social fabric of the societies they governed. This conception of the role of the state was carried over—albeit in slightly different form—into Judt's 2005 book, Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945.

In Postwar, Judt examined the history of Europe from the end of World War II (1945) to 2005. Writing on such a broad subject was something of a departure for Judt, whose earlier works, such as Socialism in Provence and Past Imperfect, had focused on challenging conventional assumptions about the French Left. At nearly 900 pages, Postwar has won considerable praise for its sweeping, encyclopedic scope and was a runner-up for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction. In Judt's obituary, the BBC wrote that Postwar was "acclaimed by historians as one of the best works on the subject" of modern European history. The New York Times Book Review named the book one of the ten best of 2005 and, in 2009, the Toronto Star named it the decade's best historical book.

Ill Fares the Land
Judt's last book published during his lifetime, Ill Fares the Land, projected lessons learned forward, challenging readers to debate "what comes next?" The book made the case for renewed social democracy; it received mixed reviews.

Written under the debilitating effects of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Ill Fares The Land (2010) has been called Judt's "most overtly political book" and a "dramatic intervention" in the decline of the progressive ideals of the 20th century. Judt laments the breakdown of the postwar Keynesian policy consensus as well as the rise of neoliberal economics with its political manifestations under Thatcher, Reagan, and others. In analyzing the limited success achieved by Third Way triangulation and the paradoxical resurgence of unfettered capitalism after the global financial crisis, Judt calls the recent past "lost decades" marked by "fantasies of prosperity". The missing reward from modern government has been social progress, and Judt explores how the social contract that had defined the postwar world—with guarantees of security, stability, and fairness—is no longer considered a legitimate social goal. He concludes the book with a "passionate appeal for a return to social-democratic ideals".

Israel
Judt's parents were British citizens and secular Jews. He enthusiastically embraced Zionism at age 15. For a time he wished to emigrate to Israel, against the wishes of his parents, who were concerned about his studies. In 1966, having won an exhibition to King's College, Cambridge, he worked for the summer on kibbutz Machanaim. When Nasser expelled UN troops from Sinai in 1967, and Israel mobilized for war, he volunteered to replace kibbutz members who had been called up. During and in the aftermath of the Six-Day War, he worked as a driver and translator for the Israel Defense Forces. After the war, Judt's belief in the Zionist enterprise began to unravel.

In October 2003, in an article for The New York Review of Books, Judt argued that Israel was on its way to becoming a "belligerently intolerant, faith-driven ethno-state." He called for the conversion of "Israel from a Jewish state to a binational one" that would include all of what is now Israel, Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank. This proposed new state would have equal rights for all Jews and Arabs living in Israel and the Palestinian territories. The article, which presented a view of Middle Eastern history and politics that had rarely been given exposure in the mainstream media in the U.S., generated an explosive response, positive as well as negative. It drew strong criticism from pro-Israeli writers who saw such a plan as "destroying" Israel and replacing it with a predominantly Palestinian state governed by a Palestinian majority. The NYRB was inundated with over a thousand letters within a week of its publication, peppered with terms like "antisemite" and "self-hating Jew", and the article led to Judt's removal from the editorial board of The New Republic. In April 2004 Judt gave a public speech at Columbia University in which he further developed his views.

In March 2006, Judt wrote an op-ed piece for The New York Times about the John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt paper "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy". Judt argued that "[in] spite of [the paper's] provocative title, the essay draws on a wide variety of standard sources and is mostly uncontentious [.... Does] the Israel Lobby affect our foreign policy choices? Of course—that is one of its goals [...]. But does pressure to support Israel distort American decisions? That's a matter of judgment." He summed up his assessment of Mearsheimer and Walt's paper by asserting that "this essay, by two 'realist' political scientists with no interest whatsoever in the Palestinians, is a straw in the wind." He predicted that "it will not be self-evident to future generations of Americans why the imperial might and international reputation of the United States are so closely aligned with one small, controversial Mediterranean client state."

In May 2006, Judt continued in a similar vein with a feature-length article, "The Country That Wouldn't Grow Up", for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. The article, published the day before Israeli Independence Day, recaps Israel's short history, describing what Judt saw as a steady decline in Israel's credibility that began with the Six-Day War in 1967.

On 4 October 2006, Judt's scheduled New York talk before the organization Network 20/20 was abruptly canceled after Polish Consul Krzysztof Kasprzyk suddenly withdrew his offer of a venue following phone calls from the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee. The consul later told a reporter, "I don't have to subscribe to the First Amendment." According to The New York Sun, "the appearance at the Polish consulate was canceled after the Polish government decided that Mr. Judt's views critical of Israel were not consistent with Poland's friendly relations with the Jewish state."

According to The Washington Post, the ADL and AJC had complained to the Polish consul that Judt was "too critical of Israel and American Jewry", though both organizations deny asking that the talk be canceled. ADL National Chairman Abraham Foxman called Judt's claims of interference "wild conspiracy theories." Kasprzyk told The Washington Post that "the phone calls were very elegant but may be interpreted as exercising a delicate pressure. That's obvious—we are adults and our IQs are high enough to understand that." Judt, who had planned to argue that the Israel lobby in the U.S. often stifled honest debate, called the implications of the cancellation "serious and frightening." He added that "only in America—not in Israel—is this a problem", charging that vigorous criticism of Israeli policy, acceptable in Israel itself, is taboo in the U.S. Of the ADL and AJC, he said, "These are Jewish organizations that believe they should keep people who disagree with them on the Middle East away from anyone who might listen."

The cancellation evoked protest from a roster of academics and intellectuals who said there had been an attempt to intimidate and shut down free debate. Mark Lilla and Richard Sennett wrote a letter to Foxman in protest, which was signed by 114 people and published in The New York Review of Books. In a later exchange on the subject in The New York Review of Books, Lilla and Sennet argued, "Even without knowing the substance of those 'nice' calls from the ADL and AJC, any impartial observer will recognize them as not so subtle forms of pressure."

The ADL and AJC defended their decision to contact the Polish consulate and rejected Judt's characterization of them. Foxman accused his critics of themselves stifling free speech when "they use inflammatory words like 'threaten,' 'pressure,' and 'intimidate' that bear no resemblance to what actually transpired." He wrote that the "ADL did not threaten or intimidate or pressure anyone. The Polish consul general made his decision concerning Tony Judt's appearance strictly on his own." Foxman said that Judt had "taken the position that Israel shouldn't exist [and t]hat puts him on our radar", while AJC executive director David A. Harris said that he wanted to tell the consulate that the thrust of Judt's talk ran "contrary to the entire spirit of Polish foreign policy".

In a March 2007 interview, Judt argued the American need to block criticism of Israel stemmed from the rise of identity politics in the U.S. "I didn't think I knew until then just how deep and how uniquely American this obsession with blocking any criticism of Israel is. It is uniquely American." He added ruefully: "Apparently, the line you take on Israel trumps everything else in life".

Asked during an interview with NPR shortly before his death about his taste for controversy, Judt said, "I've only ever published four little essays in a lifetime of book writing and lecturing and teaching, just four little essays which touched controversially on painful bits of other people's anatomies, so to speak. Two of them were about Israel".

Critical reception
Judt's peers praised him for his wide-ranging knowledge and versatility in historical analysis. Jonathan Freedland wrote in NYRB, "There are not many professors in any field equipped to produce, for example, learned essays on the novels of Primo Levi and the writings of the now forgotten Manès Sperber—yet also able to turn their hand to, say, a close, diplomatic analysis of the Cuban missile crisis of 1962." Freedland added that Judt had demonstrated "through more than a decade of essays written for America's foremost journals... that he belongs to each one of those rare, polymathic categories." In reviewing Judt's Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century, Freedland wrote that Judt had put conscience ahead of friendship during his life and demanded the same courage in others.

In 2009, Judt received a Special Orwell Prize for Lifetime Achievement for his contribution to British political writing.

Some of his peers had a more critical view of Judt. Dylan Riley of the University of California, Berkeley, argued that Judt was more of a pamphleteer and a polemicist than a historian, and that he changed his views without hesitation or good reason.

In 2007 Judt received the Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought (German: Hannah-Arendt-Preis für politisches Denken), a prize awarded to individuals representing the tradition of political theorist Hannah Arendt, especially in regard to totalitarianism. It was instituted by the German Heinrich Böll Foundation (affiliated with the Alliance '90/The Greens) and the government of Bremen in 1994, and is awarded by an international jury.

Illness and death
In September 2008, Judt was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). From October 2009, he was paralyzed from the neck down. He was nevertheless able to give a two-hour public lecture. In January 2010, Judt wrote a short article about his condition, the first of a series of memoirs published in The New York Review of Books. In March 2010, Judt was interviewed by Terry Gross on NPR's Fresh Air, and in June he was interviewed by the BBC's disability affairs correspondent Peter White for the Radio 4 programme No Triumph, No Tragedy.

Judt died of ALS at his home in Manhattan on 6 August 2010. This was two weeks after a major interview and retrospective of his work in Prospect magazine and the day before an article about his illness was published in the Irish Independent indicating that he "won't surrender anytime soon" and comparing his suffering to that of author Terry Pratchett, who was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease in 2007. Shortly before his death, according to The Guardian, he was said to have possessed the "liveliest mind in New York." He continued his work as a public intellectual right up until his death, writing essays for The New York Review of Books and composing and completing a synthetic intellectual history, Thinking The Twentieth Century, with fellow historian Timothy D. Snyder. Judt also wrote a memoir, The Memory Chalet, published posthumously in November 2010. During his illness, Judt made use of the memory palace technique to remember paragraphs of text during the night, which he placed mentally in rooms of a Swiss chalet and then dictated to his assistant the next day.

After Judt's death, Time called him "a historian of the very first order, a public intellectual of an old-fashioned kind and—in more ways than one—a very brave man". He was also praised for carrying out what he called the historian's task: "to tell what is almost always an uncomfortable story and explain why the discomfort is part of the truth we need to live well and live properly. A well-organised society is one in which we know the truth about ourselves collectively, not one in which we tell pleasant lies about ourselves". Mark Levine, a professor of history at the University of California at Irvine, said that Judt's "writings on European history and the need for a new social contract between rulers and ruled can inspire a new generation of scholars and activists in other cultures". In his obituary in The New York Review of Books, Timothy Garton Ash placed Judt in "the great tradition of the , the politically engaged but independent and critical intellectual."

Works

Books

  400 pp.

Book reviews

See also
 Eric Hobsbawm
 Raymond Aron

References

External links

 Articles by Judt in The New York Review of Books''
 Interview with Judt on Europe at the Historical Society of Boston University
Tony Judt Collection at New York University Archives

1948 births
2010 deaths
20th-century English historians
21st-century American historians
Alumni of King's College, Cambridge
British people of Romanian-Jewish descent
British people of Russian-Jewish descent
Cold War historians
Historians of Europe
English essayists
Neurological disease deaths in New York (state)
Deaths from motor neuron disease
Fellows of King's College, Cambridge
Fellows of St Anne's College, Oxford
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Corresponding Fellows of the British Academy
Miller Center Affiliates
New York University faculty
People educated at Emanuel School
People from Tottenham
The New York Review of Books people

Tony Judt


Michael Lund is a journalist based in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. He was the winner in the 2004 Queensland Media Awards for his report on the pitch invasion at the 2003 Rugby World Cup. He was also "highly commended" in the Walkley Awards for his report on Peter Hollingworth and Hollingworth's dealings with child abuse allegations when Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane.

Personal life
Lund was born in March 1965 in Horbury, Yorkshire, and is a graduate of mathematics and applied physics at the then Manchester Polytechnic and holds a masters in pure mathematics from the University of Liverpool. He studied print journalism at Stradbroke College in Sheffield.

He has worked for a number of news organisations in the United Kingdom, including as a bi-media correspondent for the BBC, and as a reporter at the Bristol Evening Post, the Sheffield Star, and other local newspapers.

In 1998, he emigrated to Australia and has worked for The Courier-Mail and The Sunday Mail newspapers in Queensland, the ABC in radio and television – including for the popular television program Australian Story – has lectured and tutored in journalism at the Queensland University of Technology and worked as a science and technology editor and commissioning editor for the Australian and New Zealand arm of The Conversation. He now works as a senior finance journalist for Canstar.

Awards
 Queensland Media Awards – Best Sports Report – Electronic Media (2004)
"Pitch Invasion" – ABC Local Radio
 Walkley Awards – Highly Commended (2002)
"What Hollingworth Knew" – ABC Local Radio
 Australian Museum Eureka Prizes – Best Coverage of Research and Technology – Finalist (2004)
"Eye of a Needle" – Australian Story

References

External links

1965 births
Lund, Michael
Lund, Michael
Lund, Michael
Lund, Michael
People from Horbury

Michael Lund


A railgun is a gun that fires metal projectiles (bullets) using a magnetic field produced by electricity. Unlike conventional guns, it does not use gunpowder or other explosive propellants, and rarely needs to be cleaned or unjammed. Currently, most railguns are experimental and are not used in actual combat, but the U.S. Navy is expecting to have one operating soon. In theory, a railgun could fire a bowling-ball-sized projectile fast enough to destroy a small building, even over long distances. Railguns are usually very large and not portable because of the need for a large power supply. There have been proposals to use the same technology for non-weapon purposes, such as aircraft and spacecraft launchers and specialized tools.

Firearms
Artillery

Railgun


Asa Burton (August 25, 1752May 1, 1836) was an American minister and theologian.

Asa Burton was born on August 25, 1752, in Stonington, Connecticut, to Rachel and Jacob Burton, the sixth child in a family of thirteen. His family moved to Preston when he was very young. When he was about fourteen, his father moved again to Norwich, Vermont.

Burton began studying at Dartmouth College around age 21. Shortly after he entered Dartmouth, many of his family members died. He graduated in 1777. He was licensed to preach in August or September of that year and was ordained as a minister on January 19, 1779. For most of his career, Burton's ministry was in Thetford, Vermont.

Burton taught theology from 1786 to 1816. He received a doctorate of divinity from Middlebury College in 1804. From 1809, he edited Advisor; Or, Vermont Evangelical Magazine. In 1824 he published a book called Essays on Some of the First Principles of Metaphysics, Ethics, and Theology.

In his Essays, Burton adopted a "taste" theology, which held that humans had an original inclination toward, or taste for, sin. Burton, as a "taster", opposed the "exercisers" including Nathanael Emmons, who distinguished between inclinations toward sin (tastes) and sinful acts (exercises). Burton's taste view developed Jonathan Edwards's theory that the will is not a distinct faculty; rather, according to Burton, the will is a manifestation of the human heart. Burton's emphasis on taste gave him and other tasters a way to deny that sinful behavior was caused by God. Rather, sin was caused by human inclination towards sin. This offered an alternative to the determinism of exercisers such as Emmons, who held that each of the soul's acts was caused by divine agency.

Burton died on May 1, 1836, in Thetford.

Citations

Works cited

Further reading

1752 births
1836 deaths
19th-century American philosophers
19th-century American theologians
Dartmouth College alumni
Middlebury College alumni
People from Stonington, Connecticut
People from Thetford, Vermont

Asa Burton


Matamoros is a Spanish surname and place name meaning 'Moor killer'. It may refer to:

Events
 1999 Matamoros standoff, an armed engagement between gangsters and law enforcement in Matamoros, Tamaulipas
 2011 Matamoros mass kidnapping
 2023 Matamoros kidnappings

Music
 "Matamoros", a song by The Afghan Whigs from Do to the Beast
 "Matamoros Banks", a song by Bruce Springsteen from Devils & Dust
 Matamoros Querido, a 1971 album by Rigo Tovar
"Mi Matamoros Querido", a song on Matamoros Querido

People
Carlos Matamoros Franco (born 1966), Ecuadorian chess grandmaster
Mariano Matamoros (1770–1814), a liberal priest and insurgent active during the Mexican War of Independence
Miguel Matamoros (1894–1971), a Cuban musician and composer
Trio Matamoros, Cuban trova group founded by Miguel Matamoros
Saint James Matamoros, 'the Moor-slayer', Spanish mythological figure

Places
Matamoros, Coahuila, city in Mexico
Matamoros, Tamaulipas, also known as Heroica Matamoros, a city in Mexico, municipal seat of Matamoros Municipality, Tamaulipas
Matamoros–Brownsville metropolitan area, transnational conurbation along the Mexico–U.S. border
Matamoros Cathedral
Matamoros Municipality, Chihuahua
Matamoros Municipality, Coahuila
Matamoros Municipality, Tamaulipas
General Mariano Matamoros Airport, of Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico
Izúcar de Matamoros, city in the Mexican state of Puebla
Landa de Matamoros, city in the Mexican state of Querétaro
Mariano Matamoros, Chihuahua, town in Mexico
Tlacolula de Matamoros, city in the Mexican state of Oaxaca
Valle de Matamoros, municipality in the province of Badajoz, Extremadura, Spain

See also
 Matamoras (disambiguation)

Matamoros


Allegheny Uprising (released in the UK as The First Rebel) is a 1939 American Adventure Western film directed by William A. Seiter and starring Claire Trevor and John Wayne. Based on the 1937 novel The First Rebel by Neil H. Swanson, with a screenplay by the film's producer, P. J. Wolfson, the film is loosely based on the historical event known as the Black Boys Rebellion, which took place in 1765 after the conclusion of the French and Indian War. It was produced by RKO Pictures.

Clad in buckskin and a coonskin cap (as he would be a decade later in The Fighting Kentuckian), Wayne plays real-life James Smith, an American coping with British rule in colonial America. The supporting cast includes Brian Donlevy, George Sanders and Chill Wills. Claire Trevor and John Wayne also headed the cast of John Ford's Stagecoach the same year, and in both films as well as Dark Command the following year, Trevor is top-billed over Wayne due to her greater name value at the time.

The film did not fare well in its initial release. The superficially similar John Ford film Drums Along the Mohawk had been released only one week prior. In the United Kingdom, where the film kept the original title, it was initially banned by the Ministry of Information for placing the British, already at war against Nazi Germany, in a bad light.

Plot
In the southwestern Pennsylvania region, of colonial America, in the 1760s, colonial distaste and disapproval of the British government is starting to surface. Many local colonists have been killed by Native Americans, who are armed with rifles supplied by white traders. Local adventurer James Smith and his followers complain to British officials, pressuring them to make it illegal to trade weapons to the Indians. Trader Ralph Callender and other businessmen are not happy with the new law, as it cuts into their profit. They continue to trade with the local Native American population, hiding rifles and rum inside military supply trains. When the British authorities fail to do anything to prevent this, James Smith organizes his men and heads out to intercept the wagon train. Smith's spirited and bold girlfriend, Janie McDougall, assists him and his men in posing as Indians to intercept the gun shipments.

Captain Swanson, a British army officer, is sent to protect the wagon train at all costs, following a complaint lodged by Callender, that Smith and his men intend to rob the wagon train, while neglecting to state that the train contains guns and liquor. Captain Swanson considers the involvement of Smith and his men as a revolt against his authority, and in retaliation, he jails more than half of the local colonists, holding them without trial. This sets Smith and Swanson on a collision course.

Cast

 Claire Trevor as Janie MacDougall
 John Wayne as James Smith
 George Sanders as Capt. Swanson
 Brian Donlevy as Trader Ralph Callendar
 Wilfrid Lawson as "Mac" MacDougall
 Robert Barrat as Magistrate Duncan
 John F. Hamilton as the Professor
 Moroni Olsen as Tom Calhoon
 Eddie Quillan as Will Anderson
 Chill Wills as John M'Cammon
 Ian Wolfe as Mr. Poole
 Wallis Clark as Sgt. McGlashan
 Monte Montague as Magistrate Morris
 Olaf Hytten as General Gage
 Eddy Waller as Jailer in Carlisle
 Clay Clement as John Penn

Context
Allegheny Uprising was one of only four films in which John Wayne wore a buckskin suit with a coonskin cap, the others being the 1930 widescreen epic The Big Trail (in the Grand Canyon sequence shot on location), The Fighting Kentuckian (1949) with Oliver Hardy as Wayne's sidekick, and briefly as Davy Crockett in The Alamo (1960). Allegheny Uprising and The Fighting Kentuckian are frequently confused with each other since they were filmed only a decade apart and Wayne looks much the same in both pictures.

Reception
The film recorded a loss of $230,000.

Colorization
The film was colorized in the late 1980s and released on VHS. New DVD copies are in black and white only.

See also
 List of American films of 1939
 John Wayne filmography

References

External links

Turner Classic Movies review and plot synopsis

1939 films
1930s historical films
American historical films
American black-and-white films
1930s English-language films
RKO Pictures films
Films directed by William A. Seiter
Films set in Pittsburgh
Films set in Pennsylvania
Films set in the Thirteen Colonies
Films set in the 1760s
Films based on American novels
1930s American films

Allegheny Uprising


Fish stock is a kind of stock used for fish dishes. It is used in French and international cuisine.

This stock is the basis of fish soups and sauces. It is usually made with fish bones and fish heads, together with finely chopped mirepoix. The fish stock is cooked for 20–25 minutes—cooking any longer spoils the flavour.  Concentrated fish stock is called "fish fumet".

In Japan, a fish and kelp stock called dashi is made by briefly (3–5 minutes) cooking skipjack tuna (bonito) flakes called katsuobushi in nearly boiling water. Other Japanese fish stock is made from fish that have been fried and boiled for several hours, creating a white milky broth. This has a rich feel and sweet umami taste.

For fish stocks in other Asian cooking, see fish sauce.

Sourcebook
Murdoch 2004. Essential Seafood Cookbook Court-bouillon and fish stock, p. 34. Murdoch Books. ISBN 9781740454124

Seafood
Cooking methods

Fish stock (food)


Footloose was a professional wrestling tag team consisting of Toshiaki Kawada and Ricky/Samson Fuyuki.

Career
Toshiaki Kawada and Samson Fuyuki started teaming up in 1985, while on an excursion in San Antonio, wrestling for Texas All-Star Wrestling. Kawada and Fuyuki, who by then went under the name Ricky Fuyuki, went under the team name Japanese Force and they feuded with American Force (Paul Diamond and Shawn Michaels). They were managed by Gary Hart.

In 1987, Kawada and Fuyuki, now going by the name Samson Fuyuki, joined Genichiro Tenryu's Revolution. In January 1988, they began wearing matching ring attire and named their team Footloose.

On March 9, 1988, Footloose won the All Asia Tag Team Championship, defeating Mighty Inoue and Takashi Ishikawa. They would hold the titles for exactly six months before losing the belts to Shinichi Nakano and Shunji Takano on September 9, 1988. However, Footloose rebounded by defeating Nakano and Takano to reclaim the titles six days later, on September 15, 1988.

After the feud with Nakano and Takano died down, Footloose went into a heated rivalry with The Can-Am Express (Doug Furnas and Dan Kroffat). On June 5, 1989, Furnas and Kroffat defeated them for the All Asia Tag Team titles. Four months later, on October 20, 1989, Footloose defeated the Express to win back the titles for the third time. Their third reign would be their last, before losing the titles back to the Express on March 2, 1990.

Soon after the title loss in April 1990, Footloose disbanded, as Kawada would form a team with friend Tiger Mask II, who would later unmask, revealing himself as Mitsuharu Misawa. Fuyuki followed Tenryu into the new Super World of Sports promotion.

On October 27, 2001, Kawada defeated Fuyuki in a singles match in AJPW.

The New Footloose
In 1998, Samson (now Kodo) Fuyuki formed The New Footloose with Yukihiro Kanemura in Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling. Fuyuki and Kanemura teamed together in tag team and six-man matches regularly until the promotion closed in 2002.

Championships and accomplishments
All Japan Pro Wrestling
All Asia Tag Team Championship (3 times)

All Japan Pro Wrestling teams and stables
Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling teams and stables

Footloose (professional wrestling)


The Pashupatinath Temple () is a Hindu temple dedicated to Pashupati, a form of Shiva, and is located in Kathmandu, Nepal near the Bagmati River. This temple was classified as a World Heritage Site in 1979. This "extensive Hindu temple precinct" is a "sprawling collection of temples, ashrams, images and inscriptions raised over the centuries along the banks of the sacred Bagmati river", and is one of seven monument groups in UNESCO's designation of Kathmandu Valley. It is built on an area of 246 hectares (2,460,000 m2) and includes 518 mini-temples and a main pagoda house.

The temple is one of the Paadal Petra Sthalams on the continent.

History
The exact date of the temple's construction is uncertain, but the current form of the temple was constructed in 1692 CE. Over time, many more temples have been erected around the two-storied temple, including the Vaishnava temple complex with a Rama temple from the 14th century and the Guhyeshwari Temple mentioned in an 11th-century manuscript.

Pashupatinath Temple is the oldest Hindu temple in Kathmandu. It is not known for certain when Pashupatinath Temple was built. But according to Nepal Mahatmaya and Himvatkhanda, the deity here gained great fame there as Pashupati. Pashupatinath Temple's existence is recorded as early as 400 CE. The ornamented pagoda houses the linga of Shiva. There are many legends describing how the temple of Aalok Pashupatinath came into existence here.

One legend says that Shiva and Parvati took the form of antelopes in the forest on the Bagmati river's east bank. The gods later caught up with him and grabbed him by one of his horns, forcing him to resume his divine form. The broken horn was worshipped as a linga, but over time it was buried and lost. Centuries later a herdsman found one of his cows showering the earth with milk, and after digging at the site, he discovered the divine linga of Pashupatinath.

According to Gopalraj Aalok Vhat, the temple was built by Prachanda Deva, a Licchavi king.

Another chronicle states that Pashupatinath Temple was in the form of Linga shaped Devalaya before Supuspa Deva constructed a five-storey temple of Pashupatinath in this place. As time passed, the temple needed to be repaired and renovated. It is known that this temple was reconstructed by a medieval king named Shivadeva (1099–1126 CE). It was renovated by Ananta Malla adding a roof to it.

The main temple complex of Pashupatinath and the sanctum sanctorum was left untouched, but some of the outer buildings in the complex were damaged by the April 2015 Nepal earthquake.

Architecture
This main temple is built in the Nepali pagoda style of architecture. The two-level roofs are of copper with gold covering. The temple rests on a square base platform with a height of 23m 7 cm from base to pinnacle. It has four main doors, all covered with silver sheets. This temple has a gold pinnacle (peak). Inside are two garbhagrihas: the inner garbhagriha or sanctum sanctorum is where the idol is placed, and the outer sanctum is an open corridor-like space.

Deity
The sacro sanctum, or the main idol, is a stone Mukhalinga with a silver yoni base bound with a silver serpent. It is one metre high and has faces in four directions, which represent various aspects of Shiva; Sadyojata (also known as Barun), Vamadeva (also known as Ardhanareshwara), Tatpurusha, Aghora, and Ishana (imaginative). Each face has tiny protruding hands holding rudraksha mala in the right hand and a kamandalu in the other. Unlike other Shiva lingams in India and Nepal, this lingam is always dressed in its golden vastram except during abhisheka, so pouring milk and Ganga Jal is only possible during the ritual through the main priests.

Priests

Only four priests can touch the idol. Daily rituals of Pashupatinath are carried out by two groups of priests: the Bhatta and the Rajbhandari. Bhatta perform the daily ritual and can touch the lingam, whereas Bhandaris are helpers and temple caretakers who are not qualified to perform puja rituals or to touch the deity.

Bhatta
Bhatta are highly educated Vedic Dravida Brahmin scholars from Karnataka. Unlike other Hindu temples, the priesthood of Pashupatinath is not hereditary. Priests are selected from a group of scholars educated by Śrī Śaṅkarāćārya Dakṣiṇāmnāya Pīṭha, Sringeri on Rig Vedic recitation, initiated in Pashupata Yoga, Shiva Āgama and learned recitation of Samaveda from Haridwar. After qualifying and fulfilling all those criteria they are selected for priesthood by Raj Guru of Pashupatinath Temple undergoing strict examination on Vedas and Shiva Agamas. The chosen priest is sent to Kathmandu to perform puja and daily worship of Pashupatinath.

The current Bhatta priests of the temple are:
Ganesha Bhatta (15th head priest of the Pashupatinath Temple aka Mool Bhat) from Udupi.
Girisha Bhatta from Sirsi.
Narayana Bhatta from Bhatkal.
B.S Binaya Adiga-Bhatta (Recently appointed)
The current Bhatta priest of the Vasukinath Naag temple of Pashupatinath
Raghavendra Bhatta

Rajbhandaris
The Rajbhandaris are the treasurers, temple caretakers, and assistant priests of the temple. They are the descendants of helper priests brought up by early Bhatts, but were allowed to settle in Kathmandu valley and later assimilated into the existing Newar caste system of Rajbhandari – a high-caste Chathariya/Kshatriya clan of Kashyapa gotra. Their main task is to help the Bhatt priests and perform maintenance of the inner garbhagriha. They can have little or no Vedic knowledge but still qualify as assistant priests if they belong from the same family lineage and undergo some basic criteria like caste, gotra, lineage purity, and educational qualification. They work in a set of three and switch every full moon day. There are a total of 108 Rajbhandaris.

Entry

The temple courtyard has four entrances in the cardinal directions. The western entrance is the main entrance to the temple courtyard and the remaining three entrances are open only during festivals. The temple security (Armed Police Force Nepal) and the Pashupatinath area development trust are selective regarding who is allowed entry into the inner courtyard. Practising Hindus of South Asian diaspora and Buddhists of Nepali and Tibetan diaspora are only allowed into the temple courtyard. Practising Hindus of Western descent are not allowed into the temple complex and must go no further than other non-Hindu visitors. An exception is granted to Sikhs and Jains: if they are of Indian ancestry they may enter the temple complex. Others can look at the main temple from the adjacent side of the river and pay $10 (1,000 Nepali rupees) to visit the small temples located in the external premises of the temple complex.

The inner temple courtyard remains open from 4 a.m. to 7 p.m. for the devotee, but the inner Pashupatinath Temple is open from 5 a.m. to 12 p.m. for the morning ritual and viewing and from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. for the evening ritual. Unlike many other Shiva temples, devotees are not allowed to enter the inner garbhagriha, but are allowed to watch from the exterior premises of the outer garbhagriha. The temple closing times change depending upon the season: in November, it closes at 6.30 p.m. In summers, it closes at 8 p.m.

Abhisheka

The inner sanctum where the lingam is placed has four entrances: east, west, north, south. From 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. devotees can worship from all four doors.

All four doors are also opened during abhisheka  from 9 to 11 a.m. Abhisheka is done based on the direction the mukh is viewed.

Festivals
There are many festivals throughout the year, such as the Maha Shivaratri and the Teej festival. Teej is one of the most celebrated festival at Pashupatinath Temple.

Controversy
In January 2009, after the forced resignation by the chief priest of Pashupatinath temple, the Maoist-led government of Nepal "hand picked" Nepalese priests of Khas-Gorkhali ethnicity to lead the temple, bypassing the temple's long-standing requirements. This appointment was contested by the Rajbhandaris (temple caretakers) of the temple, stating that they were not against the appointment of Nepalese priests but against the appointment without proper procedure. After the appointment was challenged in a civil court, the appointment was overruled by the Supreme Court of Nepal, but the government ignored the ruling and stood by its decision, which led to public outrage and protests over a lack of transparency. A clash between the youth wing of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and the protesting temple staff caused over a dozen injuries when some 100 Maoist cadres attacked the temple caretakers, though the maoists denied the attack. Lawmakers and activists from opposition parties joined protests, declaring their support for the Bhatt and other pro-Bhatt protesters. After long dissatisfaction and protest by Hindus both in and outside Nepal, the government was forced to reverse its decision and reinstate Bhatta priests.

References

Further reading

von Schroeder, Ulrich. (2019). Nepalese Stone Sculptures. Volume One: Hindu; Volume Two: Buddhist. (Visual Dharma Publications). . Contains SD card with 15,000 digital photographs of Nepalese sculptures and other subjects as public domain.

Pashupatinath Temple
5th-century establishments in Nepal
5th-century Hindu temples
Char Dham temples in Nepal
Cultural heritage of Nepal
Hindu temples in Kathmandu District
Padal Petra Stalam
Shiva temples in Nepal
World Heritage Sites in Nepal
Newa architecture

Pashupatinath Temple


George Jacob "Porky" Chedwick (February 4, 1918 – March 2, 2014) was an American radio announcer known to generations in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as "The Daddio of the Raddio", "The Platter Pushin' Papa", "The Bossman", "Pork the Tork", and a host of other colorful nicknames. His career lasted from 1948 to shortly before his death in 2014.

Early life
George Jacob Chedwick (he later informally changed his first name to "Craig") was born on February 4, 1918, in Homestead, Pennsylvania, one of ten children of a steelworker father. George's mother died when he was still a child. His was a close-knit, culturally and racially diverse neighborhood, which he often compared to "a secluded island", where things such as one's skin color simply didn't matter. Before getting into radio, he worked odd jobs around Homestead-Munhall, including delivering newspapers as a young boy, later working as a sports "stringer" reporter for the newspaper, sorting mail for the local post office, and calling play-by-play sporting events at his alma mater, Munhall High School.

Career
He began his career at WHOD in Homestead (which took the call letters WAMO — an acronym for the Allegheny, Monongehela and Ohio rivers — in 1956), when the low-power AM signed on, August 1, 1948. When he responded to an ad in a local paper, advertising for on-air talent at the new radio station, his popularity as a play-by-play announcer won him a 10-minute Saturday sports and music show. The music portion was gradually expanded, in response to the public's reaction. WHOD, known as  "The Station of Nations," was created to serve the diverse European and eastern bloc immigrant population that worked the Pittsburgh area mills. Most of his young listeners, who turned an ear toward Chedwick's music and off-the-cuff rhymes and patter, had no idea that he was Caucasian. Years later, when the fact became apparent, the outcry from some parents, religious and civic leaders made him a local anti-hero, and he was banned from appearing in some neighborhoods. The suggestion that he was trying to corrupt the (white) youth of America was put to rest when he was commended by Senator Estes Kefauver for his work organizing youth baseball teams to combat juvenile delinquency. He even had a few youths remanded to his custody from juvenile court.

In spite of WHOD's low wattage (1,000 watts compared to 50,000 watts on KDKA.), Chedwick became Pittsburgh's "Pied Piper of Platter". By the early 1950s, black music record labels were hearing about the noise Chedwick was making in Pittsburgh with old R&B stock, so they began inundating him with new material. He introduced the new material to his "movers and groovers," never accepting payola though payola was the norm at the time. Still, oldies would dominate his playlist. Shortly after being honored by WAMO for his years of service in 1984, he was let go by the station.  He would work at various other stations in the Pittsburgh market until executives from Sheridan Broadcasting (WAMO's parent company) asked him to come back in 1992.

Health

For much of his life, Chedwick was plagued with impaired vision, which led him to the practice of wearing prescription eyeglasses with dark lenses, which also aided in hiding his crossed left eye. His vision-related problems ultimately robbed him of his ability to drive a car. In 1990, he was diagnosed with a large, benign brain tumor. When news broke of the diagnosis, it sent a shock throughout Pittsburgh and a national community of pioneer artists who still felt in his debt. Friends including Little Anthony, Hank Ballard, Lou Christie, Wolfman Jack, Johnnie and Joe, Bobby Comstock, The Marcels, The Vogues, and Bo Diddley organized a benefit concert to help shoulder the huge medical bill for the operation from which he fully recovered. The surgery was performed at West Penn Hospital and drew more than five thousand get-well cards from fans and other supporters. Some remaining money from the fund-raiser was put into a trust fund against the day when Chedwick would need long-term residential or hospice care. Not long after Chedwick's brain surgery, he also underwent a second operation to correct his crossed left eye, enabling him to see with clear lenses.

Move to Florida and back
Chedwick and his wife Jeanie announced in June 2008 that they were moving to Florida. They completed their move from Pittsburgh's Brookline section to Tarpon Springs in August 2008. By Christmas, Porky returned to Pittsburgh and began to make appearances at oldies clubs, following his recovery. He eventually returned to Florida but hated the tranquil community of the trailer park, likening a stroll through it to "walking through a graveyard". He and his wife sold their property in July 2011 and immediately bought a house in the Brookline neighborhood of Pittsburgh, vowing never to leave the city of Pittsburgh again.

Later years
On September 2, 2011, Chedwick returned to the air on WEDO in McKeesport, where he hosted a Friday program from 11AM to noon, eastern. His return to radio was captured by New York film maker Josh Gilbert. On October 26, 2011, Chedwick announced to his audience that management had told him that unless his radio show could secure some sponsors, the following week would be his last on WEDO. After another discussion with WEDO management a few days later, the October 26, 2011, issue of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that Chedwick had opted to discontinue the show, after only eight broadcasts.

The news reached veteran DJ Terry Lee, who had recently returned to local radio himself. Lee, who became one of Pittsburgh's top DJs the mid-1960s by playing ballads he called "Music For Young Lovers" and hosting "Bandstand" style local shows in the 1970s, was appalled at the way Chedwick's situation at WEDO had been handled. Chedwick had just left WAMO Pittsburgh after 23 years, unhappy at being forced to follow the psychedelic/underground rock format the station had been programming. According to an aircheck of the show that Lee owns, all 30 of WIXZ phone lines were tied up for the four-hour show — all from listeners wanting to talk with Porky. Lee and Chedwick even had to beg people to stop coming to the radio station. The next day, members of the media and WIXZ listeners speculated that Chedwick had found a new radio home, but it was not the case.

On October 30, 2011, Lee announced that he wouldn't see Chedwick languish again, adding, "Without Porky, none of us (oldies DJs) would be here." At 4 p.m. (EST), November 11, 2011, from his Brookline home, Chedwick made his internet radio debut, beginning his show with "Breaking Up the House" by Tiny Bradshaw (1950). Shortly before Chedwick went live, Lee spoke on the network and said that Chedick would do 4 to 6, every Friday, but that "he can stay on as long as he wants." After the second hour, Chedwick told his audience, "I'm feeling good! I'm gonna do another hour."

Death
Chedwick made regular Sunday night appearances at a restaurant near his home. His last public appearance was six days before his death, at the fortieth and final Roots of Rock and Roll concert in Pittsburgh.

After being hospitalized just weeks before for surgery to correct a swallowing difficulty, Chedwick died on March 2, 2014, after complaining of chest pains.  He walked into the hospital's emergency room under his own power, but died a short time later.  He was 96.

Honors
Chedwick has been recognized on the floor of the United States Senate for his pioneering contributions to radio and rock and roll, and countless times around Pittsburgh, including a day-long 50th anniversary oldies concert called "Porkstock" in 1998 at Three Rivers Stadium and another in 1999.

Chedwick was among a group of radio disc jockeys honored in the "Dedicated to the One I Love" exhibit at Cleveland, Ohio's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in 1996. He was the only Pittsburgh DJ to be recognized in the Hall of Fame. At age 88, Chedwick celebrated his 58th anniversary on the air at the Hall of Fame's Alan Freed Radio Studio on August 12, 2006.

References

Further reading
 Porky Chedwick fansite
 Pittsburgh Post Gazette: Hats off to Porky
 Porky Chedwick Week in 2006 declared by Pennsylvania's House of Representatives
 Porky Chedwick, 92, is one cool cat, and that's a fact
 Porky Chedwick: Radio's Most Ignored Pioneer
 Porky Chedwick Pittsburgh Music History Profile
 Pittsburgh Post Gazette: Porky Chedwick to celebrate his birthday on air Saturday

1918 births
2014 deaths
Radio personalities from Pittsburgh
People from Homestead, Pennsylvania

Porky Chedwick


Arvo Jaakko Henrikki Salo (2 May 1932 – 9 July 2011) was a Finnish writer, journalist and politician. He served as an MP from 1966 to 1970 and from 1979 to 1983 (Social Democratic Party) and was  Minister of Education and Culture from 1982 to 1983 in Kalevi Sorsa's third cabinet.

In addition, he held various positions of trust, including the Helsinki City Council, Väinö Tanner Foundation and Workers' Educational Association. He received the honorary title of professor in 2003 and was a recipient of the Eino Leino Prize in 1964.

In Finnish politics Salo is known for his quote "kill one peasant per day" when he was talking about Finnish agriculture policy.

Salo was born and died in Merikarvia, Satakunta.  In his career as a journalist, he was editor-in-chief of Ylioppilaslehti. He received the Journalist Award of Suomen Kuvalehti in 1977. He authored several notable plays, including Lapualaisooppera (1966), Mustalaisoperetti (1969), Yks perkele, yks enkeli (1985), Vallan miehet (1986), and Ouraooppera (2002).

The opera Matilda Roslin and Nikolai, based on Roslin's life, was composed by Arvo Salo from Merikarvia and composer Ilkka Kuusisto.

References

1932 births
2011 deaths
People from Merikarvia
Social Democratic Party of Finland politicians
Ministers of Education of Finland
Members of the Parliament of Finland (1966–1970)
Members of the Parliament of Finland (1979–1983)
Finnish dramatists and playwrights
Finnish journalists
20th-century dramatists and playwrights

Arvo Salo


The Selection is a young adult novel by Kiera Cass first published on April 14, 2012, by HarperCollins. It is the first in a five-book series, followed by The Elite (2013), The One (2014), The Heir (2015) and The Crown (May 2016). The last two take place twenty years after the events in the first three.

In addition, four spin-off novellas were released. The first two, The Prince and The Guard, are narrated from the point of view of two supporting characters. The Queen and The Favorite are prequels, focusing on two other supporting characters in the main series. All four novellas were collected into one volume Happily Ever After, including bonus content and epilogues.

Kiera Cass stated that she began writing The Selection after thinking about the differences between Esther and Cinderella, wondering if either of them were happy with how they ended up. She also commented that she had written the book "from start to finish", while her writing process for the other books differed.

Plot
In a futuristic world, society is divided into castes, with Ones being the most prosperous, consisting of royals and elites, and Eights being mostly orphans/homeless, drug users, handicapped, and unemployable. America Singer is a Five, the "artist" caste (e.g. musicians, artists, actors, dancers, etc.). Since their prosperity depends on their desirability, Fives live a lower-class life. America, however, does not care, because she enjoys entertaining, especially with a violin.

The prince of Illéa, Maxon Schreave, announces that he is following in his father's footsteps by holding the Selection, a competition for the prince's hand in marriage and the crown. Despite pressure from her mother, America has no interest in entering the competition, because she already has Aspen, her next-door neighbor and secret boyfriend.

After having a conversation with her mother which lets her keep most of her savings, America decides to surprise Aspen with dinner at her treehouse. This upsets him, as he believes he should be the one to provide for her, but is unable to because he is a Six (the servant caste) and has no means of doing so since he already has to take care of his mother and siblings. In the end, Aspen decides to break up with America. The end of their relationship, plus a bribe from her mother, leads America to enter the Selection and later into the palace where she has to compete with thirty-four other girls to win the prince's heart. It also helps that her time in the palace is accompanied by a small stipend sent to her family.

America easily makes friends (Marlee Tames, a Four and a farmer) and enemies (Celeste Newsome, a Two and a model) within the first week of her stay, but her unique personality also catches the attention of the palace staff and the country. She still doesn't want to marry Prince Maxon, but a chance meeting in the gardens causes them to befriend each other. America still loves Aspen, but she gradually starts to fall in love with the prince. Maxon gives America his first kiss, and she begins to think that she could maybe marry him and forget Aspen. Rebels constantly attack the palace, which helps turn away the weak-earthed competitors, but also makes things tense, especially when the rebels seem to be getting closer. Things also become tense in the competition when America starts to feel jealous of Maxon spending time with the other Selected.

America eventually sees Aspen again when he enters the palace as a new member of the guard. He was drafted into the army, where he earned top honors. Aspen's appearance confuses America's feelings even more and she begins to feel like she is still in love with him when he sneaks into her room to see her. Having a romantic relationship with someone other than the prince during the competition is considered treason, and the punishment for treason can be as severe as death. America meets with Aspen in spite of the possible consequences.

After an attack from the rebels that leads to three of the Selected leaving, Prince Maxon decides to narrow down the girls to six, calling them The Elite. When America's name ends up among the six chosen to stay, she realizes that she does have feelings for Maxon and could see herself happy with him. With this in mind, she tells Aspen that she cannot continue their romantic liaisons. Instead of getting discouraged, Aspen claims that he will fight even harder to win her love again over Maxon. The book ends with America finally realizing that she is exactly where she ought to be—among the Elite.

Characters
 America Singer – Like her red hair, America takes a rebellious attitude in concept. She tends to have a short temper, which she inherited from her mother. Despite saying she has no leadership skills, America is not afraid to speak her mind. For example, when the palace was under rebel attack by the Southerners, Silvia ordered America's maids to bring food and drink to the Selected. America, however, told her that the girls can take care of themselves, and ordered Anne to provide food for the royal family only. She is very stubborn and persistent at times and may jump to conclusions a lot. She can also be hypocritical but always apologizes if she is proven wrong. America's greatest fear when entering the Selection was losing her individuality, something the other Selected girls would give up to take over the throne. Overall, America is a very courageous person that, at the end of the day, will always realize the mistakes she might have caused and will do anything to make things right. She is always afraid of losing someone she loves.
 Prince Maxon – When America first saw Maxon on TV, she believed he was a shallow and stuck-up person. Thus, when she meets him for one of the first times, she misunderstands his intentions and knees him in the groin. However, he forgives her and she later discovered that he was actually very kind and a gentleman. The two eventually became friends, talking to each other, sharing secrets, and having fun together. America guided him to better understand his kingdom and to help the lower castes. Maxon admires America for her strong will, courage, kindness, and sense of honor. At the beginning of the Selection, he mentions that he wants to be around her so that these features would rub off on him. He likes honesty and truth and he specifically asked America to trust him and his decisions and always be open with him. He is very private: he does not like when people interfere with his personal life (especially during the Selection where cameras follow his every step) or when the Elites gossip with each other about what he does or does not do with them.
 Aspen Leger – Loves America and plans to marry her eventually but knows it is better for her to enter the Selection to help her family. America continuously has Aspen on her mind through several parts of the novel. He questions the relationship that she has with Maxon often because of the complicated past he has with America. After America is picked for the Selection, he is drafted into the army where he earns top honors in his class, and then promoted to a member of the Royal Guard at the palace.
 Marlee Tames – A member of the Elite and best friend of America. Marlee first meets America Singer as they are leaving for the palace. America and Marlee bond as soon as they board the plane. The two quickly become friends and get along fine. After Marlee's first date with Prince Maxon, Marlee loses interest in the prince but does not want to leave the Selection due to personal reasons.
 Celeste Newsome – A member of the Elite, she is a Two and worked as a model. Celeste holds a sense of superiority over the lower caste competitors like America and Marlee. She is confident and arrogant, knows how to use her beauty, and is willing to do anything to win, even breaking the rules of the Selection. She provokes one of the Selected into slapping her, which gets them kicked out of the competition (because violence against other competitors is against the rules). She uses other tactics to get other members of the Selected to be disqualified.
 Kriss Ambers – A member of the Elite and is a Three.
 Elise Whisks – A member of the Elite and is a Four. She has family connections to New Asia, a country that Illéa is at war with.
 Natalie Luca – A member of the Elite and is a Four. She is viewed by as someone who has her head in the clouds.
 Clarkson Schreave – King of Illéa and Maxon's father, he is often seen as strict.  The girls react with fear when he gets angry. America dislikes him.
 Amberly Schreave – Queen of Illéa and Maxon's mother. She is from Honduragua and was a Four until she married King Clarkson at the end of his Selection. She is described as kindhearted by America. She is very loved by all her people.
 America's family − Shalom (a painter), Madga (a musician), Kenna (originally a Five but married a man named James Orders [a Four and factory worker] and is currently pregnant), Kota (an artist who is estranged from his family), May (a painter), and Gerad (the baby of the family who has yet to pick a profession).

Reception
Publishers Weekly gave a positive review for the book, praising the character of America. The School Library Journal, MTV, and Booklist all gave positive reviews for The Selection  while in contrast, Kirkus Reviews panned the novel. The A.V. Club gave a mostly positive review, commenting that it "is something of a Hunger Games rip-off, but at least it's an entertaining one". It won the 2017 Young Hoosier Book Award (Middle Grade).

Controversy
On January 12, 2012, a one-star review of Cass' book, The Selection, was posted on the book reviewing site Goodreads and on the reviewer's blog. Later on the same day, Kiera Cass' literary agent, Elana Roth, posted a series of derogatory tweets on the social networking site Twitter. In a conversation that Cass and Roth believed was private—but was, in fact, public—Roth called the reviewer names, and both Roth and Cass collaborated on how best to bump the negative review down and boost positive reviews by manipulating the ranking system themselves. The controversy sparked an article by Publishers Weekly speaking out against this practice and raised an outcry from multiple reviewers, bloggers, and publications against the cyber-bullying of nonprofessional reviewers by authors and agents.

Adaptations
In 2012, Cass announced that The CW had optioned the rights to her series with the intent of turning it into a television series. The series would star Aimee Teegarden as America Singer, but the pilot was not picked up to series for the fall 2012 television season. A second pilot was ordered for the CW in 2013, starring Yael Grobglas as the same character but was also not picked up by the network.

In 2015, Warner Bros. announced they had bought the film rights of the book. Denise Di Novi and Alison Greenspan of DiNovi Pictures would produce alongside Pouya Shahbazian, with Katie Lovejoy to write the screenplay.

In April 2020, it was announced that Netflix would be adapting the first book. As stated in a Variety article, it is going to be directed by Saudi Arabian filmmaker Haifaa Al-Mansour, previously partnered with Netflix on 2018's Nappily Ever After. Pouya Shahbazian and Denise Di Novi are set to produce, with Margaret French Isaac as executive producer. In May 2023, Netflix decided to cancel plans to produce the movie, but they still maintain film rights for the next few years.

References

2012 American novels
2012 speculative fiction novels
Debut speculative fiction novels
American young adult novels
Dystopian novels
Unaired television pilots
Television pilots not picked up as a series
2012 debut novels
Novels set in fictional countries
HarperCollins books

The Selection