Professor David Simon Oderberg (born 1963) is an Australian philosopher of metaphysics and ethics based in Britain since 1987. He is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Reading. He describes himself as a non-consequentialist or a traditionalist in his works. Broadly speaking, Oderberg places himself in opposition to Peter Singer and other utilitarian or consequentialist thinkers. He has published over thirty academic papers and has authored six books: The Metaphysics of Good and Evil, Opting Out: Conscience and Cooperation in a Pluralistic Society, Real Essentialism, Applied Ethics, Moral Theory, and The Metaphysics of Identity over Time. Professor Oderberg is an alumnus of the Universities of Melbourne, where he completed his first degrees, and Oxford where he gained his D.Phil.

He was appointed editor of Ratio, the philosophical quarterly, in late 2012.

Applied Ethics
Applied Ethics, which was first published in 2000, has become one of the most important of Oderberg's works. Oderberg applies his classical viewpoint to some controversial ethical issues: abortion, euthanasia, animal rights, capital punishment and the just war theory. Oderberg provides a detailed defence of the view that abortion is morally wrong because the fetus is an innocent life, and intentionally taking an innocent life is always morally wrong. He aims to refute views like those of Peter Singer, who suggests that we deny that it is always wrong to intentionally kill innocent human beings. Oderberg compares legalised abortion to contract killing, arguing that the state has no more right to legalise and regulate abortion on the ground that this would take it out of the 'back street,' than it does to legalise and regulate contract killing on the same ground. On the subject of euthanasia, he argues that it too is immoral, because, like abortion, it involves the intentional killing of an innocent human being. Voluntary euthanasia is no more justifiable than involuntary, since a person has no absolute right to do whatever they want with their body. Furthermore, he believes the current scientific definition of brain death is unsatisfactory both on metaphysical grounds and from an ethical point of view. Oderberg's position on animal rights is similar to that of Aquinas – rejecting in principle the idea that humans have duties to animals because they are not moral agents, he nonetheless believes that humans still have duties in respect of them to treat them kindly.  On the death penalty, Oderberg supports the state's right to enforce capital punishment, because justice must be retributive and death, being the worst punishment, is the suitable punishment for the worst crime – e.g. murder. Oderberg supports just war theory, and believes that civilians who do not contribute to the war effort should not be targeted. In virtue of this, he regards the use of atomic warfare in World War II to have been a seriously immoral act. He also regards contraception as immoral, and exhorts 'pro-lifers' like himself to engage in 'campaigning, protesting, writing, or whatever it is that we do best in defending the pro-life cause.'

Books

Articles
 'The Morality of Reputation and the Judgment of Others', Journal of Practical Ethics 1 (2013): 3–33
 'Synthetic Life and the Bruteness of Immanent Causation', in E. Feser (ed.) Aristotle on Method and Metaphysics (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013): 206–35.
 'Natural Law and Rights Theory', in G. Gaus and F. D'Agostino (eds) The Routledge Companion to Social and Political Philosophy (London: Routledge, 2013): 375–86.
 'Survivalism, Corruptionism, and Mereology', European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 4 (2012): 1–26.
 'Hume, the Occult, and the Substance of the School', Metaphysica 13 (2012): 155–74.
 'No Potency without Actuality: The Case of Graph Theory', in Tuomas E. Tahko (ed.) Contemporary Aristotelian Metaphysics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012): 207–28.
 'Graph Structuralism and its Discontents: Rejoinder to Shackel', Analysis 72 (2012): 94–8.
 'Disembodied Communication and Religious Experience: The Online Model', Philosophy and Technology 25 (2012): 381–97.
 'Essence and Properties', Erkenntnis 75 (2011): 85–111.
 'Morality, Religion, and Cosmic Justice', Philosophical Investigations 34 (2011): 189–213. (Invited contribution to special issue on the theme 'Ethics and Religion'.)
 'The World is not an Asymmetric Graph', Analysis 71 (2011): 3–10.
 'The Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Law', in H. Zaborowski (ed.) Natural Moral Law in Contemporary Society (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2010): 44–75.
 'The Doctrine of Double Effect', in T. O'Connor and C. Sandis (eds) A Companion to the Philosophy of Action (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010): 324–30.
 '"Whatever is Changing is Being Changed by Something Else": A Reappraisal of Premise One of the First Way', in J. Cottingham and P. Hacker (eds) Mind, Method and Morality: Essays in Honour of Anthony Kenny (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010): 140–64.
 'Persistence', in J. Kim, E. Sosa, and G. Rosenkrantz (eds) A Companion to Metaphysics, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009): 55–65.
 'The Non-Identity of the Categorical and the Dispositional', Analysis 69 (2009): 677–84.
 'The Metaphysical Status of the Embryo: Some Arguments Revisited', Journal of Applied Philosophy 25 (2008): 263–76.
 'Concepts, Dualism, and the Human Intellect', in A. Antonietti, A. Corradini, and E.J. Lowe (eds) Psycho-Physical Dualism Today: An Interdisciplinary Approach (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books/Rowman and Littlefied, 2008): 211–33.
 'Self-Love, Love of Neighbour, and Impartiality', in N. Athanassoulis and S. Vice (eds), The Moral Life: Essays in Honour of John Cottingham (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008): 58–84.
 'Teleology: Inorganic and Organic', in A.M. González (ed.), Contemporary Perspectives on Natural Law (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008): 259–79.
 'The Cosmological Argument', in C. Meister and P. Copan (eds) The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Religion (London: Routledge, 2007): 341–50.
 'Instantaneous Change without Instants', in C. Paterson and M.S. Pugh (eds) Analytical Thomism: Traditions in Dialogue (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006): 101–18.
 (with J.A. Laing) 'Artificial Reproduction, the "Welfare Principle", and the Common Good', Medical Law Review 13 (2005): 328–56.
 'Towards a Natural Law Critique of Genetic Engineering', in N. Athanassoulis (ed.) Philosophical Reflections on Medical Ethics (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005): 109–134.
 'Hylemorphic Dualism', in E.F. Paul, F.D. Miller, and J. Paul (eds) Personal Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005): 70–99. (Originally in Social Philosophy and Policy 22 (2005): 70–99.)
 'Predicate Logic and Bare Particulars', in D.S. Oderberg (ed.) The Old New Logic: Essays on the Philosophy of Fred Sommers (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005): 183–210.
 'The Structure and Content of the Good', in D.S. Oderberg and T. Chappell (eds) Human Values: New Essays on Ethics and Natural Law (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004; rev. ed. p/back 2007): 127–65.
 'The Beginning of Existence', International Philosophical Quarterly 43 (2003): 145–57.
 'Temporal Parts and the Possibility of Change', Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 69 (2004): 686–708.
 'The Ethics of Co-operation in Wrongdoing', in A. O'Hear (ed.) Modern Moral Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004; Royal Institute of Philosophy Annual Lecture Series 2002-3): 203–27. (abstract; full text)
 'Intelligibility and Intensionality', Acta Analytica 17 (2002) 171-8.
 'The Tristram Shandy Paradox: A Reply to Graham Oppy', Philosophia Christi 4 (2002): 353–6.
 'Traversal of the Infinite, the "Big Bang" and the Kalam Cosmological Argument', Philosophia Christi 4 (2002): 305–34.
 'Hylomorphism and Individuation', in J. Haldane (ed.) Mind, Metaphysics, and Value in the Thomistic and Analytical Traditions (University of Notre Dame Press, 2002: 125–42).
 'How to Win Essence Back from Essentialists', Philosophical Writings (No. 18, Autumn 2001): 27–45.
  'The Kalam Cosmological Argument Neither Bloodied nor Bowed: A Response to Graham Oppy', Philosophia Christi 3 (2001): 193–6.
 'Is There a Right to be Wrong?', Philosophy 75 (2000): 517–37.
 'On the Cardinality of the Cardinal Virtues', International Journal of Philosophical Studies 7 (1999): 305–22.
 'Adolf Grünbaum and the Beginning of the Universe', Philosophia Naturalis 36 (1999): 187–94.
 'Analytická morálna filozofia v20.storocí' (Analytical Moral Philosophy in the 20th Century), in V. Gluchman & M. Dokulil (eds.), Súcasné Etické Teórie (Contemporary Ethical Theories) (Presov, Slovakia, 1998): 9–23.
 'On an Alleged Fallacy in Aristotle', Philosophical Papers 27 (1998): 107–18.
 'Modal Properties, Moral Status and Identity', Philosophy and Public Affairs 26 (1997): 259–98.
'Voluntary Euthanasia and Justice', in D.S. Oderberg and J.A. Laing (eds.) Human Lives: Critical Essays on Consequentialist Bioethics (London: Macmillan, 1997): 225–40.
 'Coincidence under a Sortal', The Philosophical Review 105 (1996): 145–71.
 'A Paradox about Authority', Analysis 51 (1991): 153–160.
 'Some Problems of Identity over Time', Cogito 5 (1991): 14–20.
 'Reply to Sprigge on Personal and Impersonal Identity', Mind 98 (1989): 129–34.
 'Johnston on Human Beings', The Journal of Philosophy 86 (1989): 137–41.
 'Kripke and "Quus" ', Theoria 53 (1987): 115–20.
 'Perceptual Relativism', Philosophia 16 (1986): 1–9.

References

External links
 David S. Oderberg's personal website

Academics of the University of Reading
Alumni of the University of Oxford
Australian philosophers
British philosophers
Critics of animal rights
Living people
University of Melbourne alumni
1963 births

David S. Oderberg


Micklefield is a ward of High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, located on the eastern side of the town. Surrounded on one side by the Chiltern Hills and King's Wood, it neighbours the villages of Penn and Tylers Green, as well as being adjacent to Wycombe Marsh. Some points in the Micklefield area rise to an altitude of some 450 feet, and there are some great views over the Wycombe valley.

Amenities include a Jet petrol station with an attached supermarket, a combined first and middle school (Ash Hill Primary School), and three churches – St Peter's (Church of England), Micklefield Christian Fellowship (Elim Pentecostal Church) and a Seventh-day Adventist church – and a shopping area next to a community library. The library was earmarked for closure by Bucks County Council, but was saved by a local campaign to keep it running. It has been awarded National Lottery grants to rebuild a larger library.

In 2006, Micklefield was the subject of international media interest when key aspects of the investigation into the 2006 transatlantic aircraft plot focused on local homes and a five-month-long search of King's Wood was conducted by police.

References

External links
 Micklefield Blog
 Save the Library video
 Spotlight East Wycombe - Community Magazine

High Wycombe
Housing estates in Buckinghamshire

Micklefield, High Wycombe


New Super Mario Bros. Wii is a 2009 platform game for the Wii, and is the follow-up to the 2006 game New Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo DS. The game was first revealed at Nintendo's E3 2009 and was released on November 12, 2009 in Australia, November 15, 2009 in North America, November 20, 2009 in Europe, December 3, 2009 in Japan, and August 7, 2010 in South Korea. A follow-up to this game, which is also a sequel to the 2006 game, titled New Super Mario Bros. 2, was released on the Nintendo 3DS in August 2012. A sequel to New Super Mario Bros. Wii and a follow-up to New Super Mario Bros. 2, titled New Super Mario Bros. U, was released on the Wii U on November 18, 2012, which had an extension pack titled New Super Luigi U, which was also released on the Wii U in June 2013.

Gameplay

Although New Super Mario Bros. Wii is a 2D platform video game, some of the characters and objects are 3D polygonal renderings on 2D backgrounds, resulting in a 2.5D effect (also seen in New Super Mario Bros.) that visually simulates 3D computer graphics. Players can play as either Mario, his brother Luigi, or two Toad characters: one blue navy and one yellow (with the first player always as Mario). Controls are similar to those of New Super Mario Bros., with the added abilities of spinning in midair by shaking the Wii Remote and picking up, carrying, and throwing other players. In multiplayer mode, players can play up to four players simultaneously. If a player character loses a life and has at least one life in reserve, they will re-emerge encased inside a bubble and can resume play once another player frees them by touching the bubble or a fire or ice ball (the player can shake the Wii Remote to move his bubble closer to an active player, but cannot free themself). If a player loses a life and does not have any more lives, a Continue must be used to start over with five lives. Players can also encase themselves inside the bubble by pressing the A button while a more skilled player traverses a difficult segment. If every character in a co-op session enters bubbles at the same time (whether through death or pressing the A button), the level is lost, and they must restart.

In multiplayer mode, if one or more players do not keep up with the one in the lead, on some levels, the view will pan out a bit so that the player[s] in the rear will still be in view. If the players still do not catch up, they are then dragged by the edge of the screen until they move forward faster or lose a life to a fall or other object. If one player enters a pipe, climbs a vine, grabs the flagpole at the end of the stage, etc. without the others, the other players will warp to the same place after a short time or have a limited amount of time to grab the pole before the course ends. On vertically scrolling courses, being left below the screen results in losing a life. On the world map, Mario (Player 1) controls navigation.

Players return to the map screen if they all run out of lives or if all players lose their lives at the same time, leaving no one to free them. For most levels, there is a midway flag that, if touched, will return the player to that point after dying and being sent back to the map screen. The stage is completed by getting at least one player to touch the goal at the end, though a bonus is awarded if all players manage to grab hold of the flag within three seconds of the first player grabbing it. In a few levels, in addition to the normal goal and flag pole, there is an alternative exit leading to a red flag pole. Reaching this goal will open up a new path on the map, leading to new stages on the overworld map and, on occasion, a warp cannon (which will blast the player off to a later world). The game does not feature online multiplayer. During single-player mode, losing a life sends the player back to the map screen.

Along with the usual Mario series items, as well as the Mini Mushroom from New Super Mario Bros., new items have been added, including: the Propeller Mushroom, which allows players to fly; the Ice Flower, which allows players to freeze enemies with snowballs; and the Penguin Suit which, on top of the Ice Flower's ability, allows players to slide along the ground and across water as well as have better control on ice and in water. Players are also able to ride on Yoshis, who appear in certain levels and can swallow enemies and flutter in the air.
All the levels can be accessed via a map screen, and enemies are often roaming it. If the player bumps into one while traveling the map, a "mini-boss" fight will be initiated; if successful in the fight, players can earn three extra Super Mushrooms. There are also Toad Houses where players can earn additional lives and items that can be equipped on the map screen. At some points, a Toad will appear trapped in one of the previously completed levels, and the player can choose to rescue him from a block and carry him safely to the end of the stage to earn bonus lives (this can only be done with one player). There are three Star Coins hidden in each course, which can be spent on hint movies that show certain secrets, such as the location of a secret goal or how to gain infinite 1-ups. Collecting all the Star Coins within a world unlocks one course from the secret World 9 that can only be played after the main game has been completed.

List of Worlds
 Grass Land
 Desert Land
 Snow Land
 Beach Land
 Forest Land
 Mountain Land
 Sky Land
 Lava Land
 Rainbow Land

Game modes
The game includes simultaneous multiplayer capability for up to four players. In addition to the main story mode, which can be played in either single-player or multiplayer modes, there are two dedicated multiplayer modes. "Free-for-All Mode" ranks players at the end of each course by score, coins, and enemy kills; while the other mode, "Coin Battle," ranks players on the amount of coins collected.

Control schemes
The game is played either in classic style, with the Wii Remote held horizontally, or in Nunchuk style. The Nunchuk is used for movement. Some actions, such as jumping and attacks, are performed with the buttons, while others, like spinning in midair and picking up other players, are performed by shaking the Wii Remote. Certain areas of levels, such as specific platforms, can also be manipulated by tilting the Wii Remote.

Super Guide
The game is the first on the Wii to feature "Super Guide," a new system devised by Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto. During single-player mode, if a player dies eight times in a row in any level, a green "!"-block appears, allowing a computer-controlled Luigi to show the player a safe path through the level. The player may interrupt the guide at any time and take control. After Luigi completes it, the player has the option to try the level again or skip it completely. However, Luigi will not reveal any Star Coin locations or secret exits. A variation of this is used in Super Mario Galaxy 2, where it is called  "Cosmic Guide." Another variation is found in Donkey Kong Country Returns, where it is also known as "Super Guide."

Production

Development
On May 30, 2009 it was announced that two new sequels would be released for the Wii: Wii Fit Plus (a sequel to Wii Fit) and a new Mario game tentatively called New Super Mario Bros. Wii (the name of the game was unknown at that time), a sequel to New Super Mario Bros. New Super Mario Bros. Wii was later officially announced at the 2009 E3 convention and Gamescom in Cologne, Germany. To highlight the uniqueness of the game, Nintendo chose the color of the case to be red instead of the traditional white.

The game was created in response to Nintendo's head game developer Shigeru Miyamoto's desire to recreate the Mario series's single-player gameplay experience for multiple players, as he was unable to bring these ideas to the previous installments. The Wii's hardware allowed him to display enough enemies and items on the screen at once and allowed a camera that could dynamically adapt to the players' movements, ensuring they constantly knew what was happening to their character.  Miyamoto said Princess Peach was not a playable character because of her dress, since it would require "special processing and programming to handle how her skirt is handled within the gameplay."

Audio
The music for New Super Mario Bros. Wii was created by Shiho Fujii and Ryo Nagamatsu. There were additional compositions provided by sound director Kenta Nagata. Koji Kondo was the sound advisor and did not write any new compositions, though some of his creations were rearranged for the game. Charles Martinet returned to voice Mario and Luigi, along with Samantha Kelly as the Toads and Princess Peach, Kenny James as Bowser, and Caety Sagoian as Bowser Jr. New voice actors include Lani Minella as Larry Koopa, Morton Koopa Jr., Wendy O. Koopa, and Lemmy Koopa; Dan Falcone as Roy Koopa; and Mike Vaughn as Iggy Koopa and Ludwig von Koopa.

References

2009 video games
Wii games

New Super Mario Bros. Wii


A central bank, reserve bank, or monetary authority is an institution that manages the currency and monetary policy of a country or monetary union. In contrast to a commercial bank, a central bank possesses a monopoly on increasing the monetary base. Many central banks also have supervisory or regulatory powers to ensure the stability of commercial banks in their jurisdiction, to prevent bank runs, and in some cases also to enforce policies on financial consumer protection and against bank fraud, money laundering, or terrorism financing.

Central banks in most developed nations are institutionally independent from political interference, even though governments typically have governance rights over them and legislative bodies exercise scrutiny.

Issues like central bank independence, central bank policies and rhetoric in central bank governors discourse or the premises of macroeconomic policies (monetary and fiscal policy) of the state are a focus of contention and criticism by some policymakers, researchers and specialized business, economics and finance media.

Definition

The notion of central banks as a separate category from other banks has emerged gradually, and only fully coalesced in the 20th century. In the aftermath of World War I, leading central bankers of the United Kingdom and the United States respectively, Montagu Norman and Benjamin Strong, agreed on a definition of central banks that was both positive and normative. Since that time, central banks have been generally distinguishable from other financial institutions, except in so-called single-tier communist systems such as Hungary's between 1950 and 1987, where the Hungarian National Bank operated alongside three other major state-owned banks. For earlier periods, what institutions do or do not count as central banks is often not univocal.

Correlatively, different scholars have held different views about the timeline of emergence of the first central banks. A widely held view in the second half of the 20th century has been that Stockholms Banco (est. 1657), as the original issuer of banknotes, counted as the oldest central bank, and that consequently its successor the Sveriges Riksbank was the oldest central bank in continuous operation, with the Bank of England as second-oldest and direct or indirect model for all subsequent central banks. That view has persisted in some early-21st-century publications. In more recent scholarship, however, the issuance of banknotes has often been viewed as just one of several techniques to provide central bank money, defined as financial money (in contrast to commodity money) of the highest quality. Under that definition, municipal banks of the late medieval and early modern periods, such as the Taula de canvi de Barcelona (est. 1401) or Bank of Amsterdam (est. 1609), issued central bank money and count as early central banks.

Naming

There is no universal terminology for the name of a central bank. Early central banks were often the only or principal formal financial institution in their jurisdiction, and were consequently often named "bank of" the relevant city's or country's name, e.g. the Bank of Amsterdam, Bank of Hamburg, Bank of England, or Wiener Stadtbank. Naming practices subsequently evolved as more central banks were established. They include, with references to the date when the bank acquired its current name:
 "Bank of [Country]": e.g. Bank of Spain (1782), Bank of the United States (1791), Bank of France (1800), Bank of Java (1828), Bank of Japan (1882), Bank of Italy (1893), Bank of China (1912), Bank of Mexico (1925), Bank of Canada (1934), Bank of Korea (1950). The Bank of England has kept its original name of 1694, even though the Act of Union 1707 and Acts of Union 1800 expanded its remit to the broader United Kingdom.
 "National Bank": e.g. National Bank of Belgium (1850), Bulgarian National Bank (1879), Swiss National Bank (1907), National Bank of Poland (1945), National Bank of Ukraine (1991).
 "Reserve Bank": in the U.S. Federal Reserve (1913) and thereafter British colonies or dominions, e.g. South African Reserve Bank (1921), Reserve Bank of New Zealand (1934), Reserve Bank of India (1935), Reserve Bank of Australia (1960), Reserve Bank of Fiji (1984)
 "Central Bank": e.g. Central Bank of China (1924), Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (1930), Central Bank of Argentina (1935), Central Bank of Ireland (1943), Central Bank of Paraguay (1952), Central Bank of Brazil (1964), European Central Bank (1998).
 "State Bank": e.g. State Bank of Pakistan (1948), State Bank of Vietnam (1951); also former central banks of Communist countries, e.g. the Soviet Gosbank (1922) or the State Bank of Czechoslovakia (1950). "People's Bank", also associated with Communism, is used by the People's Bank of China.
 "Monetary Authority", e.g. Monetary Authority of Singapore (1971), Maldives Monetary Authority (1981), Hong Kong Monetary Authority (1993), Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (1997). The Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (est. 1952) was renamed the Saudi Central Bank in 2020 but still uses the acronym SAMA.

In some cases, the local-language name is used in English-language practice, e.g. Sveriges Riksbank (est. 1668, current name in use since 1866), De Nederlandsche Bank (est. 1814), Deutsche Bundesbank (est. 1957), or Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (est. 1993).

Some commercial banks have names suggestive of central banks, even if they are not: examples are the State Bank of India and Central Bank of India, National Bank of Greece, Banco do Brasil, National Bank of Pakistan, Bank of China, Bank of Cyprus, or Bank of Ireland, as well as Deutsche Bank. Some but not all of these institutions had assumed central banking roles in the past.

The leading executive of a central bank is usually known as the Governor, President, or Chair.

History

Background

The use of money as a unit of account predates history. Government control of money is documented in the ancient Egyptian economy (2750–2150 BCE). The Egyptians measured the value of goods with a central unit called shat. Like many other currencies, the shat was linked to gold. The value of a shat in terms of goods was defined by government administrations. Other cultures in Asia Minor later materialized their currencies in the form of gold and silver coins.

The issuance of paper currency is not to be equated with central banking, even though paper currency is a form of financial money (i.e. not commodity money). The difference is that government-issued paper currency, as present e.g. in China during the Yuan dynasty, is typically not freely convertible and thus of inferior quality, occasionally leading to hyperinflation.

From the 12th century, a network of professional banks emerged primarily in Southern Europe (including Southern France, with the Cahorsins). Banks could use book money to create deposits for their customers. Thus, they had the possibility to issue, lend and transfer money autonomously without direct control from political authorities.

Early municipal central banks

The Taula de canvi de Barcelona, established in 1401, is the first example of municipal, mostly public banks which pioneered central banking on a limited scale. It was soon emulated by the Bank of Saint George in the Republic of Genoa, first established in 1407, and significantly later by the Banco del Giro in the Republic of Venice and by a network of institutions in Naples that later consolidated into Banco di Napoli. Notable municipal central banks were established in the early 17th century in leading northwestern European commercial centers, namely the Bank of Amsterdam in 1609 and the Hamburger Bank in 1619. These institutions offered a public infrastructure for cashless international payments. They aimed to increase the efficiency of international trade and to safeguard monetary stability. These municipal public banks thus fulfilled comparable functions to modern central banks.

Early national central banks

The Swedish central bank, known since 1866 as Sveriges Riksbank, was founded in Stockholm in 1664 from the remains of the failed Stockholms Banco and answered to the Riksdag of the Estates, Sweden's early modern parliament. One role of the Swedish central bank was lending money to the government.

The establishment of the Bank of England was devised by Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, following a 1691 proposal by William Paterson. A royal charter was granted on  through the passage of the Tonnage Act. The bank was given exclusive possession of the government's balances, and was the only limited-liability corporation allowed to issue banknotes. The early modern Bank of England, however, did not have all the functions of a today's central banks, e.g. to regulate the value of the national currency, to finance the government, to be the sole authorized distributor of banknotes, or to function as a lender of last resort to banks suffering a liquidity crisis.

In the early 18th century, a major experiment in national central banking failed in France with John Law's Banque Royale in 1720-1721. Later in the century, France had other attempts with the Caisse d'Escompte first created in 1767, and King Charles III established the Bank of Spain in 1782. The Russian Assignation Bank, established in 1769 by Catherine the Great, was an outlier from the general pattern of early national central banks in that it was directly owned by the Imperial Russian government, rather than private individual shareholders. In the nascent United States, Alexander Hamilton, as Secretary of the Treasury in the 1790s, set up the First Bank of the United States despite heavy opposition from Jeffersonian Republicans.

National central banks since 1800

Central banks were established in many European countries during the 19th century. Napoleon created the Banque de France in 1800, in order to stabilize and develop the French economy and to improve the financing of his wars. The Bank of France remained the most important Continental European central bank throughout the 19th century. The Bank of Finland was founded in 1812, soon after Finland had been taken over from Sweden by Russia to become a grand duchy. Simultaneously, a quasi-central banking role was played by a small group of powerful family-run banking networks, typified by the House of Rothschild, with branches in major cities across Europe, as well as Hottinguer in Switzerland and Oppenheim in Germany.

The theory of central banking, even though the name was not yet widely used, evolved in the 19th century. Henry Thornton, an opponent of the real bills doctrine, was a defender of the bullionist position and a significant figure in monetary theory. Thornton's process of monetary expansion anticipated the theories of Knut Wicksell regarding the "cumulative process which restates the Quantity Theory in a theoretically coherent form". As a response to a currency crisis in 1797, Thornton wrote in 1802 An Enquiry into the Nature and Effects of the Paper Credit of Great Britain, in which he argued that the increase in paper credit did not cause the crisis. The book also gives a detailed account of the British monetary system as well as a detailed examination of the ways in which the Bank of England should act to counteract fluctuations in the value of the pound.

In the United Kingdom until the mid-nineteenth century, commercial banks were able to issue their own banknotes, and notes issued by provincial banking companies were commonly in circulation. Many consider the origins of the central bank to lie with the passage of the Bank Charter Act 1844. Under the 1844 Act, bullionism was institutionalized in Britain, creating a ratio between the gold reserves held by the Bank of England and the notes that the bank could issue. The Act also placed strict curbs on the issuance of notes by the country banks. The Bank of England took over a role of lender of last resort in the 1870s after criticism of its lacklustre response to the failure of Overend, Gurney and Company. The journalist Walter Bagehot wrote on the subject in Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market, in which he advocated for the bank to officially become a lender of last resort during a credit crunch, sometimes referred to as "Bagehot's dictum".

The 19th and early 20th centuries central banks in most of Europe and Japan developed under the international gold standard. Free banking or currency boards were common at the time. Problems with collapses of banks during downturns, however, led to wider support for central banks in those nations which did not as yet possess them, for example in Australia. In the United States, the role of a central bank had been ended in the so-called Bank War of the 1830s by President Andrew Jackson. In 1913, the U.S. created the Federal Reserve System through the passing of The Federal Reserve Act.

Following World War I, the Economic and Financial Organization (EFO) of the League of Nations, influenced by the ideas of Montagu Norman and other leading policymakers and economists of the time, took an active role to promote the independence of central bank, a key component of the economic orthodoxy the EFO fostered at the Brussels Conference (1920). The EFO thus directed the creation of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank in Austria, Hungarian National Bank, Bank of Danzig, and Bank of Greece, as well as comprehensive reforms of the Bulgarian National Bank and Bank of Estonia. Similar ideas were emulated in other newly independent European countries, e.g. for the National Bank of Czechoslovakia.

By 1935, the only significant independent nation that did not possess a central bank was Brazil, which subsequently developed a precursor thereto in 1945 and the present Central Bank of Brazil twenty years later. After gaining independence, numerous African and Asian countries also established central banks or monetary unions. The Reserve Bank of India, which had been established during British colonial rule as a private company, was nationalized in 1949 following India's independence. By the early 21st century, most of the world's countries had a national central bank set up as a public sector institution, albeit with widely varying degrees of independence.

Colonial, extraterritorial and federal central banks

Before the near-generalized adoption of the model of national public-sector central banks, a number of economies relied on a central bank that was effectively or legally run from outside their territory. The first colonial central banks, such as the Bank of Java (est. 1828 in Batavia), Banque de l'Algérie (est. 1851 in Algiers), or Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (est. 1865 in Hong Kong), operated from the colony itself. Following the generalization of the transcontinental use of the electrical telegraph using submarine communications cable, however, new colonial banks were typically headquartered in the colonial metropolis; prominent examples included the Paris-based Banque de l'Indochine (est. 1875), Banque de l'Afrique Occidentale (est. 1901), and Banque de Madagascar (est. 1925). The Banque de l'Algérie's head office was relocated from Algiers to Paris in 1900.

In some cases, independent countries which did not have a strong domestic base of capital accumulation and were critically reliant on foreign funding found advantage in granting a central banking role to banks that were effectively or even legally foreign. A seminal case was the Imperial Ottoman Bank established in 1863 as a French-British joint venture, and a particularly egregious one was the Paris-based National Bank of Haiti (est. 1881) which captured significant financial resources from the economically struggling albeit independent nation of Haiti. Other cases include the London-based Imperial Bank of Persia, established in 1885, and the Rome-based National Bank of Albania, established in 1925. The State Bank of Morocco was established in 1907 with international shareholding and headquarters functions distributed between Paris and Tangier, a half-decade before the country lost its independence. In other cases, there have been organized currency unions such as the Belgium–Luxembourg Economic Union established in 1921, under which Luxembourg had no central bank, but that was managed by a national central bank (in that case the National Bank of Belgium) rather than a supranational one. The present-day Common Monetary Area of Southern Africa has comparable features.

Yet another pattern was set in countries where federated or otherwise sub-sovereign entities had wide policy autonomy that was echoed to varying degrees in the organization of the central bank itself. These included, for example, the Austro-Hungarian Bank from 1878 to 1918, the U.S. Federal Reserve in its first two decades, the Bank deutscher Länder between 1948 and 1957, or the National Bank of Yugoslavia between 1972 and 1993. Conversely, some countries that are politically organized as federations, such as today's Canada, Mexico, or Switzerland, rely on a unitary central bank.

Supranational central banks

In the second half of the 20th century, the dismantling of colonial systems left some groups of countries using the same currency even though they had achieved national independence. In contrast to the unraveling of Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire after World War I, some of these countries decided to keep using a common currency, thus forming a monetary union, and to entrust its management to a common central bank. Examples include the Eastern Caribbean Currency Authority, the Central Bank of West African States, and the Bank of Central African States.

The concept of supranational central banking took a globally significant dimension with the Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union and the establishment of the European Central Bank (ECB) in 1998. In 2014, the ECB took an additional role of banking supervision as part of the newly established policy of European banking union.

Central bank mandates

Price stability
The primary role of central banks is usually to maintain price stability, as defined as a specific level of inflation. Inflation is defined either as the devaluation of a currency or equivalently the rise of prices relative to a currency. Most central banks currently have an inflation target close to 2%.

Since inflation lowers real wages, Keynesians view inflation as the solution to involuntary unemployment. However, "unanticipated" inflation leads to lender losses as the real interest rate will be lower than expected. Thus, Keynesian monetary policy aims for a steady rate of inflation.

Central banks as monetary authorities in representative states are intertwined through globalized financial markets. As a regulator of one of the most widespread currencies in the global economy, the US Federal Reserve plays an outsized role in the international monetary market. Being the main supplier and rate adjusted for US dollars, the Federal Reserve implements a set of requirements to control inflation and unemployment in the US.

High employment
Frictional unemployment is the time period between jobs when a worker is searching for, or transitioning from one job to another. Unemployment beyond frictional unemployment is classified as unintended unemployment.

For example, structural unemployment is a form of unemployment resulting from a mismatch between demand in the labour market and the skills and locations of the workers seeking employment. Macroeconomic policy generally aims to reduce unintended unemployment.

Keynes labeled any jobs that would be created by a rise in wage-goods (i.e., a decrease in real-wages) as involuntary unemployment:

Men are involuntarily unemployed if, in the event of a small rise in the price of wage-goods relatively to the money-wage, both the aggregate supply of labour willing to work for the current money-wage and the aggregate demand for it at that wage would be greater than the existing volume of employment.— John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money p1

Economic growth
Economic growth can be enhanced by investment in capital, such as more or better machinery. A low interest rate implies that firms can borrow money to invest in their capital stock and pay less interest for it. Lowering the interest is therefore considered to encourage economic growth and is often used to alleviate times of low economic growth. On the other hand, raising the interest rate is often used in times of high economic growth as a contra-cyclical device to keep the economy from overheating and avoid market bubbles.

Further goals of monetary policy are stability of interest rates, of the financial market, and of the foreign exchange market.
Goals frequently cannot be separated from each other and often conflict. Costs must therefore be carefully weighed before policy implementation.

Climate change
In the aftermath of the Paris agreement on climate change, a debate is now underway on whether central banks should also pursue environmental goals as part of their activities. In 2017, eight central banks formed the Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS) to evaluate the way in which central banks can use their regulatory and monetary policy tools to support climate change mitigation. Today more than 70 central banks are part of the NGFS.

In January 2020, the European Central Bank has announced it will consider climate considerations when reviewing its monetary policy framework.

Proponents of "green monetary policy" are proposing that central banks include climate-related criteria in their collateral eligibility frameworks, when conducting asset purchases and also in their refinancing operations. But critics such as Jens Weidmann are arguing it is not central banks' role to conduct climate policy. China is among the most advanced central banks when it comes to green monetary policy. It has given green bonds preferential status to lower their yield and uses window policy to direct green lending.

Central bank operations

The functions of a central bank may include:

 Monetary policy: by setting the official interest rate and controlling the money supply;
Financial stability: acting as a government's banker and as the bankers' bank ("lender of last resort");
 Reserve management: managing a country's foreign-exchange and gold reserves and government bonds;
 Banking supervision: regulating and supervising the banking industry, and currency exchange;
Payments system: managing or supervising means of payments and inter-banking clearing systems;
Coins and notes issuance;
Other functions of central banks may include economic research, statistical collection, supervision of deposit guarantee schemes, advice to government in financial policy.

Monetary policy

Central banks implement a country's chosen monetary policy.

Currency issuance
At the most basic level, monetary policy involves establishing what form of currency the country may have, whether a fiat currency, gold-backed currency (disallowed for countries in the International Monetary Fund), currency board or a currency union. When a country has its own national currency, this involves the issue of some form of standardized currency, which is essentially a form of promissory note: "money" under certain circumstances. Historically, this was often a promise to exchange the money for precious metals in some fixed amount. Now, when many currencies are fiat money, the "promise to pay" consists of the promise to accept that currency to pay for taxes.

A central bank may use another country's currency either directly in a currency union, or indirectly on a currency board. In the latter case, exemplified by the Bulgarian National Bank, Hong Kong and Latvia (until 2014), the local currency is backed at a fixed rate by the central bank's holdings of a foreign currency.
Similar to commercial banks, central banks hold assets (government bonds, foreign exchange, gold, and other financial assets) and incur liabilities (currency outstanding). Central banks create money by issuing banknotes and loaning them to the government in exchange for interest-bearing assets such as government bonds. When central banks decide to increase the money supply by an amount which is greater than the amount their national governments decide to borrow, the central banks may purchase private bonds or assets denominated in foreign currencies.

The European Central Bank remits its interest income to the central banks of the member countries of the European Union. The US Federal Reserve remits most of its profits to the U.S. Treasury. This income, derived from the power to issue currency, is referred to as seigniorage, and usually belongs to the national government. The state-sanctioned power to create currency is called the Right of Issuance. Throughout history, there have been disagreements over this power, since whoever controls the creation of currency controls the seigniorage income.
The expression "monetary policy" may also refer more narrowly to the interest-rate targets and other active measures undertaken by the monetary authority.

Monetary policy instruments

The primary tools available to central banks are open market operations (including repurchase agreements), reserve requirements, interest rate policy (through control of the discount rate), and control of the money supply.

A central bank affects the monetary base through open market operations, if its country has a well developed market for its government bonds. This entails managing the quantity of money in circulation through the buying and selling of various financial instruments, such as treasury bills, repurchase agreements or "repos", company bonds, or foreign currencies, in exchange for money on deposit at the central bank. Those deposits are convertible to currency, so all of these purchases or sales result in more or less base currency entering or leaving market circulation. For example, if the central bank wishes to decrease interest rates (executing expansionary monetary policy), it purchases government debt, thereby increasing the amount of cash in circulation or crediting banks' reserve accounts. Commercial banks then have more money to lend, so they reduce lending rates, making loans less expensive. Cheaper credit card interest rates increase consumer spending. Additionally, when business loans are more affordable, companies can expand to keep up with consumer demand. They ultimately hire more workers, whose incomes increase, which in its turn also increases the demand. This method is usually enough to stimulate demand and drive economic growth to a healthy rate. Usually, the short-term goal of open market operations is to achieve a specific short-term interest rate target. In other instances, monetary policy might instead entail the targeting of a specific exchange rate relative to some foreign currency or else relative to gold. For example, in the case of the United States the Federal Reserve targets the federal funds rate, the rate at which member banks lend to one another overnight; however, the monetary policy of China (since 2014) is to target the exchange rate between the Chinese renminbi and a basket of foreign currencies.

If the open market operations do not lead to the desired effects, a second tool can be used: the central bank can increase or decrease the interest rate it charges on discounts or overdrafts (loans from the central bank to commercial banks, see discount window). If the interest rate on such transactions is sufficiently low, commercial banks can borrow from the central bank to meet reserve requirements and use the additional liquidity to expand their balance sheets, increasing the credit available to the economy.

A third alternative is to change the reserve requirements. The reserve requirement refers to the proportion of total liabilities that banks must keep on hand overnight, either in its vaults or at the central bank. Banks only maintain a small portion of their assets as cash available for immediate withdrawal; the rest is invested in illiquid assets like mortgages and loans. Lowering the reserve requirement frees up funds for banks to increase loans or buy other profitable assets. This is expansionary because it creates credit. However, even though this tool immediately increases liquidity, central banks rarely change the reserve requirement because doing so frequently adds uncertainty to banks' planning. The use of open market operations is therefore preferred.

Unconventional monetary policy
Other forms of monetary policy, particularly used when interest rates are at or near 0% and there are concerns about deflation or deflation is occurring, are referred to as unconventional monetary policy. These include credit easing, quantitative easing, forward guidance, and signalling. In credit easing, a central bank purchases private sector assets to improve liquidity and improve access to credit. Signaling can be used to lower market expectations for lower interest rates in the future. For example, during the credit crisis of 2008, the US Federal Reserve indicated rates would be low for an "extended period", and the Bank of Canada made a "conditional commitment" to keep rates at the lower bound of 25 basis points (0.25%) until the end of the second quarter of 2010.

Some have envisaged the use of what Milton Friedman once called "helicopter money" whereby the central bank would make direct transfers to citizens in order to lift inflation up to the central bank's intended target. Such policy option could be particularly effective at the zero lower bound.

Central Bank Digital Currencies

Since 2017, prospect of implementing Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) has been in discussion. As of the end of 2018, at least 15 central banks were considering to implementing CBDC. Since 2014, the People's Bank of China has been working on a project for digital currency to make its own digital currency and electronic payment systems.

Banking supervision and other activities

In some countries a central bank, through its subsidiaries, controls and monitors the banking sector. In other countries banking supervision is carried out by a government department such as the UK Treasury, or by an independent government agency, for example, UK's Financial Conduct Authority. It examines the banks' balance sheets and behaviour and policies toward consumers. Apart from refinancing, it also provides banks with services such as transfer of funds, bank notes and coins or foreign currency. Thus it is often described as the "bank of banks".

Many countries will monitor and control the banking sector through several different agencies and for different purposes. The Bank regulation in the United States for example is highly fragmented with 3 federal agencies, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Reserve Board, or Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and numerous others on the state and the private level. There is usually significant cooperation between the agencies. For example, money center banks, deposit-taking institutions, and other types of financial institutions may be subject to different (and occasionally overlapping) regulation. Some types of banking regulation may be delegated to other levels of government, such as state or provincial governments.

Any cartel of banks is particularly closely watched and controlled. Most countries control bank mergers and are wary of concentration in this industry due to the danger of groupthink and runaway lending bubbles based on a single point of failure, the credit culture of the few large banks.

Central bank governance and independence

Numerous governments have opted to make central banks independent. The economic logic behind central bank independence is that when governments delegate monetary policy to an independent central bank (with an anti-inflationary purpose) and away from elected politicians, monetary policy will not reflect the interests of the politicians. When governments control monetary policy, politicians may be tempted to boost economic activity in advance of an election to the detriment of the long-term health of the economy and the country. As a consequence, financial markets may not consider future commitments to low inflation to be credible when monetary policy is in the hands of elected officials, which increases the risk of capital flight. An alternative to central bank independence is to have fixed exchange rate regimes.

Governments generally have some degree of influence over even "independent" central banks; the aim of independence is primarily to prevent short-term interference. In 1951, the Deutsche Bundesbank became the first central bank to be given full independence, leading this form of central bank to be referred to as the "Bundesbank model", as opposed, for instance, to the New Zealand model, which has a goal (i.e. inflation target) set by the government.

Central bank independence is usually guaranteed by legislation and the institutional framework governing the bank's relationship with elected officials, particularly the minister of finance. Central bank legislation will enshrine specific procedures for selecting and appointing the head of the central bank. Often the minister of finance will appoint the governor in consultation with the central bank's board and its incumbent governor. In addition, the legislation will specify banks governor's term of appointment. The most independent central banks enjoy a fixed non-renewable term for the governor in order to eliminate pressure on the governor to please the government in the hope of being re-appointed for a second term. Generally, independent central banks enjoy both goal and instrument independence.

Despite their independence, central banks are usually accountable at some level to government officials, either to the finance ministry or to parliament. For example, the Board of Governors of the U.S. Federal Reserve are nominated by the U.S. president and confirmed by the Senate, publishes verbatim transcripts, and balance sheets are audited by the Government Accountability Office.

In the 1990s there was a trend towards increasing the independence of central banks as a way of improving long-term economic performance. While a large volume of economic research has been done to define the relationship between central bank independence and economic performance, the results are ambiguous.

The literature on central bank independence has defined a cumulative and complementary number of aspects:
 Institutional independence: The independence of the central bank is enshrined in law and shields central banks from political interference. In general terms, institutional independence means that politicians should refrain from seeking to influence monetary policy decisions, while symmetrically central banks should also avoid influencing government politics.
 Goal independence: The central bank has the right to set its own policy goals, whether inflation targeting, control of the money supply, or maintaining a fixed exchange rate. While this type of independence is more common, many central banks prefer to announce their policy goals in partnership with the appropriate government departments. This increases the transparency of the policy-setting process and thereby increases the credibility of the goals chosen by providing assurance that they will not be changed without notice. In addition, the setting of common goals by the central bank and the government helps to avoid situations where monetary and fiscal policy are in conflict; a policy combination that is clearly sub-optimal.
 Functional & operational independence: The central bank has the independence to determine the best way of achieving its policy goals, including the types of instruments used and the timing of their use. To achieve its mandate, the central bank has the authority to run its own operations (appointing staff, setting budgets, and so on.) and to organize its internal structures without excessive involvement of the government. This is the most common form of central bank independence. The granting of independence to the Bank of England in 1997 was, in fact, the granting of operational independence; the inflation target continued to be announced in the Chancellor's annual budget speech to Parliament.
 Personal independence: The other forms of independence are not possible unless central bank heads have a high security of tenure. In practice, this means that governors should hold long mandates (at least longer than the electoral cycle) and a certain degree of legal immunity. One of the most common statistical indicators used in the literature as a proxy for central bank independence is the "turn-over-rate" of central bank governors. If a government is in the habit of appointing and replacing the governor frequently, it clearly has the capacity to micro-manage the central bank through its choice of governors.
 Financial independence: central banks have full autonomy on their budget, and some are even prohibited from financing governments. This is meant to remove incentives from politicians to influence central banks.
 Legal independence : some central banks have their own legal personality, which allows them to ratify international agreements without the government's approval (like the ECB), and to go to court.

There is very strong consensus among economists that an independent central bank can run a more credible monetary policy, making market expectations more responsive to signals from the central bank. Both the Bank of England (1997) and the European Central Bank have been made independent and follow a set of published inflation targets so that markets know what to expect. Even the People's Bank of China has been accorded great latitude, though in China the official role of the bank remains that of a national bank rather than a central bank, underlined by the official refusal to "unpeg" the yuan or to revalue it "under pressure". The fact that the Communist Party is not elected also relieves the pressure to please people, increasing its independence. Populism can reduce de facto central bank independence.

International organizations such as the World Bank, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) strongly support central bank independence. This results, in part, from a belief in the intrinsic merits of increased independence. The support for independence from the international organizations also derives partly from the connection between increased independence for the central bank and increased transparency in the policy-making process. The IMF's Financial Services Action Plan (FSAP) review self-assessment, for example, includes a number of questions about central bank independence in the transparency section. An independent central bank will score higher in the review than one that is not independent.

Central bank independence indices
Central bank independence indices allow a quantitative analysis of central bank independence for individual countries over time. One central bank independence index is the Garriga CBI, where a higher index indicates higher central bank independence, shown below for individual countries.

Statistics

Collectively, central banks purchase less than 500 tonnes of gold each year, on average (out of an annual global production of 2,500-3,000 tonnes). In 2018, central banks collectively hold over 33,000 metric tons of the gold, about a fifth of all the gold ever mined, according to Bloomberg News.

In 2016, 75% of the world's central-bank assets were controlled by four centers in China, the United States, Japan and the eurozone. The central banks of Brazil, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, the U.K., India and Russia, each account for an average of 2.5 percent. The remaining 107 central banks hold less than 13 percent. According to data compiled by Bloomberg News, the top 10 largest central banks owned $21.4 trillion in assets, a 10 percent increase from 2015.

See also

 Fractional-reserve banking
 Free banking
 Full-reserve banking
 National bank
 State bank
 Bank for International Settlements
 History of central banking in the United States
 List of central banks

References

Further reading
 Acocella, N., Di Bartolomeo, G., and Hughes Hallett, A. [2012], "Central banks and economic policy after the crisis: what have we learned?", ch. 5 in: Baker, H. K. and Riddick, L. A. (eds.), Survey of International Finance, Oxford University Press.

External links
 List of central bank websites at the Bank for International Settlements
 International Journal of Central Banking
 "The Federal Reserve System: Purposes and Functions" – A publication of the U.S. Federal Reserve, describing its role in the macroeconomy
   – C E V Borio, Bank for International Settlements, Basel

Banks
Banking terms

Central bank


Argentine food is a mix of foods from various cultures. There are Mediterranean influences (Italian, Spanish) and indigenous peoples.

There are many agricultural products that are  available in the country. Beef eating has averaged 100 kg (220 lbs) per capita, consumption averaged 67.7 kg (149 lbs) in 2007. Beyond asado (the Argentine barbecue), no other dish matches the national identity. The country's vast area, and cultural diversity, have led to a local cuisine of various dishes.

Argentine people have a reputation for their love of eating. Social gatherings are commonly centered on sharing a meal. Invitations to have dinner at home is generally viewed as a symbol of friendship, warmth, and integration. Sunday family lunch is considered the most significant meal of the week, whose highlights often include asado or pasta.

Argentine restaurants include a great variety of cuisines, prices, and flavors. Large cities tend to host everything from high-end international cuisine, to bodegones (inexpensive traditional hidden taverns), less stylish restaurants, and bars and canteens offering a range of dishes at affordable prices.

References

Argentine food


James Paul (born 1940 in Forest Grove, Oregon, U.S.) is an American conductor.  He is currently the music director of the Oregon Coast Music Festival.

Career
James Paul studied voice at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the Mozarteum in Salzburg, while conducting various student and professional organizations.  Following his studies he was awarded the Serge Koussevitsky Memorial Conducting Prize presented by Erich Leinsdorf at the 1967 Tanglewood Music Festival.

Paul then served as conducting fellow with the St. Louis Symphony and conductor of the Bach Society of St. Louis. He subsequently took posts as associate conductor of the Kansas City Philharmonic and  Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.

In 1981  Paul was appointed music director of the Baton Rouge Symphony. Under the fifteen years under his leadership, the orchestra became a well-disciplined, highly recognized artistic entity. The Symphony shared the 1983 American Symphony Orchestra League award for most innovative programming with the Brooklyn Philharmonic and was also the only regional orchestra featured on the WFMT Fine Arts Network's Music in America series. In 1984,  Paul founded the Baton Rouge Symphony Chorus. A high point of his tenure was the orchestra's triumphant performance on October 22, 1988, at Carnegie Hall in New York City. The program included Chadwick's Jubilee from Symphonic Sketches, Sibelius' Symphony No. 2 and Beethoven's Piano Concerto Nr. 4 with soloist Abbey Simon. The concert received excellent reviews in both the New York and Louisiana newspapers. Following his final concerts in February 1998, Paul was named Conductor Emeritus, the only conductor so honored by the orchestra in its 50-year history.

Parallel to his tenure in Baton Rouge, Paul served for several years as music director of the Ohio Light Opera (conducting Gilbert and Sullivan and other light operas) and principal guest conductor of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra.

As a guest conductor he has led the Chicago Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Symphonies of Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Houston, Dallas, Seattle, San Diego, San Antonio, New Jersey, Oakland, Honolulu, Kansas City, Jacksonville and Detroit. Recent past engagements include the Houston Symphony, the Singapore Symphony, the National Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony, the Saint Louis Symphony, the Buffalo Philharmonic the Calgary Philharmonic, Symphony Nova Scotia (Halifax), Vancouver Symphony, and the Utah Symphony.

In 1997, Paul recorded Paul Paray's Joan of Arc Mass and First Symphony with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Chorus. This recording received a Grammy nomination for "Best Choral Performance."

Paul was the classical music director and conductor of The Shedd Institute's Oregon Festival of American Music from 1997 to 2007, the artistic director of the Sewanee Summer Music Festival from 2006 to 2009, and served for six seasons as principal guest conductor of the Grant Park Music Festival. He was the co-founder and artistic director and conductor for The Shedd Institute's American Composers Series from 1997 to 2002 and its American Symphonia from 2002 to 2007.

References

1940 births
Living people
American male conductors (music)
Oberlin College alumni
Musicians from Oregon
People from Forest Grove, Oregon
Mozarteum University Salzburg alumni
21st-century American conductors (music)
21st-century American male musicians
American expatriates in Austria

James Paul (conductor)


The Suzuki Swift is a subcompact caur produced by Suzuki in Japan syne 2000. Prior tae this, the "Swift" nameplate haed been applee'd tae the Suzuki Cultus in export markets sic as  Australasie, Europe, an North Americae.

Predecessor

The Suzuki Swift began as a marketin an manufacturin rebadge o the Suzuki Cultus a supermini (or subcompact) manufactured an marketit warldwide across three generations an fower body configurations—three-door hatchback, fower-door sedan, five-door hatchback an twa-door convertible—an uisin the Suzuki G ingine faimily.

The Swift wis marketit in the Japanese domestic market (JDM) as the Cultus an elsewhere as the Suzuki Forsa, Suzuki Jazz, Chevrolet Swift, Chevrolet Sprint an Sprint Metro, Geo an Chevrolet Metro, Pontiac Firefly, Maruti 1000, Holden Barina an Subaru Justy. Versions o the seicont generation Cultus wur an aa produced until 2007 in Indie an the caur remains in production the day in Pakistan.

Front-wheel-drive vehicles
Subcompact caurs
Euro NCAP superminis
Swift
Vehicles introduced in 1985
Plug-in hybrid vehicles

Suzuki Swift


The Robert S. Kerr Memorial Arboretum, Nature Center and Botanical Area (8,026 acres) is an arboretum and nature preserve in the Ouachita National Forest, near Talihina, Oklahoma, containing plant communities significant in their occurrence, variety, and location. It is bordered by U.S. 270-59 and Forest Road 6007 on the north and the Talimena Scenic Byway (east of U.S. 259) to the west and south.

The arboretum features dwarf white oaks, yellow buckeye, Ouachita indigo, and grass seeps. It is open for hiking, equestrianism, sightseeing, photography, nature study, bird watching, and hunting (area within the Nature Center's boundary excluded). Facilities include three short interpretive trails, flush toilets, drinking water fountain, the Pine Valley Trailhead, State Line Monument, and Castle Rock vista. No developed recreation facilities are found here, and there are few, if any, signs. Mountain bikes, hang gliders, and motorized vehicles are not permitted.

See also
 List of botanical gardens and arboretums in the United States

External links
 Kerr Arboretum Trails - US Forest Service

Arboreta in Oklahoma
Botanical gardens in Oklahoma
Protected areas of Le Flore County, Oklahoma
Ouachita National Forest
Nature centers in Oklahoma

Kerr Arboretum and Botanical Area


The 3D Core Graphics System (a.k.a. Core) was the very first graphical standard ever developed.  A group of 25 experts of the ACM Special Interest Group SIGGRAPH developed this "conceptual framework".  The specifications were published in 1977 and it became a foundation for many future developments in the field of computer graphics.

External links
 The History of Computer Graphics Standards Development
 History of Computer Graphics

Graphics standards

3D Core Graphics System


The Duke of York (sometimes shortened to DOY) is a title of nobility and royalty in the United Kingdom. Dukedom is the highest ranking of royalty before monarch. The wife of the Duke of York is the Duchess of York. The current Duke is Prince Andrew, Duke of York. The first one was Edmund of Langley, who founded the House of York and served as the duke from 1385 until his death in 1402. Since the 15th century, the title has usually been given to the second son of the reigning monarch. Since the second creation, not one of the holders of the title has ever passed it on: they either died without male heirs or became King themselves.

British royalty

Duke of York


Ljungby is an urban area in the county of Kronoberg in Sweden. It is the seat of Ljungby Municipality. In 2015 there lived 15,785 people in Ljungby.

History

11th century to 1828, before Ljugby became a town
The first know persons to live in the area around Ljungby was Astrad and Götrad. Astrad and Götrad lived during the Viking Age in the 11th century. We know about them because Götrad made a runestone, The Replösa Stone, for his dead father Astrad.

The first stone church was built in during the 12th century. It was built with the creation of Ljungby parish.

In the 14th century an inn was built in Ljungby by order of the king. They built it because Ljungby lies were two big trade routes cross.

During the 17th and 18th century the inn was owned by a woman named Märta Ljungberg. Märta Ljungberg earned a lot of money from the inn. She used some of the money to buy twelve other farms. The town of Ljungby would later be built on these twelve farms.

In the beginning of the 19th century there was a need of a town in Sunnerbo hundred. There were two places that would fit a town. One was Berga and the other was Ljungby. Berga had got permission to form a town during the 13th century, but the town had never been formed. Ljungby was located more central in Sunnerbo hundred and had better road connections. In the end it was decided that the town should be built in Ljungby.

1828 to today, the town Ljungby
Sometime between 1828 and 1830 the area known as Ljungby was made into a friköping. A friköping is a type of smaller town, but it does not have the same town privileges as a formal town. The new town Ljungby was founded on the ground donated by Märta Ljungberg.

In 1878 the first railroad was built in Ljungby. The railroad went from Vislanda, via Ljungby, to Bolmen. After some years it had been connected with other railroads and went to Karlshamn in east and to Halmstad in west. In 1899 the north-south railroad Skåne–Smålands Railroad opened.

During the 20th century Ljungby expanded with the help of workshops and wood industry. The biggest expansion was between 1940 and 1960.

In 1953, during the night between 4 July and 5 July, there was a big town fire in Ljungby. The fire had damaged twenty buildings. Thirty families became homeless and 96 persons lost their job.

In 1970 the Karlshamn–Vislanda–Bolmens Railroad was closed down. Less and less cargo was being transported by train and was instead replaced by lorries.

The last train in Ljungby passed in 1997 when the cargo route Helmershus-Ljungby ended. After the railroad was removed, much of the former tracks have been converted into bicycle paths.

The first college in Ljungby opened in 2002, Högskolecentrum Ljungby. It cooperates with the three nearby universities Linnaeus University, Jönköping University, and Halmstad University.

Culture
Ljungby have been the home of several cultural persons. Among others, the cinematographer Gunnar Fischer and the writers Folke Fridell, Lennart Williams, and Sölve Rydell. Ljungby does also have two museums, a library, a theater, and a cinema.

The Ljungberg Museum
Ljungbergmuseet, or The Ljungberg Museum in English, is a museum with paintings in Ljungby. The museum do always show paintings and other art pieces by Sven Ljungberg and his wife Ann Margret Dahlquist-Ljungberg. They do also show other temporary exhibitions by other artists.

The museum was built in 1990 and was made bigger in 2002. The museum was designed by the architect Pontus Ljungberg. Pontus Ljungberg is the son of Sven Ljungberg and Ann Margret Dahlquist-Ljungberg.

In 2012 it was decided that the museum should become Kronoberg's official museum of visual art.

The Museum of Legends
Sagomuseet , or The Museum of Legends in English, is a museum about folklore in Ljungby. The museum show old legends and fairytales that have been told around Ljungby and Kronoberg. The museum have also put up signs around Kronoberg that tell stories about the location.

Every year the museum have a storytelling festival, Berättarfestivalen. During Berättarfestivalen people gather to listen to storytellers from around the world.

In 2013 the owners of The Museum of Legends, the Storytelling Network Kronoberg, became an advisor to Swedish UNESCO about the intangible cultural heritage.

Ljungby library
Ljungby kommunbibliotek , or Ljungby library in English, is visited by 500 to 800 people per day. The library also haves a café and a small art gallery. The library was built in 1982, but there have been other libraries in Ljungby since 1920.

Ljungby library is responsible for smaller libraries in Lagan, Ryssby, and Lidhult. Ljungby library do also have a mobile library, a bus filled with bookshelves. They use this bus to reach people who live in small places around Ljungby Municipality.

References

Other websites

Settlements in Kronoberg County

Ljungby


The Camino Rojo mine is one of the largest silver mines in Mexico and in the world. The mine is located in the center of the country in Zacatecas. The mine has estimated reserves of 1.63 million oz of gold and 32.07 million oz of silver.

References

Geography of Zacatecas
Silver mines in Mexico
Gold mines in Mexico

Camino Rojo mine


Greek East and Latin West are terms used to distinguish between the two parts of the Greco-Roman world and of medieval Christendom, specifically the eastern regions where Greek was the lingua franca (Greece, Anatolia, the southern Balkans, the Levant, and Egypt) and the western parts where Latin filled this role (Italy, Gaul, Hispania, North Africa, the northern Balkans, territories in Central Europe, and the British Isles).

Greek had spread as a result of previous Hellenization, whereas Latin was the official administrative language of the Roman state, stimulating Romanization. In the east, where both languages co-existed within the Roman administration for several centuries, the use of Latin ultimately declined as the role of Greek was further encouraged by administrative changes in the empire's structure between the 3rd and 7th centuries, which led to the split between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Western Roman Empire, the collapse of the latter, and failed attempts to restore unity by the former. This Greek–Latin divide continued with the East–West Schism of the Christian world during the Early Middle Ages.

Use with regard to the Roman Empire

In the classical context, "Greek East" refers to the provinces and client states of the Roman Empire in which the lingua franca was primarily Greek.

This region included the whole Greek peninsula with some other northern parts in the Balkans, the provinces around the Black Sea, those of the Bosphorus, all of Asia Minor (in the loosest possible sense, to include Cappadocia and extending to Armenia Minor), Magna Graecia (southern part of the Italian peninsula and Sicily), and the other provinces along the eastern rim of the Mediterranean Sea (Judea, Syria, Cyrenaica and Egypt). These Roman provinces had been Greek colonies or Greek-ruled states during the Hellenistic period, i.e. until the Roman conquests.

At the start of late antiquity, beginning with the reorganization of the empire's provincial divisions during the reign of Diocletian (ruled 284–305), the concept of the Greek East developed to stand in contradistinction to the Latin West. Thereafter, Greek East refers to the Greek-speaking provinces mentioned above (after 395 mostly in the Greek-speaking Eastern Roman Empire) in contradistinction to the provinces in Western Europe, Italia (excluding the Catepanate of Italy, where they still spoke Greek) and Northwest Africa (after 395 in the Latin-speaking Western Roman Empire).

Use with regard to Christianity

"Greek East" and "Latin West" are terms used also to divide Chalcedonian Christianity into the Greek-speaking, Eastern Orthodox peoples of the Eastern Mediterranean Basin, centered on the Byzantine Empire, and the Latin-speaking Catholic peoples of Western Europe. Here, Latin West applies to regions that were formerly part of the Western Roman Empire, specifically Italia, Gallia (Gaul), Hispania, Northwest Africa, and Britannia, but also to areas that had never been part of the Empire but which later came under the culture sphere of the Latin West, such as Magna Germania, Hibernia (Ireland), Caledonia (Scotland). In this sense, the term "Latin" came to refer to the liturgical and scholarly language of Western Europe, since many of these countries did not actually speak Latin.

Modern scholars agree that by the 12th century, theological debate (or disputatio) between Christians of the Greek East and Latin West was focused on three Christian doctrines: 'the so-called filioque controversy regarding the procession of the Holy Spirit, leavened or unleavened bread in the Eucharist, and the primacy of the pope.' However, it is not known when or how this began.

British philosopher Philip Sherrard (1959) claimed that the cause of Christendom's split into a Greek East and a Latin West was differing conceptions of sacerdotium and regnum, leading the Orthodox Patriarchate in Constantinople to never lay claim to secular power, but submit to the Byzantine emperor and later the Ottoman sultan (supposedly the reason for the 'eastern submission to autocracy'), while the Catholic Papacy persistently laid claim to have authority over the secular princes of Western Europe (allegedly 'the roots of modern democracy'). E. Evans (1960) panned Sherrard's book, writing: '...it must be said that unless the obscurity of the writer's language has dulled the reader's intelligence, neither the Filioque clause nor the developments of modern international politics are really shown to depend on the western as opposed to the eastern, the Latin as opposed to the Greek, doctrine of God and of creation: the argument, if there is one, is per saltum, and need amount to no more than an a posteriori interpretation of historical facts in the light of preconceived ideas.'

According to English theologian Andrew Louth (2007), the Byzantine/Roman Empire and the early Church constituted a multilingual and 'multi-cultural civilization' until the 7th century, but after a period of transition, which he dated from 681 (Third Council of Constantinople) to 1071 (Battle of Manzikert), Christendom had split into a "Greek East" and "Latin West", which he considered 'two Christian civilizations' in reference to Huntington's Clash of Civilizations thesis. Louth primarily attributed this purported 'transition from multi-cultural Byzantium to Greek East and Latin West [to] the rise of Islam and the Arab destruction of the stability of the Mediterranean world in the seventh century.' Nevertheless, the transition was a slow and complicated process with many factors rather than a single historic event, which 'set the two halves of Christianity on their gradually diverging tracks', as Byzantine literature professor Alexander Alexakis (2010) summarised Louth's analysis. These included observations that the Byzantine church-state dualism remained intact after the Western Roman Empire's collapse, while bishops and eventually the pope in the West sometimes wielded secular power, but the Carolingian monarchs' renovatio also promoted theological thought at a time when the pope was embroiled in worldly affairs (8th–9th century), that the Byzantine Iconoclasm controversy caused 'the first rift between Rome and Constantinople', and that the simultaneous missionary efforts to convert the Slavs led to a 'second point of contention between Rome and Constantinople', especially in Bulgaria (9th–10th century). Louth agreed with 'the prevailing (and more plausible) theory that assigns no particular importance to the events of 1054' (the East–West Schism) 'as far as the people of that era were concerned', and that the schism only became significant during the preliminaries to the 1245 and 1274 Councils of Lyon.

The term "Greek" varies in how it is applied. In the most narrow sense, after the rise of the Roman Empire it is only applied to the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire. Depending on the author it may also be applied to:
 Areas where the Greek language was the common scholarly and religious language during classical Roman times and the early Middle Ages, including Syria, Egypt, Palestine, etc.
 Areas that have historically been in communion with the (formerly Byzantine) Eastern Orthodox Church, which includes Russia and much of Eastern Europe, but largely excludes Egypt, Syria, Armenia, etc. which largely opposed the influence of Constantinople having formed what are now called the Church of the East and Oriental Orthodoxy. The Romanians spoke a Romance language but followed the Byzantine Church.
 Areas that were heavily culturally influenced by the Byzantine Empire, directly or indirectly, during the Middle Ages, including Eastern Europe and the Islamic Empires
 note: among Muslim historians, "Greek" and "Roman" are often categories specifically associated with Christians. Though the Sultanate of Rome and, later, the Ottoman Empire would adopt Byzantine titles and describe themselves as rulers of "Rome," this was a geographic designation, much in the same way that the Ghaznavids or Delhi Sultans would be known as rulers of "Hindustan."

The term "Latin" has survived much longer as a unifying term for the West because the Latin language survived until relatively recently as a scholarly and liturgical language despite the fragmentation and religious changes in Western Europe. The Greek language, by contrast, died out somewhat quickly in the Arab lands, and the Orthodox Slavic nations never fully embraced the language despite their long religious affiliation with the Eastern Romans/Byzantines.

See also
 Jireček Line

References

Bibliography

Historical regions
Roman Empire
Cultural history of Greece
Classical antiquity
Christianity in late antiquity
East–West Schism
Christian terminology
Cultural geography
Mediterranean
Geography of the Middle East
Language geography
Western culture

Greek East and Latin West


The Kalungwishi River flows west in northern Zambia into Lake Mweru. It is known for its waterfalls, including the Lumangwe Falls, Kabweluma Falls, Kundabwika Falls and Mumbuluma Falls.

There are plans to build two hydro power plants on the Kundabwika and kabwelume falls. This has not pleased everyone as some feel the beauty of the water falls will be disturbed.

The Kalungwishi pontoon on the Kawambwa-Mporokoso road above Lumangwe Falls was replaced by a new bridge in 2004.

Location

References

Rivers of Zambia
Lake Mweru

Kalungwishi River


Mitchell Watt (born 25 March 1988) is an Australian track & field athlete. His main event is the long jump and holds the current Oceania record for the long jump – 8.54m. He was the first ever Australian long jump medalist at a World Championship and was the silver medalist at the 2012 Summer Olympics.

Early life

Track and Field

Watt started his athletics career very early and first started getting attention as a schoolboy at Brisbane Boys College, a prestigious private high school in Queensland. As a 13-year-old he competed in the GPS 100 m, 200 m, 400 m relay, 100 m relay, long jump, high jump, triple jump, shot put and discus, winning all of his events bar discus with a respectable 4th.

As a junior, he won the All-schools nationals in 1999 (long jump), 2000 (long jump), 2001 (long jump [national record], triple jump [national record] and 100 m).

Rugby Union and Australian Football

Watt took an interest in Australian Football and Rugby Union in his later years of high school. He proved extremely versatile successful in both codes. In Australian Football he won two State Championships during high-school playing as ruckman.

In Rugby Union, he played in the outside backs and was vice-captain of the 1st XV. He was a member of the State team (Queensland Schoolboys squad), a team which several current Australian Wallabies played in.

Career

Long Jump

Watt's first major championship was the 2009 World Championships in Athletics in Berlin where he won a bronze medal with a jump of 8.37. He backed this up with another bronze medal at the 2010 IAAF World Indoor Championships in Doha.

He won the 2011 Australian long jump title with a personal best of 8.44 m, setting a stadium record at the Melbourne Olympic Park Stadium with the final jump of the final competition that was held at the venue.

Watt won silver at the World Championships in Daegu, with a jump of 8.33 m in an interesting competition where the winning jumps were made in the second round of jumping. The top three jumpers failed to improve on their first and second round jumps.

He won the silver medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics.

Diamond League

Watt was the 2011 Diamond League Trophy winner for the long jump, picking up the $40,000 bonus. He won in Shanghai, London, and also Stockholm where he set the Australian record, and had already secured victory before the Final in Zurich. He is the first and only Australian to ever win a Diamond League Trophy. He also finished the 2011 season with the longest 4 out of 5 jumps in the world.

Stadium records

Watt currently holds the following stadium/meeting records in the world:
Shanghai (Shanghai Stadium, China) - 8.44m
London (Crystal Palace Stadium) - 8.45m
Rethymno (Vardinoyannia, Greece) - 8.43m
Melbourne (Olympic Park, Australia) - 8.44m
New York (Icahn Stadium, United States of America) - 8.16m

Endorsements

Watt has proven popular with global sponsors. He has signed endorsements with Adidas, Powerade, Omega, Mitsubishi and Coles Supermarkets.

Personal life

Watt obtained his double degree in Law / Economics from University of Queensland and now he currently resides in New York where he is a management consultant.

Notes and references

External links

Australian male long jumpers
1988 births
Living people
People educated at Brisbane Boys' College
Athletes (track and field) at the 2012 Summer Olympics
Olympic athletes for Australia
Olympic silver medalists for Australia
World Athletics Championships medalists
Medalists at the 2012 Summer Olympics
World Athletics Championships athletes for Australia
Olympic silver medalists in athletics (track and field)
Diamond League winners
Sportspeople from Bendigo
Sportsmen from Victoria (state)

Mitchell Watt


Ljubo Sirc CBE (19 April 1920 – 1 December 2016) was a British-Slovene economist and prominent dissident from Yugoslavia.

Life and work
Sirc was born in Kranj, then part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, in a wealthy and renowned family of Slovene and Yugoslav patriots. His grandfather was a liberal and monarchist politician and mayor of Kranj, and his father was a local entrepreneur.

After the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia, Sirc managed to escape to Switzerland, where he established contact with other Yugoslav emigrants. In summer 1944, after the Tito-Šubašić agreement, he joined the Yugoslav Resistance and served in the Yugoslav Army in Dalmatia, Croatia, and Slovenia until 1945. After the establishment of the Communist regime, he joined other liberals and social democrats, who tried to form a legal political opposition to the regime. In 1947, due to his political activity and friendship with Western diplomats, he was tried in the Nagode Trial and sentenced to death. His sentence was ultimately commuted to twenty years in prison, of which he served seven, much of it in solitary confinement. He spent his time in assiduous reading; he became an expert in Marxist political and economic thought, and he was also able to read the most up-to-date Western, especially English and American, economic literature, provided to him by the Slovenian communists to translate it for "internal security purposes."

After his release, he escaped to Italy with the help of former TIGR member Stanislav Kamenšček. From there, he moved to the United Kingdom, where he started an academic career. In his various teaching posts since then, including twenty years at the University of Glasgow, Sirc was a leading expert on socialist economics and communist regimes. He was one of the founders of the Centre for Research into Communist Economies (CRCE) in London and headed it. For many years, he lectured on political economy at Glasgow University.

In 1962, Sirc was among the co-founders of the opposition platform Democratic Alternative, together with a group of Serb, Croat, and Bosniak pro-Yugoslav emigrants.

Activity in post-communist Slovenia
After the fall of the communist regime in Slovenia, Sirc was active in Slovenian public life, writing articles, giving interviews, and commenting on political developments and economic issues. In 1990 and 1991, his opposition to the independence of Slovenia caused some controversy. Sirc supported a unified and democratic Yugoslavia and, although he admitted this solution was not feasible at the time, he refused to uphold the idea of an independent Slovenia until the outbreak of the Ten-Day War. He then endorsed Slovenia's decision to break from the Yugoslav Federation.

In 1992, he ran for President of Slovenia with the support of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDS), but received less than 2% of the vote. He later claimed that he had been fooled into accepting the candidacy: he believed, according to his account, that the party had really accepted an economically and politically liberal program, whereas in reality, he claimed, it remained strongly linked to the former communist establishment. In fact, as subsequent polls showed, the great majority of the Liberal Democratic Party's voters voted for Milan Kučan in the presidential elections.

Sirc later sharply criticised both Janez Drnovšek and Milan Kučan, accusing them of hindering the development of an Open Society in Slovenia. In the late 1990s, he collaborated with the writer Drago Jančar and historians Vasko Simoniti and Alenka Puhar in staging an influential exhibition on human rights violations in communist Slovenia called Temna stran meseca (The Dark Side of the Moon).

In 2004, he was among the co-founders of the liberal conservative civic platform Rally for the Republic (). In the 2000 and 2004 parliamentary elections, he publicly supported the Slovenian Democratic Party. In May 2010, he became a member of the Slovenian Democratic Party.

In his later years, Sirc lived in Glasgow's West End and regularly visited his homeland.

Books
Between Hitler and Tito (autobiography, 1989)
Economic Devolution in Eastern Europe (1969)
The Yugoslav Economy Under Self-Management (1979)
What Must Gorbachev Do? (1989)
Political Morality in Yugoslavia (1996)

See also
Boris Furlan
Angela Vode
Titoism
Communist Party of Yugoslavia
Liberalism in Slovenia
Mitja Ribičič
Pavle Gantar

References

External links

1920 births
2016 deaths
People from Kranj
Politicians from Ljubljana
Ethnic Slovene people
Liberal Democracy of Slovenia politicians
Slovenian Democratic Party politicians
Yugoslav economists
20th-century British economists
British classical liberal economists
University of Ljubljana alumni
Academics of the University of Glasgow
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Yugoslav Partisans members
Yugoslav dissidents
Yugoslav emigrants to the United Kingdom

Ljubo Sirc


The Whisperer in Darkness is a 2011 independent horror film directed and produced by Sean Branney, Andrew Leman, and David Robertson and distributed by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. Based on the H. P. Lovecraft short story of the same name, it was shot using Mythoscope, a blend of vintage and modern filming techniques intended to produce the look of a 1930s-era film. According to the film's website, the filmmakers intended to capture the look of "classic horror films of the 1930s like Dracula, Frankenstein and King Kong".

Plot
For the first two acts, the plot largely follows the short story. The third act consists of entirely new material in which the Mi-Go are revealed to worship Shub-Niggurath, and the protagonist, Wilmarth, uncovers an attempt by cultists to open a gateway between Yuggoth and Earth. He foils the plot with the help of Hannah, the child of one of the collaborators. His escape is unsuccessful and at the end of the film the audience discovers that Wilmarth has been narrating from a machine attached to the cylinder in which his brain now resides. This differs from the original story in which Wilmarth flees in the middle of the night and safely returns to Arkham.

According to Sean Branney on the making-of featurette "The Whisperer Behind the Scenes," Lovecraft was better at set-ups than endings. From a dramatic standpoint, Lovecraft's story brought the writers through what would be "Act Two" of a standard movie structure and felt incomplete. The character of Hannah and opening of gate to Yuggoth were introduced in order to "[make it] a good movie". Branney and Leman intended to make Wilmarth's world "more emotionally complicated" because Hannah's future caused him to be "invested in more than just himself". The characters of Wilmarth's three friends at Miskatonic University were developed from Call of Cthulhu role-playing characters created years before by Branney, Leman, and a friend. Regarding the introduction of a biplane, Leman commented, "If you have monsters that fly, you have to have a dogfight with a biplane."

Cast
In order of appearance:

 Paul Ita as Farmer
 Matt Foyer as Albert Wilmarth
 Matt Lagan as Nathaniel Ward
 Lance J. Holt as Davis Bradbury
 Andrew Leman as Charles Fort
 Stephen Blackehart as Charlie Tower
 David Pavao as Jordan Lowell
 Don Martin as Dean Hayes
 Joe Sofranko as George Akeley
 Barry Lynch as Henry Akeley
 Martin Wately as Walter Brown
 Daniel Kaemon as P.F. Noyes
 Caspar Marsh as Will Masterson
 Autumn Wendel as Hannah Masterson
 Sean Branney as B-67
 Annie Abrams as Aviatrix
 Zack Gold as Astronomer
 John Jabaley as Superintendent

Production

The filmmakers used Mount Holyoke College to represent Miskatonic University. Pasadena City College is used for interior scenes of the school.

Sandy Petersen, author of the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game, contributed financially to the film in order to finish its production.

Release
The Whisperer in Darkness did not have a theatrical release but appeared at dozens of film festivals in over a dozen countries. It was then released on DVD and Blu-ray in early 2012.

Reception

The Whisperer in Darkness received highly positive reviews. It holds 86% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. On the Internet Movie Database it has 6.6 out of 10 stars. John J. Puccio of Movie Metropolis said "The atmospherics are in place, and the filmmakers catch the essence of Lovecraft's expansive horror with efficiency. The film is entertaining without attaining greatness." Andrew O'Hehir of Salon.com said "'Whisperer in Darkness' has a chiller-diller conclusion and some moments of real terror."

Awards

The Whisperer in Darkness was nominated at Oaxaca Film Fest.

 Gold Hugo—Nominated
 Free Spirit Award—Nominated

References

External links

2011 films
2010s supernatural horror films
American supernatural horror films
American black-and-white films
Cthulhu Mythos films
Direct-to-video horror films
2010s English-language films
Films set in 1931
Films set in Massachusetts
Films set in Vermont
Films shot in California
Films shot in Massachusetts
Films shot in New Hampshire
Films shot in Vermont
2010s American films

The Whisperer in Darkness (film)