Robert David Kaplan (born June 23, 1952) is an American author. His books are on politics, primarily foreign affairs, and travel. His work over three decades has appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The New Republic, The National Interest, Foreign Affairs and The Wall Street Journal, among other newspapers and publications.

One of Kaplan's most influential articles is "The Coming Anarchy", published in The Atlantic Monthly in 1994. Critics of the article have compared it to Huntington's Clash of Civilizations thesis, since Kaplan presents conflicts in the contemporary world as the struggle between primitivism and civilizations. Another frequent theme in Kaplan's work is the reemergence of cultural and historical tensions temporarily suspended during the Cold War.

From 2008 to 2012, Kaplan was a Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security in Washington, DC; he rejoined the organization in 2015. Between 2012 and 2014, he was chief geopolitical analyst at Stratfor, a private global forecasting firm. In 2009, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates appointed Kaplan to the Defense Policy Board, a federal advisory committee to the United States Department of Defense. In 2011, and 2012, Foreign Policy magazine named Kaplan as one of the world's "top 100 global thinkers". In 2017, Kaplan joined Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy, as a senior advisor. In 2020, he was named the Robert Strausz-Hupé Chair in Geopolitics at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

Early life and career
Kaplan grew up in Far Rockaway in a Jewish family, son of Philip Alexander Kaplan and Phyllis Quasha. Kaplan's father, a truck driver for the New York Daily News, instilled in him an interest in history from an early age. He attended the University of Connecticut on a swimming scholarship, taking newswriting classes with Evan Hill, and earned a BA in English in 1973. He has one sibling, an older brother, Stephen Kaplan.

After graduating, Kaplan applied unsuccessfully to several big-city newsrooms. He was a reporter for the Rutland Herald in Vermont before buying a one-way plane ticket to Tunisia. Over the next several years, he lived in Israel, where he joined the Israeli army, traveled and reported on Eastern Europe and the Middle East, lived for some time in Portugal and eventually settled down in Athens, Greece, where he met his wife. He lives with his wife in Massachusetts.

Kaplan is not related to journalist Lawrence Kaplan, with whom he is occasionally confused. He is also sometimes confused with neoconservative scholar Robert Kagan.

In addition to his journalism, Kaplan has been a consultant to the U.S. Army's Special Forces, the United States Marines, and the United States Air Force. He has lectured at military war colleges, the FBI, the National Security Agency, the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs of Staff, major universities, the CIA, and business forums, and has appeared on PBS, NPR, C-SPAN, and Fox News. He is a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. In 2001, he briefed President Bush. He is the recipient of the 2001 Greenway-Winship Award for Excellence in international reporting. In 2002, he was awarded the United States State Department Distinguished Public Service Award. Kaplan is the recipient of the International Award for 2016 from the Sociedad Geografica Espanola in Madrid, presented by Queen Sofia of Spain.

In 2006–08, Kaplan was a visiting professor at the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, where he taught a course entitled, "Future Global Security Challenges". As of 2023 he is the Robert Strausz-Hupé Chair in Geopolitics at FPRI.

Foreign correspondent career
He traveled to Iraq to cover the Iran–Iraq War (1984). He first worked as a freelance foreign correspondent reporting on Eastern Europe and the Middle East, but slowly expanded his coverage to all regions ignored in the popular press. His first book, Surrender or Starve: The Wars Behind The Famine (1988) contended the famine in Ethiopia in the 1980s was more complex than just drought, pointing the blame instead to the collectivization carried out by the Mengistu regime.

Kaplan then went to Afghanistan to write about the guerrilla war against the Soviet Union for Reader's Digest. Two years after writing Surrender or Starve, he wrote and published Soldiers of God: With the Mujahidin in Afghanistan (1990) in which he recounted his experiences during the Soviet–Afghan War.

Balkan Ghosts and The Arabists
Kaplan's third book, Balkan Ghosts, was rejected by several editors before being published in 1993. At first, it did not sell very well. After the Yugoslav Wars broke out, President Bill Clinton was seen with Kaplan's book tucked under his arm, and White House insiders and aides said that the book convinced the President against intervention in Bosnia. Kaplan's book contended that the conflicts in the Balkans were based on ancient hatreds beyond any outside control. Kaplan criticized the administration for using the book to justify non-intervention, but his popularity skyrocketed shortly thereafter along with demand for his reporting. That same year, he also published The Arabists.

Kaplan had not set out to influence U.S. foreign policy, but his work began to find a wide readership in high levels of government. In 1994 and 1995, he set out to travel from West Africa to Turkey, Central Asia to Iran, and India to Southeast Asia and published a travelogue about his journey in The Ends of the Earth. He then traveled across his home country and North America and wrote An Empire Wilderness, published in 1998.

"The Coming Anarchy"

His article "The Coming Anarchy" published in The Atlantic in February 1994 about how population increase, urbanization, and resource depletion are undermining fragile governments across the developing world and represent a threat to the developed world was hotly debated and widely translated.
Kaplan published the article and other essays in a book with the same title in 2000, which also included the controversial article '"Was Democracy Just a Moment?" His travels through the Balkans, Turkey, the Caucasus, and the Middle East at the turn of the millennium were recorded in Eastward to Tartary.

Writing in The New York Times, reviewer Richard Bernstein noted that Kaplan "conveys a historically informed tragic sense in recognizing humankind's tendency toward a kind of slipshod, gooey, utopian and ultimately dangerous optimism."

After 9/11

Demand for Kaplan's unorthodox analysis became more acute after the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C. In his book, Warrior Politics: Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos, published shortly after 9/11, Kaplan offered the opinion that political and business leaders should discard Christian/Jewish morality in public decision-making in favor of a pagan morality focused on the morality of the result rather than the morality of the means. He also published a pure travel book titled Mediterranean Winter.

Support for the Iraq War
Kaplan, along with Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek, has been described by American journalist Glenn Greenwald as one of many prominent pundits advocating support for the Iraq War.

Kaplan participated in a secret meeting convened by the then Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz, at which he helped draft an internal government document advocating the invasion of Iraq. He later concluded that the war had been a mistake and expressed deep remorse for supporting it.

Criticism of President Donald Trump
Although Kaplan expresses sympathy for the many white blue collar voters who chose U.S. President Donald Trump in the 2016 election, in the book Earning the Rockies, Kaplan has also been critical of Donald Trump on foreign policy and national security. Kaplan has argued that Trump's defense and foreign policy rely too heavily on military spending, calling it "American Caesarism". Kaplan has drawn parallels between Trump's focus on a militaristic image and large reductions to "soft" non-military foreign policy efforts with the gradual decline of the Roman Empire as a result of similar excess. Kaplan sees Trump's spending plans for national security and foreign policy as the first stage of a "tragic decline" for the United States.
On foreign policy more broadly, Kaplan has called Donald J. Trump "a terrible messenger for realism" who "appears to have no sense of history".

Imperial Grunts

Kaplan's book Imperial Grunts: The American Military On The Ground, was published in October 2005. In it, Kaplan tells of US Special Forces on the ground across the globe in Colombia, Mongolia, the Philippines, Afghanistan and Iraq. Kaplan predicts that the age of mass infantry warfare is probably over and has said that the conflict in Iraq caught the US Army in between being a "dinosaur" and a "light and lethal force of the future." Kaplan reports that many soldiers view certain parts of the world where they are operating as "Injun Country," which must be civilized by the same methods used to subdue the American Frontier in the 1800s.

He also analyzes the revival of Confederate military virtue in the US armed forces. Kaplan was embedded with U.S. troops in Iraq and wrote an often-cited report for The Atlantic entitled "Five Days in Fallujah" about the spring 2004 campaign. In June 2005, he wrote the cover story for The Atlantic titled "How We Would Fight China", which suggests the inevitability of a Cold War-type situation between the US and China. In October 2006, he wrote "When North Korea Falls" for the same magazine in which he examines the prospect of North Korea's collapse and the effect on the balance of power in Asia in favor of China.

Hog Pilots

Kaplan's book Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts: The American Military in the Air, at Sea, and on the Ground, published in September 2007 by Random House, reflects his continuing interest in the US Armed Forces.

Monsoon

Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power (2010) is about the Indian Ocean region and the future of energy supplies and maritime trade routes in the 21st century. He claimed that the Indian Ocean has been a center of power for a long time and that the shift to the Atlantic can be seen as an anomaly which will be set straight in future years. For the United States to maintain its power, it would have to link its goals with those of the people of the developing world, he concluded.

The Revenge of Geography

The Revenge of Geography: What the Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate (2012) describes how countries' respective political and social histories have been shaped by factors like relationship to the ocean and to terrain features that act as natural borders. The book also focuses on how demographic shifts in countries will affect them in the future.

Asia's Cauldron

Asia's Cauldron (2014) describes the modern (from the colonial era to the present) cultural and political history of the various countries of Southeast Asia (such as Singapore, Vietnam and the Philippines) and the region's geopolitical significance to China, as well as those states' resultant anxiety over Chinese maritime territorial claims in the region.

In Europe's Shadow

In Europe's Shadow (2016) is one of Kaplan's most personal examinations of the influence of geography and civilization on politics and history. Informed by his travels to the Balkans since the 1970s, Kaplan links Romania's contemporary political and social reality to its complex identity and history. While the book echoes many of Kaplan's earlier historical travelogues, it looks ahead to the challenges Europe will face by examining Romania as a microcosm of Europe's coming geopolitical crises.

The Return of Marco Polo's World
The Return of Marco Polo's World: War, Strategy, and American Interests in the Twenty-first Century (2018) is a collection of Kaplan's post-2000 essays on the evolving system in Eurasia. Commissioned by the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment, the book's lead essay draws parallels between Eurasia's contemporary emergence as a single "battlespace" to its 13th century geopolitics, when China last constructed a land bridge to Europe. The book's other essays, published over the years in a range of analytical and journalistic sources, delve into themes such as technology, globalization, and the misguided application of military power. Together, they paint a portrait of American influence and European cohesion on the decline in the face of a rapidly emergent new order in Eurasia.

The Good American: The Epic Life of Bob Gersony, The U.S. Government's Greatest Humanitarian

Published in January, 2021, The Good American is a biography of Robert Gersony, a human rights worker in crisis zones around Africa, Latin America, and Asia during the Cold War and Post Cold War.

Adriatic: A Concert of Civilizations at the End of the Modern Age
Published in  April, 2022, Adriatic is a travelogue that explores the history and culture of the countries around the Adriatic Sea.

The Tragic Mind: Fear, Fate, and the Burden of Power
Published in January, 2023, The Tragic Mind is focused on connecting the concept of tragedy with politics. Kaplan narrows in on his personal experiences from his travels across the world and connect them with current international relations.

Influences
Kaplan is a stated admirer of the work of John Mearsheimer, a University of Chicago-based Realist political scientist whom Kaplan's books occasionally cite. Moreover, Kaplan's predictions in The Coming Anarchy dovetail in part with Mearsheimer's predictions for the future of Post-Cold War Europe. Kaplan's stance on Mearsheimer's work is addressed in an essay in The Atlantic, titled "Why John J. Mearsheimer is right (about some things)". The essay was written largely in response to Mearsheimer's stance in his controversial 2007 book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, which was negatively received and described as an anti-Israel polemic by several reviewers. In the same essay, Kaplan defends the theory of offensive realism advocated by John Mearsheimer from claims that it necessarily advocates hawkish or neoconservative foreign policy.

Additionally, Kaplan draws on the classical realism of Hans Morgenthau. He also frequently refers to the geographer Halford Mackinder and his once-influential Heartland theory, along with the theories of Nicholas Spykman and Alfred Thayer Mahan.

Criticisms and controversy

Kaplan's arguments have been criticised on various grounds. Some of his more controversial articles, such as "The Ruins of Empire in the Middle East" and "In Defense of Empire", have been criticized for alluding to empires, and, implicitly, imperialism, as a prosperous, stabilizing force and a net positive for humanity.

Political geographer Nick Megoran argues that "for geographers, Kaplan's article [The Revenge of Geography] makes dismal reading". The article, in Megoran's view, takes theories of classical geopolitical scholars like Halford Mackinder out of their socio-historical context. Kaplan's writing contributes to an "unwelcome return" to what Megoran loosely perceives as militarist-imperialist discourses in traditional geopolitics. This study and approach, due to its historical associations, is considered a discredited field amongst academic geographers, but Megoran objects to its influence on Kaplan and on the foreign policy of states.

Environmental determinism
Late academic geographer Harm de Blij has criticized Kaplan's book The Revenge of Geography for tending toward what de Blij interprets as environmental determinism. He also argues that the book lacks acknowledgment of thinkers associated with postmodern schools of geographic thought, such as critical geopolitics. Finally, he describes Kaplan's book The Revenge of Geography as one of several "misleading" books on geography by non-formally trained geographers, and as such misrepresents the field to those unfamiliar (other examples that de Blij alludes to include Thomas Friedman's The World Is Flat and Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel).

Orientalism
Dag Tuastad, senior lecturer of Middle East and Africa at the University of Oslo, claims that Kaplan, "like Huntington (author of Clash of Civilizations), perpetuates a neo-Orientalist sentiment, namely, emphasizing 'features innately embedded in the Muslim religion, including the provision that Islam is a religion of the sword and a religion that glorifies military virtues'".

Istvan Deak, Columbia University Professor Emeritus of History, labels Balkan Ghosts "an often delightful romp through the past and present politics of a region," saying that Kaplan "intends to convince us, and he assuredly does, with gusto, that the peoples of these five alienated countries do indeed form an unhappy whole."

Recognition
In 2012, Kaplan was named by Foreign Policy magazine on its list of top global thinkers.

Bibliography

Books

 Reprinted as:

 , published August 1998
 , published January 2000
  (also titled Soldiers of God: With Islamic Warriors in Afghanistan and Pakistan), published February 1990, reprinted November 2001
 , published September 1988, reprinted November 2003
 , published February 1993, reprinted March 1994
 , published November 2000
 , published December 2001

 , published February 2004
 , published September 2005
 , published September 2007
 , published October 2010
 , published September 2012
 , published March 2014
 , published February 2016
Robert D. Kaplan (March 20, 2018). The Return of Marco Polo's World: War, Strategy and American Interests in the Twenty-First Century. Random House. ., published March 2018
Robert D. Kaplan (April 12, 2022). Adriatic: A Concert of Civilizations at the End of the Modern Age. Random House. ., published April 2022

Contributions to other books

 , published April 2000 (Introduction, Modern Library 1400061334Edition)
 , published September 2002 (Contributor)
 , published April 2003 (Introduction, Modern Library Edition) (Introduction)

Essays and reporting

See also
 American Imperialism
 Geopolitics
 Pax Americana
 Ralph Peters

References

External links

1952 births
Living people
Writers from Queens, New York
American expatriates in Greece
American expatriates in Israel
American expatriates in Portugal
American foreign policy writers
American male non-fiction writers
American travel writers
The Atlantic (magazine) people
Center for a New American Security
Foreign Policy Research Institute
Israeli soldiers
Jewish American writers

Political realists
United States Naval Academy faculty
University of Connecticut alumni
21st-century American Jews

Robert D. Kaplan


Christoph Ruckhäberle (born 1972, Pfaffenhofen an der Ilm, West Germany) is an artist based in Leipzig. Ruckhäberle studied at the California Institute of the Arts from 1991 to 1992, and received his BFA in painting in 1995 and his MFA in 2002  from Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig. He is associated with the New Leipzig School.

His work has been shown in many exhibitions including the 2nd Prague Biennale, plus the LIGA Gallery in Berlin and Marianne Boesky in New York City.  Ruckhäberle has also exhibited at galleries including Arario Gallery in Korea, Nicolai Wallner in Copenhagen, Denmark and Ghislaine Hussenot in Paris, France.  Ruckhäberle is represented by Campoli Presti in London and Paris, Nicolai Wallner in Copenhagen, Galerie Kleindienst in Leipzig and Zieher Smith & Horton in New York.

External links
Christoph Ruckhäberle at Zieher Smith & Horton
Christoph Ruckhäberle CV
Review of Christoph Ruckhäberle at ZieherSmith
Review of Christoph Ruckhäberle at Zach Feuer Gallery
Christoph Ruckhäberle at Campoli Presti
Christoph Ruckhäberle at Nicolai  Wallner
Christoph Ruckhäberle – Painting – Saatchi Gallery
Christoph Ruckhäberle at Galerie Kleindienst

1972 births
20th-century German painters
20th-century German male artists
German male painters
21st-century German painters
21st-century German male artists
Living people
German contemporary artists
People from Pfaffenhofen (district)
Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig alumni

Christoph Ruckhäberle


The White Book refers to a standard of compact disc that stores not only sound but also still pictures and motion video. It was released in 1993 by Sony, Philips, Matsushita, and JVC. These discs, most commonly found in Asia, are usually called "Video CDs" (VCD). In some ways, VCD can be thought of as the successor to the Laserdisc and the predecessor to DVD. Note that Video CD should not be confused with CD Video which was an earlier and entirely different format.

Several extensions to the White Book were published in later years: VCD 2.0 in 1995, VCD-Internet in 1997, and Super Video CD (SVCD) in 1998. The standard is not freely available and must be licensed from Philips.

The White Book also defines the more general CD-i Bridge format (also called CD-Bridge or simply "bridge discs"), which are CD-ROM XA discs with an additional Green Book CD-i specific application program. The CD-ROM XA information in bridge discs can be obtained through CD-ROM drives, while CD-i players can use the CD-i program to read bridge discs as well (hence the "bridge" status between CD-ROMs and CD-i discs). Bridge discs must conform to both the CD-ROM XA and Green Book CD-i specifications. VCDs and SVCDs fall under the category of bridge discs, as do Photo CDs and Karaoke CDs.

The following is a summary of the specifications for VCDs and SVCDs. For more details, see Video CD and Super Video CD.

 File system: ISO 9660-compliant
 Format: Mode 2, Form 2/XA
 Maximum Length: Usually 74 minutes
 Audio Format
 Format: MPEG-1 Audio Layer II
 Bit rate: 224 kilobits per second
 Sample rate: 44,100 Hz
 Number of Channels: 2 (stereo)
 Video Format
 Format: MPEG-1 Part 2 (VCD), H.262/MPEG-2 Part 2 (SVCD)
 Resolution: 352×240 pixel for NTSC video, 352×288 pixel for PAL video (VCD); 480×480 pixel for NTSC video, 480×576 for PAL video (SVCD)
 Frame rate: 29.97 Hz (NTSC), 25 Hz (PAL)
 Bit rate: 1150 kbit/s

References

Rainbow Books
Audio storage
Video storage

White Book (CD standard)


A neutron star is a very small and dense star made almost completely of neutrons. They are small stars with a radius of about 1111.5 kilometres. They have a mass of about twice that of the Sun. They are the smallest and densest stars known to exist in the Universe. They are what is left of a huge star which exploded as a supernova.

The density of the star is like that of the nucleus of an atom. They have strong magnetic fields, between 108 and 1015 times as strong as that of Earth. The gravitational field at the neutron star's surface is about 2×1011 times stronger than on Earth.

To imagine how dense a neutron star is, take all of the mass of our sun (which has a diameter of ) and push it down into a size that would fit into a ball with a  diameter. Another way to understand the density is this: one teaspoon of matter from the neutron star would weigh 6 billion tons.

Neutron stars spin very fast, from 0.001 second up to 30 seconds to turn. They come in different types. They may emit beams of electromagnetic radiation as pulsars. Other types are magnetars and binary pulsars.

They are more than 600,000 degrees Kelvin in temperature. Neutron stars that can be observed are very hot and typically have a surface temperature of around .

History
In 1934, Walter Baade and Fritz Zwicky proposed the existence of neutron stars, only a year after the discovery of the neutron by James Chadwick.

Looking for the origin of a supernova, they suggested that in supernova explosions ordinary stars are turned into stars that consist of extremely closely packed neutrons, which they called neutron stars. Baade and Zwicky suggested that the release of the gravitational binding energy of the neutron stars powers the supernova: "In the supernova process, mass in bulk is annihilated".

Neutron stars were thought to be too faint to be detectable. Little work was done on them until November 1967, when Franco Pacini (1939–2012) pointed out that if the neutron stars were spinning and had large magnetic fields, then electromagnetic waves would be emitted. Radio astronomer Antony Hewish and his research assistant Jocelyn Bell at Cambridge soon detected radio pulses from stars that are now  known as pulsars.

References

Types of stars
Astrophysics

Neutron star


The Azerbaijani diaspora is a term used to describe the communities of ethnic Azerbaijanis living outside of places of their ethnic origin: Republic of Azerbaijan and Iranian Azerbaijan. Of the total Azerbaijani population living worldwide which is estimated to be 30,000,000, only about 9,000,000 live in Azerbaijan and about 16,000,000 live in Iran.

Other websites
 Azerbaijani Diaspora Population

Ethnic groups in Asia

Azerbaijani diaspora


Håkan Dahlby (born 15 September 1965) is a Swedish double trap shooter, the winner of the 2003, 2004, and 2012 European Championships. He won a silver medal at the 2012 Olympics after having the best final round of all finalists and moving from fifth to second place. In the 2004 Olympics he finished second in the qualification round, but dropped to fifth place during the final round. Since then, he has won the 2005 ISSF World Cup Final, the 2008 ISSF World Cup Final, and ISSF World Cup competitions in 2007 and 2008, but failed to reach the final at the 2008 Olympics. Dahlby lives in Stockholm.

Dahlby was a contestant in Let's Dance 2013.

External links

 Profile at the Swedish Shooting Sport Federation

1965 births
Living people
Swedish male sport shooters
Shooters at the 2004 Summer Olympics
Shooters at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Shooters at the 2012 Summer Olympics
Shooters at the 2016 Summer Olympics
Olympic shooters for Sweden
Trap and double trap shooters
Olympic silver medalists for Sweden
Olympic medalists in shooting
Medalists at the 2012 Summer Olympics
Shooters at the 2015 European Games
European Games competitors for Sweden

Håkan Dahlby


Samuel Filmore West (October 5, 1904 – November 23, 1985) was a center fielder in Major League Baseball who played for three different teams from  to . Listed at , 165 lb., West batted and threw left-handed. He was born in Longview, Texas.

West entered the majors in 1927 with the Washington Senators, playing six years for them before moving to the St. Louis Browns (1933–1938), again with Washington (1938–1941), and the Chicago White Sox (1942). His most productive season came in 1931 when he posted a career-high .333 batting average and reached career highs in slugging percentage (.481), hits (175), doubles (43), triples (13), and rbi (91). In 1933, he  was selected to the first All-Star Game ever played, being selected again in ,  and .

During his career, West collected a .300 average during eight seasons; led AL outfielders in putouts twice, double plays three times, and assists once, and four times was considered in the AL Most Valuable Player vote. Although he played with Washington during ten seasons, he missed the American League pennant-winning team that lost the 1933 World Series to the New York Giants after being traded to the Browns in exchange for Goose Goslin.

In a sixteen-season career, West was a .299 hitter (1838-for-6148) with 75 home runs and 838 RBI in 1753 games, including 934 runs, 347 doubles, 101 triples, 53 stolen bases, 696 walks, a .371 on-base percentage, and a .425 slugging percentage.
Defensively, he posted a .983 fielding percentage. Following his playing career, West served in the U.S. Army during World War II. After discharge from the service, he spent three years as a coach with the Senators.

West died in Lubbock, Texas at age 81.

See also
List of Major League Baseball career triples leaders
List of Major League Baseball single-game hits leaders

References
Sam West - Baseballbiography.com
The Baseball Page
Baseball Reference
Browns All-Stars
Retrosheet
The Deadball Era
Society for American Baseball Research (SABR)

1904 births
1985 deaths
American League All-Stars
Baseball players from Texas
Birmingham Barons players
Chicago White Sox players
Major League Baseball center fielders
Monroe Drillers players
Roswell Giants players
St. Louis Browns players
Sportspeople from Lubbock, Texas
Sulphur Springs Saints players
Sulphur Springs Spartans players
United States Army personnel of World War II
Washington Senators (1901–1960) coaches
Washington Senators (1901–1960) players

Sam West


Flensburg (Danish and Low Saxon: Flensborg, Frisian: Flensburch, North Frisian: Flansborj) is a city in Germany. It is next to the border with Denmark. About 90,164 people live in Flensburg. The city has a university. A very well known part of Flensburg is Mürwik. There lies a small navy harbour. Flensburg lives on tourism, students and the German navy forces.

History
There was a first settlement about 1200 A.D., which became a city in 1284. In the following century, Flensburg became the economic centre of the Duchy of Schleswig. In 1409 there were battles between people of the Duchy of Holstein and the Danish crown about the control of Schleswig. In 1412 and 1500 there were bad plagues in Flensburg. In 1485, there was a big fire in the city.

Between 1460 and 1864 Flensburg was the second most important harbour in Denmark after Copenhagen. Since the 16th century Flensburg was an important place for trade. Flensburg became part of Prussia in 1864, after the Danish-Prussian War.

In 1920, there was an election in Schleswig. The vote was to decide whether people wanted to belong to Denmark or Germany. Flensburg and regions south of the city decided to stay German, while regions north of the city chose to become Danish.

In 1945, many Germans were driven out of their homes in the eastern German provinces. These people went to Flensburg. The city had more than 100,000 inhabitants for a couple of years. Nowadays Flensburg has about 85,000 inhabitants.

References

Other websites

Flensburg


Roemer Pieterszoon Visscher (1547 – 19 February 1620) was a successful Dutch merchant, the first Dutch underwriter and writer of the Dutch Golden Age.

Life
Visscher was born in and lived in Amsterdam and was an important and central figure of the cultural scene there and member of the rederijkerskamer De Eglantier with as slogan "In liefde bloeiende" ("Blossoming in love"). Other members of this scene were the Dutch writers P.C. Hooft, Bredero and Vondel. Vondel called Visschers house "het saligh Roemers huys" ("delightful house of Roemer"), because artists of all kinds visited his house on the Gelderse Kade in Amsterdam, varying from painters to poets. Roemer was the father of three daughters Maria Tesselschade Visscher, Gertruid, and Anna Visscher.

Works
The humanistic and moralistic content of his works belongs to the period of the Renaissance, although the form was more conservative and characteristic to the rederijkers. Visscher was a specialist in the epigram, but he also wrote emblemata. The emblemata is a genre in which pictures are accompanied by one or two rhyming sentences. An example of the emblemata is Visschers Sinnepoppen. One emblema is called "Elck wat wils" which is still a common expression in Dutch, meaning "To each his own".

Among his works are:
T'loff vande mutse, ende van een blaewe scheen (1612)
Brabbeling (1614)
Sinnepoppen (1614)

References

External links
 Sinnepoppen digital version
T'lof van rethorica - digital version (from the work Brabbeling)
Information and picture of a page from Sinnepoppen
Roemer Visscher (1547-1620) - Imaginary pictures of Roemer Visscher

Dutch male poets
1547 births
1620 deaths
17th-century Dutch poets
Writers from Amsterdam
Dutch Golden Age writers
Burials at the Oude Kerk, Amsterdam
Muiderkring

Roemer Visscher


Allan Holtz () is an American comic strip historian who researches and writes about newspaper comics for his Stripper's Guide blog, launched in 2005. His research encompasses some 7,000 American comic strips and newspaper panels. In addition to his contributions to Hogan's Alley and other publications about vintage comic strips, he is the author of American Newspaper Comics: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide (2012). He is a resident of Tavares, Florida.

Work
Holtz's blog Stripper's Guide posts such regular series as "News of Yore" (including news items from back issues of Editor & Publisher), "Obscurity of the Day" (little-known strips) and a series on George Herriman. One such obscurity discussed by Holtz is The Captain's Gig, a little-known strip by Virgil Partch; it ran as a daily and Sunday from 1977 to 1979. Other obscurities rediscovered by Holtz go back to the earliest published comic strips. He also surveys the history of comic strip syndicates, along with the detailed information he provides on writers and artists. In a 2002 issue of Hogan's Alley, Holtz wrote about his almost accidental discovery in a microfilmed archive of The Pittsburgh Leader of F. E. Johnson's Bobby the Boy Scout, which Holtz traced back to August 21, 1911, and regards as the very first serious adventure comic.

Maynard Frank Wolfe (Rube Goldberg Inventions) praised Holtz as "the extraordinary collector conservator computer wizard and historian of cartoon art."

Books
Holtz is also a contributor to NBM's Forever Nuts: Classic Screwball Strips series, writing biographical introductions for the volumes on Frederick Opper and Bud Fisher, and creating annotations for Bringing Up Father and other strips reprinted in this series.

His 600-page American Newspaper Comics: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide (), previously available as a subscription CD service, was published by the University of Michigan Press in 2012. The book features over 7000 newspaper comics series with the following information:
beginning and end dates
frequency and format
artist and writer beginning and ending dates and roles
syndicate information
alternate titles
book collections
story listings
source notes indicating where information was gathered
extensive introductory material describing the research methods used, and explanatory notes about the evolution of the newspaper comic strip
a directory of newspaper syndicates, with capsule histories of over 100 companies
cross-reference of syndicates, listing all features they distributed
cross-reference of creators, listing all features with which they were involved
cross-reference of alternate titles to listed features
a bundled CD with over 3000 high quality sample images of over 2000 different features covered in the book

See also
Nicholson Baker
Bill Blackbeard
Comic Art
Woody Gelman
List of newspaper comic strips
Dave Strickler
List of comic strip syndicates
The Sunday Funnies

References

External links
Allan Holtz review: Nicholson Baker's Double Fold
"Bringing Up Father: 1913–14 Annotations" by Allan Holtz
Comic Strip Barons trading card set by Allan Holtz

21st-century American historians
American bloggers
American art historians
Comics critics
Living people
People from Tavares, Florida
Year of birth missing (living people)
Historians from Florida

Allan Holtz


Rabiul Hussain (31 January 1943 – 26 November 2019) was a Bangladeshi poet and architect. He was one of the trustees of the Bangladesh Liberation War Museum. He was awarded Bangla Academy Literary Award in 2009 for poetry. In recognition of his contribution to Bengali language and literature, the government of Bangladesh awarded him the country's second highest civilian award Ekushey Padak in 2018.

Early life
Hussain was born on 31 January 1943 at Rotidanga village in Shailkupa under Jhenaidah of the then British India (now Bangladesh). After completing his secondary and higher secondary education in Kushtia, he studied architecture at the East Pakistan University of Engineering Technology (now Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET)). He graduated from BUET in 1968.

Awards
 Bangla Academy Literary Award (2009)
 Ekushey Padak (2018)

References

1943 births
2019 deaths
People from Jhenaidah District
Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology alumni
Bangladeshi male poets
Bangladeshi architects
Recipients of the Ekushey Padak
Recipients of Bangla Academy Award

Rabiul Hussain


The Cagiva GP500 was a Grand Prix 500cc two-stroke motorcycle manufactured by Cagiva. It was released in various iterations (C587, V593, C594, etc.) throughout the years it was raced. Racing greats including Eddie Lawson, Randy Mamola, John Kocinski, Doug Chandler, Alex Barros and Mat Mladin, all raced versions of the GP500 at one time in their careers.

Eddie Lawson's win in the 1992 Hungarian motorcycle Grand Prix at the Hungaroring was the first 500cc Motorcycle Grand Prix victory for the Cagiva GP500.

References

C594
Grand Prix motorcycles
Motorcycles introduced in 1987
Two-stroke motorcycles

Cagiva GP500


Olive Margaret Willis (26 October 1877 – 11 March 1964) was an English educationist and headmistress. She founded Downe House School and was its head for nearly forty years, from 1907 to 1946.

Early life
Willis was born on 26 October 1877, at 65 Thistle Grove, Kensington, London, a daughter of John Armine Willis (1839–1916), a school inspector who later became Chief Inspector of Schools for the west of England, and of Janet Willis, who was a daughter of James Coutts Crawford. There were five children in the family, four daughters and a son, and Willis was the second girl. John Armine Willis had been educated at the University of Cambridge, where he was an officer of the Cambridge University Rifle Volunteers, and he liked to take his children on climbing holidays in Switzerland. Willis later remembered that they had "suffered from a surfeit of beautiful things on an empty stomach".

Olive Willis was a rebellious child. In 1891, she was sent as a boarder to the new Wimbledon House in Brighton, which while she was there became Roedean School, and was there for four years. From 1898 to 1901, she was at Somerville College, Oxford, where she read History, gaining a third class in her Finals.

Religion
Although baptized in the Church of England, the Willises attended a Theistic church founded by the Charles Voysey in Swallow Street, near Piccadilly. At Roedean, Willis objected to the lack of religious teaching, was attracted to Anglo-Catholicism, and at the age of seventeen was confirmed at the High Anglican St Cuthbert's, Earls Court, remaining a lifelong Anglican.

Career
After Oxford, Willis taught history for one year at Queen Anne's School, Caversham, then in 1902 returned to her own old school, Roedean, where she remained for two years. After that, she became a supply teacher, teaching in a wide range of schools, including the Haberdashers' Aske's School for Girls, which was then in Acton, and a school in Chesterfield.

In 1907, with her friend Alice Carver as a non-teaching partner, Willis founded a new girls' boarding school called Downe House. They raised £1,500 to rent and equip Down House in the village of Downe, near Orpington, Kent, a house which had previously been the home of Charles Darwin. The school began with one girl and five mistresses. Its aim was to achieve educational excellence in a framework which was relaxed but structured. Three more girls were added to the school by the Spring of 1908, and by 1910 there were thirty-six girls, of whom all but four were boarders. Willis herself taught English, Latin, Scripture, and history, while Carver was matron and kept house. Carver withdrew from their partnership in 1912, and Willis ran the school alone until 1919, when she took on a new partner called Lilian Heather, who had been at the school since 1907 as a part-time teacher of Science and Mathematics.

The school became popular with literary and academic parents. In 1913, Punch magazine's annual cricket match was played at Downe, with E. V. Lucas, a school parent, captaining one team and J. M. Barrie the other, his team including A. A. Milne. The school produced authors of its own. One of Willis's early pupils was the Anglo-Irish girl Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973), who became a significant novelist, and Audrey Richards (1899–1984), later a social anthropologist, was her exact contemporary. Other pupils included the sculptor Betty Rea (1904–1965), writers Aletha Hayter (1911–2006) and Priscilla Napier (1908–1998), the poet Anne Ridler (1912–2001), the philosopher Mary Scrutton, the archaeologist Aileen Fox (1907–2005), and the musician Evelyn Rothwell (1911–2008). The composer Robin Milford taught at the school, while Myra Hess gave piano recitals and played with the school orchestra.

In December 1921, with the help of an uncle and with a loan from two parents of girls at the school, Willis bought The Cloisters, Cold Ash, Berkshire, with , for £11,976. The Cloisters had been designed by the architect James MacLaren Ross and was built during the First World War for the Order of Silence, but the order had been unable to keep up the payments on its mortgage. Willis was able to move her school there just four months after the purchase, in April 1922. For the Summer term of 1922, the school had 83 girls, and by 1925 it had grown to 118.

As a headmistress, Willis had an imposing presence, but a balanced personality, and she inspired respect in her girls. She wanted her school to be a place where "life should be normal", with some freedom and a natural pace. In education, Willis believed that girls should not try to be like boys, and she aimed at a serious attitude towards education, preparing some of her pupils for university life. She could be difficult to work with and knew little of housekeeping, but many of her staff, like her business partner Lilian Heather, were devoted to her. One employee, the eccentric Maria Nickel, was her chauffeur, handyman, architect and engineer, and slept in her bathroom.

Retirement
Heather died in 1943, and in 1944 Willis gave up the ownership of the school, which was transferred to a public body. She retired as headmistress in 1946, but intended to go on living at Hill House, which had been built for her on the school's grounds. This led to her chosen successor moving to another school, and Willis decided to divide her time between Hill House and a second home at 38 Tedworth Square in Chelsea. She kept up with old pupils and continued her interests in the Bermondsey Time and Talents Settlement and in the Girl Guides movement.

After living nearly twenty years in retirement, Willis died from a perforated duodenal ulcer at the age of 86 at her London home. She was cremated, and her ashes were buried in a memorial garden at Downe House. Her estate at death amounted to £16,510.

References

Bibliography
Anne Ridler, Olive Willis and Downe House: an adventure in education (London: Murray, 1967, Dewey ref. 376'.9422'3)
Avery, Gillian, "Willis, Olive Margaret (1877–1964), headmistress", in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004)
Horsler, Val, & Jenny Kingsland, Downe House: a Mystery and a Miracle (London: Third Millennium Publishing, 2006,  & )

1877 births
1964 deaths
Alumni of Somerville College, Oxford
English educational theorists
Founders of English schools and colleges
People educated at Roedean School, East Sussex
Women school principals and headteachers
Women heads of schools in the United Kingdom

Olive Willis


A lunchbox is used to carry a person's lunch. They can come in many shapes and sizes and by a number of manufacturers. They can also be in the form of a brown paper bag.
The first aluminium lunch box was created in 1954 by a man by the name of Leo May when he happened to crush his tin lunch box.

Containers

Lunchbox


The Virginia Blue Ridge Railway (VBR) is a historic intrastate short line railroad. It operated in central Virginia in the 20th century.

History
The company was incorporated in 1914. Construction was started in 1915. The VBR went between Tye River Depot in Nelson County to Massies Mill. It met up with the Southern Railway in Massies Mill. The railroad followed the course of the Tye and Piney Rivers for several miles. It eventually enters the mountains. It was initially built to haul chestnut for lumber out of the heavily-timbered Piney River area to local mills until World War I. The chestnut blight wiped out much of the timbered areas. The railroad later served several quarries in the area where titanium dioxide and aplite were mined. It passed through the communities of Roses Mill, Piney River, Canopy, Lowesville, and Buffalo Mine.

The line was abandoned in 1980. In the early 21st century, part of the roadbed was being developed as a rails-to-trails project, the Blue Ridge Railway Trail.

References

 Brief history and information on the trail project
 Brief history and some photos

Transport in Virginia
Rail transport in the United States

Virginia Blue Ridge Railway


The National Gallery of Australia (NGA), formerly the Australian National Gallery, is the national art museum of Australia as well as one of the largest art museums in Australia, holding more than 166,000 works of art. Located in Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory, it was established in 1967 by the Australian Government as a national public art museum.  it is under the directorship of Nick Mitzevich.

Establishment
Prominent Australian artist Tom Roberts had lobbied various Australian prime ministers, starting with the first, Edmund Barton.  Prime Minister Andrew Fisher accepted the idea in 1910, and the following year Parliament established a bipartisan committee of six political leaders—the Historic Memorials Committee.  The Committee decided that the government should collect portraits of Australian governors-general, parliamentary leaders and the principal "fathers" of federation to be painted by Australian artists.  This led to the establishment of what became known as the Commonwealth Art Advisory Board, which was responsible for art acquisitions until 1973.  Nevertheless, the Parliamentary Library Committee also collected paintings for the Australian collections of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library, including landscapes, notably the acquisition of Tom Roberts' Allegro con brio, Bourke St West in 1918.  Prior to the opening of the Gallery these paintings were displayed around Parliament House, in Commonwealth offices, including diplomatic missions overseas, and State Galleries.

From 1912, the building of a permanent building to house the collection in Canberra was the major priority of the Commonwealth Art Advisory Board.  However, this period included two World Wars and a Depression and governments always considered they had more pressing priorities, including building the initial infrastructure of Canberra and Old Parliament House in the 1920s and the rapid expansion of Canberra and the building of government offices, Lake Burley Griffin and the National Library of Australia in the 1950s and early 1960s.  In 1965 the Commonwealth Art Advisory Board was finally able to persuade Prime Minister Robert Menzies to take the steps necessary to establish the gallery.  On 1 November 1967, Prime Minister Harold Holt formally announced that the Government would construct the building.

Location
The design of the building was complicated by the difficulty in finalising its location, which was affected by the layout of the Parliamentary Triangle.  The main problem was the final site of the new Parliament House.  In Canberra's original Griffin 1912 plan, Parliament House was to be built on Camp Hill, between Capital Hill and the Provisional Parliament House and a Capitol was to be built on top of Capital Hill.  He envisaged the Capitol to be "either a general administration structure for popular receptions and ceremony or for housing archives and commemorating Australian Achievements".  In the early 1960s, the National Capital Development Commission (NCDC) proposed, in accordance with the 1958 and 1964 Holford plans for the Parliamentary Triangle, that the site for the new Parliament House be moved to the shore of Lake Burley Griffin, with a vast National Place, to be built on its south side, to be surrounded by a large mass of buildings.  The Gallery would be built on Capital Hill, along with other national cultural institutions.

In 1968, Colin Madigan of Edwards Madigan Torzillo and Partners won the competition for the design, even though no design could be finalised, as the final site was now in doubt. Prime Minister John Gorton stated that,
"The Competition had as its aim not a final design for the building but rather the selection of a vigorous and imaginative architect who would then be commissioned to submit the actual design of the Gallery."

Gorton proposed to Parliament in 1968 that it endorse Holford's lakeside site for the new Parliament House, but it refused and sites at Camp Hill and Capital Hill were then investigated. As a result, the Government decided that the Gallery could not be built on Capital Hill.  In 1971, the Government selected a  site on the eastern side of the proposed National Place, between King Edward Terrace and for the Gallery. Even though it was now unlikely that the lakeside Parliament House would proceed, a raised National Place (to hide parking stations) surrounded by national institutions and government offices was still planned. Madigan's brief included the Gallery, a building for the High Court of Australia and the precinct around them, linking to the raised National Place at the centre of the Land Axis of the Parliamentary Triangle, which then led to the National Library on the western side.

Development of the design
Madigan's final design was based on a brief prepared by the National Capital Development Commission (NCDC) with input from James Johnson Sweeney and James Mollison.  Sweeney was director of the Guggenheim Museum between 1952–1960 and director of The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and had been appointed as a consultant to advise on issues concerning the display and storage of art.  Mollison said in 1989 that "the size and form of the building had been determined between Colin Madigan and J.J. Sweeney, and the National Capital Development Commission. I was not able to alter the appearance of the interior or exterior in any way...It's a very difficult building in which to make art look more important than the space in which you put the art".  The construction of the building commenced in 1973, with the unveiling of a plaque by Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. Construction was managed by P.D.C. Constructions under the supervision of the National Capital Development Commission and it was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1982, during the premiership of Whitlam's successor, Malcolm Fraser. The building cost $82 million.

In 1975, the NCDC abandoned the plan for the National Place, leaving the precinct five metres above the natural ground level, without the previously proposed connections to national institutions  and next to a vast space only partially taken up by Reconciliation Place, which does not substitute for the grand mass of buildings originally envisaged.

Appointment of an acting director

The Commonwealth Art Advisory Board recommended that Laurie Thomas, a former director of the Art Gallery of Western Australia and of the Queensland Art Gallery be appointed director, but the Prime Minister John Gorton took no action on this recommendation, as he apparently favoured the appointment of James Johnson Sweeney, although he was already 70.

James Mollison was exhibitions officer in the Prime Minister's Department from 1969 and the Government's failure to appoint a director of the National Gallery of Australia required Mollison to become involved in the development of the design for the building with the architects led by Colin Madigan.  In November 1970, the Commonwealth Art Advisory Board recommended that he should be re-designated as assistant director (development).  In May 1971, following Gorton's fall from power, the Government endorsed Madigan's sketches for the building.  The new Prime Minister, William McMahon announced the appointment of Mollison as acting director of the National Gallery of Australia in October 1971.  Tenders for construction were called in November 1972, just before the McMahon government's defeat in the December 1972 election.

Building and garden

The National Gallery building is in the late 20th-century Brutalist style.  It is characterised by angular masses and raw concrete surfaces and is surrounded by a series of sculpture gardens planted with Australian native plants and trees.

The geometry of the building is based on a triangle, most obviously manifested for visitors in the coffered ceiling grids and tiles of the principal floor. Madigan said of this device that it was "the intention of the architectural concept to implant into the grammar of the design a sense of freedom so that the building could be submitted to change and variety but would always express its true purpose".  This geometry flows throughout the building, and is reflected in the triangular stair towers, columns and building elements.

The building is principally constructed of reinforced bush hammered concrete, which was also originally the interior wall surface.  More recently, the interior walls have been covered with painted wood, to allow for increased flexibility in the display of artworks.

The building has 23,000 m2 of floor space. The design provides space for both the display and storage of works of art and to accommodate the curatorial and support staff of the Gallery. Madigan's design is based on Sweeney's recommendation that there should be a spiral plan, with a succession of galleries to display works of art of differing sizes and to allow flexibility in the way in which they were to be exhibited.

There are three levels of galleries.  On the principal floor, the galleries are large, and are used to display the Indigenous Australian and International (meaning European and American) collections. The bottom level also contains a series of large galleries, originally intended to house sculpture, but now used to display the Asian art collection. The topmost level contains a series of smaller, more intimate galleries, which are now used to display the Gallery's collection of Australian art. Sweeney had recommended that sources of natural light should not detract from the collections, and so light sources are intended to be indirect.

The High Court and National Gallery Precinct were added to the Australian National Heritage List in November 2007.

Later extensions
The Gallery has been extended twice, the first of which was the building of new temporary exhibition galleries on the eastern side of the building in 1997, to house large-scale temporary exhibitions, which was designed by Andrew Andersons of PTW Architects. This extension includes a sculptural garden, designed by Fiona Hall. The 2006 enhancement project and new entrance was complemented by a large Australian Garden designed by Adrian McGregor of McGregor Coxall Landscape Architecture and Urban Design.

There have also been proposals, during the tenure of Director Brian Kennedy, for the construction of a new "front" entrance, facing King Edward Terrace. Madigan made known his concerns about these proposals and their interference with his moral rights as the architect and also expressed concerns about these changes. A former director, Betty Churcher, was particularly critical of Madigan, and told a journalist that "the dead hand of an architect cannot stay clamped on a building forever". When Ron Radford became director, he expanded the brief to include a suite of new galleries to display the collection of indigenous art and a new Australian Garden fronting King Edward Terrace.

The Minister for the Arts and Sport, Senator Rod Kemp, announced on 13 December 2006 that the Australian Government would provide $92.9 million for a major building enhancement project at the National Gallery of Australia, including around $20 million for previously approved building refurbishments. The building enhancements were designed to create new arrival and entrance facilities to improve public access to the Gallery's building and significantly increase display space, particularly for the collection of Australian Indigenous art. Stage 1 of the Indigenous galleries and new entrance project was officially opened on 30 September 2010 by Quentin Bryce, Governor-General of Australia. According to well-known architecture critic Elizabeth Farrelly, the new extension had three main tasks: "how to dock amicably with the existing architecture; how to provide the resulting whole with a new street "address"; how to create a logical, legible and deferential hanging space for the collection."

Sculpture garden renewal
A project for the renewal of the sculpture garden was under way as of 2021. As part of the project, in September 2021 the gallery commissioned a huge sculpture by Lindy Lee,   high and based on the ouroboros (an ancient symbol depicting a snake eating its own tail), to be placed near its main entrance of the gallery. Scheduled to be finished in 2024, the sculpture is the NGA's most expensive commission to date.

Directorship
In 1976, the newly established ANG Council advertised for a permanent director to fill the position that James Mollison had been acting in since 1971.  The new Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser announced the appointment of Mollison as director in 1977.

James Mollison
James Mollison is notable for establishing the Gallery and building on the collection that had already been assembled of mainly Australian paintings by purchasing icons of modern western art, the best known were the 1974 purchases of Blue Poles by Jackson Pollock ($1.3m), and Woman V by Willem de Kooning ($650,000). These purchases were very controversial at the time, but are now generally considered to be visionary acquisitions.

He also built up the other collections, often with the help of donations.  Starting in 1973 Mollison secured funding from Philip Morris to acquire contemporary Australian photography for the ANG, though Ian North was not appointed Foundation Curator of Photography until 1980. In 1975, Arthur Boyd presented several thousand of his works to the Gallery.  In 1977 Mollison persuaded Sunday Reed to donate Sidney Nolan's remarkable Ned Kelly series to the ANG.  Nolan had long disputed Reed's ownership of these paintings, but the donation resolved their dispute. In 1981, Albert Tucker and his wife presented a substantial collection of Tucker's collection to the Gallery.  As a result of these and more recent donation, it has the finest collection of Australian art in existence.

He also arranged many touring exhibitions, most famously The Great Impressionist Exhibition of 1984.

His successor, Betty Churcher has said that when she took over in 1990, he "was of almost legendary stature [and] had single-handedly built a great and comprehensive collection from the ground up; indeed he had presided over the collection for more than twenty years with great flair, and over the institution for seven years — it was in the truest sense, his Gallery, his professional achievement."

Betty Churcher
Betty Churcher became director in 1990. She had been formerly director of the Art Gallery of Western Australia. While director of the National Gallery, she was dubbed "Betty Blockbuster" because of her love of blockbuster exhibitions.

Churcher initiated the building of new galleries on the eastern side of the building, opened in March 1998, to house large-scale temporary exhibitions.  It was under her directorship that the name of the Gallery was changed from the Australian National Gallery to its current title.

During her period, the Gallery purchased, among many other artworks, Golden Summer, Eaglemont by Arthur Streeton for $3.5 million.  This was the last great Heidelberg School painting still in private hands.

Brian Kennedy
Brian Kennedy was appointed director in 1997.  He expanded the traveling exhibitions and loans program throughout Australia, arranged for several major shows of Australian art abroad, increased the number of exhibitions at the museum itself and oversaw the development of an extensive multi-media site. On the other hand, he discontinued the emphasis of his predecessor, Churcher, of showing blockbuster exhibitions.

During his directorship, the National Gallery of Australia gained government support for improving the building and significant private donations and corporate sponsorship. Private funding supported his notable acquisitions of David Hockney's A Bigger Grand Canyon for $4.6 million in 1999, Lucian Freud's After Cézanne for $7.4 million in 2001 and Pregnant Woman by Ron Mueck for $800,000.

He also introduced free admission to the gallery, except to major exhibitions. He campaigned for the construction of a new front entrance to the Gallery, facing King Edward Terrace, but this did not come to pass during his tenure.

Kennedy's cancellation of the Sensation exhibition (scheduled at the National Gallery of Australia from 2 June 2000 to 13 August 2000) was controversial, as it was seen by many as censorship. This exhibition was created by the Young British Artists of the Saatchi Gallery. Its most controversial work was Chris Ofili's The Holy Virgin Mary, a painting which used elephant dung and was accused of being blasphemous. The then Mayor of New York, Rudolph Giuliani campaigned against the exhibition, claiming it was "Catholic-bashing" and an "aggressive vicious, disgusting attack on religion." In November 1999, Kennedy cancelled the exhibition and stated that the events in New York had "obscured discussion of the artistic merit of the works of art."

Kennedy was also repeatedly under attack over allegations that the air-conditioning was exposing its staff to cancer. Despite his denials that there was any problem with the air-conditioning, claims that the issue had been 'swept under the carpet' persisted.  The air-conditioning was finally renovated in 2003. Kennedy announced that he would not seek extension of his contract in 2002. He has denied that he was under any government pressure to do so.

Ron Radford
Ron Radford was appointed director in late 2004. He was formerly director of the Art Gallery of South Australia.

Radford has lent out the Gallery's old masters collection (European art, prior to the 19th century) for long-term display to state galleries, noting  that he "considers the collection of less than 30 paintings, put together by Mollison to give context to the modern collection, as too small to make any impact on the public". He has been quoted as saying that the gallery should concentrate on its strengths – European art of the first half of the 20th century, 20th-century American art, photography, Asian art and the 20th-century drawing collection, and to fill the gaps in the Australian collection.

In September 2005, there was considerable publicity about an offer to the gallery of Sketch for Deluge II by Wassily Kandinsky for $35 million. The gallery did not subsequently go through with the purchase.

Radford has been notable in securing funding and completing the building of the new entrance to the Gallery as well as an extension for Indigenous galleries, public and function areas. In developing the collection he has been notable for a series of acquisitions of indigenous art, in particular the largest collection of watercolours by Albert Namatjira and the James Turrell sculpture and installation  (2010).

Gerard Vaughan
In October 2014, it was announced that Gerard Vaughan would be the new director of the National Gallery of Australia from 10 November. He was formerly director of the National Gallery of Victoria from 1999 to 2012.

In 2014, the gallery sued antiquities dealer Subhash Kapoor in New York Supreme Court for allegedly hiding evidence that an 11th-century sculpture of Shiva Nataraja known as the Sripuranthan Natarajan Idol, bought by the gallery for A$5.6 million in 2008, had been stolen from an Indian temple in Tamil Nadu. The National Gallery voluntarily removed a bronze statue of the Dancing Shiva from display, as the Indian government formally requested the statue's return.

Nick Mitzevich
In April 2018, it was announced that Nick Mitzevich, the third of the NGA directors to be appointed from the Art Gallery of South Australia, would take over at the start of July.

Exhibitions and initiatives

Women Hold Up Half The Sky

Women Hold Up Half The Sky was a large exhibition held in March to April 1995, to celebrate International Women's Day. Named after Adelaide artist Ann Newmarch's famous print of the same name included in the exhibition, the exhibition was curated by Roger Butler. It was opened by Carmen Lawrence, and also included a travelling exhibition called Sydney by Design. The exhibition was part of the national commemoration of the UN's International Women's Year, and the accompanying book, The National Women's Art Book, was edited by Joan Kerr.

Comprising around 300 works from the gallery's own collection, the exhibition included the work of Agnes Goodsir, Bessie Davidson, Clarice Beckett, Olive Cotton, Grace Cossington Smith, Yvonne Audette, Janet Dawson, Lesley Dumbrell, Margaret Worth, Rosalie Gascoigne, Bea Maddock, Judy Watson,  Frances Burke, Margaret Preston, Olive Ashworth, and other artists of the previous 150 years.

The Painters of the Wagilag Sisters story 1937-1997
The exhibition The Painters of the Wagilag Sisters story 1937-1997 was a major exhibition of the work of more than 100 Aboriginal artists held in 1997, curated by Nigel Lendon and Tim Bonyhady. The artists were Yolngu painters from Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory, including senior member of the Rirratjingu clan Mawalan Marika as well as Ramingining artist Philip Gudthaykudthay (aka "Pussycat"). The artworks all related to the story of ancestral creator beings of Arnhem Land known as the Wagilag sisters.

National Indigenous Art Triennial
The NGA held the inaugural National Indigenous Art Triennial (NIAT), Culture Warriors, from 13 October 2007 to 10 February 2008. The guest curator was Brenda L Croft, Senior Curator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art. The exhibition was the largest survey show of Indigenous art at the NGA in over 15 years, and featured works by selected artists created during the previous three years. A free exhibition, it featured artists from every state and territory.

The 2nd National Indigenous Art Triennial, unDISCLOSED, ran from May to July 2012 and featured 20 Indigenous artists, including Vernon Ah Kee, Julie Gough, Alick Tipoti, Christian Thompson, Lena Yarinkura, Michael Cook and Nyapanyapa Yunupingu. The theme  alludes to "the spoken and the unspoken, the known and the unknown, what can be revealed and what cannot". The exhibition afterwards toured the country, shown at Cairns Regional Gallery, the Anne & Gordon Samstag Museum of Art in Adelaide and the Western Plains Cultural Centre in Dubbo, NSW.

The 3rd National Indigenous Art Triennial, Defying Empire, was held from 26 May to 10 September 2017, curated by Tina Baum, NGA Curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art. The title references  the 50th anniversary of the 1967 referendum, that recognised Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as Australians for the first time.

The 4th Triennial Ceremony, takes place from 26 March to 31 July 2022. It explores the idea of ceremony, and is curated by Hetti Perkins.

Balnaves Contemporary Series

In 2018 the Balnaves Contemporary Intervention Series was launched, delivered in partnership with the Balnaves Foundation. The platform, later renamed to Balnaves Contemporary Series, commissions artists to create new work. Artists commissioned by this project include Jess Johnson and Simon Ward (2018); Sarah Contos (2018); Patricia Piccinini (Skywhales, 2020-21); Judy Watson and  Helen Johnson; and Daniel Crooks (2022).

Know My Name

Know My Name is "an initiative of the National Gallery of Australia to celebrate the significant contributions of Australian women artists". Launched in 2019, after it was discovered that only 25 per cent of the gallery's collection was made by women, it features exhibitions, events, commissions, creative collaborations, publications and partnerships that highlight the talent and work of women artists. As part of the program, the NGA also instigated a new set of principles to ensure gender parity in the organisation, programming and collections.

The exhibition Know My Name: Australian Women Artists 1900 to Now: Part One, held from 14 Nov 2020 to 9 May 2021, featured art made by women, drawn from the NGA's own collection as well as other institutions around Australia. Featured artists included Margaret Olley, Yvonne Koolmatrie, Tracey Moffatt, Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Mabel Juli, Rosemary Laing, Grace Cossington Smith, Thea Proctor, Betty Muffler, Stella Bowen, Dora Chapman, Fiona Foley, Brenda L. Croft, Discount Universe and many others. A book entitled Know My Name was published to accompany the exhibition in 2020. A four-day conference was held to coincide with the exhibition's opening.

Know My Name: Australian Women Artists 1900 to Now: Part Two was opened on 12 June 2021 and finishes on 26 June 2022. The two exhibitions do not purport to be a complete account, but rather "[look] at moments in which women created new forms of art and cultural commentary such as feminism... [highlighting] creative and intellectual relationships between artists across time".

Other exhibitions

The Great Impressionist Exhibition (1984)
Ken Tyler: Printer Extraordinary (1985)
Angry Penguins and Realist Painting in Melbourne in the 1940s (1988)
Under a Southern Sun (1988–89)
Australian Decorative Arts, 1788–1900 (1988–89)
Word as Image: 20th Century International Prints and Illustrated Books (1989)
Rubens and the Italian Renaissance (1992)
The Age of Angkor: Treasures from the National Museum of Cambodia (1992)
Surrealism: Revolution by Night (1993)
1968 (1995)
Turner (1996)
Rembrandt: A Genius and his Impact (1997–98)
New Worlds from Old: 19th Century Australian and American Landscapes (1998)
An Impressionist Legacy: Monet to Moore, The Millennium Gift of Sara Lee Corporation (1999)
Monet & Japan (2001)
William Robinson: A Retrospective (2001–02)
Rodin: A Magnificent Obsession, Sculpture and Drawings (2001–02)
Margaret Preston, Australian Printmaker (2004–05)
No Ordinary Place: The Art of David Malangi (2004)
The Edwardians: Secrets and Desires (2004)
Bill Viola: The Passions (2005)
James Gleeson: Beyond the Screen of Sight (2005)
Constable: Impressions of Land, Sea and Sky (2005)
Imants Tillers: Inventing Postmodern Appropriation (2006)
George W. Lambert Retrospective: Heroes & Icons (2007)
Turner to Monet: The Triumph of Landscape (2008)
Degas: Master of French Art (2009)
McCubbin: Last Impressions 1907–1917  (2009)
Masterpieces from Paris (2010), on loan from Musée d'Orsay.
Ballets Russes: The Art of Costume (2011)
Renaissance: 15th & 16th Century Italian Paintings from the Accademia Carrara, Bergamo (2011–2012)
Toulouse-Lautrec - Paris & the Moulin Rouge (2012–2013)
Jeffrey Smart (2021-2022)

Collection

The collection of the National Gallery of Australia held more than 166,000 works of art as of 2012. and includes:
 Australian art
 Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art (mostly recent, but in traditional forms)
 Art in the European Tradition (from European settlement to the present day)
 Western art (from Medieval to Modern, mostly Modern)
 Eastern art (from South and East Asia, mostly traditional)
 Modern Art (international)
 Pacific Arts (from Melanesia and Polynesia mostly traditional)
 Photography (International & Australian)
 Crafts (dishes to dresses, international)
 Sculpture garden (Auguste Rodin to Modern)

Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art

This collection is dominated by the Aboriginal Memorial of 200 painted tree trunks commemorating all the indigenous people who had died between 1788 and 1988 defending their land against invaders.  Each tree trunk is a dupun or log coffin, which is used to mark the safe tradition of the soul of the deceased from this world to the next.  Artists from Ramingining painted it to mark the Australian Bicentenary and it was accepted for display by the Biennale of Sydney in 1988.  Mollison agreed to purchase it for permanent display before its completion.

Australian art (non-Indigenous)

This includes works by:
 John Glover – Mount Wellington and Hobart Town from Kangaroo Point
 Frederick McCubbin – Afterglow, Bush Idyll (on long term loan from private collection)
 Tom Roberts – Going Home, Storm Clouds, In a corner on the Macintyre, An Australian Native, The Sculptor's Studio
 Arthur Streeton – From McMahons Point – Fare 1 Penny, The Selector's Hut, Golden Summer, Spirit of the Drought
 Charles Conder – The Yarra, Heidelberg, Bronte Beach, Under a Southern Sun
 Margaret Preston – Flying over the Shoalhaven River, Flapper
 Grace Cossington Smith – Interior in Yellow
 Lloyd Rees – A South Coast Road
 William Dobell – The Red Lady
 Albert Tucker –  Pick up, Images of modern evil (collection), Victory Girls
 Russell Drysdale – The Drover's Wife, The Rabbiter and his Family
 Sidney Nolan – Ned Kelly, The Slip, The Burning Tree, Constable Fitzpatrick and Kate Kelly, Stringybark Creek, The Chase, Kelly Crossing the Bridge (and many other Ned Kelly paintings), Kiata, Head of a Soldier
 Arthur Boyd – The Mining Town, Boat Builders, Eden
 Joy Hester – Nude in Hat, Mother and Child
 John Perceval – Boy with Cat
 Ron Mueck – Pregnant Woman
 Patricia Piccinini – The Skywhale

Western art

The focus of the Gallery's international collection is primarily on late 19th-century and 20th-century art
although not all artworks are on display.  There is a strong collection of modern works. It includes works by:

 Paul Cézanne – L'Après-midi à Naples (Afternoon in Naples)
 Claude Monet – Haystacks, Midday and Water Lilies
 Fernand Léger – Trapeze Artists
 Pablo Picasso - A complete set of the Vollard Suite
 Jackson Pollock – Blue Poles, Totem Lesson 2
 Willem de Kooning – Woman V
 Andy Warhol – Elvis, Electric Chair
 Mark Rothko – Multiform, Black, Brown on Maroon or Deep Red and Black
 Roy Lichtenstein – Kitchen Stove
 David Hockney – A Bigger Grand Canyon
 Lucian Freud – After Cézanne
 Henri Matisse - Oceania, the Sea, Oceania, the Sky
 Constantin Brâncuși - Bird in Space
 Albert Gleizes - Woman with Black Glove (Femme au gant noir)

The Gallery has a small collection of European Old Master paintings, which are on long-term loan to the National Gallery of Victoria and the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Eastern art
This includes:
 Tang Standing Horse figure, a Tang dynasty tomb figure.

Sculpture garden

The sculpture garden includes works by:

 Bert Flugelman – Cones
 Antony Gormley - Angel of the North (life-size maquette)
 Fujiko Nakaya – Fog sculpture, this only operates between noon and 2pm. It has been seen as a work of Gas sculpture.
 Henry Moore – Hill Arches
 Mark di Suvero – Ik Ook
 Auguste Rodin – The Burghers of Calais (1 of 12 sets)
 Aristide Maillol – La Montagne (The Mountain)
 Clement Meadmore – Virginia
 Barnett Newman – Broken Obelisk

See also

 Art of Australia
 Art Gallery of New South Wales, the major art gallery in Sydney
 Art Gallery of South Australia
 List of national galleries
 List of sculpture parks
 National Gallery of Australia Research Library
 National Gallery of Victoria, the major art gallery in Melbourne and Australia's oldest and largest public art gallery
 National Portrait Gallery, also in Canberra
 Sripuranthan Natarajan Idol, stolen art-work on display

References

Further reading
 - Includes link to PDF of the article "Art museums in Australia: a personal retrospect" (originally published in Journal of Art Historiography, No 4, June 2011).

External links

 A virtual walk through National Gallery of Australia - 2015
 Kenneth Tyler Printmaking Collection Online at the National Gallery of Australia

 National Gallery of Australia on Artabase
National Gallery of Australia within Google Arts & Culture

Commonwealth Government agencies of Australia
Art museums and galleries in Australia
Museums in Canberra
Brutalist architecture in Australia
National museums of Australia
Sculpture gardens, trails and parks in Australia
1982 establishments in Australia
Buildings and structures completed in 1982
Art museums established in 1982

National Gallery of Australia


Alan Reid (born 2 May 1950, Glasgow, Scotland) is a Scottish folk multi-instrumentalist and songwriter. He was a founding member of Battlefield Band, which combined traditional Celtic melodies and new material.

Biography

1969–2010: the Battlefield Band years
Alan Reid joined Battlefield Band in 1969, at a time when they were evolving into a folk group. From 1973, Battlefield Band quickly became pre-eminent in the emerging Scottish Traditional music scene, becoming established firmly at the forefront where they remain today. Battlefield Band made two albums with the Breton label Arfolk (released in 1976 & 1978) and three albums with the Topic label (released in 1977, 1978 & 1979) but since 1980 have recorded exclusively with Temple Records. Reid travelled the world with the band and has been involved in over 30 albums. Although the band's lineup changed many times, Reid was keyboarder and known as the "father and son" of Battlefield Band.

One of the many accomplishments credited to Alan Reid, is his use of keyboards in a Scottish folk band.  Starting first with a pump organ, then moving later to electronic keyboards, the sound originally garnered approval and momentary objection from fans and music writers alike.  But soon, the sound of the keyboards became part of the basic sound of Battlefield Band, and left the door open for other Celtic bands to tailor their sound to their taste.

In 1997, while remaining a member of Battlefield Band, Reid released his first solo album, The Sunlit Eye, on Temple Records. It featured brand new songs and tunes. In 2001, a song and tune book Martyrs Rogues and Worthies was released by Kinmor Music, the publishing arm of Temple Records. Reid also formed a duo with singer/guitarist Rob van Sante and released a CD in 2002 entitled Under The Blue which featured more new songs. He also appeared as guest singer in Vol. 1 and 2 of the Linn Records series of the complete works of Robert Burns. In 2009, he was nominated at the Scots Traditional Awards in the Composer of the Year category.

Reid is a prolific and fluid songwriter, his compositions full of imagery and stories of common folk and historical figures as well.  As interesting and moving as the stories are, his musical compositions leave the listener with a strong, memorable and very singable melody.

2010–present: Battlefield Band departure and duo with van Sante
After four decades (from 1969 to 2010) as an ever-present member of Battlefield Band, Reid decided that it was time to bow out in order to develop his writing and to follow other musical paths and partnerships. He left the band at the end of 2010 to concentrate on his musical duo with Rob van Sante who had also been Battlefield Band's sound engineer for a number of years.

In early 2011, the duo undertook a tour of Australia and New Zealand, guesting at Australia's National Folk Festival. Reid released an album with Rob on the life of the Scots born sailor John Paul Jones, an album for which he has written all the material.

In 2013, the duo embarked on several tours of Scotland, Germany and the United States and made some festival appearances in the UK and Europe.

In 2011, Reid released Recollection, a compilation album of the finest songs he wrote during his forty years with Battlefield Band.

In 2012, the duo released a third album The Adventures of John Paul Jones and in 2014 a fourth album Rough Diamonds .

In January 2015, the duo embarked on a US tour which ended on 1 February 2015. A North-America tour followed from 13 till 29 March 2015, visiting mainly Canada.

On 15 January 2016, the duo embarked on a 16-date US tour due to end on 7 February 2016.

Discography

Battlefield Band

All the Battlefield Band albums from 1976's Scottish Folk (Arfolk SB349) (re-released as Farewell to Nova Scotia on Escalibur Records) up to 2009's Zama Zama...Try Your Luck... (Temple Records COMD2102)

Solo
1997 The Sunlit Eye (Temple Records) (studio album)
2011 Recollection (Temple Records) (compilation)

Alan Reid and Brian McNeill Duo albums
1981 Sidetracks

Alan Reid and Rob van Sante Duo albums
2001 Under the Blue (Red Sands Records RSCD 001)
2009 The Rise and Fall o' Charlie (Red Sands Records RSCD 002)
2012 The Adventures of John Paul Jones (Red Sands Records RSCD 003)
2014 Rough Diamonds  (Red Sands Records RSCD 004)

Guest appearances
Tuomas Holopainen – Music Inspired by the Life and Times of Scrooge (2014)

References

External links
 Alan Reid Official website
 Temple Records

1950 births
Living people
20th-century Scottish male singers
Scottish male songwriters
Scottish folk musicians
Battlefield Band members
Topic Records artists
21st-century Scottish male singers
British male songwriters

Alan Reid (musician)


Washington Ellsworth Lindsey (December 20, 1862 – April 5, 1926) was an American politician and the third governor of New Mexico.

Biography
Lindsey was born near Armstrongs Mills, Ohio on December 20, 1862. He was the son of Robert Washington and Julia Anne (Shipman) Lindsey. He graduated from Scio College in 1884. He then worked as a teacher in Ohio, New York, and Illinois. He attended the University of Michigan and completed his LL.B. degree in 1891.

Lindsey practiced law for ten years in Chicago, Illinois before moving to Portales, New Mexico. He was a Republican and served as United States Commissioner in 1900, County Clerk of Roosevelt County from 1903 to 1905, Assistant District Attorney in Roosevelt County from 1905 to 1909, Mayor of Portales from 1909 to 1910 and a Member of the State Constitutional Convention from 1910 to 1912. He was elected lieutenant governor of New Mexico in 1916.

Governor Ezequiel C. de Baca died in office on February 18, 1917. Lindsey, who was the lieutenant governor, assumed the duties of the governorship. During Lindsey's term in office, First World War measures were initiated, the 'Australian ballot' system was promoted and a corrupt practices bill was lobbied for. Lindsey left office on January 1, 1919.

After serving as governor, Lindsey resumed his private career, primarily working as an attorney. In 1924 he served as a delegate to the Republican National Convention, at which Calvin Coolidge received the party's nomination as presidential candidate.

Lindsey died in Portales, New Mexico on April 5, 1926. He is buried in Portales Cemetery.

References

Further reading
 Sobel, Robert and John Raimo. Biographical Directory of the Governors of the United States, 1789-1978. Greenwood Press, 1988.

1862 births
1926 deaths
American Congregationalists
Republican Party governors of New Mexico
People from Allen County, Ohio
University of Michigan Law School alumni
People from Portales, New Mexico
People of the New Mexico Territory

Washington Ellsworth Lindsey


There were a series of suicide bombings targeting Christians and tourists in Sri Lanka, on Easter Sunday 2019 (21 April). Three churches and three luxury hotels in the Colombo area were targeted. Eight bombers killed 269 people and themselves. At least 500 people were wounded. There were also smaller bombings in other locations. One of the churches was Protestant; the other two were Catholic.

The bombings happened at nearly the same time. At least two of the bombings appeared to have been suicide attacks.

The ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attacks, along with a religious extremist group called National Thowheeth Jama'ath whose members, including its president, Zahran Hashim carried out the attack. There were some arrests in connection with the bombings.

There are many ethnic and religious groups in Sri Lanka. There has been a lot of violence between different groups. Most people in Sri Lanka are Buddhist. About ten percent are Muslims, and about 7.5 per cent are Christian (about 80% of them are Catholics; the remaining 20% are evenly split between Anglicans and other Protestants).

Most victims are from Sri Lanka. Between 20 and 30 foreigners were killed.

According to the government reports, all of the suicide bombers in the attacks were Sri Lankan citizens. The government said, they were associated with National Thowheeth Jamaath , a local militant Islamist group previously known for attacks against Buddhists.

2019 murders in Asia
2019 explosions in Asia
2019 Easter bombings
April 2019 events
Attacks on churches
Attacks on hotels
Attacks on buildings and structures in 2019
Attacks on religious buildings and structures in Asia

Islamic State
Islamic terrorist incidents in 2019
Islamic terrorist incidents in Asia
Mass murder in 2019
2010s massacres in Asia
Suicide bombings in 2019
Suicide bombings in Asia
Terrorist incidents in Asia in 2019

2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings


The British Aerospace P.125 was a British supersonic STOVL multirole combat aircraft being developed in the 1980s. The project was cancelled in the 1990s. The existence of the project was revealed by BAE Systems in 2006.

Development

The British Hawker P.1154 was one of several solutions submitted by European countries to the 1960 NATO NBMR-3 requirement for a supersonic strike fighter.  1960 also saw the first flight of the subsonic VSTOL Hawker P.1127.  The P.1154 was cancelled in 1965, but studies continued into the possibility that the Harrier or Jaguar could be replaced by a supersonic STOVL aircraft.

In the 1980s the British MoD and the US DoD both conducted studies into lift jet solutions. The US studies eventually led to the F-35 Lightning II. In 1988 the Tornado-sized P.125 design was intended to meet the requirements for a supersonic stealthy STOVL interdictor. There were to be non-STOVL and STOVL variants of the P.125. Both had a single reheated (afterburning) turbofan with a vectorable rear nozzle. The STOVL variant would have maintained vertical flight using three jet lift nozzles. The pilot of the P.125 would have sat highly reclined and would not have had direct sight of the outside world. In the 1990s the UK government decided to join the JSF (now F-35) programme rather than continue the P.125.

See also

Notes

References

P.125
1990s British experimental aircraft
VTOL aircraft
Cancelled military aircraft projects of the United Kingdom
1990s British fighter aircraft

British Aerospace P.125


Gold Mind Records was the record label of guitarist Norman Harris, distributed via Salsoul Records.

Many of the early Gold Mind tracks were  amalgamated by DJ Walter Gibbons. These tracks date from the late 1970s; a couple of years later, Salsoul (with the help of Shep Pettibone) would revive some of the Gold Mind tracks like First Choice's "Doctor Love" and "Let No Man Put Asunder", and Loleatta Holloway's "Love Sensation" for the early 1980s dance jams auditions. These were opened on Salsoul and Larry Levan chose "Double Cross" and "The Greatest Performance Of My Life" for his Larry Levan's Greatest Mixes Volume Two.

"Love Thang" was Tee Scott's first ever mix.

Other notable songs from the Gold Mind catalogue include Holloway's "Dreaming", Love Committee's "Just As Long As I Got You", and "Hit and Run".

See also
 List of record labels

Defunct record labels of the United States
Vanity record labels

Gold Mind Records


ASCII (pronounced "az-kee", "ass-key" if American), is a table of characters for computers. It is binary code used by electronic equipment to handle text using the English alphabet, numbers, and other common symbols. ASCII is an abbreviation for American Standard Code for Information Interchange.
ASCII was developed in the 1960s and was based on earlier codes used by telegraph systems.

The code includes definitions for 128 characters, which are assigned numbers from 0 to 127. Numbers 32 to 126 stand for letters, numbers and symbols such as abc, ABC, 123, and ?&!. Numbers 0 to 31 and the number 127 stand for characters that control how text is processed and are not printed.

ASCII uses 7 binary digits (bits) to represent characters. The bits 1000001 (65 in normal base-10 numbers) represent the upper-case letter A, 1000010 represents B, 1000011 represents C, and so on. Using the table below, you can look up a number in the Decimal column and see the character it represents in the Char column. Programmers often use hexadecimal (base-16 numbers), and you can look that up in the Hex column.

An ASCII computer file uses one byte for each character. A byte has 8 bits, so can hold an ASCII character with one bit spare. In the past, the spare bit was sometimes used as a parity bit to help check if the data had been corrupted.

ASCII has no formatting control (for bold or Italics, etc.)  Sometimes someone talks about a file or document in ASCII, meaning it is in plain text.

Standard ASCII is still commonly used, particularly in computer software and HTML files. Until 2010 it was the standard for URLs. Often a web site that has fields for entering text will only take ASCII text. Any special markups for bold or centered text, etc. will show up incorrectly.

Extended ASCII

ASCII does not have diacritics (marks that are added to a letter, like the dots (umlauts) above vowels in German, or the tilde (~) above the 'n' for the 'ñ' used in Spanish). It was only meant for English and doesn't work well for most other languages. Some English words borrowed from other languages use these marks as well, like resumé (see Appendix:English words with diacritics).

This led to some systems using 8 bits (a full byte) instead of 7 bits. The proper name for systems that use 8 bits is called extended ASCII. Eight bits allows for 256 characters. The first 128 characters must be the same as for ASCII and the rest are usually used for alphabetic letters with accents, for example like É, È, Î and Ü. This solves the problem for a few languages that are based on the Latin alphabet, although not all extended ASCII systems are the same. Other alphabets, like the Greek alphabet, Cyrillic alphabet need a different set of characters. And some systems like those using Chinese characters still do not work, as they use thousands of characters. So Unicode was created to have one common system for all languages.

References

Other websites
 Make ASCII art Convert a graphic into ASCII
 ASCII Table with explanations

Data input
Encodings

ASCII


John Anthony Thwaites (21 January 1909 - 21 November 1981) was a British art critic and author, who lived and worked in West Germany from 1946.

Biography
Thwaites studied history at the universities of Lausanne and Cambridge. From 1931 he was a member of the British Foreign Service, and worked until 1943 as a British vice-consul in Hamburg, New York, Chicago, Katowice, León (Mexico) and Panama. In 1946 he was posted from London to the British Consulate in Munich.

Thwaites worked as an art critic from 1933 onwards. He also started collecting works by modern masters such as Paul Klee, Kandinsky and Henry Moore. This came to a premature end in 1939 when he had to abandon his entire collection in his then apartment in Katowice due to the German invasion of Poland.

In 1949 he left the Foreign Service and devoted himself to establishing modern art in West Germany, lecturing, writing for a number of newspapers and giving slideshows. He cofounded with the painter Rupprecht Geiger the group Zen 49. As German correspondent of Art and Artists (London), of Art News and Pictures on Exhibit (New York), among others, he worked to restore German art to the international standing he felt it deserved. Living in Düsseldorf from 1955 he supported the artists of Gruppe 53 and ZERO. In the seventies he worked as a lecturer at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and did radio broadcasts for Westdeutscher Rundfunk.

Work
Thwaites viewed art as a mirror revealing the human experience of any epoch. According to him true artists are those who truthfully and originally interpret that reality, in contrast with "shameless epigones" whom he believed to be just chasing after success by following trends. His bête noire was Joseph Beuys, who was not an artist in his opinion, but a demagogue and seducer whom he eventually compared with Hitler.

As a critic Thwaites was a moralist. In 1961 he wrote in the German paper Deutsche Zeitung (Stuttgart/Köln):

A critic must be capable of rubbishing his personal friends and praise artists he personally dislikes. He should, if need be, harm himself. He must never write for personal advantage. Power and position are corrupting even as money. When critics protect each other and each other's protégés they create an intellectual corruption that will strangle art.

Books
Ich hasse die Moderne Kunst. ("I Hate Modern Art") Ullstein, Frankfurt 1960.
Norbert Kricke. Thames and Hudson, London 1964.
Der doppelte Maßstab. ("The Double Gauge") Seide, Frankfurt 1967.
Hans Kaiser, Cologne 1979.

References

English art critics
1909 births
1981 deaths
Academic staff of Kunstakademie Düsseldorf
English male non-fiction writers
20th-century English male writers
British emigrants to Germany

John Anthony Thwaites