Gerson von Bleichröder (22 December 1822 – 18 February 1893) was a Jewish German banker.

Bleichröder was born in Berlin. He was the eldest son of Samuel Bleichröder, who founded the banking firm of S. Bleichröder in 1803 in Berlin.  Gerson first joined the family business in 1839.  In 1855 upon the death of his father, Gerson became the head of the banking firm.  The bank maintained close contacts with the Rothschild family; the banking house of Bleichröder acted as a branch office in Berlin of the Rothschilds' bank.

Traditionally, the Rothschilds represented the banking interests of the Austrian-controlled  German Confederation in Europe.  In the conflict between the rapidly rising and expanding nation of Kingdom of Prussia and the "pro-Austrian" German Confederation, the Rothschild Bank was largely caught in an uncomfortable position in the middle of the conflict.

Meeting Bismarck
Since 1851, Otto von Bismarck had been serving as the Prussian ambassador to the German Confederation headquartered at Frankfurt-am-Main, a free city of the Confederation in what is now western Germany.  However, in March 1858, Bismarck was appointed ambassador to the Russian Empire.  In one of his last actions before leaving Frankfurt for St. Petersburg, Russia, Bismarck consulted Baron Mayer Carl von Rothschild for the name of a banker in Berlin to whom he could turn for personal as well as Prussian state business.  Just why Bismarck would turn to the Rothschild Bank to supply him with the name of a competing bank to whom Bismarck and the Prussian nation could turn may not be as hard to understand as first thought.  Everyone in Frankfurt knew that the Prussian nation would have to distance themselves from the Rothschild Bank given the Rothschilds' close diplomatic relations with Prussia's main rival—Austria-Hungary.  Yet neither Bismarck nor the Prussian nation wanted to burn their bridges and totally alienate the Rothschilds.  What better way to avoid this fissure with the Rothschilds than to ask the Rothschilds to provide the name of an alternative bank.

Rothschild gave the name of Gerson Bleichröder, who took over Bismarck's private banking transactions as well as the transfer of credits and/or placing of loans on behalf of the Prussian state and the German Empire. Thus, Bleichröder became intimately involved with not only Bismarck but also with the inner dynamics of the unification of Germany.

Unification of the German States
Over the decades since the life of Bismarck, it has become an article of faith among German historians that Bismarck, himself, was the agent most responsible for the unification of Germany under the Prussian throne.  This proposition, based on the "Great Man Theory" of history has been effectively challenged by recent historians.  Importantly, German economic historian Helmut Böhme argued that the Zollverein customs union of northern Germany, not Bismarck, was the most important agent in unifying Germany.

Consider the largely German-speaking territory in the middle of Europe at the end of the Napoleonic Era.  There was no single German state.  Rather there was a vast patchwork of small principalities, dukedoms and kingdoms.  As the largest and most powerful of the German-speaking states in middle Europe, the Austrian Empire assumed the role of leader of all the German-speaking states of middle Europe.  The Congress of Vienna in 1815 established the German Confederation which organized nearly all of the German-speaking states under the control of the dual authority of Austria and Prussia.  However, Prussia was clearly the weaker power in this dual authority within the German Confederation.  Economically, the Austrian Empire-based itself on the landowning aristocracy.  This landowning aristocracy required the Austrian state to maintain high tariffs against the cheap imports of raw farm products.  This kept prices of food products within the Austrian Empire higher than in other areas of Europe.  Prussia, because of its location near the Baltic Sea was an up-and-coming power in Europe based on the new economy of trade, commerce and manufacturing.   As an economy based largely on trade, the Prussian economy thrived only when barriers to trade were reduced—barriers like high protective tariffs on imports from other countries.  Accordingly, Prussia united with other German states in 1818 to form a customs union—the Zollverein.  The states which joined the Zollverein were other German states who profited from trade and who thus favored low tariffs or even "free trade".  Generally, the states that joined the Zollverein were located in the northern part of the German-speaking region of Europe.  The Zollverein was a Prussian-dominated economic union of German-speaking states.

Because of the rising power of the Zollverein, Frederick William IV (1795-1861), king of Prussia from the death of his father in 1840  until 1861, began to entertain visions of a new political union of German states which would grow out of the Zollverein.  The Austrian-controlled German Confederation had been disbanded during the Revolution of 1848.  Frederick William IV's chief minister from April 25, 1849, until November 1850,  was General Joseph von Radowitz.   Radowitz now sought to establish a new Prussian-dominated union to replace the old German Confederation.  In October 1850, an agreement was made to have an assembly of all German states meet in the city of Erfurt, Germany to form this "Prussian Union."  At the time of the Erfurt Union, Bismarck did not have any use for the proposed union of German states under Prussian leadership.  Just why Bismarck of all people would refuse to support a unification in Germany under Prussian leadership in 1850 and just ten years later become the chief spokesman for just such a Prussian-led union of German states is curious, but as strong as the Zollverein was in 1850, the customs union, by 1860, had become much more influential over the economies of its members.

Between 1850 and 1860, the members of the Zollverein adopted a common currency, a common postal system and a common commercial code.  Later the Zollverein signed various reciprocal treaties with nations outside the customs union, culminating in the signing of a reciprocal treaty with France in 1862.  From this position of power, the Zollverein brought about the rapid industrialization of northern Germany and became a prime reason for Prussian involvement in the Second Schleswig-Holstein War of 1864.  As result of that war, two predominately German-speaking duchies, Schleswig and Holstein were ceded by Denmark and annexed by Prussia and Austria.  Another war, the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, and the dramatic military defeat of Austria at the Battle of Sadowa, resulted in both Schleswig and Holstein being ceded to Prussia alone.  Neither of these duchies had much in the way of mineral wealth or industry.  Even as late as the middle of the twentieth century, both duchies remained predominately rural with only 24% of the total population living in the main cities of Kiel ( 1950 pop. 218,335) and Lubeck (1950 pop. 133,021).  However, the duchies were to have a great impact on the industrialization of northern Germany because of their location and topography.  As early as 1784, a canal had been operating across the "neck" of the Jutland Peninsula on which Denmark is located.  This canal was known as the Eider Canal because it largely followed the winding Eider River across the Jutland Peninsula.  The Eider Canal saved a great deal of time and money in eliminating the need of ships to sail the long and dangerous way around the Jutland Peninsula to deliver cargo from the Baltic Sea to the North Sea or vice versa.  However, by 1860, shipping had gone from sail to steam and the Eider canal had been largely outdated.  Accordingly, rebuilding of the Eider Canal or construction of a new canal was drastically needed.  After the annexation of Schleswig by Prussia, the Prussian government set about improving the Eider Canal by building a new canal along a shorter, more direct route and by widening the canal to fit modern ships.  Commercial pressure encouraged the development of the new canal which, when completed in 1887, was named the Kaiser Willhelm Canal.  Indeed, the economic motivation behind the canal most probably was the main motivation for the war on Denmark in the first place.

The Schleswig-Holstein War of 1864 was the first of three wars which are credited with bringing about the unification of Germany into a single state under the authority of the Prussian crown.  The second war was the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 and the third and final war was the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.  In January 1871, a ceremony was held in Versailles which made William I of Prussia the German Emperor of the now unified German Empire.  This, then, is the background of the building of the German Empire against which the relationship of Gerson Bleichröder and Otto von Bismarck played itself out.

Banker for Bismarck and the Prussian State

Gerson Bleichröder served Bismarck at several crucial points during the period of time that Bismarck was the chief minister to the Prussian king.  As a result of the Schleswig War of 1864, Prussia and Austria, as joint victors in that war, were awarded the two German-speaking duchies of Schleswig and Holstein on August 1, 1864.   Prussia annexed the more northern duchy of Schleswig, while Austria was given annexation control over the more southern duchy of Holstein.  Austria did not share any border with the newly acquired duchies, but the duchy of Holstein was located between Schleswig to the north and Prussian-controlled territories to the south.  Austria sought to create difficulties for its up-and-coming rival—Prussia—by entertaining the idea of inviting the heir of the deposed House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg—Duke Frederick VIII of Augustenburg—back to administer the Holstein duchy.  This solution was intolerable to Prussia because the Duke of Augustenburg was related to the royal family of Denmark.  The fear was that this would have brought Danish troops right back to same frontier that they had occupied prior to the war.  Furthermore, the Prussian-annexed Schleswig duchy (where the Prussian government was intending to upgrade the Kiel Canal) would be isolated from the rest of Prussian Germany.

Accordingly, a plan was developed for Prussia to purchase all Austrian "rights" to the duchies before any transfer of those rights could be made to Duke Frederick.  The deal had a good chance of succeeding because the Austria Empire was in financial trouble at the time. Gerson Bleichröder opened secret negotiations with Moritz Ritter von Goldschmidt to pay a large sum of money to Austria for any and all rights to the two duchies of Holstein and Schleswig.  In the end, the administration of Holstein was not settled until 1866, after the Austro-Prussian War.

Meanwhile, Bismarck still faced the problem of raising money to pay for the Schleswig-Holstein War.  To be sure, the victory in that war had brought glory to Bismarck and the Prussian nation.  However, the elected United Prussian Diet which had the authority to raise public funds to pay for the war was still dragging its feet about paying for the Schleswig War despite the glory to the Prussian nation. Furthermore, Bismarck as a monarchist had long detested elected parliaments of all kinds and he especially hated going "hat in hand" to the United Diet to beg for money.  Accordingly, Gerson Bleichröder developed several plans by which money could be raised without going to the United Diet.  For instance there was the Preussische Seenhandlung, a bank that had been founded by Frederick the Great in 1772, that still operated as an independent institute under the Prussian throne.  Money could be raised by the king independently of the Diet by either selling shares of the bank or by arranging a bond issue through the bank.  In the summer of 1865, the Rothschild Bank, working through Gerson Bleichröder, underwrote an entire public offering of bonds against the government shares of Seehandlung.

Furthermore, much of the railroad-building in Germany had been done with public funds.  In exchange for the public funds the government had taken part ownership in the railways.  Consequently, by 1860, the government had a large investment in all the railroads in Germany.  One of these railroads was the Cologne-Minden Railroad.  Gerson Bleichröder just happened be the banker for the Cologne-Minden Railroad and sat on the Board of Directors of the railroad.  Once again the government could sell its shares in this railroad or establish a loan with the government shares as collateral.   In the end the government shares in the Cologne-Minden Railroad were sold to raise money independently of the United Diet.

The spectacular victory of the Prussian Army at the battle of Sadowa (Könnigrätz), on July 3, 1866, during the Austro-Prussian War, changed the entire face of Europe.  Many of the small German states flocked to the banner of Prussia by joining the new Prussian-led North German Confederation which was formed in April 1867.  No longer merely an economic union like the Zollverein, the North German Confederation had a constitution and a democratically elected Reichstag based on universal popular  sovereignty.  Inside the North German Confederation, the German nation was completely integrated under Prussian rule.  However, the three large south-German states of Bavaria, Württemberg and Baden remained outside of the Confederation.  These German states hoped to remain independent of the Confederation and had looked to Austria for protection from forced absorption into the Prussian-dominated Confederation.  However, since the utter defeat of the Austrians at the battle of Sadowa, the three south-German states had begun to look to an alliance of Austria and France as their only protection.  Thus, war clouds rose again as Prussia began to see France as the major obstacle to unification of all Germany under the Prussian throne.  It has been a matter of dispute between recent German historians as to whether Bismarck wanted war with France or not.  Some historians feel that Bismarck was forced into a war he did not want.  Others view Bismarck as actively pushing war with France continuously from the time of the Battle of Sadowa.  The reason there are no clear historical records to resolve this conflict is that whatever Bismarck's views on war with France, he insisted on keeping his views very much private.  What contacts he had with France regarding the political situation were made in a furtive way.  Once again he turned to Gerson Bleichröder to handle these back-channel communications with the French government.  During July 1870, Bleichröder was in frequent contact with the Rothchilds in Paris—bankers to Napoleon III and the French government—to ascertain Napoleon's true intentions with regard to war.

As the chief banker for Bismarck and the Prussian state, Gerson Bleichröder was also in a position to help several influential German families in their hour of need.  In 1868, an ambitious 915-mile railroad project in Rumania, which would link the Rumanian capital, Bucharest, with all other major parts of the country, was touted to investors by financier Bethel Henry Strousberg.  However, in 1871, while construction of the railway was underway, the consortium headed by Strussberg went into bankruptcy.  In order to help a few prominent German families out of their rash and speculative investments in the Strussberg consortium, the entire Strussberg consortium was purchased out of bankruptcy by another consortium headed by Gerson Bleichröder and supported by Otto von Bismarck.  As a result, Gerson Bleichröder became an accepted part of even non-Jewish and often anti-Semitic German society.  He became a partner at the investment bank of Ladenburg Thalmann. Bleichröder and his family were made Prussian nobles on 8 March 1872, in Berlin. Bleichröder was only the second Jew in Prussia to be ennobled.  Bleichröder was preceded only by Abraham Oppenheim, another banker close to the regime, ennobled four years earlier.

The German-American historian Fritz Stern wrote a double-biography of Otto von Bismarck and Gerson von Bleichröder, Gold and Iron: Bismarck, Bleichröder, and the Building of the German Empire .

See also
Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder, an investment bank.

Notes

External links

Literature on an about Gerson Bleichröeder in the catalog of the DDB

1822 births
1893 deaths
Bleichröder family
19th-century German Jews
Court Jews
German bankers
German untitled nobility
Prussian nobility
Businesspeople from Berlin
People from the Province of Brandenburg
Burials at Schönhauser Allee Cemetery, Berlin
19th-century German businesspeople

Gerson von Bleichröder


Flying G-Men is a 15-episode 1939 adventure film Film serial, directed by James W. Horne and Ray Taylor. The serial was the sixth of the 57 serials released by Columbia. Four "Flying G-Men" battle with enemy saboteurs intent on destroying American military defences.

Plot
Three government aviators, Hal Andrews (Robert Paige), Bart Davis (Richard Fiske) and John Cummings (James Craig) called the "Flying G-Men", one of whom is disguised as "The Black Falcon" (Robert Paige), fight to protect the United States and its allies from an enemy spy ring and to avenge the death of the fourth Flying G-Man, Charles Bronson (Stanley Brown).

Bronson was killed when he attempted to stop enemy agents from stealing the new McKay military aircraft, designed by Billy McKay (Sammy McKim). The Junior Air Defenders are also enlisted to help the Flying G-Men.

A plot to infiltrate all military factories and airports is discovered but the spy chief called "The Professor"(Forbes Murray) is unknown. Suspecting Marvin Brewster, the owner of Brewster  Airport, a local airfield, is The Professor, the G-Men find that he has kidnapped Babs McKay (Lorna Gray). They follow him to the spy hideout to capture Brewster and rescue Babs.

Chapter titles
 Challenge in the Sky
 Flight of the Condemned
 The Vulture's Nest
 The Falcon Strikes
 Flight from Death
 Phantom of the Sky
 Trapped by Radio
 The Midnight Watch
 Wings of Terror
 Flaming Wreckage
 While a Nation Sleeps
 Sealed Orders
 Flame Island
 Jaws of Death
 The Falcon's Reward
Source:

Cast

 Robert Paige as Hal Andrews, Flying G-Man, and "The Black Falcon"
 Richard Fiske as Bart Davis, Flying G-Man
 James Craig as John Cummings, Flying G-Man
 Lorna Gray as Babs McKay
 Sammy McKim as Billy McKay
 Stanley Brown as Charles Bronson, Flying G-Man
 Don Beddoe as W. S. Hamilton
 Forbes Murray as Marvin Brewster and The Professor, the villainous owner of a local airport
 Lee Prather as Simmons
 Beatrice Blinn as Brewster's secretary
 Ann Doran as Hamilton's secretary
 Dick Curtis as Korman, a henchman
 Eddie Laughton as Hall, a henchman
 John Tyrrell as Williams
 Eddie Fetherston as Borden, a geologist

Production
Flying G-Men had the services of noted aerial stunt pilot and cinematographer Paul Mantz who flew a Lockheed Sirius and Ryan ST. Mantz was a prolific Hollywood "stunt" pilot, although he preferred to call himself a "precision pilot".

Reception
Film reviewer Jerry Blake in The Files of Jerry Blake described Flying G-Men serial as "... the least interesting of Columbia's five in-house serial productions (the other four being 'Great Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok', 'The Spider's Web', 'Overland With Kit Carson', and 'Mandrake the Magician') ... its action scenes are uneven, its lead villains weak, and its plotting often disjointed. However, it remains watchable and enjoyable throughout, thanks to an extremely likeable group of heroes and an unfailingly fast pace."

According to many serial and comics historians, the Black Falcon character is a precursor to Blackhawk, including author William Schoell who said, "It is hard not to notice the resemblance between the Black Falcon and comic books' Blackhawk, but the latter character did not actually appear until 1941 [Republic did a serial version of Blackhawk in 1952], meaning the Black Falcon came first."

See also
 List of American films of 1939
List of film serials by year
List of film serials by studio

References

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

 Cline, William C. "Filmography". In the Nick of Time. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 1984. .
 Farmer, James H. Celluloid Wings: The Impact of Movies on Aviation. Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania: Tab Books Inc., 1984. .
 Rainey, Buck. Serials and Series: A World Filmography, 1912–1956. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2010. .
 Weiss, Ken and Ed Goodgold. To be Continued ...: A Complete Guide to Motion Picture Serials. New York: Bonanza Books, 1973. .
 Wynne, H. Hugh. The Motion Picture Stunt Pilots and Hollywood's Classic Aviation Movies. Missoula, Montana: Pictorial Histories Publishing Co., 1987. .

External links

1939 films
1930s English-language films
American black-and-white films
American aviation films
Columbia Pictures film serials
Films directed by James W. Horne
Films directed by Ray Taylor
American action adventure films
1930s action adventure films
1930s American films

Flying G-Men


Amory Bloch Lovins is Chairman and Chief Scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute.  For four decades he has worked in energy policy and related areas.

Lovins worked professionally as an environmentalist in the 1970s and since then as an analyst of a "soft energy path" for the United States and other nations. He has promoted energy efficiency, the use of renewable energy sources, and the generation of energy at or near the site where the energy is actually used.   Lovins has also promoted a "negawatt revolution" arguing that utility customers do not want kilowatt-hours of electricity; they want energy services.  In the 1990s, his work with Rocky Mountain Institute included the design of an ultra-efficient automobile, the Hypercar.

Lovins has received ten honorary doctorates and won many awards. He has provided expert testimony in eight countries, briefed 19 heads of state, and published 29 books. These books include Winning the Oil Endgame, Small is Profitable, Factor Four, and Natural Capitalism. In 2009, Time magazine named Lovins as one of the world's 100 most influential people.

Related pages
Christopher Flavin
Energy conservation
Renewable energy commercialization
Joseph Romm
Mycle Schneider
World Nuclear Industry Status Report

Other websites
 The Rocky Mountain Institute's home page
 20 Hydrogen myths  - published by the Rocky Mountain Institute
 The Nuclear Illusion
 Lectures series on energy efficiency , March 2007
 The Volvo Environment Prize is awarded to Amory B. Lovins
 Amory Lovins Profile Page
The frugal cornucopian
 The Heinz Awards, Amory Lovins profile
 Congressional testimony on nuclear power

Energy
Environment
American physicists
Scientists from Washington, D.C.
1947 births
Living people

Amory Lovins


There are different ideas of freedom. In terms of politics, there are various large movements:
 Liberalism thinks that the freedom of each person is important. Things such as human rights, or a number of freedoms guaranteed by a constitution are achievements of liberal thinkers.
 Anarchism is against all forms of government. Anarchists think there should be no government.
 Conservatism thinks that the current institutions and organisation are a result of culture. It thinks that the concepts that are there are not bad, and that new structures and ideas should build on them.
 Socialism and Communism think that the working class has been exploited. According to Karl Marx personal liberty has been exchanged for the exchange of goods and services.
 Nationalism tries to put the own people first. One's own people should have the right to not be oppressed.
 In Totalitarianism, there's one leader (or a very small group of people) who determines what is good for the people.

Community
Human rights
Law
Liberalism
Political philosophy
Rights

Political freedom


Kajsa Anna-Karin Linnéa Ernst, (born 4 August 1962) is a Swedish actress. She started acting at the age of sixteen at Nöjesteatern in Malmö and studied at Teaterhögskolan in Malmö. After graduating she worked for ten years at Helsingborgs stadsteater. There she acted in several plays such as Byggmästare Solness, Spindelkvinnans kyss and Knäckebröd och hovmästarsås. In 1982 she danced balet at plays for Nils Poppe at Fredriksdalsteatern, and in 1990 she played a role in the play Två man och en änka at the same theater. She would appear in the filmatization of the play in 2013.

In 1998, Ernst moved to Stockholm. She made her film debut in Kjell Sundvalls In Bed with Santa in 1999, she has then moved on to act in films such as Miffo in 2003, Masjävlar in 2004 for which she won a Guldbagge award, and also in the film Järnets änglar.

Kajsa Ernst was married to actor and director Göran Stangertz from 2009 and until his death in 2012.

References

External links

Living people
1962 births
Swedish actresses
Actresses from Gothenburg

Kajsa Ernst


The Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory is an American  astronomical observatory owned and operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO); it is their largest field installation outside of their main site in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  It is located near Amado, Arizona on the summit, a ridge and at the foot of Mount Hopkins.

Research activities include imaging and spectroscopy of extragalactic, stellar, solar system and extra-solar bodies, as well as gamma-ray and cosmic-ray astronomy.

History
In 1966, roadwork began on the current site with funding granted for the Smithsonian Mt. Hopkins Observatory. The Whipple 10-meter gamma-ray telescope was constructed in 1968.

Formerly known as The Mount Hopkins Observatory, the observatory was renamed in late 1981 in honor of Fred Lawrence Whipple, noted planetary expert, space science pioneer, and director emeritus of SAO, under whose leadership the Arizona facility was established.

Equipment

Whipple observatory hosts the MMT Observatory, which is jointly run by SAO and the University of Arizona and houses a 6.5-meter telescope. The observatory also has 1.5- and 1.2-meter reflectors and a second 1.3-meter reflector named PAIRITEL (Peters Automated IR Imaging Telescope, ex-2MASS ). Also on site is the HATNet (Hungarian-made Automated Telescope) network, the MEarth Project, and four 0.7-meter telescopes of the automated Miniature Exoplanet Radial Velocity Array (MINERVA).

The observatory is known for its pioneering work in ground-based gamma-ray astronomy through the development of the Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Technique (IACT) with the Whipple 10-meter Telescope during the early 1980s. The Whipple 10-meter is currently preparing to be decommissioned after forty years of service.

In April 2007, VERITAS (a system of 4 IACT telescopes with 12-meter reflectors) started full operations at the FLWO basecamp. Subsequently, in September 2009, after a 4-month effort, one of the telescopes was moved to a new position, making the array symmetric and increasing its sensitivity.

See also
List of astronomical observatories
Whipple (spacecraft)

References

External links

 Arizona.edu: Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory
 Harvard.edu: Whipple Observatory Visitor's Center

Astronomical observatories in Arizona
Santa Rita Mountains
Science museums in Arizona
Museums in Santa Cruz County, Arizona
Buildings and structures in Santa Cruz County, Arizona
Smithsonian Institution research programs
Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
1968 establishments in Arizona
Research institutes in Arizona

Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory


The Ruhr is a river in western Germany (North Rhine-Westphalia), a right tributary (east-side) of the Rhine.

Description and history

The source of the Ruhr is near the town of Winterberg in the mountainous Sauerland region, at an elevation of approximately . It flows into the lower Rhine at an elevation of only  in the municipal area of Duisburg. Its total length is , its average discharge is  at Mülheim near its mouth. Thus, its discharge is, for example, comparable to that of the river Ems in Northern Germany or the River Thames in the United Kingdom.

The Ruhr first passes the towns of Meschede, Arnsberg, Wickede, Fröndenberg, Holzwickede, Iserlohn, and Schwerte. Then the river marks the southern limit of the Ruhr area, passing Hagen, Dortmund, Herdecke, Wetter, Witten, Bochum, Hattingen, Essen, Mülheim, and Duisburg.

The Ruhr area was Germany's primary industrial area during the early- to mid-20th century. Most factories were located there. The occupation of the Ruhr from 1923-24 by French forces, due to the Weimar Republic's failure to continue paying reparations from World War I, provoked passive resistance, which saw production in the factories grind to a halt. As a result, the German hyperinflation crisis grew even worse.

During World War II, two of the dams on the Ruhr, the Möhne Dam and the Sorpe Dam were targets for Operation Chastise, in which special "bouncing bombs" were developed to take out the dams and flood the valley, with the hope of seriously affecting the German industries there. The story was told in a 1951 book and the popular 1955 film made from it, The Dam Busters.

Lakes

There are five Ruhr reservoirs on the river, often used for leisure activities.

 Hengsteysee between Dortmund and Hagen, surface area: 1.36 km² height of the weir 4.5m
 Harkortsee between Herdecke and Wetter; surface area: 1.37 km², height of the weir 7.8m
 Kemnader See between Witten and Bochum; surface area: 1.25 km², height of the weir 2m
 Baldeneysee in Essen-Werden; surface area: 2.64 km², height of the weir 8.5m
 Kettwiger See in Essen-Kettwig; surface area: 0.55 km², height of the weir 6m

Tributaries
The main tributaries of the Ruhr are (from source to mouth):
Left: Berkelbach, Voßmecke, Neger, Elpe, Valme, Nierbach, Henne, Kelbke, Wenne, Mühlenbach, Röhr, Bachumer Bach, Haßbach, Scheebach, Wimberbach, Hönne, Abbabach, Baarbach, Elsebach, Wannebach (Ergste), Lenne, Volme, Sprockhöveler Bach, Deilbach, Oefter Bach, Rinderbach

Right: Hillebach, Gierskoppbach, Gebke (Meschede), Kleine Gebke, Gebke (Wennemen), Wanne, Möhne, Wannebach (Westhofen), Borbach, Wannenbach, Hörsterholzer Bach, Knöselsbach, Rumbach

See also
Ruhr (area)
Occupation of the Ruhr (1923–1924)
Nearby rivers: Rhine, Lippe, Emscher
Ruhrpolen: the Poles of the Ruhr

References
Notes

Sources

External links

Rivers of North Rhine-Westphalia

Rivers of Germany

Ruhr (river)


Eastleigh is a town in Hampshire, England, between Southampton and Winchester. It was originally developed as a railway town by the London and South Western Railway.

The town lies on the River Itchen, one of England's premier chalk streams for fly fishing, and a designated site of Special Scientific Interest.

Towns in Hampshire

Eastleigh


Firstborn is a 2007 science fiction novel by British writers Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter. It is the third book, billed as the conclusion of the A Time Odyssey series.

Setting
The series contains hints about the Firstborn, who, in the early days of the universe, developed as the first intelligent beings. The Firstborn have calculated that to survive until the Big Rip, the Universe has sufficient energy to support only a limited number of civilizations. They take it upon themselves to ensure that the number of civilizations does not exceed this limit, and humanity is now in their sights.

Plot summary
The novel's action switches stage frequently between the Earth of 2069, the 'jigsaw-planet' Mir 31 years after its creation, and various settlements on Mars.

Firstborn opens with Bisesa Dutt waking up after 19 years of suspended animation, only to be informed of the fact that a 'bogey' has entered the Solar System. Further investigation of the object reveals that it is a "cosmological-weapon" (called a Q-bomb by scientists) capable of destroying matter by engulfing it into a small 'pocket universe', which is then quickly destroyed in a Big Rip-like event. Bisesa, her now-divorced daughter Myra, and a young spacer called Alexei Carel quickly leave the Earth via a space elevator, to escape what Alexei views as an inefficient and corrupt government. Meanwhile, on Mir, a young astronomer named Abdikadir (son of one of the main characters of Time's Eye), while making observations on what appears to be planet Mars covered in oceans, is interrupted by Bisesa Dutt's old mobile phone ringing.

Back on Earth, the Space Council is preparing to launch an antimatter-fueled spacecraft to intercept the Q-bomb, while Bisesa arrives at a research station located at Mars' North Pole. The team there had discovered a gravitational "trap" that contained one of the Firstborn's Eyes. This is proof that not only did intelligent Martians exist in the distant past, but that they had been exterminated (probably with another Q-Bomb) by the Firstborn, but not before they had captured one of the Eyes. As she approaches the Eye, Bisesa is promptly sucked into a gateway and finds herself back on Mir, in the Temple of Marduk.

Babylon has been completely changed by Alexander the Great after his victory over the Mongols, becoming the center of his new empire and one of only two large cities on the planet (the other being a nineteenth-century Chicago). After a failed assassination attempt on Alexander, Bisesa is forced to leave Babylon and head for Chicago. On the way, her phone's AI determines that the universe containing Mir and the habitable version of Mars is rapidly decaying, and has only another 500 years left before it ends in a Big Rip.

Myra, after losing her mother once again on Mars, is contacted by the AI Athena, who had been the managing intelligence behind the storm shield in Sunstorm. After being copied and transmitted to nearby star systems in 2042, in an attempt to save a small bit of humankind should the shield project fail, she and another two AIs had reached a distant, inhabited planet, which had itself been almost sterilised by the Firstborn. From there, with the help of the planet's last inhabitant, they witnessed humanity's survival through the Sunstorm. Athena was promptly re-transmitted to Earth, to aid against the alien menace. Athena informs Myra and the Mars researchers of a plan to stop the Q-bomb by communicating to the Martians from Mir's universe.

Back on Mir, Bisesa reaches a frozen-over Chicago, the climate having been heavily disrupted by the Discontinuity (the moment of Mir's creation). There she receives a transmission from Myra in the "real" universe, informing her of Athena's plan to communicate with the Martians; a pattern of geometrical shapes was to be transmitted to Blue Mars, which would prompt the Martian survivors to somehow act. At the suggestion of Thomas Alva Edison, the residents of Chicago dig vast trenches in the shapes required in Mir's North American icecap, filling them with oil and setting them ablaze; the pattern is observed by the sole remaining inhabitant of Blue Mars, at the Martian North Pole, who promptly reconfigures its version of the gravity trap to crush the Eye it contained.

Athena's hypotheses was that all the Eyes were connected, and the destruction of one on Blue Mars would attract the Q-bomb to real-Mars, thereby destroying the planet completely but sparing Earth. The scheme is successful, and the Q-bomb is diverted. It strikes Mars, and the planet slowly begins to leave the universe. Myra decides to stay at the Martian North Pole as the planet dissolves. On Mir, Bisesa travels back to Babylon, activating the Eye and returning to real-Mars at the very moment of the Big-Rip.

The novel ends with Myra and Bisesa reunited on the planet shown to Bisesa during her very first trip through an Eye. A portal opens behind them, and Myra's estranged daughter, Charlotte, invites them through. It is revealed that in Charlotte's future, humanity alone or with other sentient allies, perhaps a faction of the Firstborn, calls itself the Lastborn as they are at war with the Firstborn.

Reception
Kirkus Reviews said "readable, but more science travelogue than science fiction—and if you were anticipating a conclusion, or at least an alien encounter, forget it." Publishers Weekly wrote "the narrative leaps about too much to develop characters, but Clarke has never been as interested in individuals as in humanity's ability to accept change as a species. It's too early to tell whether that theme will be enough to carry the story to a coherent conclusion."

Notes

External links

2007 British novels
Collaborative novels
Novels by Stephen Baxter
British science fiction novels
Novels by Arthur C. Clarke
Del Rey books
Novels about extraterrestrial life
Novels set on Mars

Firstborn (Clarke and Baxter novel)


The National Peace Keeping Council (NPKC) () was the name assumed by a Thai military junta that overthrew the elected civilian government of Chatichai Choonhavan in 1991. It was led by Army Commander Suchinda Kraprayoon, Supreme Commander Sunthorn Kongsompong, Air Force Commander Kaset Rojananil, and members of the fifth class of Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy. After the March 1992 general election, General Suchinda was appointed prime minister. He resigned following a public uprising and pressure from King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

Seizure of assets of the Chatichai cabinet

After seizing power from the Chatichai government, the junta seized the assets of Chatichai and nine members of his cabinet, including:

 General Chatichai Choonhavan, Prime Minister (284 million baht, approximately US$11 million)
 Subin Pinkhayan, Commerce Minister (608 million baht)
 Pithak Intharavitthayanand, aide to the prime minister (335 million baht)
 Montri Pongpanich, Transport Minister (336 million baht)
 Pol Gen Pramarn Adireksarn, Interior Minister (139 million baht)
 Phinya Chuayplod, Deputy Commerce Minister (61 million baht)

The junta set up a committee to investigate the cabinet for allegedly being "unusually rich".  The supreme court later ruled on the cases and called for the return of the assets, because the politicians' wealth had been unlawfully seized by the military junta and the investigative committee had worked without the oversight of a judicial entity.

See also

 Chamlong Srimuang
 Anand Panyarachun
 History of Thailand (1973–2001)
 Constitution of Thailand

References

Political history of Thailand
1991 in Thailand
1992 in Thailand
Military dictatorships
1990s coups d'état and coup attempts
Military dictatorship in Thailand

National Peace Keeping Council


An Banshenchas (literally "the woman lore") is a medieval text which collects brief descriptions of prominent women in Irish legend and history into a poetic narrative.

Unlike much of early Irish literature, An Banshenchas may be attributed to a specific author and date.  The introduction of the poem states that Gilla Mo Dutu Úa Caiside, of Ard Brecáin in Meath, composed it in 1147.

Content

An Banshenchas is framed in a historical context and starts with Eve and other biblical women, moves to the legendary women of Irish mythology such as Étaín and Emer, then completes with later-day characters who are almost certainly historical, including a few woman of the Hiberno-Norse aristocracy.

The references to each of the characters within are short; a few lines at most.  For example, in regard to some early biblical figures:
Adam, Seth, pious Sili and Cain were the four first men who propagated multitudes.  Eve, Olla, Pib and Pithib (women of power in the eternal world) bore the beautiful race:  prosperous before the Flood and miserable afterwards.  Eve was the only wife of mighty Adam.  Olla was spouse of blameless Seth.  Pib was the name of the wife of guilty Cain.  She did not avoid evil.  Pithib was wife of Sili of the prophets.  Whiter than foam was her body.
Or regarding some of the legendary women of Ireland:
Etain was wife of Eochu Aireman, Esa was her daughter, evil were her rites. Her name is given to a lofty spot, allied by her crimes to pollution. Mes Buachalla was Esa's daughter. By her methods mariners were coarsened.
The stories of some of these women are known from other sources, ranging from the Book of Genesis, to the Wooing of Etain  to other, less-well known sources.  Some of the names within An Banshenchas are today just names that hint at stories that are long-lost but were known to Ó Caiside and his contemporaries.

Manuscripts

Copies of An Banshenchas are found in the Book of Leinster, Leabhar Ua Maine, and the Great Book of Lecan.  Like the dinsenchas ("place lore") poems, the banshenchas poems are accompanied by prose commentary probably of a slightly later date.

Notes

References
 Muireann Ní Bhrolcháin, "The Manuscript Tradition of the Banshenchas." Ériu. Vol. XXXIII (1982).
 The "Banshenchas" the Ui Neill queens of Tara, Anne Connon, in Seanchas:Studies in Early and Medieval Irish Archaeology, History and Literature in Honour of Francis John Byrne, ed. Alfred P. Smyth, pp. 98–108, Four Courts Press, Dublin, 2000
 A Prosopography of the Early Queens of Tara, Anne Connon, in The Kingship and Landscape of Tara'', ed. Edel Bhreathnach, pp. 225–360, Four Courts Press, Dublin, 2005
Jones' Celtic Encyclopedia

'The Ban-Shenchus', Part I by Margaret E. Dobbs
'The Ban-Shenchus', Part II by Margaret E. Dobbs
'The Ban-Shenchus', Index by Margaret E. Dobbs

Irish-language literature
Early Irish literature
Irish mythology

Medieval texts in Irish

Banshenchas


The Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565 is a work for organ by Johann Sebastian Bach. It was written about 1708. It is often identified with melodramatic silent movies and scary movies, and was made famous when Walt Disney included the music in his animated movie Fantasia. Today, though, the original manuscript is lost and the work is known through copies made by Bach's students.

In Popular Culture
Toccata has been referenced many times throughout popular culture. It is often used to represent fright, mystery, or the macabre, possibly due being written in a minor key.

References
 Woodstra, Chris, et al. 2005. All Music Guide to Classical Music. All Music Guide, LLC. p. 50. .

Compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach
Solo organ pieces

Toccata and Fugue in D minor


William Irwin (born 1970) is Professor of Philosophy at King's College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania and is best known for originating the "philosophy and popular culture" book genre with Seinfeld and Philosophy: A Book about Everything and Nothing in 1999 and The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh! of Homer in 2001.

Early life
Irwin was born in 1970 and raised in Yonkers, New York. He attended Regis High School in Manhattan, a Jesuit institution, graduating in 1988. He received his B.A. in Philosophy from Fordham University in 1992 where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Summa cum Laude, having attended Fordham on a full Presidential Scholarship. He later received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York in 1996 at the age of 26. Irwin's dissertation, "Harmonizing Hermeneutics: The Normative and Descriptive Approaches, Interpretation and Criticism," was awarded the Perry Prize for Outstanding Dissertations in Philosophy. His dissertation director was Jorge J.E. Gracia. E.D. Hirsch, Jr. was his external evaluator.

Contributions to philosophy

Irwin is the author of God Is a Question, Not an Answer: Finding Common Ground in Our Uncertainty, published by Rowman & Littlefield.

The Free Market Existentialist: Capitalism without Consumerism was published by Wiley-Blackwell in 2015. Michael Shermer, the editor of Skeptic magazine, praised the book, saying "William Irwin has transcended ideology and tribalism to unite a set of ideas that, for the first time, could end the rancor between the Left and the Right by reminding each of their shared values. This book will change the thinking of everyone interested in politics, economics, or religion—a game changing work."

Irwin's first book, Intentionalist Interpretation: A Philosophical Explanation and Defense, was nominated for the American Philosophical Association Young Scholar's Book Prize and was the subject of a special book session at the annual meeting of the Canadian Society for Hermeneutics and Postmodern Thought in May 2000.

Irwin's creative writing includes two poetry books, Both/And and Always Dao, and two novels, Free Dakota and Little Siddhartha, a sequel to Hermann Hesse's novel Siddhartha.

Irwin has published articles in scholarly journals such as Philosophy and Literature, Philosophy Today, Journal of Value Inquiry, and The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism.

Irwin is best known for having originated the philosophy and popular culture genre of books with Seinfeld and Philosophy: A Book about Everything and Nothing in 1999 and then the popular The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh! of Homer in 2001. He was editor of these books and then series editor of the Popular Culture and Philosophy Series through Open Court Publishing Company, producing titles such as Harry Potter and Philosophy: If Aristotle Ran Hogwarts, Star Wars and Philosophy: More Powerful Than You Can Possibly Imagine, Superheroes and Philosophy: Truth, Justice, and the Socratic Way, and many others. Carlin Romano from The Chronicle of Higher Education called the Popular Culture and Philosophy Series "the most serious philosophy series on the market, if some link between academic seriousness and real life still exists." In an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Stephen T. Asma called William Irwin the "chief architect" of the philosophy and popular culture movement.

In 2006, Irwin left Open Court to become the General Editor of The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series through Wiley-Blackwell. Reuters (now Thomson Reuters) reported that Irwin's books have sold more than one million copies. South Park and Philosophy: You Know, I Learned Something Today was the first in that series, published in 2006. Metallica and Philosophy: A Crash Course in Brain Surgery followed shortly thereafter; Scott Ian from Anthrax called it "a kick-ass read." The series also includes Black Sabbath and Philosophy: Mastering Reality published in 2012. Irwin is quoted in USA Today as claiming that "the books are about smart popular culture for smart fans."

Irwin first theorized the philosophy and pop culture genre in his article "Philosophy as/and/of Popular Culture" in Irwin and Gracia eds. Philosophy and the Interpretation of Popular Culture (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006), pp. 41–63. In 2010 he explained the motivation for the series and defended it against critics in an article in The Philosophers' Magazine titled "Fancy Taking a Pop?" Irwin defended the style of the books in "Writing for the Reader: A Defense of Philosophy and Popular Culture Books".

When Irwin was with Open Court, he edited The Matrix and Philosophy: Welcome to the Desert of the Real, which Anderson Cooper referred to as an "interesting collection of thoughts on the movie and its place in the world" in an interview with Irwin. Irwin also discussed a follow-up book, More Matrix and Philosophy: Revolutions and Reloaded Decoded, in an interview with Keith Olbermann.

Irwin is the author of the first book exclusively focused on the lyrics of James Hetfield, The Meaning of Metallica: Ride the Lyrics.

Irwin has appeared as a guest on hundreds of radio shows, television shows, and podcasts. He has been interviewed by Time, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education, USA Today, the BBC, CNN, NPR, and MSNBC, among others. In a 2010 interview with Time, Irwin said "Philosophy has had a bad rap for centuries. People mistakenly think it has nothing to do with their everyday lives, including enjoying media." Concerning readers' reaction to the book series, Irwin told The Wall Street Journal, "I think an equal amount of people find it either too fluffy or too rigorous."

In May 2012 Irwin was named Outstanding Alumnus by the Philosophy Department at the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York. He is the first person ever to receive this award.

Along with David Kyle Johnson, Irwin writes the blog "Plato on Pop" for Psychology Today.

He also maintains the blog "It's Your Choice: The Free Market Existentialist Perspective" for Psychology Today.

Editorial activities
Series Editor, The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series (Wiley-Blackwell)
Series Editor, Popular Culture and Philosophy (Open Court Publishing).

Bibliography

Books authored
God Is a Question, Not an Answer: Finding Common Ground in Our Uncertainty (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2019).
Little Siddhartha: A Sequel (Brunswick, Maine: Shanti Arts Publishing, 2018).
Free Dakota (Roundfire Books, 2016).
The Free Market Existentialist: Capitalism without Consumerism (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015)
 Intentionalist Interpretation: A Philosophical Explanation and Defense (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, December 1999). Nominated for the American Philosophical Association Young Scholar's Book Prize.
 Critical Thinking: A Student's Introduction (with G. Bassham, H. Nardone, and J. Wallace), ( New York : McGraw-Hill, 2001; 2nd Edition 2004; 3rd Edition 2007).
 Both/And (Wilmington, NC: Wisdom/Work, 2021).
 Always Dao (Brunswick, Maine: Shanti Arts Publishing, 2021).
 The Meaning of Metallica: Ride the Lyrics (Toronto: ECW, 2022).

Books edited
 The Philosophical Legacy of Jorge J.E. Gracia (co-edited with Robert Delfino and Jonathan J. Sanford) (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2022).
 The Death and Resurrection of the Author? (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002).
 Philosophy and the Interpretation of Pop Culture (co-edited with Jorge J.E. Gracia) (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007).
 Black Sabbath and Philosophy: Mastering Reality (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2012).
 Metallica and Philosophy: A Crash Course in Brain Surgery (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2007). Translated into German, Hungarian, Italian, and Portuguese.
 More Matrix and Philosophy: Revolutions and Reloaded Decoded  (Chicago: Open Court, 2005).
 The Matrix and Philosophy: Welcome to the Desert of the Real (Chicago: Open Court, 2002). New York Times bestseller. Translated into Japanese, Portuguese, Hungarian, Italian, Russian, Hebrew, and Turkish.
 The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh! of Homer (with M. Conard and A. Skoble) (Chicago: Open Court, 2001). *#2 on Amazon.com's list of Best Philosophy Books of 2001. New York Times backlist bestseller. Translated into Italian, Japanese, Korean, Turkish, German, Russian, Hebrew, and Portuguese.
 Seinfeld and Philosophy: A Book about Everything and Nothing  (Chicago: Open Court, 2000). Translated into Turkish, Hebrew, Serbian, Croatian, and Portuguese.

References

External links
The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series website
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series website
William T. Irwin's website

1970 births
21st-century American philosophers
20th-century American philosophers
Fordham University alumni
King's College (Pennsylvania)
Living people
People from Yonkers, New York
University at Buffalo alumni

William Irwin (philosopher)


The shilling is a unit of currency used in some current and former British Commonwealth countries. The word shilling comes from scilling, an accounting term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times where it was said to be the value of a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. The word is thought to derive from the base skell-, "to ring/resound" and the diminutive suffix -ling. The slang term for a shilling as a currency unit was a "bob".

The abbreviation for shilling is s, from the Latin solidus, the name of a Roman coin. Often it was informally represented by a slash, standing for a long s: e.g., "1/6" would be 1 shilling and sixpence, often pronounced "one and six" (and equivalent to 18d; the shilling itself was valued at 12d). A price with no pence would be written with a slash and a dash, e.g., "11/-". Quite often a triangle or (serif) apostrophe would be used to give a neater appearance, e.g., "1'6"  and "11'-". In Africa it is often abbreviated sh.

During the Great Recoinage of 1816, the mint was instructed to coin one troy pound (weighing 5760 grains) of standard (0.925 fine) silver into 66 shillings, or its equivalent in other denominations. This effectively set the weight of the shilling, and its subsequent decimal replacement 5 new pence coin, at 87.2727 grains or 5.655 grams from 1816 to 1990, when a new smaller 5p coin was introduced.

References

Former currencies of the United Kingdom

Shilling


Kramrowo  is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Kwidzyn, within Kwidzyn County, Pomeranian Voivodeship, in northern Poland. It lies approximately  north of Kwidzyn and  south of the regional capital Gdańsk.

Before 1920 the area was part of Germany. For the history of the region, see History of Pomerania.

References

Kramrowo

Kramrowo


David Edwin Pingree (January 2, 1933, New Haven, Connecticut – November 11, 2005, Providence, Rhode Island) was an American historian of mathematics in the ancient world. He was a University Professor and Professor of History of Mathematics and Classics at Brown University.

Life
Pingree graduated from Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts in 1950. He studied at Harvard University, where he earned his doctorate in 1960 with a dissertation on the supposed transmission of Hellenistic astrology to India. His dissertation was supervised by Daniel Henry Holmes Ingalls, Sr. and Otto Eduard Neugebauer. After completing his PhD, Pingree remained at Harvard three more years as a member of its Society of Fellows before moving to the University of Chicago to accept the position of Research Associate at the Oriental Institute.

He joined the History of Mathematics Department at Brown University in 1971, eventually holding the chair until his death.

As successor to Otto Neugebauer (1899–1990) in Brown's History of Mathematics Department (which Neugebauer established in 1947), Pingree numbered among his colleagues men of extraordinary learning, including Abraham Sachs and Gerald Toomer.

Career
Jon McGinnis of the University of Missouri, St. Louis, describes Pingree's life-work thus:

... Pingree devoted himself to the study of the exact sciences, such as mathematics, mathematical astronomy and astral omens. He was also acutely interested in the transmission of those sciences across cultural and linguistic boundaries. His interest in the transmission of the exact sciences came from two fronts or, perhaps more correctly, his interest represents two sides of the same coin. On the one hand, he was concerned with how one culture might appropriate, and so alter, the science of another (earlier) culture in order to make that earlier scientific knowledge more accessible to the recipient culture. On the other hand, Pingree was also interested in how scientific texts surviving from a later culture might be used to reconstruct or cast light on our fragmentary records of earlier sciences. In this quest, Pingree would, with equal facility use ancient Greek works to clarify Babylonian texts on divination, turn to Arabic treatises to illuminate early Greek astronomical and astrological texts, seek Sanskrit texts to explain Arabic astronomy, or track the appearance of Indian astronomy in medieval Europe.

In June 2007, the Brown University Library acquired Pingree's personal collection of scholarly materials. The collection focuses on the study of mathematics and exact sciences in the ancient world, especially India, and the relationship of Eastern mathematics to the development of mathematics and related disciplines in the West.  The collection contains some 22,000 volumes, 700 fascicles, and a number of manuscripts.  The holdings consist of both antiquarian and recent materials published in Sanskrit, Arabic, Hindi, Persian and Western languages.

Awards
Recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1975 and a MacArthur Fellowship in 1981, he was a member of the Society of Fellows at Harvard, the American Philosophical Society, and the Institute for Advanced Study; he was also A.D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University from 1995.

Selected works

 1970: Census of the Exact Sciences in Sanskrit (5 volumes) American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia
 1976: Dorothei Sidonii carmen astrologicum (Teubner, Leipzig).
 1978: The Yavanajātaka of Sphujidhvaja (2 volumes), Harvard Oriental Series 48
 1986:Vettii Valentis Antiocheni Anthologiarum Libri Novem (Teubner, Leipzig).
 1997: (edited with Charles Burnett) The Liber Aristotilis of Hugo of Santalla, Warburg Institute Surveys and Texts 26, London
 2002: (with Takanori Kusuba) Arabic Astronomy in Sanskrit: Al-Birjandī on Tadhkira II, Chapter 11 and its Sanskrit Translation, Brill, Leiden
 2005: (with Erica Reiner) Babylonian Planetary Omens, Brill, Leiden
 See the Worldcat listing for further titles.

Articles in dictionaries and encyclopedias
 Pingree D., Brunner C. J. Astrology and astronomy in Iran // Encyclopædia Iranica
 Astrology // Britannica
 Astrology // The Dictionary of the History of Ideas (1973–74)

References

Sources and external links
Memorial by Kim Plofker and Bernard R. Goldstein in Aestimatio (http://www.ircps.org/aestimatio/2/70-71)
Memorial by Toke Lindegaard Knudsen in the Bulletin of the Canadian Society for History and Philosophy of Mathematics https://web.archive.org/web/20070927032441/http://faculty.umf.maine.edu/~molinsky/cshpm/Bulletin/38-2006.pdf (pp. 5–6)
Death notice in the Brown Daily Herald https://web.archive.org/web/20070929104430/http://www.browndailyherald.com/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticle&uStory_id=47d666ba-15db-402b-bd71-a539c61b03c5
"An Indiana Jones of Mathematics" in the George Street Journal https://web.archive.org/web/20080516054525/http://www.brown.edu/Administration/George_Street_Journal/Pingree.html
A collection of PDFs of some texts used by Dr. Pingree and his students, including a copy of a Heiberg edition of the Almagest used by Dr. Pingree himself: http://www.wilbourhall.org

1933 births
2005 deaths
Harvard University alumni
Brown University faculty
Cornell University faculty
Harvard Fellows
Historians of science
American historians of mathematics
MacArthur Fellows
American astrological writers
American male non-fiction writers
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American historians
21st-century American male writers
21st-century American historians

David Pingree


Saeculo exeunte is an encyclical of Pope Pius XII in which he honors Portugal at the celebration of its 800th anniversary. A large part of the encyclical deals with the missionary activities of Portugal and the need to modernize missionary work. It was given at Rome, June 13, 1940, in the second year of his pontificate.

Summary
The Pontiff reviews Portuguese history, mentioning among others explorers like Henry the Navigator and Vasco da Gama, who took missionaries along while making discoveries: Their illustrious example greatly inspired the Catholic world, including the spirited citizens of your fatherland, to promote more widely the works of the apostolate.   Afonso de Albuquerque and João de Castro governed the Portuguese colonies, giving  protection and assistance to the Catholic  missionaries.
But now there is a shortage of missionary priests especially in Africa. The pope recommends missionary societies such as Portuguese Society for the Promotion of the Catholic Foreign Missions, in order to improve the quality of preparation and training and interaction among clergy in missions. The selection of decent candidates  is of special concern to Pius XII, who suggests that only persons with perfect character aptitudes should be sent. He appeals to the people of Portugal, to support their missionaries generously. He entrusts them and all of Portugal to the protection of Our Lady of Fátima, who, as Pius XII said in a radio address, may have aided in keeping Portugal out of World War II.

Significance
World War II  meant drastic reductions in Catholic missionary activities, as nationals from belligerent nations were either interned or expelled in Africa and Asia. Portugal was a neutral country and its missionaries could work relatively free from political reprisals. Therefore, Pius XII turned to Portugal in 1940, as one of the few Catholic countries which could help to limit the consequences of the war in the missions.

See also
List of encyclicals of Pope Pius XII

References

External links
Saeculo exeunte on the Vatican Website

Encyclicals of Pope Pius XII
Catholic theology and doctrine
June 1940 events
1940 documents
1940 in Christianity

Saeculo exeunte


Johann Arnold Nering or Nehring (13 January 1659 in Wesel – 21 October 1695 in Berlin) was a German architect active in the Electorate of Brandenburg.

He worked for Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg, and Frederick I of Prussia. In his time he created the Linden-Markt, today known as Gendarmenmarkt and most beautiful square of Berlin, as well as Charlottenburg Palace, the royal residence of the Hohenzollern family in Berlin.

1659 births
1695 deaths
German architects
People from Wesel

Johann Arnold Nering


Watton-at-Stone is a village and civil parish in Hertfordshire, England, and is midway between the towns of Stevenage and Hertford in the valley of the River Beane.

History

Etymology
The name Watton first appeared in writing in an 11th-century collection of 10th-century Anglo-Saxon wills as Wattun. It was later recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as both Wodtune and Watone. The origin of the word is uncertain, and is variously ascribed to Old English wád or woad, and ton meaning small farming settlement; or waden meaning ford; or from waétan meaning watery.

The suffix -at-Stone dates from the early 13th century and may be derived from the presence of two large examples of Hertfordshire puddingstone, now situated at the former Waggon and Horses public house. However, it is far more likely that the suffix refers to the Roman road (anciently described as a Stone Street) that ran from Verulamium (modern St Albans), fording the River Beane at Watton-at-Stone. The area where the bridge over the railway was built was shown on tithe maps as a common, and the fields to the east and west of this point were named Stoneyfield and Further Stoneyfield. It is deduced that the Roman Road passed through this area, and the later village took its name from the important routeway. In the 1950s, sections of the road agger or embankment, composed of large flint nodules, could still be seen at several points in the village; most obviously, the northern boundary of the grounds of Chestnut House preserves the line of the road

Prehistoric archaeological finds
Archaeological finds indicate prehistoric activity in the Watton-at-Stone area before the village was established. The earliest finds are Paleolithic hand axes found in the village and also at the Frogmore gravel pit, and there are traces of a Mesolithic site near the roundabout at the northern end of the bypass. Neolithic pits were found off Station Road and several Neolithic or Bronze Age ring ditches are evident in fields surrounding Watton.

To the west of the village near Raffin Green is a significant late Bronze Age site and Iron Age enclosure in the Great Humphreys field. It was close to here that the Iron Age Aston Mirror was found, closer to Watton-at-Stone than to the village of Aston, but technically in Aston parish due to the convoluted border. It is now kept at the British Museum. Another Iron Age enclosure was located by Broom Hall Farm, with an adjacent Roman farmstead and also a nearby Roman crematorium from which 27 burials were extracted. A collection of possibly Belgic armour and weaponry was discovered in the mid-19th century by workers digging a drain to the west of the village.

Roman and Anglo-Saxon origins

The origins of Watton-at-Stone are from the construction of the Roman road, which crossed the High Street at the point of the modern milestone. Archaeological evidence suggests significant Roman activity at the roadside, with a probable Roman building near the Rectory and Roman field boundaries off Station Road suggesting some permanent occupation. Watton was possibly a market place trading to travellers as they slowed to cross the River Beane, and the High Street may have been a pre-existing track and therefore the new Roman road formed a crossroads here.

Anglo-Saxon settlers developed Watton further into a village, with evidence of early Anglo-Saxon field boundaries and a crematorium off Station Road. It is likely that the focus of the Anglo-Saxon settlement was on the high ground at Watton Green, overlooking the Roman road and river valley below. There was a possible battle between the Danes and Saxons which took place on a field named "Danesfield" to the west of the village, although the field name is the only evidence to suggest this. If a battle did occur here it would most likely to have been in 911 with 1016 suggested as an alternative possible date.

The Watton manor was anciently held by the Crown but by 1066 the Lord of Watton manor was Alwin Horne, an Anglo-Saxon thegn who owned other lands at Walkern, Sacombe and Middlesex. Alwin Horne is believed to have fought at the Battle of Stamford Bridge under King Harold in 1066 and later that year killed at the Battle of Hastings.

Middle Ages and early modern period

The Domesday Book states that Watton village in 1086 consisted of 18 households (10 villagers, 4 smallholders and 4 slaves), suggesting a population of between 65 and 90. The manor was worth £5 and it had a mill, woodland with 100 pigs and a meadow. It was jointly held by Derman (of London) and Alward (the noble), who were both moneyers from London.  There was an additional manor associated with Watton that had 6 households and a church, which could have been the Woodhall manor. The first mention by name of the Woodhall manor was in about 1130 when it was held by Ralph de Watton.

Derman's great nephew Henry fitz Ailwin, the first Mayor of London, inherited the Watton manor in 1165. He built a hermitage chapel in what is now Chapel Wood and possibly built a new manor house in what is now Well Wood. At about this time, perhaps as a consequence of Henry fitz Ailwin's new buildings, a new manor called Crowborough emerged from the Watton manor. Crowborough was first referenced in 1266 when it was held by Alice de Rivers. Crowborough Hall stood at Watton Green and the moat which surrounded it can still be seen to this day.

Hugh Bardolf inherited Watton manor in 1287, later it was held by John Bardolf and Thomas Bardolf with the Bardolf family owning the Watton and Crowborough manors at various times until 1562. During this period the house and chapel in Well Wood and Chapel Wood were abandoned, and so in circa 1520 the Watton manor was renamed Bardolf manor and the manor house moved to what is now Bardolphs Farm. A new manor called Watkins Hall was created and was first known to be held by Thomas Munden in about 1540.

Philip Boteler (Butler) inherited the Woodhall estate in about 1375 and later descendants to have the title included Philip Butler and John Boteler who held the Watton, Woodhall and Crowborough manors. The three estates were in possession of the Botelers (Butlers) until as late as 1780.

In 1662 brothers Maurice Thomson and Sir William Thompson, who had grown up in the village, founded Watton's first free school for 20 poor children.

After Woodhall was mostly destroyed by fire in 1771, from which an elderly John Boteler was able to escape, building of the new house began in 1775. The notorious Thomas Rumbold took possession of Woodhall in 1777, followed by Paul Benfield in 1793. The estate was then bought in 1801 by Samuel Smith and the Smith family later combined the Watton, Woodhall and Crowborough manors into one and still holds it today.

In later years, the natural springs in the area once made the village a popular spa town. The village has a number of dwellings dating from early Tudor, such as Watton Place, through to late Georgian constructions.

Community

For administration the parish falls under in East Hertfordshire District Council. The 2021 census showed a parish population of 2,614 living in 1,036 households.

There is little employment directly within the village and it largely serves as a dormitory for commuters to London or to the nearby towns with half-hourly trains to Moorgate station.

The village has a primary school and nursery school. The co-educational Heath Mount private school is located on the outskirts in the private estate of the Grade II* listed Woodhall Park.

The A602 formerly ran through the centre of the village between Stevenage and Hertford before a bypass was built in 1984 through farmland to the north-east. The section of the road to Hertford was renamed the A119, and the A602 then ran out of Watton-at-Stone to Ware. Watton-at-Stone is served by a railway station on the Hertford Loop Line. The station opened for passengers on 2 June 1924, was closed on 11 September 1939 (though the line continued to run through the village), and reopened on 17 May 1982, paid for partly by public subscription.

In the village itself there is a small convenience store, café and takeaway restaurant as well as a hairdressers, butcher's shop and two pubs.

Alternative names
The name is also spelled unhyphenated as Watton at Stone and appears in this form on Ordnance Survey maps. The County Council favours the hyphenated version. Both spellings are equally valid. Locally, the '-at-Stone' suffix is frequently dropped.

Church of St Mary and St Andrew

The parish church is dedicated to St Andrew and St Mary. It stands on thirteenth-century foundations and dates from the early to mid-fifteenth century, and is built in the Perpendicular style.
A chapel was added to the north side of the church in the late fifteenth century. The building is constructed from flint, and is protected by a Grade II* heritage listing. A war memorial lies in a field adjoining the church.

Notable people
The evangelical author and social campaigner Edward Bickersteth was rector of the church for twenty years from 1830 until his death in 1850. His one-time curate was the theological scholar Thomas Birks.

Jack Meyer, the Somerset cricketer and founder of Millfield School grew up in the old Georgian red-brick rectory overlooking the cricket field, his father was the vicar of the church.
In the summer of 1923, Alan Turing and his family stayed with their friends the Meyer family for six weeks at the rectory, Alan being the founder of computer science and the leading cryptologist at Bletchley Park in World War II. Andrew Hodges in his biography: Alan Turing: The Enigma tells of how a gypsy fortune teller at the church fête foretold that he would be a genius.

The locomotive engineer Sir Nigel Gresley lived in Watton House until his death in 1941.

Watton-at-Stone was the childhood home of actor Rupert Grint.

Watton was home to the boxing promoter Frank Warren.

Footballer Harry Toffolo grew up in the village.

In popular culture
The 2009 psychological horror found footage short film and web series No Through Road by Steven Chamberlain follows four seventeen-year-old teenagers en route to Stevenage who find themselves trapped in a time loop along two road signs marking an intersection between Benington and Watton.

References

External links

 Parish council website
 Village primary school website
 Heath Mount school website
 Watton-at-Stone (A Guide to Old Hertfordshire)
 The Aston mirror
 Image gallery

Villages in Hertfordshire
Civil parishes in Hertfordshire
East Hertfordshire District

Watton-at-Stone


Eric Graham Forbes Adam  (3 October 1888 – 7 July 1925) was a British diplomat and First Secretary to the Foreign Office.

Adam was born in Malabar Hill, Bombay, India, the second son of Sir Frank Forbes Adam, 1st Baronet.  His older brother was General Sir Ronald Forbes Adam, 2nd Baronet. He was educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge.

While at Cambridge, Adam played one first-class cricket match for Cambridge University against Yorkshire on 1–3 June 1911 at Fenner's.  He batted at number 6 in Cambridge's first innings, scoring 10 before being caught by Arthur Dolphin off the bowling of Wilfred Rhodes.  During Yorkshire's first innings he gained some measure of revenge on Rhodes by catching him for 1 off the bowling of John Frederick Ireland – the only catch of his first-class career.  In Cambridge's second innings he opened the batting with David Collins, scoring 17 before being bowled by Alonzo Drake.  Cambridge won the match by 69 runs.

Adam married  Agatha Perrin, daughter of R.W. Macan in 1918; their son was Sir Christopher Adam, 3rd Baronet (1920–2009).

Adam served as 3rd Secretary in the British Peace Delegation to the Paris Peace Conference of 1919; the London Conference of 1920 and the San Remo Conference.  He was First Secretary in the British Delegation to the Lausanne Conference of  1922–1923.

Adam was made a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1923.

Adam died in Istanbul in 1925, aged 36, and is buried in Haydarpaşa Cemetery in Istanbul.

References

ADAM, Eric Graham Forbes, Who Was Who,  A & C Black, 1920–2008; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2007, accessed 28 Dec 2012
 The Times, Thursday, 9 Jul 1925; pg. 13; Issue 44009; col E Mr. E. Forbes Adam. Death In Constantinople. (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

1888 births
1925 deaths
Companions of the Order of St Michael and St George
People educated at Eton College
Alumni of King's College, Cambridge
Cambridge University cricketers
English cricketers
British diplomats
Younger sons of baronets
British people in colonial India

Eric Forbes Adam


Los Angeles County Lifeguards is a division of the Los Angeles County Fire Department. The lifeguard operations safeguard  of beach and  of coastline, from San Pedro in the south, to Malibu in the north. The Los Angeles County Lifeguard Service served as the model for the hit television series Baywatch which was created by recurrent lifeguard Gregory J. Bonann.

Lifeguards also provide marine firefighting, paramedic, and fire boat services to Catalina Island, with operations out of Avalon and the Isthmus. Other daily fire boat services operate out of Los Angeles Harbor (Baywatch Cabrillo), King Harbor (Baywatch Redondo), Marina Del Rey (Baywatch Del Rey and Baywatch Santa Monica) and Malibu Pier (Baywatch Malibu).

The Los Angeles County Fire Department Lifeguard Division is the largest professional lifeguard service in the world. Entering the year 2018, the Los Angeles County Lifeguard Service employs 177 year-round lifeguards (chiefs, captains and ocean lifeguard specialists) and over 650 seasonal lifeguards (recurrents). Operating out of four Sectional Headquarters, located in Hermosa, Santa Monica, Marina Del Rey and Zuma beach. Each of these headquarters staffs a 24-hour response unit, and are part of the 911 system.

In addition to providing marine firefighting, LA County Lifeguards have specialized training for fire boat operations.

Prior to July 1, 1994, Los Angeles County Lifeguards were part of the Department of Beaches and Harbors.

Vehicles employed

 Ford Escape Hybrid (2008–2014)
 Ford Ranger (1994–2002)
 Ford Expedition
 Ford F-350 Super Duty
 Nissan Frontier (2003–2008)
 Toyota Tacoma (2015–present)
 Toyota Tundra (2015–present)
 Toyota Sequoia (2015–present)

Lifeguard uniforms
The following categories of lifeguard clothing in sufficient quantities to fully annually outfit 760 male lifeguards and 136 female lifeguards, which numbers can change each agreement year based upon the workforce composition then in employment, as ordered by the county including the following:

 Short-sleeve and long-sleeve polo shirts;
 Volley swim trunks;
 Board shorts;
 One-piece and two-piece women's swimsuits;
 Micro-fleece with half-zipper;
 Windbreaker pants;
 Baseball caps, knit cap, and floppy hats
 Lightweight windbreaker jackets;
 Heavyweight jackets; and
 Rashguards

Badges and patches
Most lifeguards are wearing a departmental badge that consists of a shield surmounted by a bear, and are silver-colored metal. The words "County of Los Angeles" appear on a ribbon at the top of the badge just under the bear, followed by ribbons with the words "Fire Department" appear just above the seal of the county. The title of the position of the person is inscribed on a ribbon placed just below the county's seal and the serial number of the badge appears at the bottom of the badge below the title of the position. The words "Ocean Lifeguard Specialist", "Ocean Lifeguard", "Captain" and "Chief" may also appear on the face of badges issued to employees or retired employees authorized by the Fire Department and board of supervisors to carry such badges.

Shoulder patches
Los Angeles County lifeguards wear a patch on their left sleeve that reads "County of Los Angeles Fire Dept. Lifeguard". Lifeguards that are licensed as paramedics wear a similar patch that identifies them as such.

Lifeguard vehicles
All Toyota Tacoma trucks are currently assigned a sectional beach in Los Angeles County since deploying its new vehicle since 2015.

References

External links

 Los Angeles County Fire Department
 Watch the Water – a public safety program

Government of Los Angeles County, California
Lifesaving organizations
Lifesaving in the United States
1914 establishments in California

Los Angeles County Lifeguards


China International Electron Commerce Center (CIECC)  is a government agency operating under the Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China, that develops {Electron} information projects.

CIECC also facilitates international cooperation and exchanges in the electronic commerce with other countries at the state level.

The CIECC's English translation website appears to be not maintained, however the website for native Chinese speakers is updated daily.

M-Commerce Lab
The M-Commerce Laboratory is designed to bridge the gap among industry, government and academia to facilitate certain aspects in the M-Commerce environment such as research and commercialization of mobile applications, mobile payment and security, and enterprise mobile commerce application. By providing an environment to study, develop and promote projects in the mobile commerce domain, the laboratory helps to enhance end-to-end innovation capabilities.

References

External links
CIECC develops, operates and maintains international electronic commerce website, the core website of the Golden Gate project of the country's key informatization construction projects.

Foreign trade of China

China International Electronic Commerce Center


The Gulf of Mexico is an ocean basin or bay of the Atlantic Ocean. It is a marginal sea of North America. The United States of America, Mexico, and Cuba are the countries around it.

The Straits of Florida connect to the rest of the Atlantic Ocean, and the Yucatán Channel connects to the Caribbean Sea. Because of its narrow connection to the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf has very small tides.

The size of the Gulf basin is about 1.6 million km2 (615,000 sq mi). Almost half of the basin is shallow continental-shelf waters. The climate is tropical, with heavy growth of plankton and sea grass.

Petroleum is found near the north and west coast of this gulf. Many hurricanes hit this area, for example, Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita hurt many of the oil wells in 2005 in the United States. There is also a big fishing industry in the gulf. The Gulf of Mexico is one of the most important offshore petroleum-production regions in the world, making one-sixth of the United States' total production.

The Gulf was formed by plate tectonics about 300 million years ago.

References

Mexico
Atlantic Ocean
Bodies of water of the United States
Geography of Cuba
Geography of Mexico

Gulf of Mexico


Rebecca Riots (formerly known as Final Girl) was a female acoustic folk music trio from 1993 to 2009 originating in Berkeley, California, founded in 1993 by its members, Andrea Prichett, Lisa Zeiler, and Eve Decker. The band's music employs three-part harmony, guitar, mandolin and harmonica.

History
The Berkeley, California, band Rebecca Riots was an acoustic folk trio named after the mid-19th century Rebecca Riots (Welsh: Terfysgoedd Beca), a series of uprisings against injustices and autocratic rule on the part of the anglicized gentry in South West Wales, notably carried out by men dressed as women. The musical trio was founded in 1993 by Prichett and Decker. They asked Prichett's guitar teacher Zeller to join. From 1993 to 2001 they released four CDs and were signed to Appleseed Recordings.

They toured the United States several times and played the Vancouver Folk Music Festival, Bumbershoot, and the Salinas Folk Festival, and regularly sold out multiple shows in Seattle, Portland, and The Freight and Salvage in their home town. They shared stages with Peter Yarrow, Utah Phillips, Laura Love, Street Sounds, Rhiannon, Ulali, Cheryl Wheeler, Sonia of Disappear Fear, Gwen Avery, Alix Dobkin, Alice Stewart, and others.

From 2002 to 2006 Rebecca Riots did not tour but played one or two shows a year in Berkeley. During that time Zeller gave birth to a child and produced albums for other singer-songwriters, Prichett became a public school teacher and visited Palestine, while Decker participated in long meditation retreats.

From 2006 to 2009 the band toured again and released its fifth CD, Just As Sure.

Activism
Songs and between-song banter deal with a range of issues, including combating homophobia; gay–straight alliance; police accountability; healing through interfaith spiritual practice (the three musicians are Christian, Jewish, and Buddhist); caring for the homeless; prisoners' rights; positive body image for women; building with straw bale; gratitude toward nature; facing death and loss; anti-apartheid work; Palestinian rights; love and support of children and teens; and celebratory love songs.

Rebecca Riots has done concerts and benefits at folk venues and colleges in the United States, supporting causes including environmental movements such as Earth First!, anti-racist work, and organizations supporting marginalized people such as homeless people, children, and women suffering from domestic violence.

Discography
 Rebecca Riots (1995)
 Some Folks (1998)
 Live at The Freight and Salvage (1999)
 Gardener (2000)
 Just as Sure (2004)

References

External links

American folk musical groups

Rebecca Riots (band)


eXtensible Server Pages (XSP) is an XML-based language, which offers the possibility of dynamically arranged Java code into XML documents.

It was developed by the Apache Software Foundation for the Web Publishing Framework Cocoon. The focus of XSP is the separation of content, logic and presentation. The Java program code is in its own XML section <xsp:logic> that can either occur within or outside of the root element (<xsp:page>).

The Java code is compiled with the first call.  These directives are replaced by the generated content so that the resulting, augmented XML document can be subject to further processing with XSL Transformations.

XSP pages are transformed into Cocoon producers, typically as Java classes, though any scripting language for which a Java-based processor exists could also be used.

Directives can be either XSP built-in processing tags or user-defined library tags. XSP built-in tags are used to embed procedural logic, substitute expressions and dynamically build XML nodes. User-defined library tags act as templates that dictate how program code is generated from information encoded in each dynamic tag.

External links
 Cocoon XSP 2.1
 XSP 1.x - Working Draft

XML
User interface markup languages
Java platform software

EXtensible Server Pages


America is a young adult novel written by E. R. Frank. It tells the story of America, a biracial boy.

The author of the book, E.R. Frank, is herself a social worker. In an author's note at the end of the book, she says she has worked with many Americas over the years.

The book was made into a 2009 TV movie on the Lifetime Television network, starring Philip Johnson as America and Rosie O'Donnell as his therapist. Although Dr. B is female in the movie, Dr. B is portrayed as a man in the novel.

Plot
Born to a crack addict, America was given to a poor white family. They decided they didn't want him anymore after his skin started to darken at the age of five years old. The family's nanny, Sylvia Harper, adopts/fosters America. She had a man named Clark Poignant, and a half-brother named Browning. Clark Poignant befriended America. After a year, America gets sent back to his biological mother by the state. Browning tells America to be as bad as he possibly can, so he will get sent back to them. America's mother lived in a shoddy house in New York City with America's two older brothers, named Brooklyn and Lyle.

America's mother is never around, so five-year-old America has to live with his brothers – aged 7 and 8 – for two years. America, Brooklyn, and Lyle become hooligans, vandalizing and stealing all over the place. However, their luck runs out when an elevator worker finds them scribbling America's numbers all over the elevator. America is sent to a hospital, and Brooklyn and Lyle are sent to a foster home. Soon, he is sent back to Mrs. Harper.

Mrs. Harper has grown old and arthritic, and Browning has moved into America's old bedroom, which they share. Clark Poignant had since died, after he left. However, America has difficulty erasing the cussing and bad behaviors he'd learnt. He soon starts Grade 2, even though he is mostly illiterate. Browning sees that America enjoys being bad and secretly encourages him. When America begins school, he meets Liza, who shares some of his bad behavior, and they develop crushes on each other. Browning's relationship with America continues to develop. He gives America a lighter with a naked lady on it, and gives him alcohol. He also gives America reading lessons with pornographic magazines. Eventually, Browning begins to molest America and has sex with him on occasion. America likes the feeling of Browning touching him so begins to promote his sexual relations. Then Browning introduces America to masturbation and both masturbate together in the room unnoticed.

America discovers that his mother had six children. He also learns about her drug money at the time of each child's birth. America burns the chart and throws the ashes at Browning. Then, out of anger and in a drunken stupor, America sets Browning's bed on fire with his lighter, killing him. America goes to New York and lives with a marijuana dealer named Ty (Charles Tyler). Ty is eventually arrested by the NYPD and America is questioned by a detective. During the interview, he confesses to the murder of Browning. He goes to court, but he is not convicted, so the judge sends him to Applegate.

At Applegate, America befriends Wick, Marshall and Ernie, and is acquainted with the seemingly intellectually disabled Fish. Ernie worries about America. America resists therapy and attempts to destroy a therapist's office after he asked if America's uncle had done anything to him. Ernie is the only one who understands America's plight. Eventually, a distraught America climbs a tree and attempts to hang himself. But Ernie finds him hanging from the tree and saves his life. Shortly after, he is sent to Ridgeway.

At first, America refuses to talk to Dr. B, but eventually he begins to open up to him. America decides to send a letter to Ernie to thank him for saving his life. When Ernie replies, he says he knows America killed a man, but he also knows America is a good person. He mentions Liza, who contacted Applegate looking for him. Three weeks after his sixteenth birthday, he meets Brooklyn. Later, Dr. B tells him America is ready to work in the kitchen. When he is in the kitchen, though, he wastes enormous quantities of carrots because they remind him of cooking dinners with Browning.

When America is 17, Brooklyn enters detox again. America receives a letter from Liza. Dr. B informs America there is a spot open in a transitional home, where he will live with two other young people, Kevin and Ben, and a social worker named Phillip. America decides to go. At the home, America writes Liza and tells her she can come by if she wants. Dr. B informs America his brother Brooklyn has eloped. Liza is finally re-united with America at the home. But America still thinks about what happened to Mrs. Harper and Lyle, and why Brooklyn eloped. He is unable to cook in the home because of painful memories coming up again.

When America is eighteen, he receives a letter from Brooklyn, which tells him that they are brothers, and that they are associated. Dr. B teaches him positive self-talk to eliminate painful memories, but America still wants to see Mrs. Harper. He struggles to tell Liza he truly loves her, and is troubled by the notion of love itself. He visits Mrs. Harper in the nursing home, who is delighted to see him. Mrs. Harper dies several days after his visit. America and Dr. B cry together reading the letter from the nursing home. America feels forgiven by Mrs. Harper, and burns his fifty-seven pairs of shoelaces with his lighter and then he throws his lighter away, symbolism showing his painful memories are gone and he is able to live his life. The books ends with a dream about everyone who had a positive impact on America's life, lifting him up by the hand of God. America says he is found.

Reception
America was listed as the 100th most banned and challenged book in the United States between 2000 and 2009, according to the American Library Association.

Film adaptation
In 2009, the book was made into a feature film America and broadcast as a television film on Lifetime Television. It stars Rosie O'Donnell as the therapist Dr. Maureen Brennan, Ruby Dee as Mrs. Harper and Philip Johnson as America. It was directed by Yves Simoneau and written by Joyce Eliason.

References

2002 American novels
American novels adapted into films
American young adult novels
Novels set in New York City

America (novel)


A grill is an object used for cooking food. With a grill, food is usually roasted. Some grills use charcoal or wood, and other grills use propane gas to cook the food.

Using wood or charcoal makes smoke and changes the flavor of the food. Using gas does not. Some people only like one type, and some people like both kinds of grilling.

The heat may be added underneath the food, or above, or both. A barbecue is a typical machine for outdoor cooking using coke or other fuel for providing heat from underneath. Overhead grilling is more usual indoors, especially in professional kitchens.

In the United States, there are cook-off grills, which are competitions. The most common meats used are steak, burgers and hot dogs.  Grilling food is very common for holidays or celebrations like the 4th of July (United States Independence Day).  Most people use a grill more outdoors in the summer time.

Grills can have fire touching the food. This might cause a burnt taste and could possibly be a carcinogen.

Related pages
 Asado
 Barbecue

References

Cooking appliances
Cooking methods

Grill (cooking)


Musical improvisation is when musicians play a tune which does not exist yet. They play what comes to their mind. In the case of groups of musicians, they may have agreed on a few basic rules beforehand. Generally, improvisation requires a few skills:

 The person improvising must be able to play the instrument fairly well.
 The person must know some basic rules or parameters on the kind of music played
 The person must be creative

Musical composition is different: With composition, people first write down and arrange the music, before playing it, with improvisation they play right away.

Musical performance techniques

Musical improvisation


Metal Gear Solid is an 1998 action-adventure stealth game created by Hideo Kojima and produced by Konami. It was originally released for PlayStation on September 3, 1998. It was the third cannon entry in its series. There have been over ten games in the series and spin-offs.

1998 video games
Metal Gear
PlayStation games

Metal Gear Solid