John Jacobs (activist)

John Gregory Jacobs (September 30, 1947 – October 20, 1997) was an American student and anti-war activist in the 1960s and early 1970s. He was a leader in both Students for a Democratic Society and the Weatherman group, and an advocate of the use of violent force to overthrow the government of the United States. A fugitive since 1970, he died of melanoma in 1997.
Early life.
John Jacobs was born to Douglas and Lucille Jacobs, a prominent leftist Jewish couple, in New York state in 1947. He had an older brother, Robert. His father was a well-known leftist journalist who had been one of the first Americans to report on the Spanish Civil War. His parents later moved to Connecticut, where his father owned a bookstore. His childhood appeared to have been happy, and he was close to his parents.
In high school, Jacobs began to read Marxist philosophy heavily, and was deeply interested in the Russian Revolution of 1917. He also admired Che Guevara.
Jacobs graduated from high school in 1965 and enrolled at Columbia College of Columbia University. During the summer between high school and college, he lived in New York City and worked for a left-wing newspaper. Politically active in leftist political circles, Jacobs became acquainted with a large number of progressive intellectuals who further stimulated growth in his political ideology. For a brief time, he belonged to the Progressive Labor Party (PL), at the time a Maoist communist party. His first semester at Columbia, Jacobs met fellow freshman Mark Rudd, and the two became friends.
Rise and role in Students for a Democratic Society.
J.J., as most people at Columbia called him, soon joined Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). The Columbia University chapter of SDS had been founded in the 1950s as part of the Student League for Industrial Democracy, the youth arm of the League for Industrial Democracy (a social democratic organization co-founded by Jack London, Norman Thomas, Upton Sinclair and others). The chapter had sputtered for years, but became active in 1965 when it became known as SDS. Jacobs became very active in the group. A series of protests against on-campus military, CIA and corporate recruitment and ROTC induction ceremonies rocked Columbia's campus for the next two years. Jacobs organized a protest in February 1967 against CIA recruiting at Columbia. Initially, the SDS chapter disavowed the action. But when Jacobs' sit-in proved popular among Columbia students, SDS claimed J.J. as one of their own. The CIA protest led to Jacobs' rapid rise within the chapter. The protests led Columbia President Grayson L. Kirk to ban indoor protests at Columbia beginning in September 1967.
In March 1967, SDS member Bob Feldman accidentally discovered documents in a campus library detailing Columbia's affiliation with the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA), a weapons research think-tank affiliated with the Department of Defense. Jacobs participated in the protests against the IDA, and was put on academic probation for violating President Kirk's ban on indoor protests. Despite its growing influence on campus, the SDS chapter was deeply divided. One group of SDSers, called the "Praxis Axis," advocated more organizing and nonviolence. A second group, the "Action Faction," called for more aggressive action. In the early spring 1968, the Action Faction took control of Columbia University's SDS chapter. Jacobs was an active member of the Action Faction, and soon became one of its leaders. When Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968, riots broke out in many American cities. Jacobs wandered the streets of Harlem alone for most of the night, thrilled by the violence and inability of the police to maintain order. He adopted Georges Danton's dictum of "Audacity, audacity, and more audacity!" as his own motto.
Columbia protests of 1968.
The opportunity for Jacobs to participate more fully in direct action came just days after King's death. Columbia University officials were planning to build a new gymnasium on the south side of the campus. The building, which would have straddled a hill, would have two entrances—one on the north, upper side for students and one on the south, lower side for residents of Morningside Heights, a mostly African American neighborhood. To many students and local residents, it seemed as if Columbia were permitting blacks to use the gym, but only if they entered through the back door. On April 23, 1968, Rudd, Jacobs, and other members of Columbia's SDS chapter led a group of about 500 people in a protest against the gymnasium at the university Sundial. Part of the crowd attempted to take over Low Memorial Library, but were repulsed by a counter-demonstration of conservative students. Some students tore down the fence surrounding the construction site, and were arrested by New York City police. Rudd then shouted that the crowd should seize Hamilton Hall. The mob took over the building, taking a dean hostage. A number of militant young African Americans from Harlem (rumored to be carrying guns) entered the building throughout the night and ordered the white students out. The Caucasian students seized Low Memorial Library. Over the next week, more than 1,000 Columbia students joined the protest and seized three more buildings. Jacobs led the seizure of Mathematics Hall. Among the protesters was Tom Hayden, who arrived from Newark, New Jersey, where he had been organizing poor inner-city residents. Rudd, Jacobs, Hayden and others organized communes inside the buildings, and educated the students in the theories of Marxism, racism, and imperialism. Columbia University refused to grant the protesters' demands regarding the gymnasium or amnesty for those who had seized the buildings. When the police were sent in to clear the buildings after a week, they brutally beat and clubbed hundreds of students. Jacobs suggested putting Columbia's rare Ming Dynasty vases in the windows to prevent sniper attacks, and pushing police out of windows. Black students in Hamilton Hall had contacted civil rights lawyers, who had arranged to be on-site during the arrests and for the students to leave Hamilton Hall peacefully. Angered by the lack of police violence, Jacobs set fire to a professor's office in Hamilton, an incident later blamed on the police. Thousands of students went on strike the next week, refusing to attend classes, and the university canceled final exams. The events catapulted Rudd into national prominence, and Rudd and Jacobs became national leaders in SDS. Jacobs began using the phrase "bring the war home," and it was widely adopted within the anti-war movement.
As college students across America began demanding "two, three, many Columbias," Jacobs became a recognized national leader of SDS and looked to by those who saw violence as the only way to respond to the governing political and economic system of the day. Jacobs began to look the part of a counterculture leader as well. In the middle of 1968, he began wearing tight jeans, a leather jacket, and a gold chain with a lion's tooth, and slicked his hair back 1950s-style to purposefully distinguish himself from the clean-cut, middle-class students who attended most anti-war protests. He became one of SDS' earliest and most prominent ideological thinkers, and was widely recognized as a charismatic persuasive speaker.
At the SDS national convention in [[East Lansing, Michigan]], in June 1968, Jacobs' thinking began to become even more radical. The East Lansing convention is best known for the interminable debates and ferocious parliamentary battles between the SDS National Office leadership (led by [[Michael Klonsky]] and [[Bernardine Dohrn]]) and the delegates from PL-controlled SDS chapters around the country.
[[Robin Palmer]], an ex-[[Youth International Party|Yippie]] had drifted into SDS. Palmer argued, contrary to current SDS thinking, that [[President of the United States|President]] [[Richard Nixon|Richard Nixon's]] "[[Silent Majority (Politics)|silent majority]]" did exist. Most Americans, Palmer said, would oppose [[imperialism]], [[militarism]] and [[capitalism]] if they were only shown the truth. Rather, most Americans knew the truth, and supported these ideologies actively and whole-heartedly. One of the [[Old Left|Old Left's]] slogans had been "Serve the People." Convinced Palmer was correct, Jacobs proposed at the June 1968 convention that SDS adopt the slogan "Serve the People Shit" to reflect the public's support for greed and war.
Role in Weatherman.
SDS had opposed the call for mass demonstrations at the [[1968 Democratic National Convention]] in [[Chicago]], [[Illinois]]. The group felt that mass demonstrations and electoral politics were not effective as a means of influencing national policy. But when the demonstrations proved popular and provoked a heavy-handed police response (as SDS predicted), the organization moved quickly to take credit for the protests.
But SDS itself was suffering from extreme factionalism. Since 1963, the [[Progressive Labor Party (United States)|Progressive Labor Party]] (PL) had been infiltrating its members into SDS in the hopes of convincing SDSers to join the party. Although only a tiny minority of SDS membership nationwide, PL supporters (with the support of the national party) often constituted a quarter or more of the delegates to national SDS conventions. Strongly disciplined and skilled at '[[entryism]]' and using parliamentary procedure, the PL supporters sought to seize control of SDS and turn the organization to the party's goals.
SDS leadership subsequently adopted a new policy in 1968 aimed at ending the factionalism. As the SDS National Council meeting convened in December 1968, National Secretary [[Michael Klonsky|Mike Klonsky]] published an article in the "[[New Left Notes]]" (SDS' newsletter) titled "Toward A [[Revolutionary Youth Movement]]." A central document in SDS' final year, Klonsky's article advocated that SDS openly align itself with the working class and begin engaging in [[direct action]]. The goal of SDS should be to build [[class consciousness]] among students by organizing working people and moving off campus, and by attacking [[racism]], [[militarism]] and the reactionary use of state police power. The "Revolutionary Youth Movement" (RYM) proposal was aimed squarely at PL, staking out some of the party's positions as the leadership's own while denouncing PL as deviant on others. The policy provoked five days of fierce debate, even shouting matches, between SDS' national leadership and supporters of PL. But on December 31, 1968, it passed and became national SDS policy.
Jacobs, however, felt that the RYM was insufficient. Within weeks of its adoption, he was hard at work on a new document which pushed the theoretical envelope even further. Jacobs was joined by several other SDS leaders, including Rudd, Dohrn, [[Jeff Jones (activist)|Jeff Jones]], [[Bill Ayers]], [[Terry Robbins]] and five others. Throughout April and May, Jacobs and the others worked on the document. They met with RYM supporters in the Northeast and Midwest, as well as with more mainstream SDSers.
When the SDS National Convention opened in Chicago on June 18, 1969, Jacobs' manifesto, "You Don't Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows," was published in the SDS newspaper, New Left Notes. Although the other 10 SDS leaders had contributed to the document, Jacobs was the primary author of what came to be called the "Weatherman manifesto." Robbins suggested the title, lifted from a line in the [[Bob Dylan]] song "[[Subterranean Homesick Blues]]." Jacobs and 15 others signed it.
The "Weatherman" statement denounced imperialism and racism, and repudiated PL's claim that youth culture was bourgeois. The Weatherman manifesto also called for revolutionary violence at home to stop imperialism, and the formation of collectives in major cities to support the military struggle and stop factionalism. The Weatherman faction counted on RYM supporters to help them not only control the convention but also to pass the Weatherman manifesto. But Klonsky, [[Bob Avakian]], and Les Coleman—all key members of the pro-RYM caucus—disagreed with many of the positions advocated in the Weatherman statement. They issued their own position paper, "Revolutionary Youth Movement II" (RYM II). Although the Weatherman and RYM II factions were opposed to PL and nearly constituted a majority of delegates, they still lost control of the convention. Leaders of the [[Black Panther Party]] made an appearance designed to attack PL supporters on the issue of racism. But when the Panthers made references to "pussy power," they and the SDS leadership were accused of [[male chauvinism]]. The next day, the Panthers accused PL of deviating from "true" Marxism–Leninism. PL leaders accused the Panthers and SDS leadership of [[redbaiting]]. Dohrn, Rudd, Jacobs, Klonsky and Robbins huddled in an attempt to strategize a way to defeat the PL faction. Dohrn took to the podium and demanded that all "true" SDSers follow her out of the convention hall. Gathering in an adjoining hall, Dohrn demanded that SDS expel all PL supporters. On June 20, the Weatherman and RYM II caucuses re-entered the main convention hall, accused the PL supporters of racism and being insufficiently opposed to imperialism, and demanded that all PL supporters be ejected. When they were not, Dohrn, Rudd, Jacobs and the other national leaders led approximately two-thirds of the delegates out of the convention hall.
After the split in SDS, The Weatherman/RYM II faction began establishing collectives in cities around the country. Jacobs moved to Chicago. There, he shared an apartment with girlfriend Dohrn and Weatherman advocates Gerry Long, Jeff Blum, Bob Tomashevsky, and Peter Clapp. He began traveling the country, visiting other SDS collectives to enforce the "party line," identify leaders, educate members in Marxist theory, and lecture on the need for violent action.
Days of Rage.
[[Image:WEATHERUNDERGROUND3.jpg|right|thumb|John Jacobs (center, football helmet) and [[Terry Robbins]] (with sunglasses) at the [[Days of Rage]] in [[Chicago]] in October 1969.]]
SDS continued to fragment throughout the summer. At the [[United Front Against Fascism]] conference in [[Oakland, California]], the Black Panthers withdrew their support of SDS when it refused to sanction community control of the police in white neighborhoods. In August, most of the RYM II supporters left the organization as well (Klonsky denounced the Weatherman manifesto for arrogance, militancy and sectarianism on August 29 in an article in "New Left Notes") and began planning their own series of national mass demonstrations for October 1969. Weatherman (or the Weather Bureau, as the new organization was sometimes beginning to be called) also began planning for an October 8–11 "National Action" built around Jacobs' slogan, "bring the war home," although by now the group probably had only about 300 total members nationwide. The National Action grew out of a resolution drafted by Jacobs and introduced at the October 1968 SDS National Council meeting in [[Boulder, Colorado]]. The resolution, titled "The Elections Don't Mean Shit—Vote Where the Power Is—Our Power Is In The Street" and adopted by the council, was prompted by the success of the DNC protests in August 1968 and reflected Jacobs' strong advocacy of violence as a means of achieving political goals.
As part of the "National Action Staff," Jacobs was an integral part of the planning for what quickly came to be called "[[Days of Rage|Four Days of Rage]]." For Jacobs, the goal of the "Days of Rage" was clear: Weatherman would shove the war down
their dumb, fascist throats and show them, while we were at it, how much better we were than them, both tactically and strategically, as a people. In an all-out civil war over Vietnam and other fascist U.S. imperialism, we were going to bring the war home. 'Turn the imperialists' war into a civil war', in Lenin's words. And we were going to kick ass.
To help start the "all-out civil war", Bill Ayers bombed a statue commemorating the policemen killed in the 1886 [[Haymarket Affair]] on the evening of October 6.
But the "Days of Rage" were a failure. Jacobs told the Black Panthers there would be 25,000 protesters in Chicago for the event, but no more than 200 showed up on the evening of Wednesday, October 8, 1969, in Chicago's [[Lincoln Park]], and perhaps half of them were members of Weatherman collectives from around the country. The crowd milled about for several hours, cold and uncertain. Late in the evening, Jacobs stood on the pedestal of the bombed Haymarket policemen's statue and declared: "We'll probably lose people today ... We don't really have to win here ... just the fact that we are willing to fight the police is a political victory." Jacobs proceeded to compare the coming protest to the fight against fascism in [[World War II]]:
There is a war in Vietnam and we are a Vietnam within America. We are small but we have stepped in the way of history. We are going to change this country. ... The battle of Vietnam is one battle in the world revolution. It is the Stalingrad of American imperialism. We are part of that Stalingrad. We are the guerrillas fighting behind enemy lines. ... We will not commit suicide. We will not fight here. We will march to where we are within the symbol-the very pig fascist architecture. ... But we will make a political stand today.
Finally, at 10:25 p.m., Jeff Jones gave the pre-arranged signal over a bullhorn, and the Weatherman action began. Jacobs, Jones, [[David Gilbert (activist)|David Gilbert]] and others led a charge south through the city toward the [[Drake Hotel (Chicago)|Drake Hotel]] and the exceptionally affluent [[Near North Side, Chicago#Gold Coast|Gold Coast]] neighborhood, smashing windows in automobiles and buildings as they went. The mass of the crowd ran about four blocks before encountering police barricades. The mob charged the police but splintered into small groups, and more than 1,000 police counter-attacked. Although many protesters had—as J.J. did—motorcycle or football helmets on, the police were better trained and armed and nightsticks were expertly aimed to disable the rioters. Large amounts of tear gas were used, and at least twice police ran squad cars full speed into crowds. After only a half-hour or so, the riot was over: 28 policemen were injured (none seriously), six Weathermen were shot and an unknown number injured, and 68 protesters were arrested. Jacobs was arrested almost immediately.
For the next two days, Weatherman held no rallies or protests. Supporters of the RYM II movement, led by Klonsky and [[Noel Ignatin]], held peaceful rallies of several hundred people in front of the federal courthouse, an [[International Harvester]] factory, and [[John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County|Cook County Hospital]]. The largest event of the Days of Rage occurred on Friday, October 9, when RYM II led an interracial march of 2,000 people through a Spanish-speaking part of Chicago.
On Saturday, October 10, Weatherman attempted to regroup and 'reignite the revolution'. About 300 protesters marched swiftly through [[Chicago Loop|The Loop]], Chicago's main business district, watched over by a double-line of heavily armed police. Led by Jacobs and other Weatherman members, the protesters suddenly broke through the police lines and rampaged through the Loop, smashing windows of cars and stores. But the police were ready, and quickly sealed off the protesters. Within 15 minutes, more than half the crowd had been arrested—one of the first, again, being Jacobs.
The 'Days of Rage' cost Chicago and the state of [[Illinois]] about $183,000 ($100,000 for National Guard payroll, $35,000 in damages, and $20,000 for one injured citizen's medical expenses). Most of Weatherman and SDS' leaders were jailed, and the Weatherman bank account emptied of more than $243,000 in order to pay for bail.
Going underground and the townhouse explosion.
Although the Days of Rage were a failure, Jacobs urged Weatherman to carry on the struggle. He urged that the Weatherman organization "go underground"—adopting secret identities, setting up [[safe house]]s, stockpiling arms and explosives, identifying strategic targets to attack, and establishing a legitimate and legal organization to speak and provide legal representation for the underground. As the debate continued throughout the fall and early winter of 1969, Jacobs grew a pointed beard, ended his relationship with Dohrn, dated Weatherman [[Eleanor Raskin]] and dropped [[Lysergic acid diethylamide|acid]] with her.
From December 26 to 31, 1969, Weatherman held the last of its National Council meetings in [[Flint, Michigan]]. Flying to the event, Dohrn and Jacobs ran up and down the aisles of the airplane, seizing food, frightening the passengers. The meeting, dubbed the "War Council" by the 400 people who attended, adopted Jacobs' call for violent revolution. Dohrn opened the conference by telling the delegates they needed to stop being afraid and begin the "armed struggle". Reminding the delegates of the [[Charles Manson#Tate murders|murder of Sharon Tate and four others]] on August 9, 1969, by members of the [[Charles Manson|Manson Family]], "Dig it," Dohrn said approvingly. "First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, they even shoved a fork into a victim's stomach! Wild!" She then held up three fingers in what she called the "Manson fork salute." Over the next five days, the participants met in informal, random groups to discuss what "going underground" meant, how best to organize collectives, and justifications for violence. In the evening, the groups reconvened for a mass "wargasm"—practicing [[karate]], engaging in physical exercise, singing songs, and listening to speeches. The "War Council" ended with a major speech by John Jacobs. J.J. condemned the "pacifism" of white middle-class American youth, a belief which they held because they were insulated from the violence which afflicted blacks and the poor. He predicted a successful revolution, and declared that youth were moving away from passivity and apathy and toward a new high-energy culture of "repersonalization" brought about by drugs, sex, and armed revolution. "We're against everything that's 'good and decent' in honky America," Jacobs said in his most oft-quoted statement. "We will burn and loot and destroy. We are the incubation of your mother's nightmare."
Two major decisions came out of the "War Council." The first was to immediately begin a violent, armed struggle against the state without attempting to organize or mobilize a broad swath of the public. The second was to create underground collectives in major cities throughout the country. In fact, Weatherman created only three significant, active collectives, one in California, the Midwest, and New York City. The New York City collective was led by Jacobs and Terry Robbins, and included [[Ted Gold]], [[Kathy Boudin]], [[Cathy Wilkerson]] (Robbins' girlfriend), and [[Diana Oughton]]. Jacobs was one of Robbins' biggest supporters, and pushed Weatherman to let Robbins be as violent as he wanted to be. The Weatherman national leadership agreed, as did the New York City collective. The collective's first target was Judge John Murtagh, who was overseeing the trial of the "Panther 21". On February 21, 1970, the New York City collective planted a [[Incendiary device|fire-bomb]] outside Judge Murtagh's home. The device detonated, but did little damage. Robbins concluded the fire-bombs were unreliable, and turned toward using dynamite. The group began buying dynamite under false names from a variety of sources in the Northeast, and had soon acquired six cases of the explosive.
During the week of March 2, 1970, the collective moved into a townhouse at 18 West Eleventh Street in [[Greenwich Village]] in New York City. The house belonged to James Platt Wilkerson, Cathy Wilkerson's father and a wealthy radio station owner. James Wilkerson was on vacation, and Cathy told her father she wanted to stay in the townhouse while she recovered from the flu. Reluctantly, James Wilkerson agreed. During the first few days in the townhouse, Robbins conceived a plan to bomb an officers' dance at [[Fort Dix]] in [[New Jersey]]. Jacobs was embarrassed by Robbins' ranting about attacking a "strategic target" like a dance, but said nothing. According to other members of Weatherman who spoke with the group at the time, Robbins had lost touch with reality, and the other members of the group seemed incapable of making decisions.
On the morning of March 6, the collective began unloading several large, heavy boxes from a white station wagon and bringing them into the townhouse. A few minutes before noon, [[Greenwich Village townhouse explosion|an explosion]] in the townhouse basement tore the building apart. Two more large explosions followed, collapsing the front of the building. The ruptured gas mains below the building caught fire, consuming part of the structure. Robbins and Oughton, presumably assembling a bomb in the basement, died in the blast. Gold was trapped under falling beams and died from asphyxiation. Boudin, taking a shower at the time, fled the building naked. Wilkerson, who was dressing, ran from the rubble clad only in jeans. Anne Hoffman, wife of actor [[Dustin Hoffman]] and the Wilkersons' next-door-neighbor (the Hoffman apartment was partially damaged in the blast), grabbed a shower curtain and covered Boudin with it. [[Susan Blanchard (socialite)|Susan Wager]], ex-wife of actor [[Henry Fonda]], rushed up the street and helped the two women to her home. Wager gave them both some clothes, but the two women fled. Jacobs was not in the townhouse at the time, and went into hiding after the blast.
Initially, the townhouse explosion appeared to have little effect on Jacobs. He continued to press for armed revolution, and even advocated that Weatherman establish roving bands of armed radicals to help start the revolution.
On April 2, 1970, [[United States Attorney General|Attorney General]] [[John N. Mitchell]] personally announced federal indictments against 11 members of Weatherman for their role in the Days of Rage. Included in the indictments was John Jacobs, who was accused of crossing state lines with intent to riot.
But other leaders in Weatherman began to reconsider armed struggle as a tactic. Dohrn called for a meeting in late April 1970 of all of Weatherman's top leadership at the collective safe house in [[Mendocino, California]], north of [[San Francisco]]. Exhausted from months on the run, consumed by fear, and depressed by the deaths of Robbins, Oughton and Gold, the leadership agreed to lay some ground rules for the Mendocino debates. There would be no shouting, and no discussion of theory or philosophy in the evenings. Jacobs vehemently disagreed, and was largely excluded from the ensuing discussions. Over the next several days, the leaders of the Weather Underground discussed how to respond to the townhouse blast. After several days, the group concluded that Jacobs and Robbins had committed "the military error" by advocating armed revolution. As leader of the group, Dohrn had the power to expel Jacobs. She did so, and Jacobs left quietly. He never participated in radical activities again.
The Weatherman organization did not, however, immediately announce its decision. As early as May 21, 1970, it issued a communiqué announcing its continuing support for armed revolution in the United States. Several more communiqués followed throughout the year, as more Weatherman-sponsored bombings occurred across the country. It was not until December 6, 1970, that the group would condemn Jacobs' "military error." The renunciation of violence came in a statement titled "New Morning-Changing Weather." In that document, Dohrn called the townhouse blast "the military error" and renamed the organization a less-sexist "Weather Underground."
Life on the run and death.
John Jacobs spent the last 27 years of his life on the run. Although he had argued for rising violence in the aftermath of the townhouse explosion, Jacobs secretly felt intense guilt for having caused (as he saw it) the deaths of Robbins, Gold and Oughton. He also felt he was made the scapegoat for the townhouse explosion. "I know that for myself, part of what I wanted from the political movement was friends, family and community," he wrote. "Somehow I thought that among people who were working together for social change, the values of the better society they were fighting for would be manifest in better social relations among themselves ... He later wrote that he had "lost, killed, alienated or driven away" all his friends, and that—fugitive or not—his life was "sad and lonely".
Jacobs wandered in northern California and Mexico for several years under several aliases, taking drugs and drinking heavily. He was almost captured once in California, but escaped by climbing out a window and escaping across a roof. Jacobs traveled to Canada, where his older brother was attending [[Simon Fraser University]]. The two did not meet often, in part because they looked alike but also because the FBI and [[Royal Canadian Mounted Police]] were still watching Robert in the hopes JJ would visit him. Jacobs first settled on [[Vancouver Island]], [[British Columbia]], and worked at planting trees—donating most of his money to the building of a [[Buddhism|Buddhist]] temple on nearby [[Saltspring Island]].
Jacobs soon moved to the mainland and settled in the city of [[Vancouver]], where he took the name "Wayne Curry." He met his first [[life partner]] there, and he and the woman had two children by 1977. The relationship ended in the early 1980s, and Jacobs lived alone for several years. He continued to harbor a bitter hatred of police, and began taking [[cocaine]]. In 1986, Jacobs met and began living with Marion MacPherson. Jacobs worked at various blue-collar jobs, including stonecutter and construction worker, and made extra money selling [[marijuana]]. The couple became [[common-law marriage|common law husband and wife]], and raised four children (some from MacPherson's prior marriage).
Jacobs took courses in [[Third World]] politics and history at several local colleges and universities, receiving grades of A's and B's. He spent much of his free time gardening or reading, and although acquaintances unwittingly urged him to become involved in political activity he refused. He spent much of his time in his basement, reading newspapers and clipping articles (especially those which told of his former Weatherman comrades resurfacing and reintegrating back into society).
The U.S. Department of Justice dropped its federal warrant against Jacobs in October 1979.
In 1996, Jacobs was diagnosed with [[melanoma]]. The cancer soon spread to his brain, lungs, and lymph nodes, and his skin became painfully sensitive to the slightest touch.
John Jacobs died on October 20, 1997, of complications related to melanoma. He fell ill on October 19, and police and medical personnel were called to his home by his wife. When police officers inadvertently touched his sensitive skin (despite his wife's caution not to), he became violent and beat several officers before being subdued. Jacobs died the next day.
Jacobs was cremated. Some of his ashes were spread in his backyard, some in [[English Bay (Vancouver)|English Bay]], and some in [[Oregon]] (near a place he had visited while on the run). Some of his ashes were also taken to [[Cuba]] and spread near the [[mausoleum]] of Che Guevara. A photo of Jacobs from the late 1960s is attached to a plaque next to the site. An extensive statement, documenting Jacobs' life, is written on the plaque. It ends with the statement: "He wanted to live like Che. Let him rest with Che."
In popular culture.
Interview footage of John Jacobs was included in the 2002 film "[[The Weather Underground (film)|The Weather Underground]]."
In the fiction novel "[[American Pastoral]]" by [[Philip Roth]], the daughter of the central character appears to be a member of the Weather Underground. The novel incorporates Jacobs' "We're against everything that's 'good and decent' ..." statement at the 1969 "War Council" in Flint.
External links.
[[Category:Members of Students for a Democratic Society (1960 organization)]]
[[Category:1947 births]]
[[Category:1997 deaths]]
[[Category:American activists]]
[[Category:American anti–Vietnam War activists]]
[[Category:Youth empowerment people]]
[[Category:Members of the Weather Underground]]
[[Category:American Jews]]
[[Category:American communists]]
[[Category:Deaths from melanoma]]
[[Category:New Left]]
[[Category:Columbia College (New York) alumni]]


The Half-Gallon Quarter-Acre Pavlova Paradise

The Half-Gallon Quarter-Acre Pavlova Paradise was a popular book by Austin Mitchell, published by Whitcombe and Tombs (Christchurch, 1972), with illustrations by Les Gibbard. It provided a witty, satirical description of life in 1960s New Zealand, and Kiwi culture.
Described as "a celebrated vision of New Zealand as heaven on earth", the book was a great success in New Zealand. The phrase "Half-Gallon Quarter-Acre Pavlova Paradise" soon became part of the New Zealand vernacular, with the term "quarter-acre pavlova paradise" being included in the "Dictionary of New Zealand English". Mitchell revisited New Zealand 30 years after writing his original volume, and motivated by the social changes he observed, he penned a sequel entitled "Pavlova Paradise Revisited".


Kai the Hatchet-Wielding Hitchhiker

Kai the Hatchet-Wielding Hitchhiker is an internet viral video featuring a hitchhiking man who calls himself "Kai". It was released on February 2, 2013, by a reporter from a local news station in California. The video went viral and received national attention in the press. Kai Lawrence, later identified as Caleb Lawrence McGillvary from Canada, would cite the fall-out from the video as part of his defense against a homicide charge that was filed in New Jersey a few months after the video was released.
Viral video.
The video is by local Fox affiliate KMPH in Fresno, California. It is an eyewitness account by a man calling himself "Kai" who describes what happened (according to Kai) soon after the course of events and while still on the scene. Kai had been hitchhiking and was picked up by a man named Jett Simmons McBride who weighed 300 pounds and claimed to be Jesus Christ. McBride told Kai he once raped a 14-year-old girl in the Virgin Islands while on a business trip. McBride then crashed into a pedestrian, pinning the latter against a truck. Kai jumped out of the car to help the pinned pedestrian while the driver remained in the car. However, when a bystander arrived on the scene to help, McBride jumped out and attacked her in a bear hug. Sensing the woman's life may be in danger, and believing the man could snap her neck "like a pencil stick", Kai removed a hatchet from his backpack and began to repeatedly strike McBride in the back of the head. Kai described the hatchet-wielding attack as a "Smash, Smash, SUH-MASH" while he reenacted the over-head swings. Kai was interrogated by police and set free.
The video was uploaded to YouTube on February 2, 2013, by Jessob Reisbeck who also conducted the interview for KMPH. As of October 27, 2019, the video had over 7 million views. The Gregory Brothers sampled the interview and turned it into a song; as of October 27, 2019, the video garnered over 10 million views. In January 2020, Kai was interviewed on "Inside Edition" where scenes from viral video were replayed; this video segment uploaded to YouTube had over 5.5 million views as of November 2020.
Murder conviction.
Kai was arrested on murder charges in May 2013 for the death of New Jersey attorney Joseph Galfy. Kai maintained he fought against Galfy in self-defense. According to Kai, he had been drugged and raped by Galfy after he offered Kai a place to stay for the night. Kai stated that the police claimed the sexual encounter was consensual and the murder premeditated; however, Kai said that after the viral video in California, he had no need to have sex with men like Galfy, whom Kai described as unattractive, stating "Do you know how many hot chicks—never mind. Even if I was gay, do you know how many hot guys wanted to fuck me after that shit in California? I'm not even being vain. It's just a fact, like—no offense, but he [Galfy] was not a looker".
After the murder charges, the video views increased substantially increasing its viral reach. Fans of the video, who considered Kai a hero for saving the woman, raised a legal fund. Kai was imprisoned for over five years awaiting trial which began April 1, 2019. Kai took the stand in his own defense and was combative during cross examination; he made an outburst during his defense lawyer’s closing arguments nearly leading to his expulsion from the court room. A jury found him guilty of first-degree murder and he was sentenced to 57 years in prison. He will serve 85 percent of that term before the possibility of parole, with the judge telling McGillvary, "when you become eligible for parole, you will still be younger than Mr. Galfy was when you murdered him," who was 73 at the time. Kai said he plans to appeal the conviction.


FMLLR

In signal processing, Feature space Maximum Likelihood Linear Regression (fMLLR) is a global feature transform that are typically applied in a speaker adaptive way, where fMLLR transforms acoustic features to speaker adapted features by a multiplication operation with a transformation matrix. In some literature, fMLLR is also known as the Constrained Maximum Likelihood Linear Regression (cMLLR).
fMLLR transformations are trained in a maximum likelihood sense on adaptation data. These transformations may be estimated in many ways, but only maximum likelihood (ML) estimation is considered in fMLLR. The fMLLR transformation is trained on a particular set of adaptation data, such that it maximizes the likelihood of that adaptation data given a current model-set.
This technique is a widely used approach for speaker adaptation in HMM-based speech recognition,
later research also shows that fMLLR is an excellent acoustic feature for DNN/HMM hybrid speech recognition models.
The advantage of fMLLR includes the following:
Major problem and disadvantage of fMLLR:
Computing fMLLR transform.
Feature transform of fMLLR can be easily computed with the open source speech tool Kaldi, the Kaldi script uses the standard estimation scheme described in Appendix B of the original paper, in particular the section Appendix B.1 "Direct method over rows".
In the Kaldi formulation, fMLLR is an affine feature transform of the form formula_1→formula_2formula_1formula_4, which can be written in the form formula_1→Wformula_6, where formula_6 =formula_8 is the acoustic feature formula_1 with a 1 appended. Note that this differs from some of the literature where the 1 comes first as formula_6 =formula_11.
The sufficient statistics stored are:
formula_12
where formula_13 is the inverse co-variance matrix.
And for formula_14 where formula_15 is the feature dimension:
formula_16
For a thorough review that explains fMLLR and the commonly used estimation techniques, see the original paper "Maximum likelihood linear transformations for HMM-based speech recognition ".
Note that the Kaldi script that performs the feature transforms of fMLLR differs with by using a column of the inverse in place of the cofactor row. In other words, the factor of the determinant is ignored, as it does not affect the transform result and can causes potential danger of numerical underflow or overflow.
Comparing with other features or transforms.
Experiment result shows that by using the fMLLR feature in speech recognition, constant improvement is gained over other acoustic features on various commonly used benchmark datasets (TIMIT, LibriSpeech, etc).
In particular, fMLLR features outperform MFCCs and FBANKs coefficients, which is mainly due to the speaker adaptation process that fMLLR performs.
In, phoneme error rate (PER, %) is reported for the test set of TIMIT with various neural architectures:
As expected, fMLLR features outperform MFCCs and FBANKs coefficients despite the use of different model architecture.
Where MLP (multi-layer perceptron) serves as a simple baseline, on the other hand RNN, LSTM, and GRU are all well known recurrent models.
The Li-GRU architecture is based on a single gate and thus saves 33% of the computations over a standard GRU model, Li-GRU thus effectively address the gradient vanishing problem of recurrent models.
As a result, the best performance is obtained with the Li-GRU model on fMLLR features.
Extract fMLLR features with Kaldi.
fMLLR can be extracted as reported in the s5 recipe of Kaldi.
Kaldi scripts can certainly extract fMLLR features on different dataset, below are the basic example steps to extract fMLLR features from the open source speech corpora Librispeech.
Note that the instructions below are for the subsets codice_1,codice_2,codice_3, and codice_4,
but they can be easily extended to support the other sets codice_5, codice_6, and codice_7
export train_cmd="run.pl --mem 2G"
export decode_cmd="run.pl --mem 4G"
export mkgraph_cmd="run.pl --mem 8G"
data=/media/user/SSD # example path
mkdir exp/tri4b/decode_tgsmall_train_clean_100 && cp exp/tri4b/trans.* exp/tri4b/decode_tgsmall_train_clean_100/
. ./cmd.sh ## You'll want to change cmd.sh to something that will work on your system.
. ./path.sh ## Source the tools/utils (import the queue.pl)
gmmdir=exp/tri4b
for chunk in dev_clean test_clean train_clean_100 train_clean_360 ; do
 dir=fmllr/$chunk
 steps/nnet/make_fmllr_feats.sh --nj 10 --cmd "$train_cmd" \
 --transform-dir $gmmdir/decode_tgsmall_$chunk \
 $dir data/$chunk $gmmdir $dir/log $dir/data || exit 1
 compute-cmvn-stats --spk2utt=ark:data/$chunk/spk2utt scp:fmllr/$chunk/feats.scp ark:$dir/data/cmvn_speaker.ark
done
steps/align_fmllr.sh --nj 10 data/dev_clean data/lang exp/tri4b exp/tri4b_ali_dev_clean
steps/align_fmllr.sh --nj 10 data/test_clean data/lang exp/tri4b exp/tri4b_ali_test_clean
steps/align_fmllr.sh --nj 30 data/train_clean_100 data/lang exp/tri4b exp/tri4b_ali_clean_100
steps/align_fmllr.sh --nj 30 data/train_clean_360 data/lang exp/tri4b exp/tri4b_ali_clean_360
data=/user/kaldi/egs/librispeech/s5 ## You'll want to change this path to something that will work on your system.
rm -rf $data/fmllr_cmvn/
mkdir $data/fmllr_cmvn/
for part in dev_clean test_clean train_clean_100 train_clean_360; do
 mkdir $data/fmllr_cmvn/$part/
 apply-cmvn --utt2spk=ark:$data/fmllr/$part/utt2spk ark:$data/fmllr/$part/data/cmvn_speaker.ark scp:$data/fmllr/$part/feats.scp ark:- | add-deltas --delta-order=0 ark:- ark:$data/fmllr_cmvn/$part/fmllr_cmvn.ark
done
du -sh $data/fmllr_cmvn/*
echo "Done!"
python ark2libri.py


The Baddest (Froggy Fresh song)

"The Baddest" is a song by the American hip-hop artist Froggy Fresh, originally released on April 20, 2012, under the name Krispy Kreme. The song was written by Froggy. The song was accompanied by a music video, just as all subsequent songs by Froggy. The song was Froggy's debut song. The song is also the first track on Froggy's debut album, "Money Maker (Re-Loaded)".
Release.
Froggy Fresh, then under the moniker, Krispy Kreme, recorded and wrote the song in April 2012. It was released under the name Krispy Kreme on April 20, 2012. The song quickly became popular.
Music video.
The music video for "The Baddest" was released on April 20, 2012, as Froggy's debut music video and song. The music video went viral, reaching 11 million views, before being removed from YouTube. The original music video, which included the name "Krispy Kreme" in the lyrics, was removed due to a dispute with the Krispy Kreme doughnut company. However, an edited version of the music video, was released by Froggy on February 15, 2013. The music video was featured on several websites, during the time it went viral.
Reception.
The viral videos have been highlighted for their slow-witted and braggadocio lyrics, along with being featured on Barstool Sports, and CBS, among others.
Aside from praise of his viral videos, the rapper has also met negativity for "The Baddest" video as Tosh.0 criticized his flow and the beat of the song. The song caused Froggy to also be referred to as "the Rebecca Black of rapping". One instance of his much-criticised lyrics is in the song, "The Baddest", in which he boasted about having 400 cars, scars, guitars, houses (twice), and mouses. "The Baddest" was named the #10 most embarrassing "hip hop moment" by CraveOnline.


Theo Colborn

Theodora Emily Colborn(née Decker; March 28, 1927 – December 14, 2014) was Founder and President Emerita of The Endocrine Disruption Exchange (TEDX), based in Paonia, Colorado, and Professor Emerita of Zoology at the University of Florida, Gainesville. She was an environmental health analyst, and best known for her studies on the health effects of endocrine disrupting chemicals. She died in 2014.
Academic career.
In 1947 Colborn obtained a B.S. in Pharmacy from the College of Pharmacy at Rutgers University and became a pharmacist.
In 1981 she graduated from Western State College of Colorado, Gunnison, with an M.A. in Science in fresh-water ecology. In 1985, Colborn received a Fellowship from the Office of Technology Assessment, U.S. Congress. From there, in 1987, she joined the Conservation Foundation to provide scientific guidance for the 1990 book, "Great Lakes, Great Legacy?", in collaboration with the Institute for Research and Public Policy, Ottawa, Canada at the request of the Canada/US International Joint Commission.
In 1985, at age 58 and as a grandmother, Colborn earned a PhD at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in Zoology (distributed minors in epidemiology, toxicology, and water chemistry).
She established and directed the Wildlife and Contaminants Program at World Wildlife Fund, US. She also held a Chair for three years, starting in 1990, with the W. Alton Jones Foundation.
In 1991, as a fellow of the W. Alton Jones Foundation, she brought a group of 21 scientists with diverse backgrounds together, to attend the first of a series of conferences at Racine, Wisconsin, that became known simply as "Wingspread", about the effects of human exposure to hormone-disrupting chemicals examined in the environment.
In 1993, she was given a three-year Pew Fellows Award.
Colborn served on numerous advisory panels, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Science Advisory Board, the Ecosystem Health Committee of the International Joint Commission of the United States and Canada, the Science Management Committee of the Toxic Substances Research Initiative of Canada, the U.S. EPA Endocrine Disruptor Screening and Testing Advisory Committee, and the EPA Endocrine Disruption Methods and Validation Subcommittee. She published and lectured extensively on the consequences of prenatal exposure to synthetic chemicals by the developing embryo and fetus in wildlife, laboratory animals, and humans.
In 2003, at age 76, she founded a non-profit, The Endocrine Disruption Exchange (TEDX), a research organization devoted to understanding how environmental exposures to endocrine disruptors interfere with development and health, for academicians, policy makers, government employees, community-based and health support groups, public health authorities, physicians, the media, and individuals.
In 2005, she first talked about public health issues regarding gas development. Two years later she testified in the US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform about "the need for full disclosure of chemicals used to produce and deliver natural gas". She continued to work on this topic until her last year of life, when she published an air quality study near natural gas operations and developed a Continuing medical education course titled "Natural Gas Operations, Air Emission Exposure, and Recommendations to the Healthcare Community".
Endocrine disruption.
Colborn's 1988 research on the state of the environment of the Great Lakes revealed that top predator female birds, fish, mammals, and reptiles transferred persistent, man-made chemicals to their offspring, which undermined the development and programming of their youngsters' organs before they were born or hatched.
In 1991, in light of this evidence, Colborn convened 21 international scientists from 15 different disciplines to share their research relevant to transgenerational health impacts. The Wingspread statement contains participant and specialty information. During that meeting, the term “endocrine disruption” was coined.
In 1992 a book followed entitled "Chemically Induced Alterations in Sexual and Functional Development: The Wildlife/Human Connection", which is a collection of technical manuscripts by those who attended the session.<ref name="the wildlife/human connection"></ref> The information from this volume and numerous subsequent scientific publications on the result of low-dose and/or ambient exposure effects of endocrine disruptors was popularized in her 1996 book, "Our Stolen Future", co-authored with Dianne Dumanoski and John Peterson Myers published in 18 languages. Colborn's work has prompted the enactment of new laws around the world and redirected the research of academicians, governments, and the private sector.
Awards and honors.
Colborn received many awards and honors for her work, including: The Jonathan Foreman Award, American Academy of Environmental Medicine, October 2014; The Jean and Leslie Douglas Pearl Award, December 2013; Twenty-Seventh International Neurotoxicology Conference, Theo Colborn Award, November 2011;
Honorary Doctor of Science Degree, University of Colorado Boulder, May 2011;
French National Museum of Natural History, Medal, April 2011;
The Swedish Goteborg Prize for the Environment and Sustainability, November 2008;
TIME Global Environmental Heroes Award, October 2007;
National Council on Science and the Environment, Lifetime Achievement Award, February 2007;
University of California San Francisco Medical School/Collaborative for Health and the Environment 2007 Summit Award: A Woman on the Forefront: Leadership and Integrity in Science, January 2007;
Beyond Pesticides, 2006 Dragonfly Award, April 2006;
The Center for Science in the Public Interest, Rachel Carson Award, May 2004;
Society of Toxicology and Environmental Chemistry, Rachel Carson Award, November 2003;
International Blue Planet Prize, Asahi Glass Foundation, Japan, October 2000;
Norwegian International Rachel Carson Prize, June 1999;
Audubon Magazine: A Century of Conservation, 100 Champions of Conservation, 1998;
State of the World Forum, Mikhail Gorbachev, “Change Makers Award,” November 1997;
Rachel Carson Leadership Award, Chatham College, June 1997;
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Women Leadership in the Environment Award, March 1997;
National Conservation Achievement Award in Science, National Wildlife Federation, 1994;
Pew Scholars Award in Environment and Conservation, June 1993 – 1996;
W. Alton Jones Foundation, Fellowship, June 1990 – 1993;
The National Water Alliance Award for Excellence in Protecting the Nation's Aquatic Resources, June 1991;
US Congressional Fellowship, Office of Technology Assessment, 1985.
Private life.
Colborn was married and had four children. She and her husband owned pharmacies in New Jersey. In 1964, they moved to a farm in western Colorado, eventually raising sheep. She became interested in environmental health. After her marriage dissolved in the 1970s she started doing field work for the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory examining water for toxicants released by mining activity.
She developed lung disease and was oxygen dependent at age 87. For much of her life, Dr Colborn suffered from undiagnosed coeliac disease; after years of distress, it was finally identified in the 1980s (she was then in her late fifties) and she eliminated rice and potato from her diet, with immediate relief.


Andrea Ackerman

Andrea Ackerman is an American artist, theorist and writer best known for her New Media artworks. She lives and works in New York.
Biography.
At Yale, Ackerman studied physics and biophysics; afterward, she graduated from Harvard Medical School and practiced as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. She has used digital technology since the mid-1990s in order to fabricate her work, which dabbles in the realms concerning technology, nature, aesthetics, and ethics. She imbues objects with qualities not ordinarily occurring in nature, and in doing so fabricates a “synthetic” nature. Specific aspects of 2D and 3D still and animation software are applied in subtle ways like using effects meant for fluids on rose petals or skin. Ackerman believes finding meaningful ways to use these effects is essential to the evocation of a seamless transformation - digital to human.
Ackerman has taught 3D computer modeling (Maya) at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, was a co-director of ISEA2011, and is an editor of Leonardo Electronic Almanac, most recently, the associate editor of Uncontainable, the exhibition catalog of electronic art exhibited at ISEA2011, Istanbul. Ackerman lives in New York, New York with her husband and two children.


Philip Liner

Philip John Liner (2 July 1925 – 19 April 2019) was a New Zealand broadcaster on National Radio for more than 20 years.
Biography.
Born in Northampton, Northamptonshire, England, on 2 July 1925, Liner was the son of George Herbert Liner and Marion Emma Liner (née Edwards). In 1947, he married Jean Hardwick in Northampton, and the couple went on to have one child.
After migrating to New Zealand in the 1960s, Liner joined the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation (later Radio New Zealand) in 1968, and worked with that broadcaster as a presenter on National Radio until his retirement in 1990. He was most closely associated with the drive time programme "Roundabout", on which he interviewed New Zealanders from all walks of life.
Liner died in the Wellington suburb of Johnsonville on 19 April 2019.


Karen Morley

Karen Morley (born Mildred Linton; December 12, 1909 – March 8, 2003) was an American film actress.
Life and career.
Born Mildred Linton in Ottumwa, Iowa, Morley lived there until she was 13 years old. When she moved to Hollywood, she attended Hollywood High School and later graduated from UCLA.
After working at the Pasadena Playhouse, she came to the attention of the director Clarence Brown, at a time when he had been looking for an actress to stand-in for Greta Garbo in screen tests. This led to a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and roles in films such as "Mata Hari" (1931), "Scarface" (1932), "The Phantom of Crestwood" (1932), "The Mask of Fu Manchu" (1932), "Arsene Lupin" (1933), "Gabriel Over the White House" (1933), and "Dinner at Eight" (1933).
In 1934, Morley left MGM after arguments about her roles and her private life. Her first film after leaving the studio was "Our Daily Bread" (1934), directed by King Vidor. She continued to work as a freelance performer and appeared in Michael Curtiz's "Black Fury", and "The Littlest Rebel" with Shirley Temple. Without the support of a studio, her roles became less frequent; however, she did play Mr. Collins' wife Charlotte Lucas in "Pride and Prejudice" (1940), which was produced by MGM. The film was critically well-received, but it did not advance her career; as a result, Morley turned her attention to stage plays.
In the early 1940s, she appeared in several plays on Broadway, including the role of Gerda in the original production of "The Walrus and The Carpenter".
Her career came to an end in 1947 when she testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee and refused to answer questions about her alleged American Communist Party membership. She maintained her political activism for the rest of her life. In 1954, she ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor of New York on the American Labor Party ticket.
After being blacklisted in Hollywood by the studio bosses, she never rebuilt her film acting career.
In the early 1970s, Karen Morley briefly resumed her acting career with guest roles in television series such as "Kojak", "Kung Fu", and "Police Woman".
In 1993, she appeared in "The Great Depression", a documentary TV series produced by Henry Hampton's Blackside Productions in association with BBC2 and WGBH. In the series, she talked about how helpless she felt as a privileged Hollywood actress in the face of all the poverty and suffering that surrounded her. She also spoke of her experience making "Our Daily Bread" and working for King Vidor, whom she described as a conservative who thought that people should willingly help each other without government interference.
In December 1999, at the age of 90, she appeared in "Vanity Fair" in an article about blacklist survivors, and she was honored at the San Francisco FIlm Festival.
Personal life.
Morley was married to director Charles Vidor from 1932 until 1943. They met on the set of "Man About Town", in which Morley played the female lead, and Vidor was co-director. Vidor and Morley had a son, Michael Karoly, who was born in August 1933. Morley and Vidor were divorced in 1943. Later this year, she married the actor Lloyd Gough. They had one child together. They were married until Gough's death in 1984.
Death.
Morley lived in Santa Monica, California during her later years. She died of pneumonia at the age of 93 in Woodland Hills, California, and was survived by two grandsons, a great-grandson, and a great-granddaughter.


Breakfast of Champions (cereal)


Yetiv

Yetiv (יְ֚תִיב) is a cantillation mark found in the Torah, Haftarah, and other books of the Hebrew Bible. It is found in the Katon group in some occurrences in lieu of the more common Mahpach-Pashta clause, generally on one- or two-syllable words.
The Yetiv uses the same < symbol as the Mahpach, but when it is present, the < comes at the beginning of the word, unlike in a Mahpach, it is placed under the letter of the first syllable that is stressed. It is found to the right of the vowel. There is also no Pashta. In print, the Yetiv will sometimes be distinguished from the Mahapach by being more acutely angled, but in the identical position.
Yetiv occurs in the Torah 356 times.
The Hebrew word יְ֚תִיב translates into English as "sitting".
Melody.
The Yetiv starts off with a very high note, then drops low very suddenly.


Bull.Miletic

Synne T. Bull (Norwegian, born 1973) and Dragan Miletic (American, born Yugoslavia 1970) are two visual artists who work together as a collaborative duo called Bull.Miletic. They are principally known for their video installation artworks and contributions in the fields of media archaeology, new media, and history of film.
Short biography.
Bull and Miletic met at San Francisco Art Institute where they began to work as Bull.Miletic in 2000. Since 2005, Bull.Miletic's work has been represented by Anglim Gilbert Gallery. They currently live and work in Oslo, Norway.
Exhibitions.
Bull.Miletic have shown internationally at venues including Japan Media Arts Festival, Venice Biennale, California Biennial, WRO Media Art Biennale, Trondheim Kunstmuseum, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, German Architecture Museum, Frankfurt, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, Pasadena Museum of California Art, Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita, Henie Onstad Art Center, Høvikodden, and Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade. Their work has been reviewed in Artforum, Aftenposten, Billedkunst, Kunstkritikk, Mousse Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle, and Rhizome among others.
Recognition.
Bull.Miletic were the recipients of the Excellence Award at the Japan Media Arts Festival, Video Maker Award at the Bay Area Video Coalition, Best Norwegian Video Award at the Oslo Screen Festival and have received professional grants from the San Francisco Arts Commission, Arts Council Norway, Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art, Office for Contemporary Art Norway and CEC ArtsLink among others. They lectured in programs such as Art, Technology, and Culture Lecture Series at the University of California, Berkeley in 2011, SCMS Annual Conference 2013 Chicago and Arts + Design Mondays at Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive in 2017. Their work has been nominated for the Rockefeller Media Art Award as well as San Francisco Museum of Modern Art's SECA Art Award. They were artists in residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts in 2003, at Künstlerhause Bethanien Berlin in 2004, at Nordic Artists’ Center Dale in 2006, and at the Cité internationale des arts in Paris in 2007. In 2012, they were Visiting Artists at the Cinema and Media Studies, University of Chicago and in 2017, Bull.Miletic were inaugural Art + Science Artists-in-Residence at University of California, Berkeley.
Related activities.
Bull.Miletic initiated and curated several exhibitions including "Net.Film" in New York. In 2010, they co-organized "Urban Images" symposium at Oslo National Academy of the Arts. In 2012, they were part of the art research project "re:place" in association with Bergen Academy of Art and Design, Oslo National Academy of the Arts and The Grieg Academy, which culminated in the survey exhibition "This Must be the Place".


A Touch of Magic

A Touch of Magic (1961) is a cult-classic General Motors sponsored-film short musical.
The film begins with a designer at the drawing board, daydreaming about a 1920s couple who travel to the Middle Ages; the Man saves the Woman from a wizard ("an evil charmer") and a dragon, only to abruptly discover that they are all performing for an audience in the 1960s. The film then features the couple courting in General Motors' latest cars. Now married, the Man and Woman next appear in an early 1960s style home of the future with a magical kitchen; they host a housewarming party attended by invisible guests. We last see the couple dancing dreamily on a cloud.
The film, which went into the public domain, was produced and directed by Victor D. Solow through MPO Productions. Joseph Moncure March and Edward Eliscu wrote the script and lyrics; Sol Kaplan, the score. It starred dancers Tad Tadlock (real name Thelma Tadlock) and James Mitchell, with the singing voices of Anita Ellis and Ed Kenney.
This is one in a series of Populuxe films and events sponsored by General Motors. The series began with the General Motors Futurerama exhibit at the 1939 World's Fair, which displayed a vision of the future involving urban sprawl and multilane limited access freeways. GM's later Motorama exhibits continued this theme into the 1960s. "A Touch of Magic" was the film for the 1961 Motorama.


BBC Three idents

BBC Three, and BBC Choice before it, have both had visually dynamic identities to appeal to the target audience of young adults.
BBC Choice.
Choice of Three (1998–2000).
BBC Choice launched on 23 September 1998 as a digital channel aimed at the young adult market. Offering a choice of programming from specially commissioned programming to repeats from BBC One and Two. The launch identity was created by Lambie-Nairn and revolved around the idea of three objects, people, or characters with a central theme. Five were made and focused on:
In these idents, all three elements are seen individually close up before been seen together. The subjects are all seen on primary coloured backgrounds and feature a simple, one line logo below consisting of the BBC Logo and the name 'Choice' in upper case after the name in the font Gill Sans.
Promotions also followed this form, with the BBC Choice logo at the bottom of the screen throughout the promotion and programme information appearing at the end in the Gill Sans font above the logo. This style is the same as all of the BBC channels at the time. The station also utilised a Digital on-screen graphic (DOG) in the top left-hand corner of the screen, which featured the BBC Choice logo.
For the first few years of the station's existence, regional variations for the BBC nations existed, although originally only between the hours of 10pm and midnight. Each region retained the individual idents, with the addition of the region name below the BBC Choice logo. This allowed the nations to add additional programmes without disrupting the main schedules of BBC One and Two significantly. Notably, BBC Choice Northern Ireland utilised in-vision continuity prior to the idents, in which an announcer would appear in person to talk about the upcoming programmes.
Single Heart (2000–2001).
On 10 July 2000, BBC Choice began to air programmes directly targeting the young adult audience, following an alteration to its remit. As a result, the original idents needed altering to match the new programming on the channel. The new idents built on the previous idea of the heart ident. The ident featured a single heart, usually the stone or fire heart, in the centre of a fluorescent background from which other hearts emanate. These include smaller hearts and an outlined heart 'beamed' out directly to the screen.
The BBC Choice logotype was retained following the rebrand, as were promotion styles, the DOG and the national opt-outs for Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. However, the concept of a rotating triangular prism featuring the words 'Now on Choice' on each of the sides was used in promotions and to showcase upcoming programmes. The website address was added under the DOG in November 2000.
Three Boxes (2001–2002).
On 6 July 2001, BBC Choice rebranded again. This time, the hearts aspect was dropped in favour of three orange boxes set in a blue and green world. The boxes would often interact with each other, roll over and adjust their own shape. The BBC Choice logotype remained at the bottom of the screen throughout the idents and as the DOG, although the DOG was altered to add the BBC Choice URL below the logo.
These boxes were used in many aspects throughout the channel, such as Now, Next and Later pointers to upcoming programmes. The promotions also changed; the BBC Choice logo still remained at the bottom of the screen throughout the promotion, however information was now purveyed through the boxes. As each detail, such as the programme title, day and time of broadcast, was announced, a box appeared in top right of the screen with the detail written next to it. All three boxes were shown stacked atop each other in the top right of the screen at the end of the promotion.
The channel at this time also started to change its format: a result of the BBC wanting to rebrand and reposition BBC Choice as BBC Three. All regional variations of the channel ceased and the channel was split into two distinctive segments: BBC Choice starting from 7pm and CBBC on Choice from 6am.
Construction (2002–2003).
Following the approval of BBC Three by the government, the identity began to change to reflect the new channel coming soon. First of all seen were variations of the current idents within which a wrecking ball would hit the screen, causing it to shatter, revealing a building site behind it.
In December 2002, the whole ident package changed outright to two builders on the construction site seen previously. Scaffolding and blue sheeting obscure the upper case 'THREE' that would provide the backdrop to the BBC Three launch idents. The builders themselves would often interact with elements of the identity, such as placing their mug of tea on the BBC Choice logo. Over the Christmas period, the channel's first Christmas idents were created featuring a builder taking his hat off to reveal a pair of reindeer antlers against the construction site lit with lights round the scaffolding. On 19 January 2003, a countdown was added to the exterior of the scaffolding, outlining the weeks and days until the relaunch.
BBC Three.
Blobs (2003–2008).
BBC Three launched on 9 February 2003. The new identity for the channel was devised by Lambie-Nairn and featured 'blobs' set in a blue environment with a towering three-dimensional 'THREE' in the background. The blobs were designed to be characters within the ident and not presenters and never commented on the upcoming programme. Each blob was computer generated, created by Stefan Marjoram at Aardman Animations, and given a voice from the BBC Sound Archive. The brown blobs parallel the CBBC green and CBeebies yellow blobs used at the time and showing a progression through age groups.
The channel's logo consisted of a BBC logo above a slanted, upper case, Three set inside a white box. The contents of the box itself, however, were transparent, so that the ident could be seen through the logo. The box structure itself is similar to the other BBC Channels, but the slanted text is different from all of the other channels, who at the time had the channel name in Gill Sans below the BBC logo. In 2005, the box colour was changed from white to blue with white text.
The channel's original DOG consisted of the style previously used on the BBC's channels, using the BBC logo follower by an upper case 'THREE' in the font Gill Sans. This lasted until 2005, when it was replaced by a DOG proclaiming the channel as 'Channel of the Year' in upper case and in the same font as the BBC Three logo. The BBC Three logo itself was adopted after this.
The channel used a variety of promotions and stings. Prior to the launch, the channel made use of the song "Three Is the Magic Number", based (only the lyrics are copied) upon Schoolhouse Rock! played in the background. Other trailer animations showed one blob standing in front of the figure 'THREE' shouting "Three!", before another 'THREE' rises up from underneath the original, toppling it. Promotions originally ended with a gradient blue stripe over the programme promotion containing the information and BBC Three white logo; this was however changed with the logo to a three-dimensional blue block seen from a corner with programme information on one side.
The channel occasionally used slides for continuity; one used each day at startup featured a still from one of the idents along with the simple message 'BBC Three gets going in a moment', however, some were used to link to upcoming programmes. These slides featured the programme picture in the centre of the screen with the 'THREE' clearly visible behind it in the background with the BBC Three logo and programme information directly below the picture.
According to "The Guardian", the blobs were eventually replaced because viewers found them "cold and shouty". Their departure was marked with special idents featuring celebrities such as Matt Lucas voicing the blobs.
Media World (2008–2013).
In 2008, Danny Cohen, the controller for BBC Three at the time, unveiled a new cross-platform brand for BBC Three. The new logo would feature on the revamped BBC Three website, mobile site and on the channel itself. The links between the three media would only increase with time as emphasis was placed to watch the channel on all three platforms. "The thinking behind this rebrand of the channel is that we have, in effect, created a BBC Three world in which our content can move seamlessly between TV, online and mobile", he explained. "We have a fantastic line-up of programmes and we are going to make them available wherever young people want them." The rebrand cost GBP 380,000, described as "relatively little" by Cohen.
The look was designed by Red Bee Media along with agencies MPG and Agency Republic with music and sound design by creative audio company Koink. The idents themselves featured a new look BBC Three logo; a continuous pipe containing pink liquid spelling out 'three' in lower case below a BBC logo. In the idents, the logo is seen on its own as an object in the 'Three world'. However, the logo is occasionally seen contained within a purple box for cross channel promotional purposes.
The idents themselves contain a surreal world where technology is seen in large scale, with plug sockets, phones, televisions along with other objects such as fire extinguishers, sunglasses, high heeled shoes, lipstick all linked together by pipes containing multicoloured liquid. Pools of this liquid is also seen in a number of the idents when pipes breach. The plainly surreal nature of these scenes conveys the nature of the programmes themselves as they take a different view of life.
Following the 12 February 2008 relaunch, the channel began to use in-vision continuity, with announcers such as Jose Vanders announcing the upcoming schedule in the early evening. In addition to this, members of the public could record and upload links into programmes shown in the late evening or alongside the announcer in the early evening. This was however suspended in Summer 2008.
The channel changed its DOG at the time of the relaunch to a full-colour version of the new logo, a controversial decision at the time. The DOG was originally placed to the centre left of the screen so that viewers without a widescreen television would still be able to see the logo. However, in 2011, the DOG's of all BBC channels was moved to the far left corner of the screen.
BBC Three's promotional style initially featured a scene of the 'Three world' at the conclusion of the promotion, containing the BBC Three logo, promotion information and a clip from the programme seen from a suspended television. The end clip was dropped after a while however, with a plainer look utilised instead. Programme slides are still utilised by the channel, however it is primarily used on other channels. The slide design features a picture from the programme above the BBC Three logo and programme information contained within a purple box all inside a billboard design.
Discovery (2013–2016).
The latest idents and presentation style was introduced on 1 October 2013, retaining the logo from 2008. The idents follow the theme of "discovery", and were designed by Claire Powell at Red Bee Media. The soundtrack for the idents was composed by Chris Branch and Tom Haines at Brains & Hunch.
Remix of BBC Three (2016).
On 4 January 2016, BBC Three got a new look, before the television channel moved to online only on 16 February.


Lakes 96FM

Lakes 96FM was a radio station in Rotorua. The station was started in 1988 as Lake City 96FM broadcasting on 95.9FM with the call sign 1HOT. In the early nineties the station became known as Rotorua's 96FM and in 1998 Lakes 96FM. Also in 1998 Lakes 96FM began broadcasting on 1548AM after "Classic Gold" (another station operated by Lakes 96FM) was closed down. Lakes 96FM was later sold to RadioWorks and became part of RadioWorks group of local stations known as LocalWorks.
On 15 January 2005 Lakes 96FM was rebranded as More FM after RadioWorks rebranded the majority of their local heritage stations as More FM.
Prior to this station starting, a summer station was operating as 90.2 Hot FM from a small cramped studio upstairs in Hinemoa Street. This station was on air from 6am through to midnight.


Shoaib Ahmed Shaikh

Shoaib Ahmed Shaikh also known as SAS (born April 17, 1971) is a Pakistani businessman and mediamogul. He is the founder of 24-hour news cycle network named "BOL Network". He also founded diploma mill company Axact.
Early life.
Shoaib was born on 17 April 1971 in Karachi, Sindh to middle-class family. His father was a Sindh High Court lawyer who also served some years as the principal of the Islamia College. Shaikh has four sibilings.
Career.
Founding BOL Network (2013).
In June 2013, Shoaib Ahmed Sheikh started a Pakistani 24-hour news cycle network named BOL Network. According to him, BOL Network was meant to create an independent media house to portray a soft image of Pakistan. The company also announced a television set brand by the name of BG.
Arrestment.
Following the publication of the New York Times article, Pakistan's Interior Minister directed the country's Federal Investigation Agency to begin inquiry into whether the company was involved in any legal business. Following the interior minister’s order, cyber crime team of FIA raided Axact’s office in Karachi and Islamabad and seized computers, recorded statements of employees as well taking into custody 25 employees of the company and 28 employees from Rawalpindi office. The FIA team found and seized several blank degrees as well as fake letterhead of the US State Department. The investigation was transferred from the FIA's cyber crime department to its corporate department. Regarding the New York Times article it is known that Shoaib Shaikh had made over $89 million Dollars and had laundered money through shell companies in the US and more offshore companies which were used to fund Axact and their news company BOL. The issue was also taken up in Senate of Pakistan where Chairman of the Senate Raza Rabbani constituted a committee to probe into the issue. Pakistan's tax authorities and the SECP also initiated investigations into the company.
On May 26, 2015, Federal Investigation Agency arrested Shoaib Ahmed Shaikh for investigation. The case was filed against him on May 27, 2015 in Karachi, Pakistan. Subsequently, Axact was sealed on May 28, 2015 and the Information ministry requested the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) to close down BOL. He was given bail prior to his conviction, the case filed against him on the charges of alleged fraud, extortion, and money laundering.
On May 26, 2015, Federal Investigation Agency arrested Shoaib Ahmed Shaikh for investigation. The case was filed against him on May 27, 2015 in Karachi, Pakistan.
On September 26, 2018, Shaikh was sentenced to 7 years in prison for the diploma mill conspiracies, along with several other accomplishes.<ref name="https://www.dawn.com/news/1418156"></ref> His wife was acquitted of all charges.
In July 2018, the court announced a 20-year jail sentence to him along with 22 others regarding the fake degree case, and was subsequently sentenced in September 2018.


A Word to the Wives...

A Word to the Wives is a 1955 sponsored comedy film directed by Norman Lloyd and starring Marsha Hunt and Darren McGavin.
The film, now in the public domain, was sponsored by the American Gas Association, the National Association of Home Builders, and "Woman's Home Companion" magazine, and features products by Caloric, Whirlpool Corporation, Formica Corporation, Republic Steel Kitchens, and Ruud.
Plot.
Housewife Jane Peters is envious of her friend Alice's new ranch house. At Alice's suggestion, she decides to trick her husband, George, into buying a new kitchen. Jane leaves her husband and son alone while she visits her mother in Cleveland.
George is completely incompetent when trying to cook for himself and his son in their aging kitchen. After Jane returns, the Peters visit Alice and her husband and find out more about the modern conveniences in their new home. George then decides that his entire home needs replacing, and he arranges to buy a new home, complete with his wife's dream kitchen.


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B2Blogger.com

B2Blogger.com is an international press release agency. It was founded in July 2005 as the first Russian-speaking internet blog about Business-to-business-marketing. Later company introduced press release distribution services for companies in Russia, Ukraine and other CIS countries. Now it combines the blog and internet-services for marketers and for public relations specialists from Business-to-business-environment. It is oriented on business managers, marketing sector specialists and PR specialists, business consultants, educational institutions professors and students.
Products and services.
The platform for corporate Press Release Distribution of companies for Internet Distribution and news aggregator delivering through RSS-channels (including Google News, Yandex.News, Novoteka, META News, Rambler News, Glavport, UAport и NewsIsFree) is one of the main services of B2Blogger.com.
The platform is adopted for Web 2.0 technologies: company profiles and categories have RSS-channels, microformats, tags; social bookmarks and social news (Digg-type) bookmarks are used. First podcasts in Press Releases among Russian-speaking Press Release platforms were used here.


Albert Johnson Walker

Albert Johnson Walker (born 1946) also known as "The Rolex Killer" (before being caught) is a Canadian criminal serving a prison term for embezzlement and murder. He is noted for murdering an Englishman whose identity he had been assuming, and for posing for years as though his daughter were his wife.
Early life.
Originally from Paris, Ontario, Walker was a high school drop-out. After doing numerous odd jobs, he was eventually hired as a bank teller for a trust company. He also started filing other people's income tax returns. Walker quit his job at the trust company some two years later to establish his own freelance bookkeeping business, "Walker Financial Services Incorporated."
Walker Financial.
In over a decade, Walker Financial grew into a six-branch operation with about thirty employees. In 1986, a stock deal that Walker had invested in collapsed. As a mortgage broker and financier, Walker defrauded about 70 Canadian clients of $3.2 million. In 1990, he fled to Europe with the second of his three daughters. In 1993, Walker was charged in Canada with 18 counts of fraud, theft and money laundering. Over a period of time, Walker became Canada's most wanted criminal and the second most wanted by Interpol.
Time in England.
Walker eventually made his way to Harrogate in North Yorkshire where he lived with his daughter, who was posing as his wife. During this time, that daughter had two children, the paternity of whom has not been revealed. He changed his name to David Sibindi and began a business career with television repairman Ronald Joseph Platt. Platt, raised in Canada, wished to return to his home country. Walker bankrolled this trip, but claimed he needed Platt's driver's licence, signature stamp and birth certificate for the business. When Platt left for Canada in 1992, initially with the intent of permanently settling there, Walker assumed his identity.
Murder and conviction.
Platt was out of money and returned to England in 1995. Walker took Platt out on a fishing trip 20 July 1996 where he murdered him, weighed him down with an anchor, and dumped his body in the sea. Two weeks later the body was discovered in the English Channel by fisherman John Copik with a Rolex wristwatch being the only identifiable object on the body. Since the Rolex movement had a serial number and was engraved with special markings every time it was serviced, British police traced the service records from Rolex. Ronald Joseph Platt was identified as the owner of the watch and the victim of the murder. In addition British police were able to determine the date of death by examining the date on the watch calendar and since the Rolex movement had a reserve of two to three days of operation when inactive and it was fully waterproof, they were able to determine the time of death within a small margin of error. Walker was apprehended shortly thereafter.
In the spring of 1998, Walker's preliminary hearing was held in the village courtroom in Teignmouth, England. On 27 April 1998, Walker pleaded not guilty in his murder trial in the English city of Exeter. He was found guilty in 1998 and received an automatic life sentence for murder. Had Walker not been convicted, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office would have transferred him back to Canada to face his fraud charges.
Transfer to Canada.
On 22 February 2005, "The Globe and Mail" reported that Walker would be transferred to a Canadian prison, where he faced additional charges of fraud, theft and money laundering.
On 23 July 2007, Walker was sentenced in Kingston, Ontario, to four years for fraud and one year concurrent for violations of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act (Canada). He started serving his life sentence in Canada at Kingston Penitentiary. When that prison was permanently closed in 2013 he was transferred to a prison in the Canadian province of British Columbia.
Media.
In 1998 a book detailing the story of Albert Walker, "A hand in the water: The many lies of Albert Walker", by award-winning "Toronto Star" journalist Bill Schiller, was published by HarperCollins.
Also in 1998, a second book detailing Walker's story, "Nothing Sacred: The many lives and betrayals of Albert Walker", by award-winning "Toronto Sun" journalist Alan Cairns, was published by McClelland-Bantam, Inc.
A made-for-TV movie "AKA Albert Walker" documenting Walker's crimes and eventual arrest was released in 2002.
In 2002, Walker's wife, Barb ("née" MacDonald), authored a book entitled "Dancing Devil - My twenty years with Albert Walker", detailing her life with Walker leading up to his departure from Canada.
A documentary detailing the crime called "Interpol Investigates - Body Double" was made by National Geographic.
A "Forensic Files" episode titled "Time Will Tell" details Ronald Platt's murder investigation and Albert Walker's capture.
A theatrical play by Peter Colley, "Stolen Lives, The Albert Walker Story", performed at the Blyth Festival in Blyth, Ontario in 2000.
The background behind Walker's arrest in England was featured in an episode called "The Almost Perfect Murder" in the documentary series "Real Crime".
In 2010 British Soap Opera Coronation Street aired a story-line that bore a striking resemblance to the Albert Walker/Ronald Platt Murder, in which character John Stape, after being struck off the Teaching Register for kidnapping a school girl steals the identity of a former colleague named Colin Fishwick in order to once again gain employment as a teacher. Fishwick had emigrated to Canada, allowing Stape to freely assume his identity. But Fishwick would soon make an unexpected u-turn and choose to return to live in the UK, uncovering Stape's deception and ultimately dies during a confrontation with Stape. Although not directly responsible for his death as Fishwick had been the victim of a savage beating by another man in an unrelated incident just days prior to their confrontation and had succumbed to his injuries, Stape chooses not to report his death, knowing he could easily be shown to have a motive for murdering Fishwick and buries his body in a construction site in order to maintain his deception.


Salvage with a Smile

Salvage with a Smile is a 1940 British, black-and-white, sponsored war film, directed by Adrian Brunel and starring Ronald Shiner as the Dustman. It was produced by Ealing Studios and the Ministry of Supply for the Ministry of Information.
Synopsis.
The educational film aims to help the "people back home" save paper, bones and metal, for the war effort.


Media Council of Papua New Guinea

The Media Council of Papua New Guinea (MCPNG) was established in 1985 and is a body responsible for the development of media and the regulator of media services in Papua New Guinea (PNG).
The MCPNG’s purpose is to provide innovative solutions to strengthening the media in PNG. It is also responsible for enhancing the capacity of the media, and acting as a “watch-dog, agenda-setter and gate-keeper”. The MCPNG hopes to create a “free, pluralistic and vibrant media” that contributes to the democratic governance debate in the country.
Programmes.
The MCPNG advances its goals through two programmes – the Media for Development Initiative (MDI) and the Development Communication Initiative (DCI). The MDI is focused on the advancement of media in PNG and the DCI is responsible for engaging civil society in the communication of development information across the country.
AusAID reports that the MDI contributed “to improved stability, governance and service provision by supporting an open and democratic media that delivers quality information services to all areas of PNG.” Working with the National Broadcasting Corporation and the Media Council, the MDI strengthens the capacity and the operations of the media in PNG, particularly in the rural areas.
This approach is based on the principle that an accessible and effective media can:
The MDI is run by Justin Kili, a veteran journalist who has spent time working for the British Broadcasting Corporation. He is known as “the voice of PNG”.
Initiatives.
In a presentation to the OECD, the Media Council listed several initiatives that it has led in line with its goals. They are:
Supporters.
The MCPNG lists its main supporters as AusAID and the embassy of the People’s Republic of China.
AusAID contributes up to A$500 million to the programme per year. Between 2003 and 2008, AusAID contributed A$13.9 million specifically to the MDI.
Misallocation of funds.
In June 2011, AusAID suspended its donations to the MCPNG after a routine audit found anecdotal evidence of fraud. The audit found that funds “had not been managed in accordance with procurement guidelines” and that several thousand dollars were missing.
An executive director of MCPNG, Nimo Kama, was suspended following the revelation. Kama was formerly the MCPNG’s chief executive before being appointed as vice president of the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA), a body providing representation to media professionals across 23 Pacific Islands. Kama replaced the former vice president, John Woods, who resigned over disagreements with the PINA board’s stance on the constitutional crisis in Fiji.


MUNTfm

MUNT fm is the student radio station for the Massey University Wellington Campus in Wellington, New Zealand. It is commercial free and shows are run entirely by volunteers. MUNT stands for Massey University Network Transmissions. The broadcast is located at 88.5 FM.
According to the MUNT fm website:
MUNT fm prides itself on being 100% commercial free, with a unique musical format and presenters unlike any other radio station in Wellington (some of them should really be committed).
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The MUNT fm shows are run entirely by volunteers and most of those are current students. Each DJ is responsible for the music, the content, and the style of their show meaning no show is the same; we have Punk shows, Reggae shows, Rock revival shows, Breaks, techno, D & B and most other ‘Electronic’ styles, wicked indie shows and shows that are nearly impossible to categorise so there’s something for everyone, well except for you cheesy commercial pop fiends – Go find another radio station, we don’t want you! If it’s popular on the Edge, ZM, More fm, or any of other advertising absorbed stations then we don’t do it, say it, or play it. There are the odd exceptions though, but that’s only when commercial radio pulls its finger out and plays something decent.
History.
MUNT fm began broadcasting in February 2003. It is based in the heart of the Massey design campus in the Old Museum Building off Buckle Street. It is a department of the Massey Wellington Students' Association (aka MAWSA) who partly fund the station, hence its ability to remain commercial free. The station brings in extra money through show sponsorship so it can continue to grow and to run events around Wellington.


Minolta takes on the rough country


Design for Dreaming

Design for Dreaming is a 1956 cult industrial short or sponsored film of about ten minutes' length about a woman (played by dancer and choreographer Tad Tadlock, with voice by Marjorie Gordon) who dreams about a masked man (dancer and choreographer Marc Breaux, with singing voice provided by Joseph Lautner) taking her to the 1956 General Motors Motorama at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and to Frigidaire's "Kitchen of the Future". The entirety of the dialogue is sung, though the actors do not move their lips to their characters' pre-recorded voices.
The film begins in her bedroom, with the masked man suddenly appearing. He then takes her to the Motorama. After looking at several cars including Buick, Chevrolet Corvette, Oldsmobile, and Cadillacs, she is taken to the "kitchen of the future", where she bakes a cake. She then goes back to the motorama and dances the "dance of tomorrow". After looking at more cars, she and her masked man (who unmasks himself) travel on the "road of tomorrow" in the "Firebird II".
History.
The film was produced and directed by Victor Solow for MPO Productions, stars Tad Tadlock and Marc Breaux, and features the voice of Thurl Ravenscroft. The original music was by Sol Kaplan. It was shot in 16mm Anscocolor. GM sponsored a sequel, "A Touch of Magic", for the last Motorama in 1961.
In popular culture.
The short was included in a fifth-season episode of the television series "Mystery Science Theater 3000". In a related comedy sketch, the unnamed female lead is given the name "Nuveena, the Woman of the Future", and portrayed by Bridget Jones Nelson, who reprised the role in a handful of sketches in subsequent episodes.
The BBC documentary series "Pandora's Box" by Adam Curtis made extensive use of clips from "Design for Dreaming", especially in the title sequence.
Excerpts from this public domain film also were featured in Michael Moore's "". Part of the film, with dialogue, is played during the opening titles for "The Hills Have Eyes". Some snippets (without dialogue) are played in the video watched by Michael Douglas during his physical in "The Game" and in the opening titles for "The Stepford Wives" (2004).
Some footage was also used in the music video for Peter Gabriel's 1987 single "In Your Eyes", Rush's 1989 music video for "Superconductor", a 1989 commercial for the Nintendo Game Boy game "Super Mario Land", a 1994 commercial for Power Macintosh, and during Nine Inch Nails concert performances.


ITU Region

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), in its International Radio Regulations, divides the world into three ITU regions for the purposes of managing the global radio spectrum. Each region has its own set of frequency allocations, the main reason for defining the regions.
Boundaries.
Lines:
Usage.
The definition of the European Broadcasting Area uses some of the definitions of Region 1.


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Jasons Travel Media

Jasons is a publisher of travel guides and an online directory of activities and lodging in New Zealand, Australia, and the South Pacific. Jasons produces 62 free travel guides annually.
History.
The company was started as a family business in 1967 by John Sanford.
In 1996, the company launched a website.
Jason Publishing Co Ltd was renamed to Jasons Travel Media in 2000.
In 2005, it became a public company via an initial public offering on the New Zealand Stock Exchange.
In August 2006, Steven Joyce, later Minister of Economic Development, Minister of Science and Innovation, Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment and Associate Minister of Finance in New Zealand, became chief executive officer of the company after he acquired an 8.8% stake.
In 2008, the company acquired Strait Solutions; the Today-Tonight visitor guide print publications in Christchurch and Queenstown; and the brochure distribution services and two visitor guides of Whytewaters in Queenstown.
In late 2011 and early 2012, mobile apps were launched for iOS.
In December 2013, the company was acquired by Bennetts Group for $928,000 after it was placed in receivership.
In 2015, it was acquired by iTAG.


Alex Monteith

Alex Monteith (born 1977) is a new media artist and academic, born in Northern Ireland and resident in New Zealand. She is also a competitive surfer and has won national titles in the sport.
Biography.
Monteith was born and grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland. In the late 1980s she emigrated to New Zealand and settled in Auckland. She completed a bachelor's degree in photography in 2001, followed by a master's degree in intermedia and the time based arts and a doctorate in fine arts at the Elam School of Fine Arts, The University of Auckland. She later became a lecturer at the university.
Monteith's works focus on political issues surrounding land ownership, history and occupation. Many of her projects are located in large-scale geographies, such as the ocean. She has staged solo exhibitions at the Govett‐Brewster Art Gallery and the Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt, Germany.
Monteith is also a member of the collective Local Time (composed of her, Danny Butt, Jon Bywater and Natalie Robertson). The collective has worked together since 2007 and has installed artworks in locations including Muri Lagoon, Rarotonga (2015), Mangere maunga (2014) and the Waitemata Harbour (2013) in Aotearoa New Zealand; Footscray, Australia (2014); and Delhi, India (2013).
Recognition.
In 2004, Monteith received the Breton Award as overall festival winner at the International Surrealist Film Festival. In 2008, she received a New Generation Award from the Arts Foundation of New Zealand. In 2010 she was a finalist in the Walters Prize art competition.
Surfing career.
Monteith was the Irish National Women’s champion in 2001 and represented Ireland in both the 2002 International Surfing Association World Surfing Championship in Durban, South Africa, and the European Surfing Championships in 2001.