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Ben Harney

Benjamin Robertson Harney (March 6, 1872 – March 2, 1938) was an American songwriter, entertainer, and pioneer of ragtime music. His 1896 composition "You've Been a Good Old Wagon but You Done Broke Down" is the second ragtime composition to be published and the first ragtime hit to reach the mainstream. The first Ragtime composition published was La Pas Ma La written by Ernest Hogan in 1895. It has been disputed by many historians on whether or not, "You've Been a Good Old Wagon but You Done Broke Down" was released in late 1895 or early 1896. On the front cover of "You've Been a Good Old Wagon but You Done Broke Down", it is listed as being copyrighted on 1895. However, on the first page, it is listed as being copyrighted in 1896. During the early years of Harney's career, he falsely promoted himself as being the inventor of ragtime and never acknowledged the genre's black origin. Many contemporary musicians criticized him for it. Although ragtime is now probably more associated with Scott Joplin, in 1924 The New York Times wrote that Ben Harney "Probably did more to popularize ragtime than any other person." Time magazine called him "Ragtime's Father" in 1938.

Life and career
Harney is generally said to have been born in Louisville, Kentucky. Although some sources put his birthplace as Nashville, Tennessee, according to his father's military records he was born in Memphis, Tennessee. In the past some have claimed that Harney was African-American and early in his career he is said to have played with African-American theater troupes. But, W.C. Handy referred to him as "white". All photographic and contemporary accounts show that Harney was light skinned with red hair. He married and lived in white society and always represented himself as White. Furthermore, his well-documented family background conclusively proves his ethnicity. Harney was the son of Benjamin Mills Harney, a veteran of both the Mexican–American War and the Civil War, and his second wife Margaret Wellington Draffin, daughter of a prominent Kentucky lawyer. His grandfather was John Hopkins Harney, the first mathematics professor at Indiana University and author of the first algebra textbook ever published in the United States. His uncle William Wallace Harney was a renowned journalist and author. He counted two prominent U.S. generals as distant cousins: Lew Wallace and William Selby Harney.

Harney's tunes "You've Been a Good Old Wagon but You Done Broke Down", "Mister Johnson, Turn Me Loose", and "Cake Walk In The Sky" were big hits in the late 1890s. In 1896, the cover of Ben Harney's song "You've Been a Good Old Wagon but You Done Broke Down", stated that Harney was the "Original Introducer to the Stage of the Now Popular 'Rag Time' in Ethiopian Song." This was one of the earliest known references to ragtime on sheet music and some sources have regarded the composition as being the first published rag. The sheet music version of "Cake Walk in the Sky" provided the first written out example of vocal ragging (early scat). A recording of Harney singing "The Wagon" (see below), although recorded many years later, in 1925, fits early accounts of Harney's, then, very remarkable vocal style and suggests that Harney was singing very authentic sounding blues back in the 1890s. "Cake Walk in the Sky" was published by M. Witmark & Sons in New York in 1899. On the cover to the sheet music, "Cake Walk in the Sky" is described as a "March A La Ragtime" and as "A Rag-Time Nightmare".

In January 1896 Harney moved to New York City, where he appeared regularly at Tony Pastor's Music Hall. That same year Harney was referred to in print as "the rag time pianist". Harney's appearances in New York, such as at the Weber and Fields' Broadway Music Hall, the Metropolitan Opera House, and Tony Pastor's Music Hall, promoting ragtime music, did much to create widespread popular and commercial enthusiasm for ragtime as a new genre of American music. He also organized and directed a variety show called Ragtime Reception.

In 1897 Harney published his book Ben Harney's Rag Time Instructor, the first description of how to rag: how to improvise rag time music by syncopating unsyncopated popular tunes. His Rag Time Instructor was arranged by ragtime composer Theodore H. Northrup and included written-out examples of "ragged" popular tunes including light classics and opera songs.

Also in 1897, Harney married Edyth Murray of Streator, Illinois. They later divorced, and he married an actress, Jessie Boyce, whose stage name was Jessie Haynes.

Harney toured widely on the vaudeville circuits in the United States, as well as tours of theaters in Europe and Asia, Australasia and the South Pacific. Once ragtime became popular he started billing himself as The Originator of Ragtime or The Father of Ragtime, which most (but not all) of his contemporaries thought was an overstatement for the sake of advertising. Harney's act included him ragging tunes at the piano, scat singing, and dancing. Theatrical photographs from his Australasia tour (1911) show him dancing in blackface.

Harney quit touring after suffering from a heart attack in 1928.

Ben Harney died of a heart attack at the age of 66 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1938. In an appreciation that appeared in Time magazine on March 14, 1938, a week after his death, he was described as "Ragtime's Father". Time wrote that "the first man to write ragtime down on paper was a slick-haired Kentuckian, Ben Harney."

Compositions
Ben Harney's compositions included:

 * 1890s
 * "The Sporting Life is Sure Killing Me"
 * "Tomahau"
 * "Wissahickon"
 * 1896
 * "You've Been a Good Old Wagon but You Done Broke Down", arranged by Johnny Biller
 * "Mister Johnson, Turn Me Loose"
 * "I Love My Honey"
 * 1897
 * "There's A Knocker Layin' Around"
 * "You May Go, but This Will Bring You Back"
 * "Ben Harney's Ragtime Instructor", arranged by Theodore H. Northrup
 * 1898
 * "Draw That Color Line: A Decision of Color"
 * "If You Got Any Sense You'll Go"
 * 1899
 * "The Hat He Never Ate", with Howard S. Taylor
 * 1899
 * "The Cake Walk in the Sky: Ethiopian Two Step", arranged by F.W. Meacham
 * "The Cake Walk in the Sky: Song"
 * "Tell it to Me: A Coontown Expression"
 * "I Love My Little Honey", arranged by W.H. Mackie
 * "The Black Man's Kissing Bug: An Interrupted Osculation in Darktown"
 * "I Love One Sweet Black Man"
 * 1901
 * "The Only Way to Keep A Gal is to Keep Her in a Cage"
 * "I'd Give a Hundred if the Gal Was Mine"
 * 1902
 * "T.T.T." ("Treat, Trade or Travel")
 * 1913
 * "There's Only One Way to Keep a Gal", arranged by W. R. Dorsey
 * 1914
 * "Cannon Ball Catcher"
 * 1925
 * "The Wagon", recorded by Harney on a phonograph cylinder, U.S. Library of Congress

Listen
While Harney was neglected by commercial recording studios during his lifetime, in 1925 a folklorist, Robert Winslow Gordon, recorded Harney singing an example of an early ragtime or rag-blues song, "The Wagon", on a dictaphone phonograph cylinder, and this recording has survived. Harney stated on the recording: "This is absolutely the first song published in ragtime; the first song ever written in ragtime. The idea was conceived by Ben Harney, in Louisville, Kentucky."

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Ben Harney


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Talk:Manganese

There is no section on the physical properties of metalic manganese!
i.e. different phases density, crystal structure, mp, bp...

very odd. if i have time one day i will try add some.

there are MANY cool facts:

two phases of solid manganese metal are VERY complex https://www.atomic-scale-physics.de/lattice/struk/mn.html

https://www.isis.stfc.ac.uk/Pages/Solving-a-20-Year-Mystery-The-Frustrating-Case-of-%C3%9FManganese.aspx

https://eprints.nmlindia.org/5609/1/3-28.PDF Wikiskimmmer (talk) 22:36, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

 * You can add this information yourself under Manganese. –LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄ ) 02:59, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
 * it's been a long time. i forget how to do all the wiki things! Wikiskimmmer (talk) 07:07, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
 * The difficult part is the content, the "wiki things" can be dealt with by many people. Its subject-expertise that Wikipedia most fervently seeks, not editing technique. --Smokefoot (talk) 13:56, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
 * ugh! writing takes so much effort.  ok, here goes Wikiskimmmer (talk) 17:36, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
 * also, i TOTLY missed that there are a ton of physical facts on the box to the right! Wikiskimmmer (talk) 17:39, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

The allotropes are super interesting with their crazily complex unit cells. I just added a section on allotropes. Please add or repair as needed. –MadeOfAtoms (talk) 11:36, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

 * Added to wikidata.
 * DePiep (talk) 12:23, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
 * thanks! looks cool. Wikiskimmer (talk) 19:42, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
 * DePiep (talk) 12:23, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
 * thanks! looks cool. Wikiskimmer (talk) 19:42, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
 * DePiep (talk) 12:23, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
 * thanks! looks cool. Wikiskimmer (talk) 19:42, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Discovery of Manganese. Whose fame?
Double sharp (greetings to Double sharp) gave the honor of the first discoverer to Kaim (1770) on Wikipedia. Others say that it was Scheele with his friend Gahn (1774). I understand that Kaim did it earlier, but the source implies his discovery was not fully confirmed, right? It turns out that Kaim was one of those who discovered manganese... What can we do?

Tosha Langue (talk) 17:28, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for prompting me to investigate this further! RSC credits Kaim too, and Venetskii in 1966 said there were grounds to believe he was first, though some details are missing. The Pergamon volume on group 7 says In 1770 J. G. Kaim heated pyrolusite with black flux and obtained a regulus, but it was not until 1774 that the great Swedish chemist, C. W. Scheele, realized that the ore and its extracts contained a new element. Although Scheele made this discovery he did not succeed in isolating the metal, and this was achieved by J. G. Gahn the same year. However in 2020 a historical study of Scheele and Bergman wrote It is possible that manganese had been prepared before Scheele’s studies. It is, for example, possible that Kaim prepared manganese in 1770 [and here Kaim's original work, which I can't consult, is cited], but his results are unverified and gained little recognition.
 * I think now that it's probably best to hedge Kaim's claim with a word like "possibly" or "probably". Double sharp (talk) 02:33, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Pentacarbonyl
See “Pentacarbonylhydridomanganese”. On said article’s talk page, i posted a complaint about said article. Solomonfromfinland (talk) 01:36, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Manganese


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Anti-LGBT rhetoric

Anti-LGBT rhetoric comprises themes, catchphrases, and slogans that have been used in order to demean lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. They range from the demeaning and the pejorative to expressions of hostility towards homosexuality which are based on religious, medical, or moral grounds. It is widely considered a form of hate speech, which is illegal in countries such as the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden.

Anti-LGBT rhetoric often consists of moral panic and conspiracy theories. In Eastern Europe, these conspiracy theories are based on earlier antisemitic conspiracy theories and posit that the LGBT movement is an instrument of foreign control and domination.

As a foreign conspiracy
In 1969, the Greek junta exited the Council of Europe after being found in violation of the European Convention of Human Rights, judging that the European Commission of Human Rights was "a conspiracy of homosexuals and communists against Hellenic values".

This discourse, promoted by the governments of Hungary and Poland, alleges that LGBT rights movements are controlled by foreign forces (such as the European Union) and are a threat to national independence and western civilization. Anti-government protests in Russia and the Euromaidan have also been portrayed by the Russian government as the work of an LGBT conspiracy. Furthermore, although Russia considers itself to be a European country, its government also considers its values as entirely different from those commonly seen within the European Union. More specifically, Russia used to protest against the common European Values in support of LGBT rights, however rather than complaining about these values, Russia has now chosen to openly express their own values, which are entirely against any support for LGBT rights.

As an ideology

In 2013, the conservative blog American Thinker published several articles using the phrase "LGBT ideology". The Italian Catholic philosopher Roberto Marchesini used the phrase in a 2015 article, equating it with the earlier concept of "gender ideology". In his article he does not define either "LGBT ideology" or "gender ideology". In 2017, several conservative Islamic politicians in Malaysia and Indonesia attacked "LGBT ideology".

During a sermon on 1 August 2019, Polish Archbishop Marek Jędraszewski called "LGBT ideology" a "rainbow plague" and compared it to the "Red Plague" of Communism. Following this, the Czech cardinal Dominik Duka also commented on "LGBT ideology". However, because Czech society is secular and the Catholic Church has little influence on Czech politics, his comments had little impact. In September 2019, Stanley Bill, a lecturer at Cambridge University who studies Poland, stated "Scaremongering about 'LGBT ideology' has almost become official policy in Poland with often nasty insinuations from members of the government and public media now the norm".

In June 2020, Polish President Andrzej Duda drew international attention when he called LGBT an "ideology" and a form of "Neo-Bolshevism". Agreement Party MP Jacek Żalek stated in an interview that the LGBT community "are not people" and "it's an ideology", which led to the journalist Katarzyna Kolenda-Zaleska asking him to leave the studio; the row caused controversy. The next day, Duda said at a rally in Silesia: "They are trying to convince us that [LGBT] is people, but it is just an ideology." He promised to "ban the propagation of LGBT ideology in public institutions", including schools, similar to the Russian gay propaganda law. On the same day, PiS MP Przemysław Czarnek said on a TVP Info talk show, regarding a photo of a naked person in a gay bar, "Let's defend ourselves against LGBT ideology and stop listening to those idiocies about human rights or equality. These people are not equal to normal people."

In July 2020, the European Union announced that it will not provide funding to six Polish towns that have declared themselves "LGBT-free zones", after nearly 100 local governments, a third of Poland's territory, declared themselves "free from LGBT ideology." On 1 August 2020, the anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising, ultranationalist Robert Winnicki compared LGBT to communist and Nazi ideology. He stated, "Every plague passes at some point. The German plague passed, which was consuming Poland for six years, the red plague passed, the rainbow plague is also going to pass." In August 2020, Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro announced a new program for "counteracting crimes related to the violation of freedom of conscience committed under the influence of LGBT ideology". From a government fund intended to help victims of crime, PLN 613,698 was awarded to a foundation to combat the alleged crimes of "LGBT ideology". The project, among other things, explores a supposed connection between LGBT ideology and the Frankfurt School. At the 16 August "Stop LGBT aggression" rally that year, Krzysztof Bosak said that even irreligious people are among opponents of "LGBT ideology" because it is "contrary to common sense and rational thinking". He also said that the LGBT community is "a lower form of social life".

Criticism
According to Krakow Post, a Polish newspaper, "LGBT is not an ideology ... The phrase 'LGBT ideology' makes about as much sense as 'redhead ideology' or 'left-handed ideology. While the support of many LGBT people and their allies improved LGBT rights, they have differing political views. According to Notes from Poland, "attacks on 'LGBT ideology' – which often rely on exaggerated, distorted or invented claims – result in the marginalisation and demonisation of such people." Center-right presidential candidate Szymon Hołownia, who is a practicing Catholic, stated, "there is no such thing as LGBT ideology, there are [LGBT] people". He said that anti-LGBT rhetoric from politicians could lead vulnerable people to suicide. In protest at the comments made by the president and Żalek, LGBT people have held pickets in various towns and cities in Poland, opposing the idea that LGBT is an ideology. Activists also created a film, "Ludzie, nie ideologia" (People, not ideology) showcasing the families of LGBT people.

An article in OKO.press compared the anti-LGBT campaign to the 1968 "anti-Zionist" campaign: during the anti-Zionist campaign, people said that they were targeting Zionism as an ideology, but ended up targeting Jews as people. Many Jews were forced out of the country in 1968, and LGBT people are emigrating from Poland in 2020. According to Polish historian Adam Leszczyński, "LGBT ideology" is

"a bag into which the right wing throws societal changes that do not suit it (eg. calls for equal rights for same-sex couples, which have been implemented in many countries, from the United States to South Africa). In the language of right-wing propaganda... 'LGBT ideology' serves to dehumanize minorities and create an enemy – and thus build political support for the right, which presents itself as the only defender of the traditional family, religion and social order. 'Ideology' also fits the right-wing perception of the world in terms of a conspiracy – ideology is 'promoted', someone disseminates it, someone is 'behind it' (eg. George Soros, a Jewish-American financier who supports, among others, LGBT organizations)."

Dehumanization

Dehumanization is a frequent feature of anti-LGBT rhetoric, which may take the form of comparing LGBT people to animals or equating homosexual relationships with bestiality.

Slurs
According to one study, "homophobic epithets foster dehumanization and avoidance of gay people, in ways that other insults or labels do not." Another study found that homophobia "results in substantial health and welfare effects".

Calls for violence

Anti-LGBT rhetoric also includes calls for violence against LGBT people and suggestions that they should be killed or die, such as in Cyprus, Iran, Russia, the United States, Malawi, or Uganda.

In Serbia, members of Obraz chanted "Death to faggots" (Смрт педерима) and posted posters stating "we are waiting for you" (чекамо вас) next to an image of a baseball bat. In 2012, the organization was banned by the Constitutional Court of Serbia due to extremism.

Anti-gay themes
Anti-gay activists claim that homosexuality goes against traditional family values, that homosexuality is a Trojan Horse, or that it destroys families and humankind through homosexual which will lead to the extinction of humanity.

Homosexuality as a cause of disasters
The argument that homosexuals cause natural disasters has been around for more than a thousand years, even before Justinian blamed earthquakes on "unchecked homosexual behavior" in the sixth century. This trope was common in early modern Christian literature; homosexuals were blamed for earthquakes, floods, famines, plagues, invasions of Saracens, and field mice. This discourse was revived by Anita Bryant in 1976 when she blamed homosexuals for droughts in California. In the U.S., right-wing religious groups including the Westboro Baptist Church continue to claim that homosexuals are responsible for disasters. Homosexuals have been blamed for hurricanes, including Isaac, Katrina, and Sandy. In 2020, various religious figures including Israeli rabbi Meir Mazuz have argued that the COVID-19 pandemic is divine retribution for same-sex activity or pride parades.

Following the September 2001 attacks, televangelist Jerry Falwell blamed "the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way" for provoking the aggression of Islamic fundamentalists and causing God to withdraw his protection for America. On the broadcast of the Christian television program The 700 Club, Falwell said, "You helped this happen". He later apologized and said, "I would never blame any human being except the terrorists".

In 2012, Chilean politician Ignacio Urrutia claimed that allowing homosexuals to serve in the Chilean military would cause Perú and Bolivia to invade and destroy his country.

AIDS as punishment
An outgrowth of the discourse on homosexuality argues that HIV/AIDS is divine punishment for homosexuality. During the early years of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, mainstream newspapers labeled it a "gay plague". For a few years, the misleading technical name for the disease was gay-related immune deficiency.

The slogan "AIDS Kills Fags Dead" (a pun on the commercial slogan for Raid insecticide "Raid Kills Bugs Dead") appeared during the early years of AIDS in the United States, when the disease was mainly diagnosed among male homosexuals and was almost invariably fatal. The slogan caught on quickly as a catchy truism, a chant, or simply something written as graffiti. It is reported that the slogan first appeared in public in the early 1990s, when Sebastian Bach, the former lead singer of the heavy metal band Skid Row, wore it on a t-shirt thrown to him by an audience member. The slogan "AIDS cures fags" is used by the Westboro Baptist Church.

Homosexuality as unnatural

Describing homosexuality as unnatural dates back to Plato, Aristotle, and Thomas Aquinas. However, there is no single definition of "unnatural". Some of those who argue that homosexuality is unnatural in the sense of being absent from nature, an argument refuted by the presence of homosexuality in animals. Others mean that the genitals were created for reproduction (either by God or natural selection) and are not intended to be used for purposes they deem "unnatural". Proponents of this idea often argue that homosexuality is immoral because it is unnatural, but opponents argue that this argument makes an is–ought conflation. Some proponents of the "unnaturalness" thesis argue that homosexual behavior is the result of "" or willful sinfulness.

Homosexuality as a disease
Nazi propaganda described homosexuality as a contagious disease but not in the medical sense. Rather, homosexuality was a disease of the Volkskörper (national body), a metaphor for the desired national or racial community (Volksgemeinschaft). According to Nazi ideology, individuals' lives were to be subordinated to the Volkskörper like cells in the human body. Homosexuality was seen as a virus or cancer in the Volkskörper because it was seen as a threat to the German nation. The SS newspaper Das Schwarze Korps  argued that 40,000 homosexuals were capable of "poisoning" two million men if left to roam free.

Some of those who called homosexuality, such as Traditional Values Coalition head and Christian right activist Louis Sheldon, said that if it were proven to be a biologically based phenomenon, it would still be diseased. The psychiatric establishment in the west once medicalized same-sex desire. In the United States, homosexuality was removed in 1973 as a mental disorder from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) as it did not meet the criteria for a mental disorder. The Catholic Church still officially teaches that "homosexual tendencies" are "objectively disordered". In 2016, anti-LGBT rhetoric was increasing in Indonesia under the Twitter hashtag #TolakLGBT (#RejectLGBT) and claims that LGBT is a disease. In 2019, Archbishop Marek Jędraszewski claimed that a "rainbow plague" is threatening Poland. In 2020, the education minister defended an official who warned that "LGBT virus" was threatening Polish schools, and was more dangerous than COVID-19.

Homosexuality as a choice or lifestyle
Along with the idea of "homosexual recruitment", the idea of a "gay lifestyle" or "homosexual lifestyle" is used by social and religious conservatives in the United States to argue that non-heterosexual sexual orientations are consciously chosen. However, scientists favor biological explanations for sexual orientation, arguing that people typically feel no sense of control over their sexual orientation or attractions. The term "gay lifestyle" may also be used disparagingly for a series of stereotyped behaviours.

Christian right activists may worry that increasing LGBT rights will make the "gay lifestyle" more attractive to young people. US media in the 1970s frequently used the term "alternative lifestyle" as a euphemism for homosexuality, and the term was employed in an anti-gay context by opponents of the Equal Rights Amendment, as well as supporters of California's Proposition 6, which would have barred openly gay teachers in public schools. In 1977, while campaigning against a local ordinance protecting gay teachers against employment discrimination, anti-gay activist Anita Bryant stated, "A homosexual is not born, they are made". US president Ronald Reagan described the gay rights movement as opposed to American culture, saying the movement was "asking for a recognition and acceptance of an alternative lifestyle which I do not believe society can condone".

Homosexuality as sinful or ungodly
Many conservative Christians consider homosexual acts to be inherently sinful based on common interpretations of scriptural passages such as Leviticus 18:22 ("You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination"), Leviticus 20:13 ("If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death, their blood is upon them"), and 1 Corinthians 6:9–10 ("Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God.") The story of Sodom and Gomorrah, two biblical cities which were burned down due to the sins of its inhabitants, is sometimes portrayed as divine retribution for homosexual behavior.

Various inflammatory and controversial slogans, including some listed in the next section, have been used by opponent congregations and individuals, particularly by Fred Phelps, founder of the Westboro Baptist Church. These slogans have included "God Hates Fags", "Fear God Not Fags", and "Matthew Shepard Burns In Hell".

Homosexuality is also frequently considered sinful in Islam. In some Middle Eastern countries, acts of homosexuality are punishable by death. Anti-LGBT rhetoric and political homophobia are growing in some Muslim countries.

Other religious leaders including Christians, Muslims, and Jews have denounced anti-LGBT rhetoric.

The slogan "God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve" alludes to a Bible-based argument that homosexuality is sinful and unnatural. A Christianity Today article in December 1970 reported on attitudes in San Francisco, quoting a graffiti that said, "If God had wanted homosexuals, he would have created Adam and Freddy." In 1977, in Dade County, Anita Bryant made a similar comment, only her version was "Adam and Bruce". Later in 1977, the version "Adam and Steve" was used on a protest sign, as mentioned in a New York Times news service report about a November 19 rally in Houston that year. The full phrase was used in "The Gay Bar," an episode of Maude broadcast on December 3, 1977. Two years later, by 1979, Jerry Falwell had used "Adam and Steve" and gave the phrase wider circulation, as quoted in a Christianity Today report of a press conference he had given. The phrase later acquired a certain notoriety, and, when used to name a pair of characters in a work of fiction, helps to identify them as members of a homosexual pair (Paul Rudnick's play The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told, the 2005 film Adam & Steve and other works). The phrase was used by the Democratic Unionist Party MP David Simpson during the 2013 British House of Commons' debate on same-sex marriage, although a slip of the tongue saying "in the Garden of Eden, it was Adam and Steve" initially caused laughter in the chamber. Zimbabwean presidential candidate Nelson Chamisa said in an interview that "[w]e must be able to respect what God ordained and how we are created as a people, there are a male and a female, there are Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve". The phrase was also reclaimed by LGBT people and used in blogs, comics, and other media mocking the anti-gay message.

Homosexuality as a Western ill
Homosexuality is sometimes claimed to be non-existent in some non-Western countries, or to be an evil influence imported from the West.

Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia employed anti-gay rhetoric as part of his "Asian values" program, describing homosexuality as one of several Western ills. Mohamad used it for political advantage in the 1998 scandal involving the sacking and jailing of MP and former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim by Mohamad amidst accusations of sodomy that the Sydney Morning Herald termed a "blatantly political fix-up". Anwar was subsequently subjected to two trials and sentenced to nine years imprisonment for corruption and sodomy.

While in New York for a meeting of the United Nations, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was invited to speak at Columbia University in New York to give a lecture. When responding to a student question afterward, he said, speaking through an interpreter: "In Iran, we don't have homosexuals like in your country." In his native Farsi, he used the slang equivalent of faggot, not the neutral term for a "homosexual".

Other countries and regions viewing homosexuality as a Western disease include Vietnam, China, Ethiopia, Africa, Australian Muslims, and India.

Conflation with pedophilia

The claim that homosexuals sexually abuse children predates the current era, as it was leveled against pederasts even during antiquity. Lawmakers and social commentators have sometimes expressed a concern that normalizing homosexuality would also lead to normalizing pedophilia, if it were determined that pedophilia too were a sexual orientation. A related claim is that LGBT adoption is done for the purpose of grooming children for sexual exploitation. The empirical research shows that sexual orientation does not affect the likelihood that people will abuse children.

Others have made hoaxes intending to falsely associate pedophilia with the LGBT community by rebranding it as a sexual orientation, including claims that the "+" in "LGBT+" refers to "pedophiles, zoophiles, [and] necrophiles", as well as the invented terms "agefluid", "clovergender" (a hoax executed by users of the imageboard 4chan, whose logo is a stylized four-leaf clover), and "pedosexual".

Starting in 2022, some conservatives, including Chaya Raichik of Libs of TikTok, started using the terms "grooming", "groomer" and "pro-pedophile" against their opponents and LGBT people over anti-LGBT legislation, such as laws restricting and banning discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools. Critics say that these usages of the terms diminish the experiences of sexual assault survivors, smear the LGBT community, and are dangerous in general.

Recruitment
The charge of "homosexual recruitment" is an allegation by social conservatives that LGBT people engage in concerted efforts to indoctrinate children into homosexuality. In the United States, this dates back to the early post-war era. Proponents were found especially among the New Right, as epitomized by Anita Bryant. In her Save Our Children campaign, she promoted a view of homosexuals recruiting youth. A common slogan is "Homosexuals cannot reproduce — so they must recruit" or its variants. Supporters of recruitment allegations point at "deviant" and "prurient" sex education as evidence. They express concern that anti-bullying efforts teach that "homosexuality is normal, and that students shouldn't harass their classmates because they're gay", suggesting recruitment as the primary motivation. Supporters of this myth cite the inability for same-sex couples to reproduce as a motivation for recruitment.

Sociologists and psychologists describe such claims as an anti-gay myth, and a fear-inducing bogeyman. Many critics believe the term promotes the myth of homosexuals as pedophiles:

 * In 1977, Anita Bryant successfully campaigned to repeal an ordinance in Miami-Dade County that prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Her campaign was based upon allegations of homosexual recruitment. Writing about Bryant's efforts to repeal a Florida anti-discrimination law in the Journal of Social History, Michel Boucai wrote that "Bryant's organization, Save Our Children, framed the law as an endorsement of immorality and a license for 'recruitment'."
 * Oregon's proposed 1992 Ballot Measure 9 contained language that would have added anti-LGBT rhetoric to the state Constitution. U.S. writer Judith Reisman justified her support for the measure, citing "a clear avenue for the recruitment of children" by gays and lesbians.
 * A small newspaper in Uganda's capital attracted international attention in 2010 when it outed 100 gay people alongside a banner that said, "Hang them", and claimed that homosexuals aimed to "recruit" Ugandan children, and that schools had "been penetrated by gay activists to recruit kids." According to gay rights activists, many Ugandans were attacked afterward as a result of their real or perceived sexual orientation. Minorities activist David Kato, who was outed in the article and a co-plaintiff in the lawsuit against the paper, was subsequently murdered at home by an intruder and an international outcry resulted.
 * In 1998, The Onion parodied the idea of "homosexual recruitment" in an article titled "'98 Homosexual-Recruitment Drive Nearing Goal", saying "Spokespersons for the National Gay & Lesbian Recruitment Task Force announced Monday that more than 288,000 straights have been converted to homosexuality since January 1, 1998, putting the group well on pace to reach its goal of 350,000 conversions by the end of the year." According to Mimi Marinucci, most US adults who support gay rights would recognize the story as satire due to unrealistic details. The Westboro Baptist Church passed along the story as fact, citing it as evidence of a gay conspiracy.

"Homintern"
According to historian Michael S. Sherry, the term "homintern"a reference to "Comintern", the Soviet-sponsored Communist Internationalwas probably used jokingly among artists and writers in England in the 1930s to mock the idea of a powerful cabal of queer artists. Coining of the term has been attributed to various writers including W. H. Auden, Cyril Connolly, Jocelyn Brooke, Harold Norse, and Maurice Bowra. During the Cold War, anti-gay commentators in the United States sought to link homosexuality and Communism, using the terms "homintern" and "homosexual mafia" as shorthand for a purported homosexual conspiracy in the arts similar to the Communist International in politics.

Sherry refers to mid–20th century American conspiracy theories targeting gay artists, many of whose works were prominently used as propaganda in the Cultural Cold War against the Soviet Union, as the "homintern discourse". During the second Red Scare in the 1950s, the "homintern" was invoked by American Senator Joseph McCarthy, who used it to claim that the administrations of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman were set on destroying America from within. According to Sherry, the "homintern discourse" began to decline with the growth of 1960s counterculture and skepticism about the United States' role in the Cold War and Vietnam War.

"Gaystapo"
The term "Gaystapo" (Gestapette) was coined in France in the 1940s by political satirist Jean Galtier-Boissière for the Vichy education minister, Abel Bonnard. It was subsequently applied by National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen to Florian Philippot, whom he accused of being a bad influence on Marine Le Pen.

"Gay mafia"
The English critic Kenneth Tynan wrote to A.C. Spectorsky (editor of Playboy) in 1967 proposing an article on the "Homosexual Mafia" in the arts. Spectorsky declined, although he stated that "culture hounds were paying homage to faggotismo as they have never done before". Playboy would subsequently run a panel on gay issues in April 1971.

"Gay mafia" became more widely used in the US media in the 1980s and 1990s, such as the American daily New York Post. The term was also used by the British tabloid The Sun in 1998 in response to what it claimed was sinister dominance by gay men in the Labour Party Cabinet.

"Lavender mafia"
While the term "Lavender Mafia" has occasionally been used to refer to informal networks of gay executives in the US entertainment industry, more generally it refers to Church politics. For example, a faction within the leadership and clergy of the Roman Catholic Church that allegedly advocates the acceptance of homosexuality within the Church and its teachings.

"Gay lobby"

The term "homo lobby" or "gay lobby" is often used by opponents of LGBT rights in Europe. For example, the Swedish neo-Nazi party Nordic Resistance Movement runs a "crush the homo lobby" campaign. According to the German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel, advocating for LGBT rights could accurately be called lobbying, but the term Schwulen-Lobby ('gay lobby') is insulting because it is used to suggest a powerful conspiracy which does not actually exist.

In 2013, Pope Francis spoke about a "gay lobby" within the Vatican, and promised to see what could be done. In July 2013, Francis went on to draw a distinction between the problem of lobbying and the sexual orientation of people: "If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?" "The problem", he said, "is not having this orientation. We must be brothers. The problem is lobbying by this orientation, or lobbies of greedy people, political lobbies, Masonic lobbies, so many lobbies. This is the worse problem."

Misgendering
Misgendering is the act of labelling others with a gender that does not match their gender identity. Misgendering can be deliberate or accidental. It can involve using pronouns to describe someone that are not the ones they use, calling a person "ma'am" or "sir" in contradiction to the person's gender identity, and using a pre-transition name for someone instead of a post-transition one (deadnaming).

Deception and masquerade
Some terms often considered to be anti-trans such as shemale, trap, and ladyboy are perceived to promote the belief that trans women are men masquerading as women. The concept of a person whose gender identity differs from their assigned birth sex has often been twisted into jokes about how repulsive such a person must be. Transgender individuals are often perceived as more deceptive than sexual minorities.

In feminism
Some positions within feminist theory have used denialist rhetoric viewed as transphobic. Those that hold these positions are known as trans-exclusionary radical feminists, or "TERF" for short. This term was coined by feminist blogger Viv Smythe in 2008 as a value-neutral descriptor of feminists that engage in denialism.

In 1979, American radical feminist Janice Raymond published The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male. In it, she wrote that, "All transsexuals rape women's bodies by reducing the real female form to an artifact, appropriating this body for themselves." A common position in radical feminism maintain that trans women are not women in a literal sense and should not be in women-only spaces.

Some second-wave feminists perceive trans men and women respectively as "traitors" and "infiltrators" to womanhood. In a 1997 article, Australian lesbian feminist Sheila Jeffreys wrote that "[T]ranssexualism should be seen as a violation of human rights." Jeffreys also argued that by transitioning medically and socially, trans women are "constructing a conservative fantasy of what women should be. They are inventing an essence of womanhood which is deeply insulting and restrictive."

Legality and censorship
Hate speech against LGBT people, or incitement to hatred against them, is criminalized in some countries —for example, in the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden.

title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric


text:
Francis Ledwidge

Francis Edward Ledwidge (19 August 1887 – 31 July 1917) was a 20th-century Irish poet. From Slane, County Meath, and sometimes known as the "poet of the blackbirds", he was later also known as a First World War war poet. He befriended the established writer Lord Dunsany, who helped with publication of his works. He was killed in action at Ypres in 1917.

Born to a poor family in Slane, County Meath, Ledwidge started writing at an early age, and was first published in a local newspaper at the age of 14. Finding work as a labourer and miner, he was also a trade union activist, and a keen patriot and nationalist, associated with Sinn Féin. He became friendly with a local landowner, the writer Lord Dunsany, who gave him a workspace in the library of Dunsany Castle, and introduced him to literary figures including William Butler Yeats, Æ and Katherine Tynan, with whom he had a long-term correspondence. He was elected to a local government post and helped organise the local branch of the Irish Volunteers, while Dunsany edited a first volume of his poetry and helped him secure publication for it.

Despite having sided with the faction of the Irish Volunteers which opposed participation in the war, and against the wishes of Lord Dunsany, he enlisted in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers in October 1914, and continued to write poetry on campaign, sending work to Dunsany and to family and other friends. Having been posted to several theatres of the war, he was killed in action in July 1917 during the early phase of the Battle of Passchendaele. At the time of his death, he and Dunsany were in advanced preparation for a second volume of his work, and Dunsany later arranged for a third volume, and a collected edition of 122 poems in 1919. Some musical settings of his work were also composed. Further poems, from the archives at Dunsany Castle and some material held by families of relatives and friends, were published by Ledwidge's biographer, Alice Curtayne, in 1974, by enthusiast Hubert Dunn and by the two major Ledwidge memorial groups, in 1997 and 2022 respectively.

A museum of his life and work was opened in his birthplace cottage in 1982 and was the site of multiple events in the decades after; it remains operational as of 2022. Ledwidge was selected as one of twelve prominent war poets - and the only Irish one - for the exhibition Anthem for Doomed Youth at the Imperial War Museum in London in 2002. He has been memorialised at events at the Slane museum, in Ypres and in Inchicore, Dublin, with his official centenary commemoration at Slane in 2017 and his work set to music and performed by Anúna at the former Inchicore barracks the same year. A few Ledwidge manuscripts are held in the National Library of Ireland, and the main surviving collection, including his early works, in the archives of Dunsany Castle, along with letters. Selections of both handwritten and typed manuscripts have been shown publicly at the Anthem for Doomed Youth exhibition and at a book launch at Slane Castle in 2022, and privately to scholars and members of the Ledwidge Cottage Museum committee.

Early life and work
Francis Ledwidge, known to his family as "Frank", was born at Janeville (Baile Sinead) on the eastern edge of Slane, in County Meath, Ireland, the eighth of nine children in a poverty-stricken family. His parents, Patrick Ledwidge and wife Anne Lynch (1853–1926), believed in giving their children the best education they could afford; however, when Francis was only five, his father Patrick died, which forced his wife and the children out to work at an early age.

Francis left the local national school aged thirteen, and while he continued to educate himself, he worked at what work he could find. Employment included work as a farm hand, road surface mender and supervisor of roadwork, copper miner at Beaupark Mine near Slane (from which post he was sacked for organising a strike for better mining conditions, three years before the general 1913 strike, having been a trade union activist since 1906) and, briefly, a shop assistant in Dublin.

Appointed secretary of the Slane branch of the Meath Labour Union (1913–14) he had aspirations towards permanent white-collar work. He was known for his connections with Sinn Féin.

Early poetry and nationalism
Strongly built, with striking brown eyes and a sensuous face, Ledwidge was a keen poet, writing where ever he could – sometimes even on gates or fence posts. From the age of fourteen his works were published in a local newspaper, the Drogheda Independent, and reflected his passion for the Boyne Valley. He was also published with some regularity in the Irish Weekly Independent and Sunday Independent from mid-1909. These early poetry publications were largely unpaid.

While working as a road labourer, he wrote to the Anglo-Irish landlord and fantasy writer and dramatist Lord Dunsany, in 1912, enclosing copybooks containing his early work. Dunsany, a man of letters already well known in Dublin and London literary and dramatic circles, and whose own start in publishing had been with a few poems, felt that his work had potential, and promoted him in Dublin, including at a salon of Æ. Dunsany and Æ introduced Ledwidge to a range of Irish literary figures, including W.B. Yeats and Oliver St. John Gogarty, with whom Ledwidge became further acquainted.

Dunsany supported Ledwidge with money and literary advice for some years, providing him with access to and a workspace in Dunsany Castle's library, where he met the Irish writer Katharine Tynan, subsequently corresponding with her regularly. Dunsany later prepared his first collection of poetry Songs of the Fields, which successfully appealed to the expectations of the Irish Literary Revival and its social taste for rural poetry. Despite Ledwidge's growing association with the aristocratic Lord Dunsany, he retained a keen interest in the conditions of working men. He was one of the founder members in 1906 of the Slane branch of the Meath Labour Union. He familiarised himself with the writings of James Connolly and, despite the Vatican's condemnations of Marxism, Ledwidge found no contradiction between Roman Catholicism and socialism. In 1913 he was temporary secretary of the union, the following year elected to the Navan district rural council and board of guardians.

Home Rule
Ledwidge was a keen patriot and nationalist. His efforts to found a branch of the Gaelic League in Slane were thwarted by members of the local council. The area organiser encouraged him to continue his struggle, but Francis gave up. He did manage to act as a founding member with his brother Joseph of the Slane Branch of the Irish Volunteers (1914), a paramilitary force created in response to the founding of the Ulster Volunteers, who had sworn to resist Home Rule for Ireland even if it meant civil war. The Irish Volunteers were set up to fight the Unionists if necessary and to ensure that Home Rule would come to pass.

Military service
On the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, and on account of Ireland's involvement in the war, the Irish Volunteers split into two factions, the National Volunteers who supported John Redmond's appeal to join Irish regiments in support of the Allied cause and those who did not. Francis was originally of the latter party. Nevertheless, having defended this position strongly at a local council meeting, he soon after enlisted (24 October 1914) in Lord Dunsany's regiment, joining 5th battalion Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, part of the 10th (Irish) Division. This was against Lord Dunsany's wishes and he had offered Ledwidge a stipend to support him if he stayed out of the war. Some have speculated that he went to war because his sweetheart Ellie Vaughey had found a new lover, John O'Neill, whom she later married, but Ledwidge himself wrote, quite forcefully, that he could not stand aside while others sought to defend Ireland's freedom.

Later poetry and war
Ledwidge seems to have fitted into Army life well, and rapidly achieved promotion to lance corporal. In 1915, he saw action in the Landing at Suvla Bay during the Gallipoli Campaign, where he suffered severe rheumatism. Having survived huge losses sustained by his company, Ledwidge became ill after a back injury gained during the Battle of Kosturino in Serbia (December 1915), a locale which inspired a number of poems.

Ledwidge was dismayed by the news of the Easter Rising, writing a lament for his friend Thomas MacDonagh, one of the Rising's leaders who was executed in May 1916. He grew disenchanted with the war effort, and was court-martialled and demoted for overstaying his furlough and being drunk in uniform (May 1916). He gained and lost stripes over a period in Derry (he was a corporal when the introduction to his first book was written), and then, returned to the front, received back his lance corporal's stripe one last time in January 1917 when posted to the Western Front, joining 1st Battalion, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, part of 29th Division.

Ledwidge continued to write when feasible throughout the war years, though he lost many works, for example, in atrocious weather in Serbia. He sent much of his output to Lord Dunsany, himself moving on war assignments, as well as to readers among family, friends and literary contacts.

Death and aftermath
The poems Ledwidge wrote on active service reveal his pride at being a soldier, as he believed, in the service of Ireland. He often wondered whether he would find a soldier's death. On 31 July 1917, a group from Ledwidge's battalion of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers were road-laying in preparation for an assault during the earliest stages of the Third Battle of Ypres (July to November 1917), near the village of Boezinge, northwest of Ypres.

According to Alice Curtayne, "Ledwidge and his comrades had been toiling since the early morning at road-making. The army's first need was men; their second, guns; their third roads. These latter consisted mainly of heavy beech planks bolted together, which could be rapidly laid down. No advance could be supported in that sodden land without a sufficiency of these communications tracks, six or seven feet wide. Supplies were conveyed by pack mules over the wooden paths. Survivors concur in placing the road work done by B Company that day one mile north-east of Hell Fire Corner, so called because it was very exposed to German shelling. There was a violent rainstorm in the afternoon, shrouding the region in a gray monochrome. Sullenly, the enemy's long-range guns continued to fling their shells far behind the lines. Road-work could not be suspended, however, as the tracks were in use as fast as they were laid down. Tea was issued to the men and, drenched to the skin, they stopped to swallow it. A shell exploded beside Ledwidge and he was instantly killed."

A Roman Catholic military chaplain, Father Devas, was the first on the scene. That night, Father Devas wrote in his diary, "Crowds at Holy Communion. Arranged for service but washed out by rain and fatigues. Walk in rain with dogs. Ledwidge killed, blown to bits; at Confession yesterday and Mass and Holy Communion this morning. R.I.P."

Burial
Francis Ledwidge was first buried at Carrefour de Rose, and later re-interred in the nearby Artillery Wood Military Cemetery, at Boezinge, (where the Welsh poet Hedd Wyn, who was killed in action on the same day, also lies buried).

Folklore
According to a local folktale the ghostly apparition of Ledwidge appeared in Navan at the same time he died on the Western front. His ghost greeted a friend before fading away.

Legacy
A stone tablet commemorates Ledwidge in the Island of Ireland Peace Park, Messines, Belgium. His work as "peasant poet" and "soldier poet", once a standard part of the Irish school curriculum, faded from view for several decades of the 20th century. Its intensity, coupled with a revived interest in his period, has restored it to life.

The Flanders Fields memorial in Dublin's Peace Park is engraved with poetry from Ledwidge.

Memorial groups
A local committee opened the Ledwidge Cottage Museum in the poet's childhood home at Janeville, Slane, in June 1982, and is now run by the founding committee's successor and their dedicated non-profit company, Francis Ledwidge Museum and War Memorial Centre CLG. The cottage museum contains displays on his life and work; it charges a small fee for admission.

The Inchicore Ledwidge Society was founded in 1995.

Memorial events
The centenary of his birth was marked with events and a booklet published by a committee in 1987.

On the 81st anniversary of his death in 1998 a simple non-militaristic monument was unveiled by the poet's nephew, Joe Ledwidge, and the writer Dermot Bolger, on the exact spot where he was killed - the location having been unearthed by Piet Chielens, the director of the In Flanders Fields Museum. The monument consists of a portrait of Ledwidge on glass over yellow Ieper brick, with the text of his poem "Soliloquy" printed in English and in Dutch.

In 2002, Ledwidge was selected as one of twelve representative World War I soldier poets by the Imperial War Museum, the only Irish poet chosen. Personal and written material connected to him was included in their Anthem for Doomed Youth exhibition, which ran into 2003. His family and Dunsany Castle's archives lent original materials, and he and images of these were featured on the museum's website, and in a chapter in the exhibition book of the same title.

In a 2016 episode of the BBC Radio 3 series Minds at War Belfast academic Gerald Dawe contributed a commentary entitled "Francis Ledwidge's poem 'O'Connell Street'".

Centenary of death
The official national commemoration for Ledwidge was held at the birthplace cottage at the edge of Slane on 24 June 2017, with Ireland represented by Minister for European Affairs, Helen McEntee, joined by four members of Ledwidge's family, an Irish Army Brigadier General, a Garda Assistant Commissioner, various politicians, the Belgian ambassador, the UK defence attache, and many locals. There were also events at Ieper (Ypres) in Belgium, where the Irish poet Dermot Bolger gave an oration at his grave, and in the former Richmond Barracks in Inchicore Dublin on July 30, where there was a musical memorial event featuring the musical group Anúna, including some of Ledwidge's poetry set to music.

Poetry
Ledwidge was writing poetry from childhood, and from age 14, he would routinely send poetry to a number of newspapers in Ireland. Selected items were published, notably between 1909 and 1914; later some UK publication was added. The newspaper publications were largely unpaid, though the Irish Weekly Independent would pay a small reward to the first-printed poem each week.

The only work published in book form during Ledwidge's lifetime was the original volume Songs of the Fields (1915), containing fifty poems, which was very well received. The poems in this volume were reviewed by Lord Dunsany, and selected by Dunsany and Ledwidge working together. Dunsany helped Lediwdge secure a publisher, Herbert Jenkins. The critic Edward Marsh printed three of the poems in the Georgian Poetry series, and remained a correspondent for the remainder of Ledwidge's life.

A second volume, Songs of Peace, had its 39 poems selected and was fully drafted when Ledwidge died; patron and friend Lord Dunsany wrote the introduction while both were in Derry in September 1916, and arranged for its publication in September 1917, with an additional foreword. Following the war, Dunsany arranged for more of Ledwidge's work to be published, selecting 33 poems for a third and final volume, Last Songs. The 122 poems from the three volumes were assembled into a collection, The Complete Poems of Francis Ledwidge, released in 1919, which went through at least three editions.

Dunsany commented on the work with words such as: "[I was] astonished by the brilliance of that eye and that had looked at the fields of Meath and seen there all the simple birds and flowers, with a vividness which made those pages like a magnifying glass, through which one looked at familiar things for the first time."

Posthumous publication
In 1974, Alice Curtayne assembled a new collection of Ledwidge's poems, Francis Ledwidge : Complete Poems, adding 44 pieces from various sources, many of the newly-collected items having had newspaper appearances. Curtayne organised the poems into thematic groups. The collection was reprinted. In mid-1997, Liam O'Meara and the Inchicore Ledwidge Society published a new collection, Francis Ledwidge : The Poems Complete, with 66 poems added to the Curtayne selection, many found in the archives at Dunsany Castle; around 20 of the poems had not previously been published.

A Ledwidge enthusiast, retired British judge Hubert Dunn, who had spoken of Ledwidge at commemorative events, and had contact with the Ledwidge and Dunsany families, and interest groups, secured permission to review some materials at Dunsany Castle. Working with the literary curator at Dunsany, Dunn located some unpublished poems, and in 2006, he released a narrative of Ledwidge's life and influences, with dozens of poems incorporated, including a small number of previously unpublished works.

The Ledwidge Cottage Museum and the Gallery Press of Loughcrew, County Meath, led by Peter Fallon, with support from Randal, the 21st Lord Dunsany, and the Dunsany archivist, Joe Doyle, jointly issued a new collection, Poems, in 2022. Containing 140 works, one not previously seen, the book was launched at an event at Slane Castle on 7 August 2022. The launch, in the castle’s famous Georgian ballroom, was attended by local activists, politicians, librarians, the 21st Lord Dunsany and the Dunsany literary curator, among many others.

Prose and drama
Ledwidge's submissions to the Drogheda Independent in 1913 were done with the eventual aim of publishing a book: Legends and Stories of the Boyne Side. The book was unfinished, having reached the entry for Slane, but some material was drafted, typeset, and some copies of this partial work printed, but it was then "shelved", and the early print material was dumped in the 1970s, except for one set, which was recovered, and published as Legends and Stories of the Boyne Side. A further edition, expanded to include some short stories, a war record, and the full text of an autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, was released in 2006: Legends of the Boyne and Selected Prose. Researched and edited by Liam O'Meara, it was launched by Senator David Norris at Liberty Hall in 2006.

Ledwidge also wrote of working on a play, The Crock of Gold, but no Ledwidge drama has yet been published or performed. There are also references to other writing, but none has been published.

Settings and adaptations
Some of Ledwidge's poetry was set to music by the British composer and songwriter Michael Head, most notably in the song cycle published in 1920, "Over the rim of the moon". This includes the song, "The Ships of Arcady". There were also further musical settings, and compact discs and audiobooks of readings of his work, sometimes to music, have also been released.

Studies of Ledwidge and his work
A substantial biography was written by Alice Curtayne, and published in 1972. In 2020, a short book, Soldier's Heart: Francis Ledwidge at war ISBN 978-1-913425-29-6, a biographical account of his military service years, was published by his grand-nephew, Frank Ledwidge.

Liam O'Meara, chairman of the Inchicore Ledwidge Society, published To One Dead, a play based on the life & writings of Francis Ledwidge (ISBN 9781901596199), and Francis Ledwidge Poet Activist & Soldier (Riposte Books/Inchicore Ledwidge Society, ISBN 9781901596137).

In 2012, Miriam O'Gara-Kilmurry was awarded a Masters in Literature from the Open University with a thesis on Ledwidge titled, "A defence of Francis Ledwidge as a War Poet through an exploration of War Imagery, Nationalism and Canonical Revisions." She asserted that until 2011, Ledwidge had no 'WWI War Poet' presence online, and that no searches containing the specific words 'Irish WWI war poets' turned up any results, and that Ledwidge's poems written from the front-lines received little if no attention as examples of unique nationalist 'hybrid' war poems. On the eve of All-Ireland Poetry Day', 2 October 2013, O'Gara-Kilmurry was invited by the National Library of Ireland to deliver a lecture on "Francis Ledwidge: WWI Irish Nationalist War Poet." In 2016, the thesis was published as a book, Eire's WWI War Poet: F. E. Ledwidge. According to O'Gara-Kilmurry:

"Ledwidge qualifies as a 'war poet' on the grounds that he actually fought in theatres of war. Secondly, he wrote on war themes peculiar to soldiers fighting on front-lines, and finally, he belonged to a category of poets singled out by the celebrated literary sponsor of his day, Edward Howard Marsh, Private Secretary to Winston Churchill. Central to the literal argument is our theory that Francis Ledwidge meets criteria set out for War Poets and identified by Marsh's friend and fellow academic Robert H. Ross, who in 1965 published a study attempting to explore the Georgians (Robert H. Ross, Georgian Summer (London: Faber and Faber, 1965)).' ... 'My final thought as I leave you, is that there is nothing worse than indifference. Ignoring the War Poetry of F. E. is another way of declaring war on Ledwidge and should not be allowed to continue into the 21 Century.'"

Politics
His politics are described by the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography as nationalist as well as left-wing. However far from simply being an Irish Nationalist, his poems "O’Connell Street" and "Lament for the Poets of 1916" clearly describe his sense of loss and an expression of holding the same "dreams" as the Easter Rising's Irish Republicans who fought and died for the Irish Republic in and around O'Connell Street in 1916.

Quotes
"Oh what a pleasant world 'twould be, How easy we'd step thro' it, If all the fools who meant no harm, Could manage not to do it!"

– From a personal letter.

He shall not hear the bittern cry in the wild sky, where he is lain, Nor voices of the sweeter birds Above the wailing of the rain  Nor shall he know when the loud March blows Thro' slanting snows her fanfare shrill, Blowing to flame the golden cup Of many an upset daffodil. But when the dark cow leaves the moor And pastures poor with greedy weeds Perhaps he'll hear her low at morn Lifting her horn in pleasant meads.

– Lament for Thomas MacDonagh

Media and popular culture
Ledwidge was the subject of an RTÉ documentary entitled Behind the Closed Eye, first broadcast on 18 January 1973. It won awards for Best Story and Best Implementation Documentary at the Golden Prague International Television Festival.

title: Francis Ledwidge


text:
Centroid

In mathematics and physics, the centroid, also known as geometric center or center of figure, of a plane figure or solid figure is the arithmetic mean position of all the points in the surface of the figure. The same definition extends to any object in $$n$$-dimensional Euclidean space.

In geometry, one often assumes uniform mass density, in which case the barycenter or center of mass coincides with the centroid. Informally, it can be understood as the point at which a cutout of the shape (with uniformly distributed mass) could be perfectly balanced on the tip of a pin.

In physics, if variations in gravity are considered, then a center of gravity can be defined as the weighted mean of all points weighted by their specific weight.

In geography, the centroid of a radial projection of a region of the Earth's surface to sea level is the region's geographical center.

History
The term "centroid" is of recent coinage (1814). It is used as a substitute for the older terms "center of gravity" and "center of mass" when the purely geometrical aspects of that point are to be emphasized. The term is peculiar to the English language; French, for instance, uses "centre de gravité" on most occasions, and other languages use terms of similar meaning.

The center of gravity, as the name indicates, is a notion that arose in mechanics, most likely in connection with building activities. It is uncertain when the idea first appeared, as the concept likely occurred to many people individually with minor differences. Nonetheless, the center of gravity of figures was studied extensively in Antiquity; Bossut credits Archimedes (287–212 BCE) with being the first to find the centroid of plane figures, although he never defines it. A treatment of centroids of solids by Archimedes has been lost.

It is unlikely that Archimedes learned the theorem that the medians of a triangle meet in a point—the center of gravity of the triangle—directly from Euclid, as this proposition is not in the Elements. The first explicit statement of this proposition is due to Heron of Alexandria (perhaps the first century CE) and occurs in his Mechanics. It may be added, in passing, that the proposition did not become common in the textbooks on plane geometry until the nineteenth century.

Properties
The geometric centroid of a convex object always lies in the object. A non-convex object might have a centroid that is outside the figure itself. The centroid of a ring or a bowl, for example, lies in the object's central void.

If the centroid is defined, it is a fixed point of all isometries in its symmetry group. In particular, the geometric centroid of an object lies in the intersection of all its hyperplanes of symmetry. The centroid of many figures (regular polygon, regular polyhedron, cylinder, rectangle, rhombus, circle, sphere, ellipse, ellipsoid, superellipse, superellipsoid, etc.) can be determined by this principle alone.

In particular, the centroid of a parallelogram is the meeting point of its two diagonals. This is not true of other quadrilaterals.

For the same reason, the centroid of an object with translational symmetry is undefined (or lies outside the enclosing space), because a translation has no fixed point.

Examples
The centroid of a triangle is the intersection of the three medians of the triangle (each median connecting a vertex with the midpoint of the opposite side).

For other properties of a triangle's centroid, see below.

Plumb line method
The centroid of a uniformly dense planar lamina, such as in figure (a) below, may be determined experimentally by using a plumbline and a pin to find the collocated center of mass of a thin body of uniform density having the same shape. The body is held by the pin, inserted at a point, off the presumed centroid in such a way that it can freely rotate around the pin; the plumb line is then dropped from the pin (figure b). The position of the plumbline is traced on the surface, and the procedure is repeated with the pin inserted at any different point (or a number of points) off the centroid of the object. The unique intersection point of these lines will be the centroid (figure c). Provided that the body is of uniform density, all lines made this way will include the centroid, and all lines will cross at exactly the same place.

This method can be extended (in theory) to concave shapes where the centroid may lie outside the shape, and virtually to solids (again, of uniform density), where the centroid may lie within the body. The (virtual) positions of the plumb lines need to be recorded by means other than by drawing them along the shape.

Balancing method
For convex two-dimensional shapes, the centroid can be found by balancing the shape on a smaller shape, such as the top of a narrow cylinder. The centroid occurs somewhere within the range of contact between the two shapes (and exactly at the point where the shape would balance on a pin). In principle, progressively narrower cylinders can be used to find the centroid to arbitrary precision. In practice air currents make this infeasible. However, by marking the overlap range from multiple balances, one can achieve a considerable level of accuracy.

Of a finite set of points
The centroid of a finite set of $$k$$ points $$\mathbf{x}_1,\mathbf{x}_2,\ldots,\mathbf{x}_k$$ in $$\R^n$$ is $$\mathbf{C} = \frac{\mathbf{x}_1 + \mathbf{x}_2 + \cdots + \mathbf{x}_k}{k} .$$ This point minimizes the sum of squared Euclidean distances between itself and each point in the set.

By geometric decomposition
The centroid of a plane figure $$X$$ can be computed by dividing it into a finite number of simpler figures $$X_1, X_2, \dots, X_n,$$ computing the centroid $$C_i$$ and area $$A_i$$ of each part, and then computing

$$ C_x = \frac{\sum_i {C_i}_x A_i}{\sum_i A_i}, \quad C_y = \frac{\sum_i {C_i}_y A_i}{\sum_i A_i}. $$

Holes in the figure $$X,$$ overlaps between the parts, or parts that extend outside the figure can all be handled using negative areas $$A_i.$$ Namely, the measures $$A_i$$ should be taken with positive and negative signs in such a way that the sum of the signs of $$A_i$$ for all parts that enclose a given point $$p$$ is $$1$$ if $$p$$ belongs to $$X,$$ and $$0$$ otherwise.

For example, the figure below (a) is easily divided into a square and a triangle, both with positive area; and a circular hole, with negative area (b).

The centroid of each part can be found in any list of centroids of simple shapes (c). Then the centroid of the figure is the weighted average of the three points. The horizontal position of the centroid, from the left edge of the figure is $$x = \frac{5 \times 10^2 + 13.33 \times \frac{1}{2}10^2 - 3 \times \pi2.5^2}{10^2 + \frac{1}{2}10^2 -\pi2.5^2} \approx 8.5 \text{ units}.$$ The vertical position of the centroid is found in the same way.

The same formula holds for any three-dimensional objects, except that each $$A_i$$ should be the volume of $$X_i,$$ rather than its area. It also holds for any subset of $$\R^d,$$ for any dimension $$d,$$ with the areas replaced by the $$d$$-dimensional measures of the parts.

By integral formula
The centroid of a subset $$X$$ of $$\R^n$$ can also be computed by the formula

$$C = \frac{\int x g(x) \ dx}{\int g(x) \ dx}$$

where the integrals are taken over the whole space $$\R^n,$$ and $$g$$ is the characteristic function of the subset $$X$$ of $$\R^n \! : \ g(x) = 1$$ if $$x \in X$$ and $$g(x) = 0$$ otherwise. Note that the denominator is simply the measure of the set $$X.$$ This formula cannot be applied if the set $$X$$ has zero measure, or if either integral diverges.

Another formula for the centroid is

$$C_k = \frac{\int z S_k(z) \ dz}{\int g(x) \ dx},$$

where $$C_k$$ is the $$k$$th coordinate of $$C,$$ and $$S_k(z)$$ is the measure of the intersection of $$X$$ with the hyperplane defined by the equation $$x_k = z.$$ Again, the denominator is simply the measure of $$X.$$

For a plane figure, in particular, the barycentric coordinates are

$$ C_{\mathrm x} = \frac{\int x S_{\mathrm y}(x) \ dx}{A}, \quad C_{\mathrm y} = \frac{\int y S_{\mathrm x}(y) \ dy}{A}, $$

where $$A$$ is the area of the figure $$X,$$ $$S_{\mathrm y}(x)$$ is the length of the intersection of $$X$$ with the vertical line at abscissa $$x,$$ and $$S_{\mathrm x}(y)$$ is the length of the intersection of $$X$$ with the horizontal line at ordinate $$y.$$

Of a bounded region
The centroid $$(\bar{x},\;\bar{y})$$ of a region bounded by the graphs of the continuous functions $$f$$ and $$g$$ such that $$f(x) \geq g(x)$$ on the interval $$[a, b],$$ $$a \leq x \leq b$$ is given by

$$\begin{align} \bar{x} &= \frac{1}{A}\int_a^b x\bigl(f(x) - g(x)\bigr)\,dx, \\[5mu] \bar{y} &= \frac{1}{A}\int_a^b \tfrac12\bigl(f(x) + g(x)\bigr)\bigl(f(x) - g(x)\bigr)\,dx, \end{align}$$

where $$A$$ is the area of the region (given by $\int_a^b \bigl(f(x) - g(x)\bigr) dx$ ).

With an integraph
An integraph (a relative of the planimeter) can be used to find the centroid of an object of irregular shape with smooth (or piecewise smooth) boundary. The mathematical principle involved is a special case of Green's theorem.

Of an L-shaped object
This is a method of determining the centroid of an L-shaped object.

 * 1) Divide the shape into two rectangles, as shown in fig 2. Find the centroids of these two rectangles by drawing the diagonals. Draw a line joining the centroids. The centroid of the shape must lie on this line $$AB.$$
 * 2) Divide the shape into two other rectangles, as shown in fig 3. Find the centroids of these two rectangles by drawing the diagonals. Draw a line joining the centroids. The centroid of the L-shape must lie on this line $$CD.$$
 * 3) As the centroid of the shape must lie along $$AB$$ and also along $$CD,$$ it must be at the intersection of these two lines, at $$O.$$ The point $$O$$ might lie inside or outside the L-shaped object.

Of a triangle
The centroid of a triangle is the point of intersection of its medians (the lines joining each vertex with the midpoint of the opposite side). The centroid divides each of the medians in the ratio $$2:1,$$ which is to say it is located $$\tfrac13$$ of the distance from each side to the opposite vertex (see figures at right). Its Cartesian coordinates are the means of the coordinates of the three vertices. That is, if the three vertices are $$L = (x_L, y_L),$$ $$M= (x_M, y_M),$$ and $$N= (x_N, y_N),$$ then the centroid (denoted $$C$$ here but most commonly denoted $$G$$ in triangle geometry) is

$$ C = \tfrac13(L+M+N) = \bigl( \tfrac13 (x_L+x_M+x_N), \tfrac13 (y_L+y_M+y_N) \bigr). $$

The centroid is therefore at $$\tfrac13:\tfrac13:\tfrac13$$ in barycentric coordinates.

In trilinear coordinates the centroid can be expressed in any of these equivalent ways in terms of the side lengths $$a, b, c$$ and vertex angles $L, M, N$:

$$\begin{align} C &= \frac{1}{a}:\frac{1}{b}:\frac{1}{c} = bc:ca:ab = \csc L :\csc M:\csc N \\[6pt] &= \cos L + \cos M \cdot \cos N : \cos M + \cos N \cdot \cos L : \cos N + \cos L \cdot \cos M \\[6pt] &= \sec L + \sec M \cdot \sec N : \sec M + \sec N \cdot \sec L : \sec N + \sec L \cdot\sec M. \end{align}$$

The centroid is also the physical center of mass if the triangle is made from a uniform sheet of material; or if all the mass is concentrated at the three vertices, and evenly divided among them. On the other hand, if the mass is distributed along the triangle's perimeter, with uniform linear density, then the center of mass lies at the Spieker center (the incenter of the medial triangle), which does not (in general) coincide with the geometric centroid of the full triangle.

The area of the triangle is $$\tfrac32$$ times the length of any side times the perpendicular distance from the side to the centroid.

A triangle's centroid lies on its Euler line between its orthocenter $$H$$ and its circumcenter $$O,$$ exactly twice as close to the latter as to the former:

$$\overline{CH}=2\overline{CO}.$$

In addition, for the incenter $$I$$ and nine-point center $$N,$$ we have $$\begin{align} \overline{CH} &=4\overline{CN}, \\[5pt] \overline{CO} &=2\overline{CN}, \\[5pt] \overline{IC} &< \overline{HC}, \\[5pt] \overline{IH} &< \overline{HC}, \\[5pt] \overline{IC} &< \overline{IO}. \end{align}$$

If $$G$$ is the centroid of the triangle $$ABC,$$ then

$$ (\text{Area of }\triangle ABG) = (\text{Area of }\triangle ACG) = (\text{Area of }\triangle BCG) = \tfrac13(\text{Area of }\triangle ABC). $$

The isogonal conjugate of a triangle's centroid is its symmedian point.

Any of the three medians through the centroid divides the triangle's area in half. This is not true for other lines through the centroid; the greatest departure from the equal-area division occurs when a line through the centroid is parallel to a side of the triangle, creating a smaller triangle and a trapezoid; in this case the trapezoid's area is $$\tfrac59$$ that of the original triangle.

Let $$P$$ be any point in the plane of a triangle with vertices $$A, B, C$$ and centroid $$G.$$ Then the sum of the squared distances of $$P$$ from the three vertices exceeds the sum of the squared distances of the centroid $$G$$ from the vertices by three times the squared distance between $$P$$ and $G$:

$$ PA^2 + PB^2 + PC^2 = GA^2 + GB^2 + GC^2 + 3PG^2. $$

The sum of the squares of the triangle's sides equals three times the sum of the squared distances of the centroid from the vertices:

$$ AB^2 + BC^2 + CA^2 = 3(GA^2 + GB^2 + GC^2). $$

A triangle's centroid is the point that maximizes the product of the directed distances of a point from the triangle's sidelines.

Let $$ABC$$ be a triangle, let $$G$$ be its centroid, and let $$D, E, F$$ be the midpoints of segments $$BC, CA, AB,$$ respectively. For any point $$P$$ in the plane of $$ABC,$$

$$ PA + PB + PC \le 2(PD + PE + PF) + 3PG. $$

Of a polygon
The centroid of a non-self-intersecting closed polygon defined by $$n$$ vertices $$(x_0, y_0),\;$$$$(x_1, y_1),\; \ldots,\;$$$$(x_{n-1}, y_{n-1}),$$ is the point $$(C_x, C_y),$$ where

$$ C_{\mathrm x} = \frac{1}{6A}\sum_{i=0}^{n-1}(x_i+x_{i+1})(x_i\ y_{i+1} - x_{i+1}\ y_i),$$

and

$$ C_{\mathrm y} = \frac{1}{6A}\sum_{i=0}^{n-1}(y_i+y_{i+1})(x_i\ y_{i+1} - x_{i+1}\ y_i), $$

and where $$A$$ is the polygon's signed area, as described by the shoelace formula:

$$ A = \frac{1}{2}\sum_{i=0}^{n-1} (x_i\ y_{i+1} - x_{i+1}\ y_i). $$

In these formulae, the vertices are assumed to be numbered in order of their occurrence along the polygon's perimeter; furthermore, the vertex $$(x_n, y_n)$$ is assumed to be the same as $$(x_0, y_0),$$ meaning $$i+1$$ on the last case must loop around to $$i=0.$$ (If the points are numbered in clockwise order, the area $$A,$$ computed as above, will be negative; however, the centroid coordinates will be correct even in this case.)

Of a cone or pyramid
The centroid of a cone or pyramid is located on the line segment that connects the apex to the centroid of the base. For a solid cone or pyramid, the centroid is $$\tfrac14$$ the distance from the base to the apex. For a cone or pyramid that is just a shell (hollow) with no base, the centroid is $$\tfrac13$$ the distance from the base plane to the apex.

Of a tetrahedron and $n$-dimensional simplex
A tetrahedron is an object in three-dimensional space having four triangles as its faces. A line segment joining a vertex of a tetrahedron with the centroid of the opposite face is called a median, and a line segment joining the midpoints of two opposite edges is called a bimedian. Hence there are four medians and three bimedians. These seven line segments all meet at the centroid of the tetrahedron. The medians are divided by the centroid in the ratio $$3:1.$$ The centroid of a tetrahedron is the midpoint between its Monge point and circumcenter (center of the circumscribed sphere). These three points define the Euler line of the tetrahedron that is analogous to the Euler line of a triangle.

These results generalize to any $$n$$-dimensional simplex in the following way. If the set of vertices of a simplex is $${v_0,\ldots,v_n},$$ then considering the vertices as vectors, the centroid is

$$C = \frac{1}{n+1}\sum_{i=0}^n v_i.$$

The geometric centroid coincides with the center of mass if the mass is uniformly distributed over the whole simplex, or concentrated at the vertices as $$n+1$$ equal masses.

Of a hemisphere
The centroid of a solid hemisphere (i.e. half of a solid ball) divides the line segment connecting the sphere's center to the hemisphere's pole in the ratio $$3:5$$ (i.e. it lies $$\tfrac38$$ of the way from the center to the pole). The centroid of a hollow hemisphere (i.e. half of a hollow sphere) divides the line segment connecting the sphere's center to the hemisphere's pole in half.

title: Centroid


text:
Xootr

Xootr (pronounced "zoo-ter") is a manufacturer of folding kick scooters and was formerly a seller of folding bicycles. Xootr scooters are characterized by 180mm wheels with aluminum hubs, and a hand brake for the front wheel (for the rear on old models). One defining feature of Xootr scooters is the relatively large wheels they are equipped with, as well as the hinge system, which uses a pin.

Xootr scooters were originally introduced in 1999 by Nova Cruz Products. Since 2003, the Xootr scooter has been manufactured and sold by Xootr LLC.

Manufacturer
Xootr began when Karl Ulrich, Nathan Ulrich, and Tom Miner (along with partners, Lunar Design and Cheskin Research, and several other investors) founded Nova Cruz Products. Nova Cruz designed, manufactured, and sold the Xootr kick scooter. Including the Xootr eX3 electric scooter, and the Voloci electric motorbike.

Swift folding bicycle (discontinued)
The Swift Folder is a folding bicycle, designed by Peter Reich of Design Mobility Inc. of Brooklyn, New York, in collaboration with Jan VanderTuin of the Center for Appropriate Transport in Eugene, Oregon. The Swift Folder folds more quickly, though less compactly, than many other folding bicycles. From 2004 until about the end of 2016, the bicycle was sold under license by Xootr as the Xootr Swift - fully assembled to a standard specification, in a choice of single or 8-speed models.

Bicycle rack system
The Xootr CrossRack Bicycle Rack enables the mounting of a standard bicycle bag to almost any bicycle especially bicycles with small wheels.

Hand trucks
Xootr markets a line of folding hand trucks aswell.

Clothing
Xootr markets its own line of baseball caps and tee-shirts.

Wheels
Xootr wheels were originally sold in two styles: standard (translucent yellow) and ultra (black), with the ultra wheels having 10% lower rolling resistance.

Teams using Xootr wheels with a custom rubber formulation won the top three places at the All-American Soap Box Derby Ultimate Speed championships in July 2008.

In popular culture
The Xootr was featured in the film Little Manhattan, where a Xootr Street serves as the primary means of transportation for the main character, Gabe. In one scene, one of his friends has a Xootr Ultra Cruz while another friend makes do with a Razor.

title: Xootr


text:
User:Cnaughton

Hi Chris! Welcome to Wikipedia!

Wesley 22:22 Feb 24, 2003 (UTC)

title: User:Cnaughton


text:
Ishibashi Ningetsu

Ishibashi Ningetsu (石橋 忍月, 1 September 1865 – 1 February 1926) was a Japanese writer and literature critic. His critique "Maihime", on the short story of the same name by Mori Ōgai, was an important dispute in literature during the early Meiji period. He was also among the contributors of Jogaku zasshi, an influential magazine of the Meiji era.

Major works

 * Zaika Ron (罪過論, 1890)
 * Maihime (舞姫, 1890)

title: Ishibashi Ningetsu


text:
Jonatha Brooke

Jonatha Brooke (born January 23, 1964) is an American folk rock singer-songwriter and guitarist from Massachusetts, United States. Her music merges elements of folk, rock and pop, often with poignant lyrics and complex harmonies. She has been a performer, writer, and artist since the late 1980s, and her songs have been used in television shows and movies.

Education
Jonatha Brooke attended Shady Hill School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Commonwealth School in Boston. She graduated from Amherst College in 1985.

Beginnings
Jonatha Brooke and fellow Bostonian Jennifer Kimball began playing music together in the 1980s after having met at Amherst College. They performed regularly during their college years. Their folk songs were marked by "witty wordplay and sumptuous pop harmonies," according to one music critic. Another critic suggested Brooke (the duo's principal songwriter) was the creative dynamo behind the team. Another suggested that many artists of this era were inspired by Joni Mitchell to strive for excellent musicianship, singing, and writing. Brooke was sometimes grouped with emerging 1990s talents such as the Indigo Girls, Sheryl Crow, Shawn Colvin, and Mary Chapin Carpenter.

In 1989, the duo played the coffeehouse folk circuit and radio as The Story and were described as an example of the "folk-rock singer-songwriter aesthetic," according to one account. That year they created a demo called Over Oceans. They were signed to the independent label Green Linnet which, in 1991, issued the duo's debut full-length album Grace in Gravity. Later Elektra Records signed The Story and re-issued their debut. Their second album, The Angel in the House, was released in 1993, highlighting their intricate and sometimes dissonant harmonies.

One music critic described their approach as "levity" between heavy songs about "God, church, death, female oppression, self-suppression, mothers and daughters." Their songs adroitly avoided "heavy-handedness" with a certain "winning buoyancy of tune and/or spirit" with "sophisticated harmonic changes whose intriguing hooks come at you cockeyed and sideways more often than they swoop down from the heavens." The duo were compared with artists such as Suzanne Vega and Indigo Girls.

Solo career
In 1994, Brooke pursued a solo career. One critic described Brooke as having a "lovely soprano voice" and liked the "catchy original melodies and thorny lyrics." On her first solo effort Plumb (1995) People Magazine noted that "Brooke glides through poignant, multifaceted songs with her sweet, insinuating voice. The effect, on limpid compositions such as "Nothing Sacred" and "Inconsolable," is both ravishing and heartbreakingly sad." Her followup 10 Cent Wings earned her a review in Billboard Magazine, which declared that "10 Cent Wings is essential, like taking a deep breath after witnessing something magnificent."

Going Independent
The changing dynamics of the music business in the middle 1990s had a "sell-or-perish" pattern featuring a "leaner, meaner record industry," as one critic described the industry in the 1990s. "I was in the middle of a national tour [for 10 Cent Wings] when MCA dropped me," Brooke recalled. "One second you're a princess on the throne, and the next week no one will return your phone calls," she commented to a reporter.

She recalled: "I realized nothing had changed. I didn't have a contract with MCA Records, and I didn't have tour support, and I wasn't going to get to make a video, which they had promised. The shows were still sold out, my audience was still there and they didn't care whether or not I was part of the Universal conglomerate. That was a really empowering and reassuring time."

While in her early 30s without backing from a major label, she became known as an industrious "cutting-edge world of do-it-yourself" marketer by using the Internet creatively to reach out to fans. She recorded "Jonatha Brooke Live" (1999) on her own label, Bad Dog Records. At first she sold via the Internet. She packaged and mailed about 2,500 copies and autographed each one for a personal touch. She moved to Malibu in 2000.

Critics wrote mostly positive reviews. One described her as a "down-to-earth poet" with "an apparently inexhaustible supply of anecdotes" and "flawlessly crafted lush backdrops for songs that mused wistfully about love and destiny," although "emotions were often obscured by the complex arrangements and gorgeous vocal harmonies." Another critic described her earlier songs as "introspective, sometimes bleak Joni Mitchell-esque compositions." Another described her music as "contemporary folk".

The 2000s
Brooke's next album, Steady Pull (2001) reflected "relief and optimism." She again released it on her own label, commenting that there were "still plenty of dark corners on this record, but I wanted to push boundaries." A critic said she opened up more with this album. Her song "New Dress" (with background vocals from Crowded House frontman Neil Finn) was about a newfound romantic bliss. This rock-influenced album was co-produced by Brooke and veteran producer/engineer Bob Clearmountain, best known for his work with artists such as Bryan Adams, Bruce Springsteen, The Rolling Stones, The Corrs, and Hall & Oates. Clearmountain had, at that point, retired from recording and producing artists, focusing solely on mixing music, but came out of that "retirement" specifically to work with Jonatha. Later, her song "Your House" was included in the ABC series entitled Once and Again. Brooke was featured as a guest vocalist with artists such as Lisa Loeb, Chris Botti and Patty Larkin, and has co-written tracks for Joe Sample's The Pecan Tree.

In 2002 she moved from California to New York and married manager Patrick Rains. She performed two songs on Disney's Return to Never Land (2002) soundtrack, a movie based on the Peter Pan story, contributing her original song "I'll Try" and a cover "The Second Star to the Right".

In 2003, Brooke revamped 1995's song "War" as a protest against the Gulf War. In 2004, she released Back in the Circus with new material plus song covers from songs by The Alan Parsons Project, The Beach Boys, and James Taylor. The album was also released in the United Kingdom in 2005 and combined tracks with several Steady Pull songs. Rolling Stone described it as "stocked with lovingly detailed songs." In August 2006, she released a combination CD and DVD titled Live in New York. In April 2007, Brooke released Careful What You Wish For via Rykodisc distribution. "The vibe of the album," she wrote in notes for reporters, was "all about busting out, being on the edge, playing with great abandon to see what we could come up with."

Some Brooke songs have been sung or covered by other artists. Her tune "Because I Told You So" from Ten Cent Wings was covered by Nick Lachey on his 2006 album What's Left of Me. Her song "Inconsolable" from Plumb was featured in a TV episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer entitled "Prophecy Girl". Buffy creator Joss Whedon enlisted Brooke to create "What You Don't Know," the theme song for the TV series Dollhouse starring Eliza Dushku. In 2008, Brooke appeared on the Tinker Bell movie soundtrack with the song "Be True." The movie's soundtrack was released on October 14, 2008, a week before the DVD release and contains songs from and inspired by the film. In February 2008, Brooke recorded The Works which was her seventh solo release. This effort was inspired by the music of late folk legend Woody Guthrie. Brooke was invited by Guthrie's daughter Nora to sift through the private archives and hunt through Guthrie's unreleased material for possible adaptations. Brooke said she was "smitten" with Guthrie's work and going through it was like "going to church." She liked his poetic love songs like "My Sweet and Bitter Bowl" and spiritual deeper tunes like "My Battle" and loved Guthrie's "full spectrum of craziness" as she described his writings. Musicisns featured on Brooke's The Works include keyboard player Joe Sample, bassist Christian McBride, drummer Steve Gadd, and pedal steel guitarist Greg Leisz.

One reviewer lauded Brooke's "forceful, girlish voice" and described her tune "My Sweet and Bitter Bowl" as a "driving opener" and "standout" and described the entire suite of songs as "solid." The critic described the album as a "Brooke record" not a "Guthrie one". Another critic described the album as "Woody Guthrie's lyrics" with "an urbane new voice within Brooke's sleek, winking alt-pop ... if the Dust Bowl troubadour had matriculated at Amherst, he'd sound just like this." In 2008, she participated in the music album Songs for Tibet, an initiative to support Tibetan Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso. The album was issued on August 5 via iTunes and on August 19 in stores. In 2009, she shared vocal duties with Davy Knowles on the song "Taste of Danger" on the album Coming Up For Air from Davy Knowles & Back Door Slam. Brooke was a judge on the 10th  and 11th annual Independent Music Awards. She was also a judge for the 5th and 9th Independent Music Awards. According to Brooke in an interview, her favorite collaboration with other artists was the song "Forgiven" with Chris Botti (in Chris' 2002 CD The Very Best of Chris Botti).

The 2010s
In 2010, Jonatha Brooke performed as the opening act of the French tour of Nolwenn Leroy, singing songs in English and in French, and joined Nolwenn Leroy for some duets.

In February 2014, Brooke opened in her one-woman play My Mother Has 4 Noses off-Broadway at the Duke Theater in New York City. The play, written by Brooke, recounts in words and music Brooke's relationship with her mother, who suffered from dementia. It earned favorable reviews, including a "NY Times Critics' pick" designation. She released a CD of the same title simultaneously which one reviewer described as "an intimate, string laden album full of warmth and sadness."

In October 2016, Jonatha released the album ''Midnight. Hallelujah.'' Recorded at Sweetwater Studios in Fort Wayne, IN, and mixed by Bob Clearmountain, the collection features a broader mix of instruments than her previous two albums. Brooke supported the release of the album with tour dates across the United States.

In February 2019, Jonatha Brooke won Overall Grand Prize in the 15th Annual IAMA (International Acoustic Music Awards), as well as Best Female Artist with her song "Put the Gun Down".

Brooke released an EP, Imposter, in 2019. In an interview for the EP, Brooke revealed that she now lives in Minneapolis.

title: Jonatha Brooke