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Bowers v. Hardwick

Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that upheld, in a 5–4 ruling, the constitutionality of a Georgia sodomy law criminalizing oral and anal sex in private between consenting adults, in this case with respect to homosexual sodomy, though the law did not differentiate between homosexual and heterosexual sodomy. It was overturned in Lawrence v. Texas (2003), though the statute had already been struck down by the Georgia Supreme Court in 1998.

The majority opinion, by Justice Byron White, reasoned that the U.S. Constitution did not confer "a fundamental right to engage in homosexual sodomy". A concurring opinion by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger cited the "ancient roots" of prohibitions against homosexual sex, quoting William Blackstone's description of homosexual sex as an "infamous crime against nature", worse than rape, and "a crime not fit to be named". Burger concluded: "To hold that the act of homosexual sodomy is somehow protected as a fundamental right would be to cast aside millennia of moral teaching."

The senior dissent, by Justice Harry Blackmun, framed the issue as revolving around the right to privacy. Blackmun's dissent accused the Court of an "almost obsessive focus on homosexual activity" and an "overall refusal to consider the broad principles that have informed our treatment of privacy in specific cases." In response to invocations of religious taboos against homosexuality, Blackmun wrote: "That certain, but by no means all, religious groups condemn the behavior at issue gives the State no license to impose their judgments on the entire citizenry. The legitimacy of secular legislation depends, instead, on whether the State can advance some justification for its law beyond its conformity to religious doctrine."

Scholarly examinations of the case overwhelmingly sided with the dissenting minority. Some of the justices, including Lewis F. Powell, later said that they should not have joined the majority, although Powell also indicated in 1990 that the decision was of little importance. Seventeen years after Bowers, the Supreme Court directly overruled its decision in Lawrence v. Texas, holding that anti-sodomy laws are unconstitutional. In Lawrence, the Supreme Court subsequently based its decision on the American tradition of non-interference with private sexual decisions between consenting adults and on the notions of personal autonomy to define one's own relationships.

Background
In early July 1982, Atlanta Police Department officer Keith Torick issued Michael Hardwick a citation for public drinking after witnessing Hardwick throw a beer bottle into a trash can outside the gay bar where he worked, allegedly observing him violating the city's ordinance that prohibits drinking in public. Due to a clerical error on the citation issued by Torick, Hardwick missed his court date and Torick obtained a warrant for Hardwick's arrest. Hardwick then settled the matter by paying a $50 fine at a court office, but Torick showed up at Hardwick's house three weeks later, on August 3, to serve the now-invalid warrant. At the time, an unrelated guest of Hardwick was sleeping on the couch in Hardwick's living room; at around 8:30 am, Officer Torick entered the house (the front door may have been ajar) and awoke the guest, then proceeded down a hallway towards Hardwick's bedroom. The officer opened the bedroom door, and Torick observed Hardwick and a companion engaged in mutual, consensual oral sex.

Hardwick was angry at the intrusion and threatened to have Torick fired for entering his home. Torick later stated that he "would never have made the case if [Hardwick] hadn't had an attitude problem." Torick then arrested both men for sodomy, a felony under Georgia law that carried a sentence of one to twenty years' imprisonment. District Attorney Lewis Slaton chose not to prosecute the sodomy charge, considering that the warrant had expired, and his own belief that the sodomy law should not be used to prosecute consensual sexual activity.

Hardwick then sued Michael Bowers, the attorney general of Georgia, in federal court for a declaratory judgment that the state's sodomy law was invalid. He charged that as a non-celibate gay man, he was liable to eventually be prosecuted for his activities. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) had been searching for a "perfect test case" to challenge anti-sodomy laws, and Hardwick's cause presented the one they were looking for. They approached Hardwick, who agreed to be represented by ACLU attorneys.

In the lower federal courts, Hardwick was represented by attorney Kathleen Wilde. The case was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, where it was dismissed, with the Court ruling in favor of Bowers. Hardwick appealed, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed the lower court, finding that the Georgia sodomy statute was an infringement upon Hardwick's constitutional rights. The State of Georgia then appealed, and the Supreme Court of the United States granted certiorari on November 4, 1985, to review the case.

Hardwick was represented before the Supreme Court by Harvard Law School Professor Laurence Tribe. Michael Hobbs, assistant attorney general, argued the case for the state. The legality of the officer's entry into Hardwick's home was not contested; only the constitutionality of the sodomy statute was challenged.

A heterosexual married couple was initially named in the suit as plaintiffs John and Mary Doe, alleging that they wished to engage in sodomy but were prevented from doing so by the Georgia anti-sodomy law. They failed to obtain standing and were dropped from the suit.

Opinion of the Court
The Court issued a 5–4 ruling upholding the sodomy laws. Justice Byron White wrote the majority opinion and was joined by Justices William Rehnquist, Sandra Day O'Connor, Warren E. Burger, and Lewis F. Powell. Justice Harry Blackmun wrote a dissent joined by William J. Brennan, Jr., Thurgood Marshall, and John Paul Stevens. Stevens also wrote a dissent joined by Brennan and Marshall.

Majority opinion
The issue in Bowers involved the right of privacy. Since 1965's Griswold v. Connecticut, the Court had held that a right to privacy was implicit in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. In Bowers, the Court held that this right did not extend to private, consensual sexual conduct, at least insofar as it involved homosexual sex. The majority opinion in Bowers, written by Justice Byron White, framed the legal question as to whether the Constitution confers "a fundamental right upon homosexuals to engage in sodomy." The opinion answered this question in the negative, stating that "to claim that a right to engage in such conduct is 'deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition' or 'implicit in the concept of ordered liberty is, at best, facetious."

Justice White added a slippery slope warning about undesirable potential implications for other sex laws: "And if respondent's submission is limited to the voluntary sexual conduct between consenting adults, it would be difficult, except by fiat, to limit the claimed right to homosexual conduct [478 U.S. 186, 196] while leaving exposed to prosecution adultery, incest, and other sexual crimes even though they are committed in the home. We are unwilling to start down that road."

Chief Justice Burger's concurrence
The short concurring opinion by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger emphasized historical negative attitudes toward homosexual sex, quoting Sir William Blackstone's characterization of sodomy as "a crime not fit to be named" and an offense of "deeper malignity" than rape. Burger concluded, "To hold that the act of homosexual sodomy is somehow protected as a fundamental right would be to cast aside millennia of moral teaching."

Justice Powell's concurrence
In a concurring opinion, Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr. joined the majority opinion in upholding the law against a substantive due process attack. He voiced doubts about the compatibility of Georgia's law with the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, noting that even consensual sodomy could be punished with up to twenty years in prison, the same sentence as an aggravated battery or first-degree arson. Since Hardwick had not been tried or sentenced, the question of the statute's constitutionality under the Eighth Amendment did not come up in the case.

Powell was considered the deciding vote during the case. He had initially voted to strike down the law but changed his mind after conservative clerk Michael W. Mosman advised him to uphold the ban. It has been claimed that Powell's decision to uphold the law was influenced by his belief that he had never known any homosexuals, even though one of his own law clerks was gay. That clerk said Powell had met his boyfriend and asked him about the mechanisms of homosexual sex when deciding the case. He felt that Powell had made the remark in order to avoid revealing that one of his clerks was gay at a time when such a revelation could have destroyed that clerk's future legal career. Journalists have since found that Powell hired more gay law clerks than any of the other justices.

Justice Blackmun's dissent
A sharply worded dissenting opinion by Justice Harry Blackmun attacked the majority opinion as having an "almost obsessive focus on homosexual activity". Blackmun wrote, "Only the most willful blindness could obscure the fact that sexual intimacy is 'a sensitive, key relationship of human existence, central to family life, community welfare, and the development of human personality, quoting from Burger's opinion in Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton, which held that obscene films are not constitutionally protected. The dissent compared the majority opinion to that in Minersville School District v. Gobitis, which was reversed by the Court after only three years. At the conclusion of his opinion, Blackmun wrote simply "I dissent," rather than the customary "I respectfully dissent."

Blackmun revealed in a 1995 oral history with Harold Koh that his dissent in Bowers v. Hardwick was written primarily by Blackmun's openly gay clerk Pamela S. Karlan. Blackmun said of the dissent, "Karlan did a lot of very effective writing, and I owe a lot to her and her ability in getting that dissent out. She felt very strongly about it, and I think is correct in her approach to it. I think the dissent is correct."

Justice Stevens's dissent
Justice John Paul Stevens wrote a separate dissent that focused on the selective enforcement of the law against homosexuals. The Georgia statute could not be applied to married heterosexuals, as consensual sexual activity within the bounds of marriage was protected under Griswold v. Connecticut, nor could the law be applied to unmarried heterosexuals, as Eisenstadt v. Baird had extended Griswold to unmarried people. Since heterosexuals could never be prosecuted for sodomy, Georgia should have the burden of proving that selective enforcement against homosexuals was constitutional.

Subsequent findings
According to Daniel Richman, former law clerk for Justice Thurgood Marshall, Marshall's friendship with civil rights leader Bayard Rustin and Rustin's openness about his homosexuality played a significant role in Marshall's decision to join both dissents. Richman also recalled that Marshall thought that the case was a "no-brainer", and told Richman, who wrote a bench memo for Marshall on the case, that "this [case] is controlled by Stanley".

Warren Burger's views on homosexuality have come under scrutiny. He attempted to convince Byron White to include overtly homophobic language in the majority, which White refused to do. Burger lobbied Powell to change his mind, and sent him a note comparing homosexuals to Jack the Ripper.

Michael Hardwick
Hardwick died in 1991 of complications from AIDS. According to his lawyer Kathleen Wilde, he died very bitter about the outcome of the case.

Jurisprudence
Bowers was decided at a time when the court's privacy jurisprudence, and in particular the right to abortion recognized in Roe v. Wade had come under heavy criticism. Bowers signaled a reluctance by the Court to recognize a general constitutional right to privacy or to extend such a right further than they already had.

The Georgia law upheld in Bowers criminalized oral sex and anal sex whether engaged in by people of the same sex or different sexes, but White's decision was restricted to homosexual sex. "The only claim properly before the Court, therefore, is Hardwick's challenge to the Georgia statute as applied to consensual homosexual sodomy. We express no opinion on the constitutionality of the Georgia statute as applied to other acts of sodomy." State sodomy laws were seldom enforced against private, consensual conduct in the decades following the decision, though many courts and state governments interpreted it to justify a wide variety of bans and limitations on the lives of gay people.

Bowers was used to deny suspect class qualification to gays and lesbians, thus restricting the standard of review to rational basis. Although Bowers was later overruled, decisions based on it, such as High Tech Gays v. Defense Industrial Security Clearance Office, are sometimes still cited as precedent in gay rights cases.

Justice Powell's later comments
In 1990, three years after retiring from the Court, Powell told a group of New York University law students that he considered his opinion in Bowers an error, saying, "I do think it was inconsistent in a general way with Roe. When I had the opportunity to reread the opinions a few months later I thought the dissent had the better of the arguments." Powell believed the case was one of little importance, and in 1990 said he had not devoted thirty minutes to think about it since the ruling.

Repeal of state sodomy laws
In the years after Bowers was decided, several state legislatures repealed their sodomy laws. In addition, a number of state courts invalidated sodomy laws under privacy or other provisions of their state constitutions. In 1998, the same sodomy law that was upheld in Bowers was struck down by the Georgia Supreme Court in the case of Powell v. State.

Lawrence v. Texas
In 2003, the remaining sodomy laws in 13 states were invalidated, insofar as they applied to private consensual conduct among adults, by the Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas, which explicitly overturned Bowers. In Lawrence, the Supreme Court subsequently based its decision on the American tradition of non-interference with private sexual decisions between consenting adults and on the notions of personal autonomy to define one's own relationships. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion in Lawrence, ruling that Texas's state sodomy law was unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause (adult consensual sexual intimacy in one's home is a vital interest in liberty and privacy protected by the Due Process Clause). Kennedy wrote: "Bowers was not correct when it was decided, and it is not correct today. It ought not to remain binding precedent. Bowers v. Hardwick should be and now is overruled."

Media portrayal
Bill Moyers discussed the decision at length in an interview with Blackmun on the episode "Mr. Justice Blackmun" of the 1987 Constitutional bicentennial documentary miniseries In Search of the Constitution, and with Hardwick personally in a further episode "For the People".

In 2009 a play based on the life of Michael Hardwick and the judicial proceedings, Sodomy Rules: The Bowers v. Hardwick Trial, was written and performed by Bill Crouch in New York City.

In 2019, an updated revision of ''Sodomy Rules! (The Bowers v. Hardwick Trial)'', a solo documentary play based on the life of Michael Hardwick, was written and performed by Bill Crouch in New York City at The New Work Series presented by Emerging Artists on October 7, 2019.

In popular culture
The last name of the satirical character Betty Bowers, played by Deven Green, is taken from this case.

In the movie The Pelican Brief, there is a scene of a classroom in Tulane University in which the instructor and students discuss this case, with Julia Roberts' character, Darby Shaw, saying that the Court's decision was wrong.

title: Bowers v. Hardwick


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Mortain

Mortain is a former commune in the Manche department in Normandy in north-western France. On 1 January 2016, it was merged into the new commune of Mortain-Bocage.

Geography
Mortain is situated on a rocky hill rising above the gorge of the Cance, a tributary of the Sélune.

Administration
Mortain is the seat of the canton of Le Mortainais. It is a former subprefecture of the Manche department and the seat of the former arrondissement of Mortain, which existed from 1800 to 1926.

History
In the Middle Ages Mortain was the head of an important county (comté), reserved for the reigning house of Normandy (see List of Counts of Mortain). Around 1027 it was established for Robert, who was probably an illegitimate son of Richard I of Normandy. He was succeeded by William Warlenc ("the waning") who was probably his son. In or about 1049 Duke William took it from William Warlenc and bestowed it on his half-brother, Robert, thenceforth known as "count of Mortain," whose vast possessions in England after the Conquest (1066) gave name to "the small fees of Mortain," which owed less feudal service than others. Robert was succeeded as count by his son William, Count of Mortain, who rebelled against Henry I, was captured at the battle of Tinchebrai (1106) and forfeited his possessions. Some years later, Henry bestowed the comtéship on his nephew Stephen, who became king in 1135. On Stephen's death (1154) his surviving son William became count of Mortain, but when William died childless in 1159 the title was resumed by Henry II. On the accession of Richard I (1189) he granted it to his brother John, who was thenceforth known as count of Mortain until he ascended the throne (1199). With his loss of Normandy the comté was lost, but after the recapture of the province by the House of Lancaster, Edmund Beaufort, a grandson of John of Gaunt, was created count of Mortain and so styled till 1441, when he was made earl of Dorset.

In August 1944, Mortain was the site of an important battle between the German and American forces. Over a period of six nights the 30th Infantry Division fought (with one radio with dying batteries) against the German Panzer counter-attack of Operation Lüttich, to preserve the breakout established in Operation Cobra. The defence failed and the Germans recaptured the town but could not hold it owing to developments along the front. The famed American author J.D. Salinger, who wrote The Catcher in the Rye, fought alongside the American forces, an experience that his daughter claims led to his post-traumatic syndrome.

Sights
The parish church of St Evroult is a magnificent example of the transitional style of the early 13th century. Close to the town is the Abbaye Blanche, founded as a Benedictine convent in 1105 and soon afterwards affiliated to Cîteaux. The church is a perfect example of a Cistercian monastic church of the late 12th century, and portions of the 12th-century cloisters also survive. The ruins of a castle was once the home of the cruel Sir Guillaume de Mortain and the site of the Gap of Goeblin.

Notable people
Mortain was the birthplace of Ferdinand André Fouqué (1828–1904), geologist and petrologist.

Émigrés from Mortain are remembered in the name of the village of Marston Moretaine in England.

International relations
Mortain is twinned with:

 * Blandford Forum, United Kingdom
 * 🇩🇪 Thannhausen, Germany

External sources

 * World War II Germain Mortaine offensive

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

title: Mortain


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Great cormorant

The great cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo), known as the black shag or kawau in New Zealand, formerly also known as the great black cormorant across the Northern Hemisphere, the black cormorant in Australia, and the large cormorant in India, is a widespread member of the cormorant family of seabirds. It breeds in much of the Old World, Australia, and the Atlantic coast of North America.

Taxonomy
The great cormorant was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Pelecanus carbo. The great cormorant is now one of 12 species placed in the genus Phalacrocorax that was introduced in 1760 by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson. The genus name is Latinised Ancient Greek, from φαλακρός (phalakros, "bald") and κόραξ (korax, "raven"); the specific epithet carbo is Latin for "charcoal".

Five subspecies are recognised. These are listed below with their breeding ranges.
 * P. c. carbo (Linnaeus, 1758) – coastal North Atlantic west Greenland, west Europe and east Canada to Maine (northeast USA, west North Atlantic)
 * P. c. sinensis (Staunton, 1796) – inland central Europe to north, south, India and Sri Lanka to northeast Russia, northeast China and Korea Peninsula, south to Turkey, central Asia and north Mongolia; disjunctly central south Cambodia and south Vietnam, northeast Borneo
 * P. c. hanedae Kuroda & Nm, 1925 – coastal and inland Japan: Hokkaido to Kyushu (north to south Japan)
 * P. c. maroccanus Hartert, EJO, 1906 – coastal northwest Africa: Morocco to Mauretania
 * P. c. novaehollandiae Stephens, 1826 – inland and coastal Australasia: Australia, North Island, South Island, Stewart Island and Chatham Islands (east of South Island; New Zealand), Rennell Island (south Solomon Islands) and Grande Terre (New Caledonia)

The white-breasted cormorant found along the coast of sub-Saharan Africa, has a white neck and breast. It is sometimes considered as a subspecies of the great cormorant but is here treated as a full species, Phalacrocorax lucidus (e.g., ).

In New Zealand, the subspecies P. c. novaehollandiae is known as the black shag or by its Māori name: "kawau". The syntype is in the collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.

Description
The great cormorant is a large black bird, but there is a wide variation in size in the species' wide range. Weight is reported to vary from 1.5 kg to 5.3 kg. Males are typically larger and heavier than females, with the nominate race (P. c. carbo) averaging about 10% larger in linear measurements than the smallest race in Europe (P. c. sinensis). The lightest average weights cited are in Germany (P. c. sinensis), where 36 males averaged 2.28 kg and 17 females averaged 1.94 kg. The highest come from Prince Edward Island in Canada (P. c. carbo), where 11 males averaged 3.68 kg and 11 females averaged 2.94 kg. Length can vary from 70 to 102 cm and wingspan from 121 to 160 cm. They are tied as the second largest extant species of cormorant after the flightless cormorant, with the Japanese cormorant averaging at a similar size. In bulk if not in linear dimensions, the blue-eyed shag species complex of the Southern Oceans are scarcely smaller at average. It has a longish tail and yellow throat-patch. Adults have white patches on the thighs and on the throat in the breeding season. In European waters it can be distinguished from the common shag by its larger size, heavier build, thicker bill, lack of a crest and plumage without any green tinge. In eastern North America, it is similarly larger and bulkier than double-crested cormorant, and the latter species has more yellow on the throat and bill and lack the white thigh patches frequently seen on great cormorants. Great cormorants are mostly silent, but they make various guttural noises at their breeding colonies.

Variations
A very rare variation of the great cormorant is caused by albinism. The Phalacrocorax carbo albino suffers from poor eyesight and/or hearing, thus it rarely manages to survive in the wild.

Distribution
This is a very common and widespread bird species. It feeds on the sea, in estuaries, and on freshwater lakes and rivers. Northern birds migrate south and winter along any coast that is well-supplied with fish.

In Serbia, the cormorant lives in Vojvodina. However, after 1945 many artificial lakes were formed in Serbia; some of them became potential habitats for cormorants. Currently, on the Lake Ćelije, formed in 1980, there is a resident colony of cormorants, who nest there and are present throughout the year, except January–February 1985 and February 2012 when the lake surface was completely frozen.

The type subspecies, P. c. carbo, is found mainly in Atlantic waters and nearby inland areas: on western European coasts and east across the Palearctic to Siberia and to North Africa, the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland; and on the eastern seaboard of North America. The subspecies P. c. novaehollandiae is found in Australian waters.

Breeding
The great cormorant often nests in colonies near wetlands, rivers, and sheltered inshore waters. Pairs will use the same nest site to breed year after year. It builds its nest, which is made from sticks, in trees, on the ledges of cliffs, and on the ground on rocky islands that are free of predators.

This cormorant lays a clutch of three to five eggs that measure 63 by on average. The eggs are a pale blue or green, and sometimes have a white chalky layer covering them. These eggs are incubated for a period of about 28 to 31 days.

Food and feeding
The great cormorant feeds on fish caught through diving. This bird feeds primarily on wrasses, but it also takes sand smelt, flathead and common soles. The average weight of fish taken by great cormorants increased with decreasing air and water temperature. Cormorants consume all fish of appropriate size that they are able to catch in summer and noticeably select for larger, mostly torpedo-shaped fish in winter. Thus, the winter elevation of foraging efficiency described for cormorants by various researchers is due to capturing larger fish not due to capturing more fish. In some freshwater systems, the losses of fish due to overwintering great cormorants were estimated to be up to 80 kg per ha each year (e.g. Vltava River, Czech Republic).

This cormorant forages by diving and capturing its prey in its beak. The duration of its dives is around 28 seconds, with the bird diving to depths of about 5.8 m. About 60% of dives are to the benthic zone and about 10% are to the pelagic zone, with the rest of the dives being to zones in between the two. Studies suggest that their hearing has evolved for underwater usage, possibly aiding their detection of fish. These adaptations also have a cost on their hearing ability in air which is of lowered sensitivity.

Relationships with humans
Many fishermen see in the great cormorant a competitor for fish. Because of this, it was hunted nearly to extinction in the past. Due to conservation efforts, its numbers increased. At the moment, there are about 1.2 million birds in Europe (based on winter counts; late summer counts would show higher numbers). Increasing populations have once again brought the cormorant into conflict with fisheries. For example, in Britain, where inland breeding was once uncommon, there are now increasing numbers of birds breeding inland, and many inland fish farms and fisheries now claim to be suffering high losses due to these birds. In the UK each year, some licences are issued to cull specified numbers of cormorants in order to help reduce predation; it is, however, still illegal to kill a bird without such a licence.

Cormorant fishing is practised in China, Japan, and elsewhere around the globe. In this practice, fishermen tie a line around the throats of cormorants, tight enough to prevent swallowing the larger fish they catch, and deploy them from small boats. The cormorants catch fish without being able to fully swallow them, and the fishermen are able to retrieve the fish simply by forcing open the cormorants' mouths, apparently engaging the regurgitation reflex.

In Norway, the cormorant is a traditional game bird. Each year approximately 10,000 cormorants are shot to be eaten. In North Norway, cormorants are traditionally seen as semi-sacred. It is regarded as good luck to have cormorants gather near your village or settlement. An old legend states that for people who die far out at sea, whose bodies are never recovered, spend eternity on the island Utrøst – which can only occasionally be found by mortals. The inhabitants of Utrøst can only visit their homes in the shape of cormorants.

title: Great cormorant


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Anner Bylsma

Anner Bylsma (born Anne Bijlsma; 17 February 1934 – 25 July 2019) was a Dutch cellist who played on both modern and period instruments in a historically informed style. He took an interest in music from an early age. He studied with Carel van Leeuwen Boomkamp at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague and won the Prix d'excellence in 1957.

In 1959, he won the first prize in the Pablo Casals Competition in Mexico. By 1961, he was using a new spelling of his first and last names for recordings and performances at the suggestion of his manager. For six years, from 1962 to 1968, he was the principal cellist of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. He became an Erasmus Scholar at Harvard University in 1982. He was the author of the book Bach, the Fencing Master, a stylistic and aesthetic analysis of Bach's cello suites. He was one of the pioneers of the "Dutch Baroque School" and rose to fame as a partner of Frans Brüggen and Gustav Leonhardt, who toured extensively together and made many recordings. Bylsma continued to be a towering figure in the baroque cello movement.

In 1979, Bylsma recorded the six suites for unaccompanied cello (BWV 1007–1012) by J. S. Bach, the first of its kind on a period instrument. He later went on to recreate the same music in 1992 on the large Servais Stradivarius and on a five-string violoncello piccolo.

Bylsma was married to the Dutch violinist Vera Beths (mother of Dutch actress Katja Herbers). He had a son and a daughter, documentary filmmaker Carine Bijlsma.

title: Anner Bylsma


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Flamborough Head

Flamborough Head is a promontory, 8 mi long on the Yorkshire coast of England, between the Filey and Bridlington bays of the North Sea. It is a chalk headland, with sheer white cliffs. The cliff top has two standing lighthouse towers, the oldest dating from 1669 and Flamborough Head Lighthouse built in 1806. The older lighthouse was designated a Grade II* listed building in 1952 and is now recorded in the National Heritage List for England, maintained by Historic England. The cliffs provide nesting sites for many thousands of seabirds, and are of international significance for their geology.

Special Area of Conservation
Flamborough Head has been designated a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) by the British Government's Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC). (Special Areas of Conservation are strictly protected sites designated under the European Community Habitats Directive, which requires the establishment of a European network of important high-quality conservation sites to make a significant contribution to conserving the 189 habitat types and 788 species identified in Annexes to this Directive.) Flamborough Outer Headland is an 83 ha Local Nature Reserve. Yorkshire Wildlife Trust manages the Flamborough Cliffs Nature Reserve, located on the headland.

Site of Special Scientific Interest
The cliffs at Flamborough Head are designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest for both geological and biological significance. First designated in 1952, the SSSI area extends from Sewerby round the headland to Reighton Sands. The estimated 200,000 nesting seabirds, including one of only two mainland British gannetries, are the most notable biological feature.

Geology
The headland is the only chalk sea cliff in the north. The coastline within the SSSI has strata from the upper Jurassic through to top of the Cretaceous period, and the headland exhibits a complete sequence of Chalk Group North Sea Basin strata, dated from 100 to 70 million years ago. The various chalk deposits are known as the Ferriby, Welton, Burnham and Flamborough Chalk. The dramatic white cliffs contrast with the low coast of Holderness to the south, where the chalk is deeply buried and the glacial boulder clay above erodes very readily. The chalk cliffs have a larger number and a wider range of cave habitats at Flamborough than at any other chalk site in Britain, the largest of which are known to extend for more than 50 metres from their entrance on the coast. There are also stacks, natural arches and blowholes. The site is identified as being of international importance in the Geological Conservation Review.

Birds
Seabirds such as northern gannets, kittiwakes and Atlantic puffins breed abundantly on the cliffs. Bempton Cliffs, on the north side of the headland, has an RSPB reserve and visitor centre.

The shooting of seabirds at Flamborough Head was condemned by Professor Alfred Newton in his 1868 speech to the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Local MP Christopher Sykes introduced the Sea Birds Preservation Act 1869, the first Act to protect wild birds in the United Kingdom. Shooting continued, with an 1886 edition of The Cornishman newspaper reporting the enormous flocks of sea birds are affording sport, with the fisherman killing the birds for selling to taxidermists; two boatmen were bagging a hundred birds daily.

Because it projects into the sea, Flamborough Head attracts many migrant birds in autumn, and is a key point for observing passing seabirds. When the wind is in the east, many birders watch for seabirds from below the lighthouse, or later in the autumn comb the hedges and valleys for landbird migrants. Flamborough Head has a bird observatory.

Battle of Flamborough Head 1779
A Franco-American squadron fought the Battle of Flamborough Head with a pair of Royal Navy frigates in the American Revolutionary War on 23 September 1779. In the engagement, USS Bonhomme Richard and Pallas, with USS Alliance (1778), captured HMS Serapis (1779) and HM hired armed ship Countess of Scarborough, the best-known incident of Captain John Paul Jones's naval career. The toposcope at the lighthouse commemorates the 180th (1959) anniversary of the battle.

Danes Dyke
Danes Dyke is a 2 mi long ditch that runs north to south isolating the seaward 5 sqmi of the headland. The dyke and the steep cliffs make the enclosed territory and its two boat launching beaches, North and South Landings, easily defended. Despite its name, the dyke is prehistoric in origin, and Bronze Age arrowheads were found when it was excavated by Pitt-Rivers in 1879. It is a Local Nature Reserve.

Thornwick Bay
On the north side of Flamborough Head lies Thornwick Bay, a bay with a rock beach surrounded by cliffs. The second part of the name Thornwick comes from the Old Norse word vík ('bay') (meaning that the modern name Thornwick Bay is tautologous). At the north side of the bay lies Thornwick Nebb, the final part of which comes from Old Norse neb ('promontory').

A plaque at Thornwick Bay commemorates the 1952 loss of Robert Redhead, the bowman of the Bridlington lifeboat, while attempting to rescue two girls, Joan Ellis and Gillian Fox, from drowning.

Cultural references
Flamborough Head and the village of Flamborough are the setting for the book Bill Takes the Helm by Betty Bowen. In the book an American boy struggles to save his grandmother's house – in which he, his sister and grandmother are living – from destruction by the sea. He is also desperately trying to get used to England after the death of his mother, who requested in her will that he be sent there.

Flamborough Head was featured on the television programme Seven Natural Wonders as one of the wonders of Yorkshire and briefly in the first series of Coast.

Flamborough Head was featured in the finale of series 3 of the ITV drama Scott & Bailey.

North Landing beach was used as a film location for the 2016 re-make of Dad's Army.

Lightning strike
During the evening of 23 August 2006, a lightning bolt hit a buttress on the cliffs, sending 100 tonnes of rock into the sea.

title: Flamborough Head


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Councillor

A councillor, alternatively councilman, councilwoman, councilperson, or council member, is someone who sits on, votes in, or is a member of, a council. This is typically an elected representative of an electoral district in a municipal or regional government, or other local authority. The title of a councillor varies geographically, with a name generally being preceded by their title (or the shortened version Cllr when written) in formal or council-related situations in many places.

Canada
Due to the control that the provinces have over their municipal governments, terms that councillors serve vary from province to province. Unlike most provincial elections, municipal elections are usually held on a fixed date of 4 years.

Finland
This is about honorary rank, not elected officials.

In Finland councillor (neuvos) is the highest possible title of honour which can be granted by the President of Finland. There are several ranks of councillors and they have existed since the Russian Rule. Some examples of different councillors in Finland are as follows:

 * Councillor of State: the highest class of the titles of honour; granted to successful statesmen
 * Mining Councillor/Trade Councillor/Industry Councillor/Economy Councillor: granted to leading industry figures in different fields of the economy
 * Councillor of Parliament: granted to successful statesmen
 * Office Councillor: granted to leading university figures
 * Councillor of Culture/Theatre Councillor/Film Councillor: granted to leading cultural figures
 * Chamber Councillor: granted for successful officials in the field of local government

India
As per the Seventy-fourth Amendment of the Constitution of India, municipal governance in India is looked after by elected councillors who are members of either a municipal corporation (for cities) or a municipality (for towns).

The Philippines
Under the Philippine Republic Act No. 7160 (otherwise known as the Local Government Code of 1991), a councilor is a member of a local council that is the legislative body of the local government unit. They are commonly referred to as "Sanggunian Member" because the official designation of municipal, city and provincial councils is the equivalent term in Filipino (used even when speaking or writing in English): Sanggunian Bayan, Sanggunian Panglunsod and Sanggunian Panlalawigan, respectively.

United Kingdom
All local authorities in the United Kingdom are overseen by elected councillors. These include:

 * 1) unitary authorities
 * 2) county councils and district councils
 * 3) parish, town and community councils
 * 4) The Common Council of the City of London (in which councillors are known as aldermen and councilmen)

According to Debrett's Correct Form the English title "Councillor" (often shortened to 'Cllr') applies only to elected members of city, borough or district councils. However, there is no legal basis for this restriction and in practice the title is applied to all councillors at all levels of local government. Where necessary, parish and county councillors are differentiated by the use of a fuller title such as "town councillor" or "county councillor". The title precedes the holder's rank or other title, as in Cllr Dr Jenny Smith or Cllr Sir Ricky Taing, and for women it precedes their title of marital status, as in Cllr Mrs Joan Smith.

Councillors are typically elected as members of political parties or alternatively as independents. Councils may also co-opt unelected councillors to fill vacancies on a council where insufficient candidates have stood for election, although in practice this is rare outside parish councils. They are bound by a code of conduct enforced by standards boards.

In 2007 the Electoral Administration Act 2006 reduced the age limit for councillors to 18, leading to younger people standing.

Youth councillors
Youth councillors are also elected in local areas by organisations that are members of the British Youth Council, such as Salford Youth Council.

Remuneration
Most councillors are not full-time professionals.

In England, Wales and Northern Ireland most larger borough, unitary authority or county councils do pay them basic allowances and out-of-pocket expenses. In addition, special responsibility allowances are paid to councillors who carry out more senior duties. The basic allowances and special responsibility allowances are theoretically paid to compensate councillors for time spent on council duties and are classed as salaries for tax purposes. Parish, town or community councillors may, since the Local Government Act 2000, be paid for their services.

In Scotland, since 2007, councillors have received a salary of £15,000, as opposed to a series of allowances. This rises annually and as of 1 April 2023 councillor pay in Scotland stands at £20,099 per annum. These are often topped up by special responsibility allowances.

Regional government
The London Assembly is regarded not as a local authority but as a regional devolved assembly and its members are referred to as Assembly Members, not councillors.

United States
Council member, councilman/councilwoman, councilor, or councillor is a title for a member of a council used in the United States.

In particular, the title is used in the following cases:
 * City councils or town councils that do not use the title of alderman
 * Council of the District of Columbia

British Commonwealth
In Australia, The Bahamas, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, Botswana, Trinidad and Tobago and other parts of the Commonwealth, as well as Ireland, a councillor or councilor is an elected representative on a local government council.

Netherlands
In the Netherlands, a member of the municipal council is called a gemeenteraadslid or raadslid. Someone out of this group who is elected to serve on the municipal executive is called a wethouder, which is usually translated as 'alderman' or 'councillor'. The Dutch word for mayor is burgemeester. This is expressed in English as "mayor" or "burgomaster". The municipal executive is referred to collectively as the College van Burgemeester en Wethouders.

Belgium
In Belgium, a member of the municipal council is called a gemeenteraadslid in Dutch, and Conseiller Communal in French. Someone out of this group who is elected to serve on the municipal executive is called a schepen in Dutch or échevin in French. This is usually translated as "alderman" or "councillor" in English. The municipal executive is referred to collectively as the College van Burgemeester en Schepenen ou Collège du Bourgmestre et Echevins.

Luxembourg
In Luxembourg, an échevin (Schäffe, Schöffe) is a member of the administration of a Luxembourgian commune.

Norway
In Norway, a member of the municipal council, kommunestyret, is called a kommunestyrerepresentant in Norwegian. The Norwegian word for mayor is ordfører.

Hong Kong
In Hong Kong, members of district councils are also referred to as councillors. Before 1999 the district councils were known as district boards, upon the abolition of the municipal councils (the UrbCo and the RegCo) in December that year. In addition, members of the legislative council are also referred to as councillors. From 1996 to 1998 the Legislative Council were known as "Provisional Legislative Council", upon the abolition of the interim legislature in July 1998.

Turkey
Two types of councillor are elected in local elections held every five years in Turkey. These include 1,251 provincial councillors and 20,500 municipal councillors. Municipal councillors serve on the council of the 1,351 district and 30 metropolitan municipalities of Turkey, while provincial councillors serve on the provincial general council (İl Genel Meclisi).

title: Councillor


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Talk:Northern Schleswig

Is there any good reason not to merge this with South Jutland? If today's South Jutland county is geographically identical to what was Northern Schleswig, I don't see why there should be two articles. Kosebamse 08:17, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

title: Talk:Northern Schleswig


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Talk:Leicester

Semi-protected edit request on 25 June 2021
Change "the city hosts three active synagogues: one Liberal, one Orthodox and one Messianic" to "the city hosts two active synagogues: one Liberal and one Orthodox"

The Messianic is no longer in existence as it closed over two years ago. Rabbiscott (talk) 15:24, 25 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Morneo06 (talk) 20:07, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 31 August 2021
Spelling mistake: should be "connections" not "connexions" PropertyTaxAccountant (talk) 20:32, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

 * Done. Notfrompedro (talk) 20:34, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Semper eadem
The coat of arms image has SEMPER AEDEM underneath it, which is incorrect - it’s SEMPER EADEM. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.177.158.159 (talk) 18:25, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 28 April 2023
I want to change information, create a few articles and make articles stronger Geogaryc (talk) 16:04, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: this is not the right page to request additional user rights. You may reopen this request with the specific changes to be made and someone may add them for you, or if you have an account, you can wait until you are autoconfirmed and edit the page yourself. Cannolis (talk) 16:26, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Record high temperature
I've been told by a local resident that Leicester saw new record high temperatures only a couple of years ago. A quick Googling shows a news article from July of 2022 with record highs cited which exceed those that are within the Wiki article.

https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/leicester-news/tinderbox-leicestershire-scary-record-temperatures-7354286 Curzyk (talk) 20:54, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Leicester


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Lajas, Puerto Rico

Lajas is a town and municipality of Puerto Rico located in the Lajas Valley in southwestern Puerto Rico, on the southern coast of the island, bordering the Caribbean Sea, south of San Germán and Sabana Grande; east of Cabo Rojo; and west of Guánica. Lajas is spread over 11 barrios plus Lajas Pueblo (the downtown area and the administrative center of the city). It is part of the San Germán-Cabo Rojo Metropolitan Statistical Area.

History
Located in the Lajas Valley, the town was founded in 1883 by the Xueta Teodoro Jácome Pagán. Xuetes (Chuetas) were Majorcan Jews (Sephardic Catalan Jews). Some families changed their names from Jácome to the Castilian form Santiago. Jácome is the Mallorquin form of James (Ia'akov). Catalan Jews from Majorca were part of the early settlers in the south of Borikén (Puerto Rico).

Puerto Rico was ceded by Spain in the aftermath of the Spanish–American War under the terms of the Treaty of Paris of 1898 and became a colony of the United States. In 1899, the United States Department of War conducted a census of Puerto Rico finding that the population of Lajas was 8,789.

The village of La Parguera is a popular tourist destination to see the famous Bahía Fosforescente (Phosphorescent Bay) and its numerous keys and islets. Parador La Parguera was founded by Puerto Rican comedian Henry LaFont (Julio Pancorbo Ortiz).

People from the El Combate community in barrio Boquerón are known as mata con hacha ("those who kill with axes") based on folklore about a fight over the salinas, where those from Cabo Rojo fought with axes against people from the adjacent town of Lajas. Because the people from Lajas apparently fought back by throwing stones they are known as tira piedras ("those who throw stones").

On September 20, 2017 Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico. In Lajas, over 270 residences lost their roofs. The hurricane destroyed Lajas' pineapple industry.

Geography
Lajas is located on the southern coast. Laguna Cartagena National Wildlife Refuge is a national protected area located in Lajas.

Barrios
Like all municipalities of Puerto Rico, Lajas is subdivided into barrios. The municipal buildings, central square and large Catholic church are located in a small barrio referred to as "el pueblo".

 * 1) Candelaria
 * 2) Costa
 * 3) Lajas
 * 4) Lajas barrio-pueblo
 * 5) Lajas Arriba
 * 6) Llanos
 * 7) Palmarejo
 * 8) Parguera
 * 9) París
 * 10) Plata
 * 11) Sabana Yeguas
 * 12) Santa Rosa

Sectors
Barrios (which are, in contemporary times, roughly comparable to minor civil divisions) and subbarrios, are further subdivided into smaller areas called sectores (sectors in English). The types of sectores may vary, from normally sector to urbanización to reparto to barriada to residencial, among others.

Special Communities
Comunidades Especiales de Puerto Rico (Special Communities of Puerto Rico) are marginalized communities whose citizens are experiencing a certain amount of social exclusion. A map shows these communities occur in nearly every municipality of the commonwealth. Of the 742 places that were on the list in 2014, the following barrios, communities, sectors, or neighborhoods were in Lajas: El Papayo, El Tendal, Sector Sabana Yeguas, La Haya, Las Cuevas, Los Jovillos, Maguayo, Piñalejos, and Tokio.

Tourism
Lajas is famous for its main touristic attraction, Bahía Fosforescente (La Parguera), a place where bioluminescent dinoflagellates of different colors appear when the water moves. The origin of the colored lights is the object of many legends. Lajas is also a fishing town.

Landmarks and places of interest
There are 5 beaches in Lajas. Some of the main attractions of Lajas are:
 * Cartagena Lagoon
 * Indian Museum
 * Old Train Station
 * Old Silver Mines
 * La Parguera
 * Lajeño Soldier Monument
 * Isla Magueyes
 * Isla Mata la Gata
 * Pineapple Processing Plant Ruins
 * Rosada Beach or Playita Rosada
 * Caracoles Beach
 * Caribe Fisheries
 * The Puerto Rico Alien Route, which passes by a landing strip developed by a local from Lajas to welcome extraterrestrial landings.

Festivals and events
Lajas celebrates its patron saint festival in February. The Fiestas Patronales de Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria is a religious and cultural celebration that generally features parades, games, artisans, amusement rides, regional food, and live entertainment. The festival has featured live performances by well-known artists such as Tito Rojas, and Arcángel.

Other festivals and events celebrated in Lajas include:
 * Kite Festival – February / March
 * Festival de Pesca de la Aguja Azul – May
 * Pineapple Festival (Festival de la Piña Paradisíaca) - May or June, where up to 50,000 people come for arts, crafts, music and 30,000 lbs. of pineapple
 * Fiesta de San Pedro Festival – June
 * Agriculture Fair or (Feria Agrícola Nacional del Valle de Lajas) – June / July
 * Christmas Parade and Artisans Fair – December

Government
Like all municipalities in Puerto Rico, Lajas is administered by a mayor. The current mayor is Jayson Martínez, from the New Progressive Party (PNP). Martínez was elected at the 2020 general election.

The city belongs to the Puerto Rico Senatorial district V, which is represented by two Senators. In 2012, Ramón Ruiz and Martín Vargas Morales, from the Popular Democratic Party, were elected as District Senators.

Transportation
There are 5 bridges in Lajas.

Notable people

 * Luis Aponte Martínez, Roman Catholic Cardinal of the Archdiocese of San Juan
 * Robinson Cancel, Major League Baseball player
 * Jacobo Morales, actor and film director
 * Henry LaFont, Puerto Rican comedian and lawyer

Symbols
Lajas municipio or Municipality has an official flag and coat of arms.

Flag
The flag consists of three horizontal stripes; the top one is green, the center one is white and the bottom one is light yellow. A vertical white stripe down the left makes a white cross. In the center of the cross is a ripe yellow pineapple. The cross is surrounded by eleven gold stars; five in the top part and six in the lower part of the cross, in the form of a circle.

Coat of arms
It is gold with a green band crossing it diagonally right to left; gold stands for the wealth of the land and green for the beauty of the valley, which is a gift from mother nature to Lajas. The band is adorned, at each end, with a pineapple bordered in gold and black. In the center of the band, also in gold, a marine shell. In the top left there is a red cardinal's hat and in the bottom a red anchor with green; the shield has a 3 tower castle, each one with two windows and a door. On the bottom, outside the shield, a banner with the inscription "Ciudad Cardenalicia" (Cardinal City). This, for Cardinal Luis Aponte Martínez, born in Lajas, who was the first and only Cardinal of the Catholic Church from Puerto Rico. The banner and the inscription appear in black.

Gallery
Scenes around Lajas:

title: Lajas, Puerto Rico


text:
Julian Jackson (boxer)

Julian Jackson (born September 12, 1960) is a former professional boxer from the U.S. Virgin Islands who competed from 1981 to 1998. He is a three-time world champion in two weight classes, having held the WBA super welterweight title from 1987 to 1990, and the WBC middleweight title twice between 1990 and 1995. Possessing formidable knockout power, Jackson is regarded by many as one of the hardest punchers in boxing history, pound for pound, and was ranked number 25 by The Ring magazine in a 2003 list of "100 Greatest Punchers". Jackson's knockout-to-win ratio stands at 89%. Jackson was elected to the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2019.

Amateur career
Jackson represented the United States Virgin Islands at the 1979 Pan American Games, losing his first fight to Jose Baret of the Dominican Republic.

Jackson reportedly completed his amateur career with a record of 15 wins, 2 losses.

Professional career
Jackson turned professional in February 1981 and had many of his early fights in Puerto Rico, where he lived for a short time, and gained a shot at WBA super welterweight champion Mike McCallum in August 1986. Jackson hurt the champion on a couple occasions in the first round, but McCallum came storming back with a barrage that forced the referee to stop matters in the second round.

After McCallum moved up to middleweight, Jackson got his second shot at the now-vacant WBA title in November 1987 against Korean Baek In-chul, winning in three rounds. Baek would go on to win the WBA super-middleweight title a year later. Jackson made three defenses of his crown, against former IBF title-holder Buster Drayton (TKO 3), Francisco DeJesus (KO 8), and future three-time champion Terry Norris (TKO 2). All these defenses were won with a single knockout punch.

Jackson then vacated his crown, moved up to 160 lb (73 kg), and was matched against Herol 'Bomber' Graham for the vacant WBC middleweight title. Due to Jackson's recent retina damage which had required surgery, the British Boxing Board of Control felt that Jackson was returning to boxing too soon and didn't allow him to box in the UK, so the bout was held at Torrequebrada Hotel & Casino, Benalmádena, Andalucía, Spain on 24 November 1990.

Graham was putting on his typical savvy performance against Jackson: countering, slipping, and dancing out of the way, targeting Jackson's vulnerable eye which started to swell. After being consistently beaten to the punch for three and a half rounds, Jackson then unleashed one of the great right hands in boxing history. After Jackson connected with the punch, Graham was unconscious before he hit the canvas, and was revived only after five alarming minutes.

Defenses against Dennis Milton (KO 1), Ismael Negron (KO 1), and Ron Collins (TKO 5) ended quickly, but Thomas Tate would make Jackson work longer and harder in their August 1992 encounter – Julian had to go to the scorecards for the first time in a title bout in winning a 12-round unanimous decision, scoring a knockdown along the way. At this point Jackson was in the middle of the pound-for-pound rankings.

This would lead to his showdown in May 1993 with another big hitter, Gerald McClellan. This time the challenger prevailed, as Jackson failed to find the knockout blow when hitting McClellan with hard punches and controlling Rounds 2 and 3, with McClellan turning the fight around and knocking Jackson down twice in the fifth round. The second knockdown prompted the referee to stop the fight, after Jackson made it to his feet yet remained unsteady. After winning his next three fights, Jackson had another shot at the title in May 1994 in a rematch with McClellan. In a very brief fight, Jackson hit McClellan with some hard punches, but Jackson was then hurt himself and put under heavy pressure by McClellan, with McClellan flooring Jackson with a left hook to the body after 65 seconds. The referee counted Jackson out as he rose to his feet. After McClellan vacated the title to move up to super-middleweight, Jackson would have a second but brief reign as WBC middleweight champion, beating the previously undefeated European champion Agostino Cardamone in March 1995. Jackson had a shaky end to the first round, during which he was hurt and put under pressure until the bell by Cardamone, who wasn't considered a hard puncher. In round two however, Jackson again showed his punching power by suddenly dropping Cardamone heavily with a short right hand. Cardamone managed to make it to his feet but remained badly shaken, forcing the referee to stop the fight.

Jackson lost the title in his first defense against Quincy Taylor in August 1995, by a sixth round stoppage. During the fight with Taylor, Jackson tore his rotator cuff and looked a shadow of his former self. Jackson would have four more low-key victories, before ending his career with losses to Verno Phillips and Anthony Jones, both in nine rounds, in 1998.

Life after boxing
After retiring from the sport, Jackson joined the ministry and still lives in his birthplace of St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. He has continued his involvement in the local boxing field as a trainer and coach, and his three sons, Julius Jackson, Julian Jackson Jr. and John Jackson, have all competed professionally since 2009.

Jackson was once hired by Coral World Ocean Park in St. Thomas as a way to attract visitors to the park.

title: Julian Jackson (boxer)


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User:Tim Starling/Redirects from : to User:

You can use the template:userspacelink for marking entries in the hope that people passing by will help fixing links. See also Wikipedia talk:Avoid self-references.


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ISO 3166-2:TV

ISO 3166-2:TV is the entry for Tuvalu in ISO 3166-2, part of the ISO 3166 standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), which defines codes for the names of the principal subdivisions (e.g., provinces or states) of all countries coded in ISO 3166-1.

Currently for Tuvalu, ISO 3166-2 codes are defined for 1 town council and 7 island councils. Niulakita, which now has its own island council, is not listed as it is administered as part of Niutao.

Each code consists of two parts, separated by a hyphen. The first part is TV, the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code of Tuvalu. The second part is three letters.

Current codes
Subdivision names are listed as in the ISO 3166-2 standard published by the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency (ISO 3166/MA).

Click on the button in the header to sort each column.

Changes
The following changes to the entry have been announced in newsletters by the ISO 3166/MA since the first publication of ISO 3166-2 in 1998:

title: ISO 3166-2:TV


text:
.tv

The domain name .tv is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Tuvalu.

Except for reserved names like com.tv, net.tv, org.tv and others, anyone may register second-level domains under .tv. The domain name is popular, and thus economically valuable, because it is an abbreviation of the word television. In 1998, the government of Tuvalu sought to capitalize on the .tv suffix being short for "television". By 2019, 8.4% of the revenue of the government of Tuvalu came from .tv royalties, with hundreds of thousands of websites registered under the domain. Google treats .tv as a generic top-level domain (gTLD) because "users and website owners frequently see [the domain] as being more generic than country-targeted."

History
Following its 1996 assignment of the .tv ccTLD by the IANA, the government of Tuvalu cooperated with the International Telecommunication Union to find a marketing partner for the domain. In 1998 The .tv Corporation (DotTV) was established as the exclusive .tv domain registrar under the tentative management of Information.CA of Toronto, which agreed to pay US$50 million upfront to manage and market .tv registrations until 2048. Following delays in payment, in 1999 the contract was reassigned to the California-based Idealab, which agreed to pay $12.5 million of the $50 million upfront and the remainder in $1 million quarterly payments over the course of a 10-year licensing contract. Following a $5 million quarterly payment in January 2000, the company's subsequent poor financial performance resulted in the transfer of $3 million in preferred DotTV stock to the government of Tuvalu in exchange for waiving three quarterly payments. Following the hiring of Lou Kerner as CEO of DotTV in January 2000 the company grew to over 100 employees, establishing offices in Los Angeles, London, and Hong Kong.

On 31 December 2001 the company was acquired by Verisign for $45 million, including $10 million for Tuvalu's $3 million stake in the company. Quarterly payments were renegotiated from $1 million to $550,000, extended to last until 2011. On 14 December 2006, Verisign began cooperating with Demand Media to market .tv to websites hosting rich media content. On 19 March 2010, Verisign reduced .tv registration fees in an effort to encourage widespread adoption of the domain. In 2011, Verisign renewed its contract with the government of Tuvalu to manage .tv registrations through to 2021.

In 2014, Amazon acquired Twitch for $1 billion, becoming the first .tv website to achieve unicorn status. The government of Tuvalu subsequently renegotiated its contract with Verisign, resulting in an increase in yearly payments to Tuvalu from $2.2 million to $5 million, a 1/12th of the nation's annual gross national income (GNI) at the time.

As Verisign opted not to renew its contract, on 14 December 2021 GoDaddy signed a 10-year contract with the government of Tuvalu to manage .tv registrations, increasing yearly payments to the government of Tuvalu to $10 million. In 2023, an agreement between the Government of Tuvalu and the GoDaddy Company, outsourced the marketing, sales, promotion and branding of the .tv domain to the Tuvalu Telecommunications Corporation, which established a .tv Unit.

Content stations
Websites with the .tv domain often feature video content for specific brands or firms. Publications like The Sydney Morning Herald and Pitchfork Media run sub-stations of their online publications strictly for original video content. Marketing firms like Vice in New York have received contracts to create brand-tailored .tv content stations, such as Motherboard.tv for Dell and the Creator's Project for Intel have given this domain type more visibility, and inspired the creation of independent content stations at the college level across the United States such as Massive.tv at Northwestern University, Maingreen.tv at Brown University, and Kuumba.tv at Washington University in St. Louis.

co.tv
"co.tv" is not an official hierarchy; it is a domain (co.tv) owned by a company who offers free subdomain redirection services, like co.nr.

This company offers free co.tv subdomains. In July 2011, Google removed .co.tv websites from its search results due to their extensive use by website scammers. This had no impact on other .tv websites.

According to Lucian Constantin at Softpedia, "CO.TV is a free domain provider that is obviously being abused by the people behind this campaign. All of the rogue domains used are hosted on the same IP address."

Future of .tv
The island state of Tuvalu's long-term habitability is threatened by climate change, with the island being barely above sea level. In response to the question of what would happen if a nation-state would cease to exist, the ICANN board stated: "If the code element is removed, the ccTLD is eligible for retirement. Reason for removal is not of relevance." This means that the top-level domain is dissolved if the country were to disappear.

Proceedings from .tv domain registrations are used to fund the Tuvaluan government's Future Now Project (Te Ataeao Nei), which provides mitigation plans for infrastructure and maritime boundaries affected by climate change, digitization of cultural heritage and maintenance of the domain and related intellectual property's active status despite Tuvalu's uncertain future.

title: .tv


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Talk:ISO 3166-2:TV

This content should not be here. It has nothing to do with ISO 3166-2. --Zundark 09:14, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I do think that a TLD posted as a Wikipedia article should stay in the format ".xx", because for the average user "ISO 3166-2:XX" is really not meaningful. I understand where that comes from, I just dont think most people would regard it as helpful and/or relevant to what they were looking for. Granted, the only thing that moving it really changed was the title, but I think it should be made as an addition to the content instead. :-) ... Radiojon 10:05, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

 * I think ".tv" is OK, but I didn't want to provoke an edit war by moving it back. Other possibilities include ".tv ccTLD" and ".tv TLD", or either of those without the dot and/or with TV in uppercase. (I don't think we have a convention for articles on individual TLDs yet.) In any case it should not be here, as this page is supposed to be about ISO 3166-2 codes for subdivisions of Tuvalu. So we need to decide where it should go. --Zundark 10:24, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

 * Someone has unilaterally decided to move it back to .tv (which is probably the best place anyway, as it's easy to link and unlikely to clash with anything else). --Zundark 13:01, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Now the content is about 3166-2, even though I don't understand the rest of the discussion above. andy 13:13, 19 Oct 2003 (UTC)

title: Talk:ISO 3166-2:TV


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List of cities in Malaysia

This article discusses the list of cities within Malaysia. In Malaysia, cities (Malay: bandaraya) are officially designated under the governance of city councils (Malay: Majlis bandaraya), although there are several exceptions. , 20 areas in the country are officially termed cities by law. Among them, 16 are from Peninsular Malaysia, while 3 are from East Malaysia. George Town, the capital city of Penang, was declared a city on 1 January 1957 by Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom, making it the first city in the country, and the only city declared before Malayan independence. George Town remained the sole city of Malaya until 1963, when Singapore was formally incorporated into Malaysia. However, Singapore's expulsion in 1965 meant that George Town would remain Malaysia's only city until Kuala Lumpur's declaration as a city in 1972, by Abdul Halim of Kedah, the fifth Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia. In 1988, Kuching was chartered as the first city in East Malaysia. Klang is the most recent municipality in the country declared a city, doing so on 5 February 2024.

There are also highly urbanised and populated areas across the country that did not attain city status, but are sometimes referred as cities. Officially, these areas are classified as municipalities or townships.

Penang
George Town became a city on 1 January 1957 by a royal charter granted by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, becoming the first town in the Federation of Malaya to become a city (Singapore became a city in 1951). The royal charter stated that:"... the said Municipality of George Town shall on the First Day of January in the year of Our Lord One thousand nine hundred and fifty-seven and forever after that be a city and shall be called and styled the CITY OF GEORGE TOWN instead of the Municipality of George Town and shall thenceforth have all such rank, liberties, privileges and immunities as are incident to a City."However, local government elections were abolished by the federal government in 1965, and the functions of the City Council were transferred to the Chief Minister of Penang in 1966. A Municipal Council for the whole of Penang Island, the Penang Island Municipal Council, was set up between 1974 and 1976.

Although the city status of George Town was never officially revoked, George Town's existence as a corporate entity was in doubt, let alone as a city. This is similar to the position of the former city of Rochester in England, the site of England's second-oldest cathedral, which had been a city from 1211 until 1998 when it was merged with a neighbouring borough. As the new council was not granted city status, and the city, through oversight, failed to appoint charter trustees to inherit the city charter, the city ceased to exist.

Most residents disagreed with this view and held that as George Town's city status has never been revoked, it remains a city to this day. According to lawyer Datuk Anwar Fazal, George Town "legally has been and is still a city because the City of George Town Ordinance 1957 had not been repealed".[3] As city status is a matter of law, the actual legal position will depend on an analysis of the City Council of Penang (Transfer of Functions) Order 1966 and the Local Government Act 1976.

On 1 January 2015, the Malaysian federal government upgraded the Penang Island Municipal Council into the present-day Penang Island City Council, thereby expanding the city limit of George Town to encompass the entirety of Penang Island, as well as a handful of surrounding islets.

Subsequent cities
The royal charters for Kuala Lumpur, Kuching, Kota Kinabalu, Shah Alam, Malacca City, Alor Setar and Miri were from the Malaysian head of state, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, while Ipoh, Johor Bahru, Iskandar Puteri and Subang Jaya were granted by their respective state sultans. Malacca City was declared a "historical city" prior to being granted city status in 2003.

Kuala Lumpur, the largest city, is the national capital and a federal territory, but as of 2012, most government ministries have relocated to the new administrative capital of Putrajaya.

Criteria
Local governments or local authorities in Malaysia (Malay: pihak berkuasa tempatan, abbreviated PBT) are placed under the jurisdiction of their respective state governments. On the other hand, the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Malay: Kementerian Perumahan dan Kerajaan Tempatan, abbreviated as KPKT) handles the classification and standardisation of local governments while providing them with consultation services (i.e. technical consultancy and federal funding). For the Federal Territories, their respective local governments are monitored by the Ministry of Federal Territories and Urban Wellbeing (Malay: Kementerian Wilayah Persekutuan, abbreviated KWP). The National Council of Local Governments (Malay: Majlis Negara Kerajaan Tempatan, abbreviated as MNKT), formed in 1960 by the federal government, is tasked on handling policies and laws related to local governments.

KPKT formally classifies local governments in three different categories: city councils, municipal councils, and district councils, with exceptions equivalent to the three respective categories. These categories are separated by certain requirements related to urban population, finances, and infrastructural developments. The 60th meeting of the MNKT, held on 3 June 2008, approved updated criterion on the selection process for the granting of city status on a local government:

 * 1) The local government must administer a region that is an administrative centre of a state;
 * 2) The region must have a population of more than 500-thousand people;
 * 3) The local government must be financially sustainable, with an annual income of not less than 100-million ringgit, and has the ability to afford stable administrative expenditures;
 * 4) The local government must have an efficient bureaucratic structure, while maintaining public services at the highest-level, e.g. tax collection, development approvals, legal enforcement, and other necessary functions;
 * 5) Urban developments planned by the local government should be sustainable;
 * 6) The local government should give further emphasis on resolving social issues, i.e. squatting, pollution, safety, affordable housing, and environmental conservation. Studies conducted by the Malaysian Urban Indicators Network (MURNInet) would also be taken account of.
 * 7) The local government must promote an urban image that is applicable towards the national identity as a representation of the country's heritage, and preserve any local objects or places of historical, cultural, or artistic significance;
 * 8) The region must contain adequate resources and institutions of finance and industry to easily facilitate trade and foreign investments;
 * 9) The region must be a local hub of education, complete with universities, colleges, museums and public libraries;
 * 10) The region must be a centre of culture, sports, and recreation;
 * 11) The local government should have the ability to host conventions of national and international level;
 * 12) The infrastructure of the region should be complete, with sufficient public utilities (e.g. disabled-persons friendly-public parks, public transportation, traffic management systems, road networks, computer services), and;
 * 13) The region must achieve nationwide or international recognition equivalent to those of other cities worldwide.

Population
Kuala Lumpur is by far the largest urban area as well as the largest metropolitan area in Malaysia. George Town, the capital city of Penang, forms the core of the country's second largest conurbation. To the south, Johor Bahru is the heart of Johor Bahru Conurbation, the nation's third largest urban area. Other metropolitan areas with a population of more than 500,000 include Ipoh, Kuching and Kota Kinabalu.

The following table shows the largest cities by population in Malaysia.

title: List of cities in Malaysia


text:
255 (number)

255 (two hundred [and] fifty-five) is the natural number following 254 and preceding 256.

In mathematics
Its factorization makes it a sphenic number. Since 255 = 28 – 1, it is a Mersenne number (though not a pernicious one), and the fourth such number not to be a prime number. It is a perfect totient number, the smallest such number to be neither a power of three nor thrice a prime.

Since 255 is the product of the first three Fermat primes, the regular 255-gon is constructible.

In base 10, it is a self number.

255 is a repdigit in base 2 (11111111), in base 4 (3333), and in base 16 (FF).

$\left\{ {9 \atop 2} \right\} = 255.$

In computing
255 is a special number in some tasks having to do with computing. This is the maximum value representable by an eight-digit binary number, and therefore the maximum representable by an unsigned 8-bit byte (the most common size of byte, also called an octet), the smallest common variable size used in high level programming languages (bit being smaller, but rarely used for value storage). The range is 0 to 255, which is 256 total values.

 * $$255 = 2^8-1 = \mbox{FF}_{16} = 11111111_2$$

For example, 255 is the maximum value of
 * components in the 24-bit RGB color model, since each color channel is allotted eight bits;
 * any dotted quad in an IPv4 address; and
 * the alpha blending scale in Delphi (255 being 100% visible and 0 being fully transparent).

The use of eight bits for storage in older video games has had the consequence of it appearing as a hard limit in many video games. For example, in the original The Legend of Zelda game, Link can carry a maximum of 255 rupees. It was often used for numbers where casual gameplay would not cause anyone to exceed the number. However, in most situations it is reachable given enough time. This can cause many other peculiarities to appear when the number wraps back to 0, such as the infamous "kill screen" seen after clearing level 255 of Pac-Man.

This number could be interpreted by a computer as −1 if a programmer is not careful about which 8-bit values are signed and unsigned, and the two's complement representation of −1 in a signed byte is equal to that of 255 in an unsigned byte.

title: 255 (number)


text:
Türkmenbaşy

Saparmyrat Nyýazow (1940–2006), known as Türkmenbaşy, lit. 'head of the Turkmen', was the dictator of Turkmenistan from 1985 to 2006. He coined the title for himself, and subsequently either named or renamed various places to it.

Türkmenbaşy may also refer to:

Places

 * Türkmenbaşy, Turkmenistan, a city formerly known as Krasnovodsk
 * Türkmenbaşy District, a district of Balkan Province in Turkmenistan
 * Türkmenbaşy Gulf, a bay of the Caspian Sea in the coast of Turkmenistan
 * Türkmenbaşy şäherçesi, previously called Janga, a town and the administrative center of Türkmenbaşy District, Turkmenistan

Other uses

 * Turkmenbashi International Airport, the airport serving the city of Türkmenbaşy, Turkmenistan
 * Turkmenbashi International Seaport, the main passenger harbour and cargo port in Türkmenbaşy, Turkmenistan
 * Türkmenbaşı Nature Park, a protected area in Istanbul, Turkey
 * Türkmenbaşı Palace, former presidential palace of Turkmenistan
 * Türkmenbaşy Ruhy Mosque, a mosque in Gypjak neighborhood of Ashgabat, Turkmenistan
 * Türkmenbaşy Stadium or Shagadam Stadium, a football stadium in Türkmenbaşy, Turkmenistan

title: Türkmenbaşy


text:
Ruhnama

The Ruhnama, or Rukhnama, translated into English as Book of the Soul, is a two volume work written by Saparmurat Niyazov, the president of Turkmenistan from 1990 to 2006. It was intended to serve as a tool of state propaganda, emphasising the basis of the Turkmen nation.

The Ruhnama was introduced to Turkmen culture in a gradual but eventually pervasive way. Niyazov first placed copies in the nation's schools and libraries but eventually went as far as to make an exam on its teachings an element of the driving test. It was mandatory to read Ruhnama in schools, universities and governmental organisations. New governmental employees were tested on the book at job interviews.

After the death of Niyazov in December 2006, its popularity remained high. However, in the following years, its ubiquity had waned as President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow removed it from the public school curriculum and halted the practice of testing university applicants on their knowledge of the book.

Background
Epics had played multiple important roles in the social life of Central Asia across centuries. Pre-modern rulers of these regions usually appropriated the text and invented a connection between themselves and the epic-cast, to seek legitimacy for their new order.

Stalin had considered these epics to be "politically suspicious" and capable of inciting nationalist feelings among the masses; almost all significant Turkmen epics were condemned and banned by 1951–52. These epics would be rehabilitated back into public (and academic) discourse only with the onset of Glasnost. Ruhnama built on this rehabilitation phase.

Production
Niyazov apparently received a prophetic vision where Turkmen ancestors of eminence urged him to lead Turkmens to the "golden path of life". The first version was released in the 1990s but soon withdrawn because it did not fulfill Niyazov's expectations. Preparations for the revised book were underway as early as April 1999, when Niyazov declared that Mukkadesh Ruhnama would be the second landmark text of Turkmens, after the Quran.

The first volume was finally published in December 2001. On 18 February 2001, it was accepted at the 10th joint meeting of the State Assembly of Elders of Turkmenistan, and National Assembly. In September 2004, Niyazov issued a second volume. An edited volume on the Ruhnama, published a year later, quotes his overall purpose to have lain in highlighting the nation's significant contributions to fields of art and science.

Victoria Clement and Riccardo Nicolosi suspect that the work was ghost-written.

Genre
Scholars note Ruhnama to be a "mosaic" of different literary genres, the text combines spiritual and political advice, legends, autobiography, short stories, poems, and (fabricated) Turkmen history. Written to "recover real Turkmen history without Soviet distortions", Niyazov promised the return of an atavist past from the times of Oghuz Khagan, but only if the conduct of ancient Turkmens were emulated in accordance to his sage guidance.

According to Amieke Bouma, a scholar of post-socialist historiography, it is best treated as an epic in its own right: the Oğuzname of the third millennium. Tanya L. Shields reads it as an anti-colonial autobiography, which gets "almost comic in its grandiosity". It has been compared to Kemal Atatürk's Nutuk, and Leonid Brezhnev's Trilogiya.

Volume 1
Stories and proverbs are borrowed from existing Turkmen epics – Oğuzname, Book of Dede Korkut, and Epic of Koroghlu – in preaching of morals and promotion of a model code of conduct. These are often supplemented with Niyazov's explanatory annotations. Virtues like generosity, unity, humility, hospitality, patience, honesty, defence of fatherland, protection of female dignity, and caring for horses (something that is placed into utmost importance by Niyazov's successor) are emphasised upon. Some of his own poems singing paeans of the Turkmen are present, too.

The Shajara-i Tarākima (unattributed) and writings of Ahmad ibn Fadlan are relied upon for a reconstruction of national history. Some seventy states are alleged to have been established by them – the Anau culture, Parthian Empire, Achaemenid Empire, Seljuk Empire, and Ottoman Empire among others – till the eighteenth century; this entire span was simultaneously periodised into four epic-epochs. Distinct since the inception of humans, the Turkmen were the same as the Turks and descended from the venerable Noah via Oghuz Khagan, who had set up the first polity c. 5000 years ago. Warfare was apparently rare, and the state always preferred peace. Despite vague references to achaeo-historical evidence to support this range of pioneer assertions, there is a total lack of source materials, as understood in an academic sense.

The Persian sphere of influence on Turkmen polity across medieval era was neatly purged; though, Zoroaster was appropriated as a Turkmen hero who had advised people to not abide by Mazdak's path of fire-worship. Both 18th and 19th century – integral to the foundation of modern Turkmenistan – are skipped except for the mention of Magtymguly Pyragy and the Battle of Geok Tepe. Soviet Turkmenistan is described in a single page, where it is blamed for colonisation. The narrative resumes with Niyazov ushering in independence of the state. Several of his specific policies find a mention.

Niyazov's life is described to great details throughout the text – loss of parents in childhood, attachment to land, and his patriotic zeal for attaining sovereignty from Soviet imperialism. These descriptions form an embedded strata of the volume.

Volume 2
Drafted with explicit parallels to the Quran, this volume asked that the Ruhnama be recited as regular prayer after purifying oneself; it was also to never lie in an improper place.

Thematically, the volume is concerned with morals and ethics. A total of 21 chapters deal with optimum manners and decorum for different situations and target audience. Niyazov's own narration gains a position of authority; he does not always seek support from the epics to support his positions.

Niyazov
Niccolosi notes Ruhnama to have transformed Turkmenistan into an "epideictic space", which was in "permanent, unanimous exultation of the person of Niyazov". Bouma found the Ruhnama to rebirth Turkmenistan under Niyazov's responsible leadership. The most significant component of ideological propaganda during the later phase of Niyazov's personality cult, the text was a marker of politico-cultural literacy and key to survival in post-Soviet Turkmenistan. Niyazov claimed those who read it thrice were destined for heaven.

After the publication of the second volume, Niyazov had mosques and churches display the Ruhnama as prominently as the Quran and Bible, and cite its passages during sermons. The Türkmenbaşy Ruhy Mosque, which was commissioned in 2002 at his birthplace, is the largest mosque in Central Asia and features engravings from the Ruhnama as well as the Quran across its wall and minarets. A twenty foot tall neon Ruhnama was erected at an Ashgabat park in 2003. A mural of Niyazov drafting the Ruhnama has been put in place, too. In August 2005, the first volume was launched into orbit so that it could "conquer space".

A photo-journalistic essay in 2006 noted the nation to be filled with advertisements of Ruhnama – each at a cost of two dollars. Government offices featured the Ruhnama prominently on their desk (often devoting a separate room), and state media regularly broadcast their content, with religious reverence. Official ceremonies featured hundreds of Turkmens singing from the book. 12 September was declared a national holiday.

Education
Ruhnama was the most integral aspect of the national educational curriculum across multiple domains. This emphasis on Ruhnama obviously ran in parallel to a rapid deterioration in overall standards of education.

A course in Ruhnama was mandated for all students in school as part of social sciences. It was also made a required reading across all universities, and knowledge of the text was necessary for holding state employment; this perpetuated discrimination on minorities who were not proficient in Turkmen. Turkmen State University even had a "Department of the Holy Ruhnama of Türkmenbaşy the Great", and Ruhnama Studies were pursued as a major research agenda in the country, often at the cost of academic disciplines.

The text also doubled as the sole government-approved version of history across all Turkmen schools until Niyazov's demise, and had a substantial negative effect on academic scholarship. Several conferences on Ruhnama itself were organised by historical and cultural institutes. Other common topics were Turkmen epics, ancient Turkmen culture, and men of eminence – all deriving from Ruhnama. The only books which were allowed to be published were those whose views were in service of Ruhnama; Turkmenistan does not have a significant record of public debates surrounding history, unlike other post-Soviet states.

In 2004, primary and secondary schools were assigned between two and four hours a week to Ruhnama while universities were assigned from four to eight hours. 26 of the 57 examination cards for the 2006 Turkmenistan University Entrance Examination revolved around themes set in Ruhnama. In the words of Laura E. Kennedy, Ruhnama was taught with a theological zeal.

Berdimuhamedow
In his early days, Ruhnama was led away from its earlier spot-of-prominence though it continued to be a part of educational curricula. In Spring of 2007, official references to Ruhnama were trimmed and around 2009-10, television broadcasts of Ruhnama stopped. Scholars have noted these incremental changes to fit Berdimuhamedow's posturing as a would-be harbinger of Turkmen renaissance, which necessitated partial critique of his predecessor's tenure.

In 2011, the requirement to pass a secondary-school examination on the Ruhnama was rescinded. And in 2014, it was finally declared that Turkmen universities would no longer test applicants on their knowledge of the book, in what Slavomir Horak interpreted as the total purge of Ruhnama from Turkmen educational curricula.

It has been noted that books written by Berdimuhamedow, Niyazov's successor, had begun to be included in coursework following his inauguration as leader. Luca Anceschi, an expert on the region and University of Glasgow professor, saw this as a transfer of Niyazov's cult of personality to Berdimuhamedow.

Translations
The Ruhnama has been translated to over 50 languages. These translations were primarily designed by foreign corporations to gain a cordial relationship with Niyazov, and were not meant for international consumption.

These state-authorized translations vary substantially from one to another, leading Dan Shapira to conclude that the text remains in flux. The English version was translated from a Turkish translation of Ruhnama; it does not correspond to the Turkmen version in many places, but is generally more accurate and bulky than the Russian translation.

Media

 * Shadow of the Holy Book, a documentary on human rights abuses in Turkmenistan.

title: Ruhnama