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Music of Albania

The music of Albania (Muzika Shqiptare) is associated with the country of Albania and Albanian communities. Music has a long tradition in the country and is known for its regional diversity, from the Ghegs in the North to the Tosks in the South. It is an integral part of the national identity, strongly influenced by the country's long and turbulent history, which forced Albanians to protect their culture from their overlords by living in rural and remote mountains.

Albanian popular music often incorporates the country's folk music. Albanian folk music includes monophonic and polyphonic styles, responses, choral, instrumental and vocal music. Each region has a unique musical tradition that reflects its history, language and culture. Polyphonic singing and song forms are primarily found in South Albania, while in the North they are predominantly monophonic. Albanian iso-polyphony has been declared an UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The Gjirokastër National Folklore Festival, held every five years in Gjirokastër, is an important venue exhibiting traditional Albanian music.

Albanian music extends to ancient Illyria and Ancient Greece, with influences from the Byzantine and Ottoman Empire. It is evident in archeological findings such as arenas, odeons, theatre buildings and amphitheatres, all over Albania. The remains of temples, libraries, sculptures and paintings of ancient dancers, singers and musical instruments, have been found in territories inhabited by the ancient Illyrians and ancient Greeks.

Church singing was performed throughout the early Middle Ages in Albania by choirs or soloists in ecclesiastical centers such as Berat, Durrës and Shkodër. The Middle Ages in Albania included choral music and traditional music. Shën Jan Kukuzeli, a singer, composer and musical innovator of Albanian origin, is one of the earliest known musicians.

Internationally renowned contemporary musicians of Albanian origin from Albania and Albanian diaspora include Action Bronson, Elvana Gjata, Ava Max, Bebe Rexha, Dua Lipa, Era Istrefi, Albert Stanaj, Dafina Zeqiri, Gashi, Ermal Meta, Enca, Elhaida Dani, Noizy, Unikkatil, and Rita Ora. In the field of classical music, several Albanian sopranos and tenors have gained international recognition including Rame Lahaj, Inva Mula, Marie Kraja, Saimir Pirgu and Ermonela Jaho, and the composer Vasil Tole, a member of the Academy of Sciences of Albania.

Folk music

Albanian folk music has a deep history and can be separated into three major stylistic groups: the northern Ghegs, southern Labs and Tosks and with other important urban music areas around Shkodër and Tirana. It reflects the cultural and political history of the Albanian people and geographic position in Southern Europe and the Mediterranean Sea.

The northern and southern traditions are contrasted by the rugged and heroic tone of the north and the relaxed, gentle and exceptionally beautiful form of the south. These disparate styles are unified by the intensity that both performers and listeners bring to their music as a medium for patriotic expression and as a vehicle carrying the narrative of oral history, as well as certain characteristics like the use of metres such as 3/8, 5/8 and 10/8.

Albanian folk songs can be divided into major groups, the heroic epics of the north and the sweetly melodic lullabies, love songs, wedding music, work songs and other kinds of song. The music of various festivals and holidays is also an important part of Albanian folk song, especially those that celebrate Lazarus Day, which inaugurates the springtime. Lullabies and laments are very important kinds of Albanian folk song, and are generally performed by solo women.

Northern Albania

The Ghegs from North of the Shkumbini River are known for a distinctive variety of sung epic poetry. The music of the north is particularly monophonic. Many of these are about the struggles of the Albanian people and history, the constant Albanian themes of honor, hospitality, treachery and revenge but also Skanderbeg, a legendary 15th century warrior who led the struggle against the Ottomans. These traditions are a form of oral history for the Ghegs and also preserve and inculcate moral codes and social values, necessary in a society that, until the early 20th century, relied on blood feuds as its primary means of law enforcement.

The most traditional variety of epic poetry is the Albanian Songs of the Frontier Warriors. These epic poems are sung, accompanied by a lahuta. It is rarely performed in modern Albania, but is found in the northern highlands within the Dukagjin highlands and Malësia. Other styles of epics also include the Këngë trimash or kreshnikësh (Songs of brave men or frontier warriors), ballads and maje krahis (cries). Major epics include Mujo and Halil and Halil and Hajrije.

Somewhat further south, around Dibër and Kërçovë in Macedonia, the lahuta is not used, replaced by the çifteli, a two-stringed instrument in which one string is used for the drone and one for the melody. Though men are the traditional performers (exception made for the sworn virgins), women have increasingly been taking part in epic balladry.

Along with the def, çifteli and sharki are used in a style of dance and pastoral songs. Homemade wind instruments are traditionally used by shepherds in northern Albania; these include the zumarë, an unusual kind of clarinet. This shepherds' music is "melancholic and contemplative" in tone. The songs called maje-krahi are another important part of North Albanian folk song; these were originally used by mountaineers to communicate over wide distances, but are now seen as songs. Maje-krahi songs require the full range of the voice and are full of "melismatic nuances and falsetto cries".

Southern Albania

Southern Albanian music is soft and gentle, and polyphonic in nature with similarities to Greek music on polyphonic song of Epirus. Vlorë in the southwest has perhaps the most unusual vocal traditions in the area, with four distinct parts (taker, thrower, turner and drone) that combine to create a complex and emotionally cathartic melody. Author Kim Burton has described the melodies as "decorated with falsetto and vibrato, sometimes interrupted by wild and mournful cries". This polyphonic vocal music is full of power that "stems from the tension between the immense emotional weight it carries, rooted in centuries of pride, poverty and oppression, and the strictly formal, almost ritualistic nature of its structure".

South Albania is also known for funeral laments with a chorus and one to two soloists with overlapping, mournful voices. There is a prominent folk love song tradition in the south, in which performers use free rhythm and consonant harmonies, elaborated with ornamentation and melisma.

The Tosk people are known for ensembles consisting of violins, clarinets, lahutë (a kind of lute) and def. Eli Fara, a popular émigré performer, is from Korçë, but the city of Përmet is the centre for southern musical innovation, producing artists like Remzi Lela and Laver Bariu. Lela is of special note, having founded a musical dynasty that continues with his descendants playing a part in most of the major music institutions in Tirana.

Southern instrumental music includes the sedate kaba, an ensemble-driven by a clarinet or violin alongside accordions and llautës. The Albanian Kaba is an improvised and melancholic style with melodies that Kim Burton describes as "both fresh and ancient", "ornamented with swoops, glides and growls of an almost vocal quality", exemplifying the "combination of passion with restraint that is the hallmark of Albanian culture." Laver Bariu and Remzi Lela are considered among the most influential Albanian clarinetists and best performers of the Albanian Kaba.

The ethnic Greek inhabitants of the country's southern parts, have a music very similar to the music of Epirus in Greece.

Instrumentation

Instrumentation are an integral part of Albanian folk music, especially in the north. Those instruments can be divided into string, wind and percussion categories. They vary from region to region and are used frequently throughout the entire country, performing both dance and instrumental polyphonic folk music.

The lahuta, a single-stringed instrument, is rooted in Albanian epic poetry with emphasis on important historical and patriotic events from history. It is usually played only by men during winter evenings by the fireplace. The instrument is primarily widespread in the mountainous northern area of the country but can be also found in the center of the country. It is often made from a single wood block composed of various types of woods including maple, spruce and oak. The head of the lahuta is decorated with symbols of ancient cults such as the head of the capricorn, which is the symbol of the Helmet of Skanderbeg.

Çiftelia is a long necked stringed instrument and frequently used by Gheg Albanians in northeastern Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro and North Macedonia. It is an integral part of northern traditional instrumental ensembles, commonly played in the context of northern wedding music.

Fyell, also known as Zumare, is a similar instrument to a pennywhistle and is mostly played by shepherds in the north along with a shepherd's flute. The instrument contains five holes in each pipe and a bell. The melodies which are played with a fyell are homophonic and sounds nasal as well as very strong and powerful.

Violina is usually used since the 19th century in both the northern and southern region. In the past, it was held in a vertical position like a violoncello or a lahuta but is not practised anymore.

 * Clarinet
 * Qypi
 * Surlja
 * Dajreja
 * Gajda
 * Lodra
 * Defi
 * Toubeleki
 * Albanian Bagpipe

Emergence
The development of groups of instrumentalists played a significant role for the establishment of urban music in Albania. In the cities of northern Albania these instrumentalist groups were referred to as ahengje (meaning roughly 'to party' or 'partying') in Shkodër and as orkestrina ('little orchestras') in Tirana, Durrës, Kavajë and Elbasan; while in all cities of southern Albania they were referred to as saze (another term for 'little orchestras'). Conglomerates of solists or groups of instrumentalists were referred to as taifa, which were created in order to facilitate the professional rights and existence of the musicians.

With the growth of the cities their music began to develop peculiar features that were inclined to be accepted by the bulk of Albanians. The popullore ('popular') songs covered repertories which incorporated urban songs, as well as Romani songs, and sometimes also complex folk music. It has been suggested that before the second half of the 20th century "the entire musical life of Albania was determined by folk music". However, while the musical life of Albania may have been strongly influenced by folk music during the first half of the 20th century, urban lyric songs show that by 1930 that influence was no longer strong enough to thoroughly predominate the Albanian musical environment.

1930s Urban Song
The Albanian Urban Lyric Song is a tradition that started in Albania in the 18th century but culminated in the 1930s. These songs are a major part of Albania's music heritage, but have been little-studied by ethnomusicologists, who prefer to focus on the rural folk music that they see as being more authentically Albanian. Out of this melting pot of local and imported styles came a kind of lyrical art song based in the cities of Shkodra, Elbasan, Berat and Korça. Though similar traditions existed in other places, they were little recorded and remain largely unknown. By the end of the 19th century, Albanian nationalism was inspiring many to attempt to remove the elements of Turkish music from Albanian culture, a desire that was intensified following independence in 1912; bands that formed during this era like the Korçë-based Lira Chorus played a variety of European styles, including marches and waltzes. Urban song in the early 20th century could be divided into two styles: the historic or nationalistic style, and the lyrical style. The lyrical style included a wide array of lullabies and other forms, as well as love songs.

In the early decade of the 1930s, urban art song had been incorporated into classical music, while the singer Marie Kraja made a popular career out of art songs; she was one of Albania's first popular singers. The first recordings, however, of urban art song came as early as 1937, with the orchestral sounds of Tefta Tashko-Koço.

Communist period
Modern Albanian popular music uses instruments like the çifteli and sharki, which have been used in large bands since the Second World War to great popular acclaim; the same songs, accompanied by clarinet and accordion, are performed at small weddings and celebrations. A massive rise of popular music – muzika e lehtë – occurred during the communist period in Albania, with renowned singers like Vaçe Zela and Parashqevi Simaku.

The censorship imposed by Enver Hoxha in almost all musical genres banned in particular Western contemporary music from all stages of Albania, and its broadcasting was forbidden. The national song contest Festivali i Këngës has been organized since 1961, and it provided an authorized platform for nonconformist musical forms similar to the Western models.

The 1972 edition was a turning point for the contest, in which dictator Enver Hoxha prosecuted the organisers of Festivali i Këngës 11 after declaring them "enemies of the public". They were accused of endangering the country with "immoral aspects" in their songs and performances. Following this development, the ruling Communist Party imposed numerous sanctions on the festival's content, with a strict censorship on anything deemed inappropriate by the government. This ranged from limiting the type of clothes artists could wear, to restricting their range of movement while performing. The main organisers of the show were accused of conspiring against the country and corrupting its youth.

90s and beyond

The isolationism of contemporary music ceased after the fall of the regime, and the popular music of Albania was rapidly integrated into the overall trends in Southeast Europe, with the promotion of hybrid musical forms using synthetic accompaniments. Tallava is a pop music genre originating in Kosovo, also popular in Albania and North Macedonia, in the Albanian-speaking communities. Having originated in the Roma community in Kosovo in the 1990s, it is oriental-sounding, and perceived of as low-status. Nevertheless, it is becoming increasingly popular in Albania and North Macedonia. It is identified as part of the wider Pop-folk genre of the Southeastern Europe, which includes Chalga from Bulgaria, Skiladiko from Greece, Manele from Romania and Turbo-folk from Serbia.

Albania has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest since 2004.

Albanian music in North Macedonia and Kosovo
Kosovo has been home to many important Albanian musicians, and the same can be said for North Macedonia. Prior to the Kosovo War, there was a thriving music industry in Kosovo, which reached new heights in recent years. The Kosovar music industry was home to many famous musicians, including the famous Nexhmije Pagarusha, Ismet Peja and the romantic, more elaborate Qamili i Vogël of Gjakova. The Macedonian band Vëllezërit Aliu became well- known for the traditional vocal duets accompanied by drum box, electric bass, synthesizer and clarinet or saxophone. Gjurmët is one of the most famous and influential 1980s rock bands from Pristina.

Rock
Rock arrived in Albania, particularly in Kosovo, in 1950 with an American and British influence. The first distinctively Albanian rock band was Blue Star, founded in Pristina.

Opera

Palokë Kurti is usually said to be among the founders of Albanian opera. A native of Shkodër, he was a musical amateur who composed the Unity of Albania March (Bashkimi Shqipnis) in 1881. Another composer and also a priest, Martin Gjoka is also considered to be one of the most important founders of Albanian classical music. Gjoka is said to be the first Albanian musician who showed great interest in traditional Albanian folk music considerably that of the deep mountainous areas of the north of Albania that was less influenced by foreign music. During his lifetime, he composed several vocal and instrumental music using elements of urban art song and the folk melodies of the north.

In the 19th and 20th century, Fan S. Noli and Mikel Koliqi contributed to the development of classical music culture in Albania. They achieved prominence, with Noli using urban folk songs in his Byzantine Overture and is also known for a symphonic poem called Scanderberg. Koliqi spent much of his life in prison for his religious beliefs, but managed to compose melodramas such as The Siege of Shkodër, The Red Scarf and Rozafa.

Other pivotal composers in modern Albanian classical music were Thoma Nassi, Kristo Kono, Frano Ndoja and Lec Kurti who composed "Arbereshja" in 1915.

Prenk Jakova became well known for operas including Scanderbeg and Mrika, which were influenced by traditional Italian opera, the belcanto style and Albanian folk music. Çesk Zadeja composed in many styles, from symphonies to ballets, beginning in 1956, and also helped found the Music Conservatory of Tirana, the Theatre of Opera and Ballet, and the Assembly of Songs and Dances.

Later in the middle of the 20th century, Albanian composers came to focus on ballets, opera and other styles; these included Tonin Harapi, Tish Daija, Nikolla Zoraqi, Thoma Gaqi, Feim Ibrahimi, Shpëtim Kushta and many others. Since the fall of the communism in Albania in the 21st century, composers like Aleksandër Peçi, ethnologist musician Ramadan Sokoli, Sokol Shup, Endri Sina, Pëllumb Vorpsi and Vasil Tole have arisen, as have new music institutions like the Society of Music Professionals and the Society of New Albanian Music.

The contemporary opera artists such as Inva Mula, Ermonela Jaho and Saimir Pirgu have achieved international recognition for their music.

Contemporary music

In Albania, the most prominent rock bands and individuals only appeared after 1990 as rock music was prohibited. However, youth groups found ways to listen it through clandestine channels.

Furthermore, electronic music has become a mainstream music genre in Albania. Albanian artists and renowned DJs such as DJ Aldo, Vin Veli, DJ Sardi, Dj Tedd and others are successfully collaborating mainly with Italian and Romanian artists, while showcasing themselves in renown clubs in Tirana and in annual music festivals along the Albanian Riviera such as Turtle Fest and Soundwave Albania.

title: Music of Albania


text:
Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network

The Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network (AWMN) is a grassroots wireless community network established in 2002 in Athens, Greece. By August 2010, the network had grown to include 1,120 backbone nodes, with over 2,900 client computers actively linked to it. There is also an association-club that supports the network's objectives.

Cultural and geographical context
Although the network began in Athens, the capital of Greece, its activities are no longer limited to the city. It covers a geographical area 110 km from North to South and 85 km from West to East, with the most southern point being Palaia Epidavros (Epidaurus) and the most northern point being the town of Nea Artaki on the island of Euboea. The wide expansion of the network allows isolated areas with poor technological and broadband infrastructure to connect with the Athenian network. The islands of Aegina, Salamina and the regions surrounding Athens are also connected to the network.

Recently the island of Euboea connected with more links with AWMN for redundancy purposes and the next stage will be to join the wireless 'islets' located in Corinth, Lamia (city) and Volos. There are also plans to reach even more remote cities of Greece such as Patras.

This year AWMN connected most of the Greek communities and managed to cross the Greek borders. It has initiated a VPN connection with wlan slovenija network in Slovenia with the vision to connect all the wireless communities of Europe into one network.

Project history
AWMN was formed as a community back in 2002. Due to tremendous problems with broadband services in Greece in 2002 the number of such services available to home users was extremely limited. AWMN was founded as an alternative broadband network, which allowed its users to experience real broadband services.

However, an increasing number of people started to have an interest in the network. The number of network nodes started to grow exponentially, and the network's character changed from an alternative telecom network to a social network of people based on their interest in the IT/Telecom sector.

The objectives of the project include the following:
 * Creating, developing and maintaining a Wireless Community Network which will provide broadband services to its members.
 * Developing technologies based on wireless and digital telecommunications.
 * Educate the public on the use of wireless and digital communications
 * Promote and encourage volunteerism and active participation.

The association, as of August 2010, has around 67 members. Not all members of the backbone network are members of the association, and there are around 900 that do not want to participate in the association, due to the extent of moderation and speech censorship that is practiced in the association's forum, wiki and assembly. Participation in the association has, throughout its history, always been on a voluntary basis. No one is obliged to sign a peering agreement as long as it is not needed, and no one has to join the association to participate to the network, rendering the AWMN network one of the most open networks in the world. However all 1080 backbone node owners are obliged to accept responsibility for the smooth running of their node, follow the basic rules of the community and follow basic network neutrality rules.

The community
Users are categorised as backbone nodes and AP client nodes. The backbone nodes are nodes routing data that have no origin and destination themselves.

The network is a mosaic of people from varying ages and educational backgrounds including IT and telecommunications professionals, radio amateurs, IT students and technology enthusiasts. All are driven by a strong community spirit and contribute on a voluntary basis.

Technology
AWMN makes extensive use of the IEEE 802.11 set of standards and operates on the 2.4 GHz (mainly for the Open APs) and 5.4 GHz (for the backbone links) license-free ISM frequency bands. Over the last few years, AWMN has tested (and later used in production environments) equipment from a huge variety of vendors.

The routing protocol used by the network is BGP. Efforts have been made to move towards new, more adaptive, experimental protocols such as OLSR and B.A.T.M.A.N. Some members of the AWMN community have contributed feedback and code to many Linux routing projects.

Homemade equipment is encouraged. Many workshops have been held so that members can become familiar with constructing their own aerials and cables. Additionally, the community regularly organizes seminars to educate aspiring network administrators on wireless technologies, protocols, routing and Linux, in the conditions of an operational large-scale network.

A wide variety of software is used in the network but AWMN services rely heavily on open-source software, Linux (or other free Unix variants).

Services
The network currently provides a full-featured internal VoIP network, High Definition streaming services, game servers, file sharing services, hundreds of users/nodes webpages, network statistics services, routing, network monitoring, weather stations and VPN servers.

WiND is a web application for wireless community networks, such as AWMN itself, which has been created by members of AWMN. WiND provides a front-end interface to a database where information of the nodes can be stored, such as position details, DNS, IP addressing and a list of provided network services.

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

title: Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network


text:
Talk:Iraq Survey Group

Facts and Research

 * Although it might cost the article some thoroughness - and despite it being very cliche - I can't provide proof about some things, like optempo. If I had them, I could provide the fragos and mission briefs for the MCT missions I went on, but they were secret. It would be an crime to have saved them and a bigger crime to reveal them. Sorry. Do what you have to do... NetSerfer 22:09, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

MCTs
Is the ISG a 1200 member-team or a 1400 member-team?

The term expert ought to be qualified. I know of an officer in his early 20's at the time who led a team searching a huge area of Iraq for WMD who immediately prior to working for the ISG was in fact qualified to be an Officer of the Watch on a warship and whose only training on chemical weapons was the standard package all members of the military get. My point is, they weren't all experts on WMD, which is certainly implied here.
 * I cleanup up the 'experts' a bit. You're right: there were only a few dozens of WMD experts in ISG. What MCT was your friend with? I worked with most of the team commanders. NetSerfer 23:33, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

What EXTRAORDINARY bullsh*t! OOps! not pc. look into it.
 * is that IYNSHO? =-\ .... JDR 12:51, 24 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I was a member of 2 of the mct teams from dec03 to feb 05 any questions that i might be able to answer direct too aljon96@yahoo.com, I have pics, awards, and order to for proof. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.200.43.132 (talk) 20:07, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Controversy
Anyone following the US news about Iraq and the 2004 presidential election knows that the presence or absence of WMD is a hot issue. One of the biggest justifications (or pretexts?) for the invasion of Iraq -- if not the chief reason -- was WMD.

Initially, both Democrats and Republicans agreed:
 * that Saddam had WMD (or probably did, or soon would, or was trying to get them)
 * that if he didn't prove he was "clean" (no WMD), he ought to be removed from power -- regime change
 * that the US should do the removing, if no one else would

 * I would generally agree with that Democrats and Republicans agreed upon these ... though I believe there was other factors inadditon to them that were present [Iraq was flaunting international law, disreguarding agreements the country made, continued to show defiance, were concealing the existing programs (saying the country didn't have them) and various other factors (shooting @ UN approved flyovers, comes to mind)] ... JDR

Later, the Democrats shifted their position and derived considerable political capital from constantly repeating:
 * that Saddam obviously never had WMD
 * that Bush knew this
 * that taking out a dictator on such a flimsy excuse as gosh, we thought he had WMD was inexcusable
 * that Bush, having committed an inexcusable act, should be removed (get it? "regime change" - yuk, yuk) at the next election

 * It does seem that the Democrats do continue that refrain (though the "political capital" they are gaining/losing is relative to your postion I suppose) ... this is in contrast to the _facts_ that Saddam obviously had WMD (eg. the strain [which was known to the Europeans and the UN, as I understand it also (though they both knew Iraq wasn't suppose to have them)]), the US administration found information of the programs that he was hiding, and taking out a dictator on such evidence is "excusable" (eg. Iraq posed a direct and possible danger; showed several times that Iraq was not living up to thier agreements and was not in conformity to the position of the international community) ... Democrats are now calling for a "regime change" at the next election because of thier POV (from what I can tell) ...

Are these bullet points correct and/or relevant? --Uncle Ed 20:32, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

 * Saddam obviously (looking back) never had WMD stockpiles ... but he did have WMDs ...
 * Some may have known (Ex., Bush, Kerry, Dan Quail, etc. ...) .... but making such allegations is tenious
 * that taking out a dictator any excuse is excusable? YMMV ....
 * Removing Saddam specifically was an inexcusable act? Why don't you ask the Iraqi people. JDR 17:09, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

 * Maybe in the 2003 invasion of Iraq entry, as they really have nothing to do with the Iraq Survey Group, considering that it just proved, in the author's words, the Democrats' "Constant Repeating", right. DeathForce

Well they didn´t start repeating it until AFTER the report.. ;) 193.11.218.40 10:56, 7 December 2005 (UTC) Christian

Duelfer Report edits
I made a few changes...

1. The listing of key points buries the lede of the report. The most significant points, from the point of view of Administration justifications for the war, were that there were no WMDs, hadn't been any for years, and Husayn's ability to restart programs had deteriorated, not improved, in the last decade.

I moved the point about buying influence to the bottom. This is because it had the weakest evidence in the report. While it's widely acknowledged that Husayn skimmed money from the program, the only "evidence" of buying influence is the papers that Ahmed Chalabi alleged to have custody of. No independent observer ever saw those alleged papers, and Chalabi's people offered "my dog ate my homework" excuses about multiple hard drive failures when pressed.

On Chalabi being the sole source for evidence of bribery, see: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/003616.php http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_08.php#003264

2. Where the article said "Iraq had planned on restarting all banned weapons programs ...", I changed it to "Iraq hoped to restart...". THis is because the Duelfer report indicates Husayn's *desire* to restart, but that he had, in practical terms, been letting programs deteriorate, rather than been preparing for the end of sanctions.

On the lack of interest in restarting BW, see the key findings, page 1 of the Biological Weapons section:

"ISG found no direct evidence that Iraq, after 1996, had plans for a new BW program or was conducting BW-specifi c work for military purposes. Indeed, from the mid-1990s, despite evidence of continuing interest in nuclear and chemical weapons, there appears to be a complete absence of discussion or even interest in BW at the Presidential level. Iraq would have faced great diffi culty in re-establishing an effective BW agent production capability."

3. In Political Implications, I reworded the Administration claims to appear as allegations, rather than as facts, since multiple reports have disproven them.

-MattJensen

It wasn't disproven, sorry.

Hi - I thought it would be best to have one bullet point each about the three main WMD programs, describing what the Duelfer report found about them. There was already one about nuclear weapons, so below that one I've now added two bullet points covering the report's key findings about chemical and biological weapons:

1. "Iraq destroyed its chemical weapons stockpile in 1991, and only a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions were discovered by the ISG. Saddam never abandoned his intentions to resume a CW effort at a future time, however." -- see the first two key findings of the Duelfer report's section on chemical weapons.

2. "Saddam's regime abandoned its biological weapons program and its ambition to obtain advanced biological weapons in 1995. While it could have re-established an elementary BW program within weeks, ISG discovered no indications it was pursuing such a course. No-itsme (talk) 19:07, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

POV problems in the "Political implications" section
The section on "Political implications" is fairly POV-heavy at the moment. I'm not sure it's really possible to have a section that covers the "political implications" of the ISG's findings without it becoming a football being scrimmaged over aggressively by the pro-Bush/anti-Bush teams. Even the section title, "Political implications", is problematic, in that it commits the article to presenting the political implications -- but those implications are themselves the subject of the controversy, and the things that are being strenuously disagreed about by both sides.

I'd suggest the following changes (which, if someone doesn't object to them, or do them first, I'll probably do myself over the next few days):

 * Rename the section to something like "Controversy regarding findings".
 * Recast the POV-heavy language in more-neutral terms that simply present each side's intrepration of what the ISG results mean. For example, the current language implies that the WMD commission report and the report of the Senate Intelligence Committee showed Bush was not to blame for relying on the flawed intelligence. That position is pro-Bush POV: neither of those reports actually addresses that issue directly, though they are frequently cited as evidence for that position by Bush defenders.

-- John Callender 17:52, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I looked at the section and it really doesn't seem relevant to the subject of the article. Since no one has defended the section since you posted this comment, I removed the section. Warren Dew 00:53, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure how to include this without sparking a riot, by ISG's mission was, by its very nature, political. This was common knowledge - and openly acknowledged by our commanders. This is also the reason that operations ended in early November: after the elections were over, there was no need to continue to try to justify the invasion. Bush had his second term and the invasion was, by that point, fait accompli. There was no more need for a smoking gun. Again, this was all open knowledge among those of us doing this work - including our chain of command. NetSerfer 00:19, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

What field commanders think they "know" isn't always true; there are a lot of links in the chain of command. If the idea was to justify the Administration's invasion, the people who wrote the reports did a pretty poor job - the ISG found things (botulinum bacteria, uranium enrichment centrifuge plans) that (a) Saddam had successfully hidden from the U.N. inspectors, and (b) pretty clearly violated the U.N. conditions imposed on Iraq. Those factors were never clearly articulated to the press, which they should have been if the point was to justify the war. Most of the significant findings do seem to have been made early on, so I might believe that continuing the effort past, say, Kay's resignation was an effort to satisfy congressmen who still believed, unrealistically, that large stockpiles would be found. Warren Dew 23:51, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Also keep in mind that Wikipedia is about "verifiability, not truth". Even if all the editors agree on a fact, it shouldn't go into an article unless it is verified by a reputable published source; doing otherwise would be original research, which is prohibited. See Verifiability and No original research.

July 15 Vandalism
I reverted to a July 4 version, which may have stepped on some minor revisions that were made in the interim. I also changed the title of the section on Sector Control Point - Baghdad to the more general 'Organization and Operations'.

-- Netserfer 22:18, 15 JUL 2005 (EST)

NPOV
Alledgeing that this was only a "Pentagon and CIA" hunt for Saddam's WMD is not a NPOV (and borders on being factually inaccurate). JDR 17:04, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

 * The statement reads:  It consisted of a 1,400-member team organized by The Pentagon and CIA to hunt for Saddam's suspected stockpiles of WMD. Given that David Kay worked for the Pentagon from '83 to '88. Given that Charles A. Duelfer worked for the agency before being appointed to the group. Given that the title of the findings is "Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s WMD" . I think it is fair to say that that the Pentagon and CIA organized the hunt. Further, given that the article states a 1,400 member team, I think it is a stretch to suggest the article implies only the before mentioned agencies were involved. Noting a 1,400 member international team ought to remove any lingering doubt, given that there is a whole section on Organization and Operations. Finally, User:Reddi made his comments and NPOV tag on 9 November 2005, and since that time no one has commented, or made any substantial changes to the article. I am removing the NPOV tag. --Uncle Bungle 23:23, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Related question: In the Duelfer Report section all external links are to the CIA's executive summary of the report. Why are we not using the original source material? (http://www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/new/pages/document_list.asp) What the CIA considers to be key findings may not be the key findings of the report. - Amgine 03:09, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Text removal
The following text was removed from the article, and I can't find a reason here or in the edit history:

"The failure to find any stockpiles of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons was embarassing (to - LP) Washington and London, who used intelligence indicating that Iraq did possess WMD stockpiles as one of the primary justifications for the invasion of Iraq. The British government, in particular, placed very heavy emphasis on this intelligence in order to win support for the invasion."

Anyone know why it was deleted?

Lapsed Pacifist (talk) 17:00, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Clairfication
I clairfied the end of the Oganizations and Operations part where it talks about the second two soliders that where killed. Only thing I did was add the battery and battalion of the unit. I was in the battalion over there when it happened.

Revcoyote (talk) 01:36, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Use of Names of Commanders and Personnel
I am curious as to the value of specifying who led or worked in various elements. Several of these men are still in military or government service. While their service is not secret, it is not widely circulated as a matter of operational and personal security. I know named individuals who want their names removed for those very reasons, some of whom have little or no internet presence other than this article.

Furthermore, these names are not referenced, which is a violation of Wikipedia policy concerning biographies of living persons (BLP). All names and positions held "must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation; material not meeting this standard may be removed." Original research is not allowed for BLP. Names of individuals that appeared in the news are one thing, but please remove names of individuals who merely served.

Aravatos (talk) 01:01, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Removed unsourced names from article. Did not remove any names of individuals who have full Wikipedia entries of their own.

Aravatos (talk) 01:11, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

title: Talk:Iraq Survey Group


text:
Antonin Mercié

Marius Jean Antonin Mercié (October 30, 1845 in Toulouse – December 12, 1916 in Paris), was a French sculptor, medallist and painter.

Biography
Mercié entered the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, and studied under Alexandre Falguière and François Jouffroy, and in 1868 gained the Grand Prix de Rome at the age of 23. His first great popular successes were the David and Gloria Victis, which was shown and received the Medal of Honour of the Paris Salon. The bronze was subsequently placed in the Square Montholon.

The bronze David was one of his most popular works. The Biblical hero is depicted naked with the head of Goliath at his feet like Donatello's David, but with a turbanned head and sheathing his long sword. Numerous reproductions exist, most of which incorporate a loincloth that covers David's genitalia but not his buttocks. The lifesize original is in the Musée d'Orsay.

Mercié was appointed Professor of Drawing and Sculpture at the École des Beaux-Arts, and was elected a member of the Académie française in 1891, after being awarded the biennial prize of the Institute of 800 in 1887. He was subsequently elected to grand officier of the Légion d'honneur, and in 1913 became the president of the Société des artistes français. Marie-Antoinette Demagnez was among his many students at the École des Beaux-Arts. He died in Paris on December 12, 1916.

Works

The Genius of the Arts (1877), a relief, is in the Tuileries, in substitution for Antoine-Louis Barye's Napoleon III. A similar work for the tomb of Jules Michelet (1879; designed with architect Jean-Louis Pascal) is in Père Lachaise Cemetery, and in the same year Mercié produced the statue of Arago with accompanying reliefs, now erected at Perpignan.

In 1882 he repeated his great patriotic success of 1874 with a group Quand Même!, replicas of which have been set up at Belfort and in the garden of the Tuileries. Le Souvenir (1885), a marble statue for the tomb of Charles Ferry, is one of his most beautiful works. Regret, for the tomb of Alexandre Cabanel, was produced in 1892, along with William Tell, subsequently at Lausanne.

Mercié also designed the monuments to Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier (1895), erected in the Jardin de l'Infante in the Louvre, and Louis Faidherbe (1896) at Lille, a statue of Adolphe Thiers set up at St Germain-en-Laye, the monument to Paul Baudry at Père Lachaise, and that of Louis-Philippe and Queen Amélie for their tomb at Dreux. His stone group of Justice is at the Hôtel de Ville, Paris.

Numerous other statues, portrait busts, and medallions came from the sculptor's hand, which gained him a medal of honor at the Paris Exhibition (1878) and the grand prix at that of 1889. Among the paintings exhibited by the artist are a Venus, to which was awarded a medal in 1883, Leda (1884), and Michelangelo studying Anatomy (1885), his most dramatic work in this medium.

Mercié is known in America primarily for three monuments: the 1890 Robert E. Lee equestrian bronze on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia (the Robert E. Lee Monument), which was removed in September 2021; his 1891 collaboration with former teacher Alexandre Falguière on the statue of the Marquis de Lafayette in Lafayette Square, Washington, D.C.; and the 1911 Francis Scott Key Monument in Baltimore, Maryland.

title: Antonin Mercié


text:
Talk:FYROM naming dispute

This article is unncessary. Any naming dispute could and should be mentioned in the main Republic of Macedonia article. --Jiang 02:33, 19 Nov 2003 (UTC)

FYROM,the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,as "Republic of Macedonia" is fabrik for forgery Greek history,Greek culture,Greek geography and Greek symbols Macedonians!See Greek Macedonian symbol "Vergina Sun",Philip II king of Macedonia and Alexander the Great king of Macedonia !!! Vergina 08:10, 19 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I will redirect if no one objects. --Jiang 08:12, 19 Nov 2003 (UTC)

title: Talk:FYROM naming dispute


text:
John R. Hicks

John R. Hicks (July 31, 1956 – November 29, 2005) was an American murderer executed by the U.S. state of Ohio. He was executed for the August 2, 1985, murder of his 5-year-old stepdaughter, Brandy Green. He was also convicted of the murder of his 56-year-old mother-in-law, Maxine Armstrong, for which he received a life sentence.

Crime
Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Hicks was a cocaine addict and alcoholic. He had purchased cocaine around 4 p.m. on August 2, 1985, but felt a further craving, so he took the VCR from his own home as security for a $50 purchase. He did not have the cash to redeem the VCR, so he knew his wife would become angry when she found out what he had done. He then decided to rob and murder Armstrong.

He telephoned Armstrong to say he was coming home. When he arrived around 11 p.m., he put his stepdaughter to bed. He then approached Armstrong from behind and strangled her with his own hands. To make sure she was dead, he used a length of clothesline. He searched her bedroom and stole $300 and some credit cards.

After buying more cocaine, he realized his stepdaughter would place him at the crime scene and could be a potential witness. He returned and smothered her with a pillow. When this failed to kill his stepdaughter, he tried to use his own hands and then duct taped her mouth and nose. He attempted to dismember Armstrong in the bathtub but gave up after nearly cutting one of her legs off. Returning to the body of Brandy Green, he removed her panties and penetrated her with his finger. His last plans in the apartment were to steal a checkbook, a ring, a .32 caliber pistol, and an ammunition box. After returning to his apartment around 3 a.m., he fled Cincinnati at 6 a.m. He was arrested two days later in Knoxville, Tennessee on August 4, 1985.

Trial and appeals
Hicks was convicted of the aggravated murder of Maxine Armstrong while committing robbery, for which he received a life sentence to be served concurrently with a 10 to 25-year sentence for aggravated robbery. In the murder of his 5-year-old stepdaughter, Hicks was convicted of aggravated murder to escape detention and the purposeful killing of more than two people.

Hicks was sentenced to death on March 3, 1986, for the aggravated murder of Brandy Green.

Hicks's lawyers have argued that under Ohio law, voluntary intoxication may be considered a mitigating factor in capital cases. They say that the jury was not instructed of this fact. In their report, the parole board wrote that although he was intoxicated, the "merciless death" of his stepdaughter was premeditated.

The jury was also told that the final decision of whether to impose a death sentence rested with the trial judge. They say that this may have led some jurors to vote for the death penalty, even though they had doubts about its appropriateness for the case. The Court of Appeals of Ohio overturned the later grounds for appeal. They stated that they did not endorse "the perpetuation of a practice that has fallen into disfavor in this state."

Dr. Theodore Parran of the Case Western School of Medicine diagnosed Hicks with a psychotic decomposition and recommended that he be placed into a psychiatric facility for observation. Parran said that although Hicks' actions appeared deliberate, he did not know what he was doing.

The nine-member Ohio Parole Board recommended unanimously on November 15, 2005, that Governor Bob Taft deny clemency for Hicks. At the hearing, his brother pleaded for Hicks' life to be spared, while his sister-in-law argued that Hicks should be executed for his crimes.

Execution
John Hicks died by lethal injection at 10:20 a.m. on November 29, 2005, at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, Ohio.

Asked for a final statement by the warden, he said:

"It begun with a syringe in my arm and it ends with a needle in my arm. It's come full circle. I realize that. … I know this may be shallow or hollow words to y'all but it's coming from my heart."

After the drugs had begun to flow, he said, "Whoa. Hallelujah", laughed loudly, and said, "Yes. Thank you."

General references

 * Report from the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
 * Ohio Parole Board clemency report (PDF)

title: John R. Hicks


text:
John Synge

John Synge may refer to:

 * John Lighton Synge (1897–1995), Irish mathematician and physicist
 * John Millington Synge (1871–1909), Irish dramatist, poet, prose writer, and collector of folklore

title: John Synge


text:
Neil Goldschmidt

Neil Edward Goldschmidt (June 16, 1940 – June 12, 2024) was an American businessman and Democratic politician from the state of Oregon who held local, state, and federal offices over three decades. After serving as the United States Secretary of Transportation under President Jimmy Carter and governor of Oregon, Goldschmidt was at one time considered the most powerful and influential figure in Oregon's politics. His career and legacy were severely damaged in 2004 by revelations that he raped a young teenage girl in 1973, during his first term as mayor of Portland.

Goldschmidt was elected to the Portland City Council in 1970 and then as mayor of Portland in 1972, becoming the youngest mayor of any major American city. He promoted the revitalization of Downtown Portland and was influential on Portland-area transportation policy, particularly with the scrapping of the controversial Mount Hood Freeway and the establishment of the MAX Light Rail system. He was appointed U.S. Secretary of Transportation by President Jimmy Carter in 1979; in that capacity he worked to revive the ailing automobile industry and to deregulate several industries. He served until the end of Carter's presidency in 1981 and then served as a senior executive with Nike for several years.

In 1986, Goldschmidt was elected the 33rd governor of Oregon, serving a single term. He faced significant challenges, particularly a rising anti-tax movement (leading to Measure 5 in 1990) and a doubling of the state's prison population. He worked across party lines to reduce regulation and to repair the state's infrastructure. His reforms to the State Accident Insurance Fund (SAIF), a state-chartered worker's compensation insurance company were heralded at the time, but drew strong criticism in later years.

Despite his popularity, Goldschmidt did not seek a second term as governor, becoming an influential and controversial lobbyist. Over the next dozen years or so, he was criticized by editorial boards and Oregonians for several of the causes he supported, including backing the forestry corporation Weyerhaeuser in its hostile takeover of Oregon's Willamette Industries and his advocacy for a private investment firm in its attempt to take over utility company Portland General Electric. In 2003, Governor Ted Kulongoski appointed Goldschmidt to the Oregon Board of Higher Education, a position he resigned after admitting he had sexually abused a minor girl 30 years earlier.

Early life
Goldschmidt was born in Eugene, in Oregon's Willamette Valley, on June 16, 1940, into a Jewish family to Lester H. Goldschmidt and Annette Levin. He graduated from South Eugene High School. He later attended the University of Oregon, also in Eugene. He served as student body president at the school before graduating in 1963 with a bachelor's degree in political science.

Goldschmidt earned a Juris Doctor from the University of California, Berkeley in 1967. From 1967 to 1970, he worked as a legal aid lawyer in Portland, Oregon. Goldschmidt served as an intern for U.S. Senator Maurine Neuberger in 1964 in Washington, D.C. While there, he was recruited by New York Congressman Allard K. Lowenstein to register voters in Mississippi's 1964 Freedom Summer civil rights campaign.

Portland City Commissioner and Mayor
Goldschmidt won a seat on the Portland City Council in 1970. As City Commissioner (1971–1973) and later as Mayor of Portland (1973–1979), Goldschmidt participated in the revitalization of the downtown section of that city. He led a freeway revolt against the unpopular Mount Hood Freeway, building consensus among labor unions and other powerful entities to divert Federal funds initially earmarked for the freeway to other projects, ultimately expanding the federal funds brought to the region to include the MAX Light Rail line and the Portland Transit Mall. He is widely credited with having opened up the city's government to neighborhood activists and minorities, appointing women and African-Americans in a City Hall that had been dominated by an "old-boy network". During his mayoral campaign, he questioned the benefit of expanding the city's police force, preferring to direct resources to crime prevention. According to Nigel Jaquiss, a reporter for Willamette Week, for thirty years he was "Oregon's most successful and charismatic leader".

In 1973, Governor Tom McCall appointed Goldschmidt to what would be known as the Governor's Task Force, which was tasked with exploring regional transportation solutions. Goldschmidt served alongside notable leaders: Glenn Jackson, chair of the board of Portland Power and Light and chair of the Oregon Transportation Commission, was considered the state's leading power broker on transportation issues; and Gerard Drummond, a prominent lawyer and lobbyist, was president of Tri-Met's board of directors. The task force considered an unpopular deal that would have funded the construction of the Mount Hood Freeway, which would have bisected southeast Portland. The deal, which would have been 90% funded by the Federal Highway Administration, was rescinded, with first the Multnomah County Commission and, later, Portland City Council reversing their positions and advising against it. Goldschmidt was initially opposed to diverting funds to light rail, instead favoring busways and more suitable local road projects; as the 1981 deadline to reallocate the funds approached, however, light rail became a more attractive prospect. By a process not clearly documented, light rail was included in the final plan. All federal money initially intended for the Mount Hood Freeway ultimately went to other road projects, but the total amount was doubled and the first leg of MAX light rail was approved and ultimately completed in 1986.

U.S. Secretary of Transportation
Goldschmidt became the sixth U.S. Secretary of Transportation in 1979. His recess appointment by President Jimmy Carter came on July 27 of that year, as part of a midterm restructuring of the Carter administration's cabinet positions. The United States Senate confirmed his appointment on September 21, and he was sworn in on September 24. In this position, Goldschmidt was known for his work to revive the financially ailing U.S. auto industry, and efforts to deregulate the airline, trucking, and railroad industries.

A newcomer to the Carter administration and to national politics, Goldschmidt traded not only on his experience in transportation planning, but on his political acumen as well; following Carter's unsuccessful bid for re-election in 1980, Goldschmidt expressed doubts about the future of the Democratic Party if it couldn't learn to cultivate political allies more effectively. Goldschmidt's time in Washington, DC, informed his own understanding of politics, as well. He remained in office through the remainder of the Carter administration. In late 1979, Republican presidential hopeful John B. Anderson called for Goldschmidt's resignation, and members of the United States Senate Banking Committee later chastised him, for having suggested that he would withhold transportation funds from municipalities, such as Chicago and Philadelphia, whose mayors supported Ted Kennedy in his primary election bid against Carter. Goldschmidt resigned at the conclusion of Carter's term on January 20, 1981.

Between positions in public office, Goldschmidt was a Nike executive during the 1980s, serving as international Vice President and then as president of Nike Canada. He was considered as a potential chair of the Democratic National Committee in 1984.

Governor of Oregon
In June 1985 Goldschmidt announced his candidacy for Governor of Oregon. His name familiarity and access to large donations through his business and political ties made him the Democratic front runner. He defeated Oregon State Senator Edward Fadeley in the May 1986 Democratic primary. Goldschmidt defeated Republican Secretary of State Norma Paulus in the 1986 general election 52% to 48%, succeeding two-term Republican Governor Victor Atiyeh, becoming the state's 33rd governor.

Goldschmidt's policy for economic development brought together Democratic liberals and Republican business leaders. His personal focus was on children's rights, poverty, and crime, but the challenge of meeting increasing needs with a decreasing budget overshadowed his tenure. An anti-tax movement took hold during his term, passing the landmark Measure 5 in 1990, which restricted the generation of revenue by property tax. He was credited with leading "The Oregon Comeback", bringing the state out of nearly eight years of recession, through regulatory reform and repair of the state's infrastructure.

Goldschmidt oversaw a major expansion of the state's prison system. In May 1987, he hired Michael Francke to modernize the state's prisons, which an investigator had described as overcrowded and operated as "independent fiefdoms". Francke was charged with supervising a plan to add over 1000 new beds to the prison system. Francke was murdered in the Department of Corrections parking lot in 1989.

In 1990, Goldschmidt brokered agreements between business, labor, and insurance interests that changed the state's workers' compensation regulations. Workers' compensation has been a contentious issue in Oregon for some time, as the state-run State Accident Insurance Fund (SAIF) insures approximately 35% of the workforce. The legislature passed a law as a result. The changes were considered to benefit the insurance industry and business interests, at the expense of claimants, who were required to establish more extensively that their employers were responsible for injuries. The issue was contentious for some time, involving lawsuits and various efforts to modify the law. In 2000, Governor John Kitzhaber attempted to reform the system again. This led to a new law in the 2001 Legislature, which was complicated by an Oregon Supreme Court ruling that occurred during deliberations.

Goldschmidt's Children's Agenda was important in Oregon with its community initiatives. In 1991, he helped create the Oregon Children's Foundation, as well as the Start Making A Reader Today (SMART) literacy program, which puts 10,000 volunteers into Oregon schools to read to children.

Goldschmidt declined to run for re-election in 1990, despite the widely held perception that he could have been easily re-elected; at the time, he cited marital difficulties. Bernie Giusto, who was Goldschmidt's driver at the start of his term and later became Multnomah County Sheriff, was widely rumored to be romantically involved with Goldschmidt's wife Margie (and later dated her openly after the Goldschmidts' divorce).

Goldschmidt had hoped at one time to serve two terms, noting that most of predecessor Tom McCall's accomplishments came during his second term. In his farewell address to the City Club of Portland, he stated: "After only four years, everything is left undone. Nothing is finished."

After leaving elected office
Goldschmidt founded a law and consulting firm, Neil Goldschmidt, Inc., in Portland in 1991, four days after leaving office as governor. Even out of elected office, he was widely considered the most powerful political figure in the state for many years. His influence extended all over the state and the nation. As a member of the Oregon Health & Science University board, Goldschmidt was an early advocate of the controversial Portland Aerial Tram, which connected the research hospital to real estate projects by his longtime associates Homer Williams and Irving Levin near land whose owners Goldschmidt later represented. He stayed active in Portland as well, advocating an expansion of the Park Blocks (a strip of open park space cutting through downtown Portland.) Goldschmidt assisted in the deal that led to the construction of TriMet's MAX Red Line to Portland International Airport that opened in 2001. He also started the Start Making a Reader Today (SMART) volunteer program in Oregon schools.

Goldschmidt drew criticism in recent years for some of his business activities. In 2002, he lobbied business and political leaders to support Weyerhaeuser in its hostile takeover of Willamette Industries, Inc., then the only Fortune 500 company headquartered in Portland. In early 2004, he backed a purchase of Portland General Electric (PGE) by Texas Pacific Group which, though never consummated, put on hold city and county studies to acquire PGE by condemnation. Criticism of Goldschmidt's business activities peaked when, on November 13, 2003, Governor Ted Kulongoski nominated him to the Oregon State Board of Higher Education.

Goldschmidt's appointment was initially expected to meet with little opposition. Several state senators, however, voiced concerns about Goldschmidt's involvement with SAIF and possible improprieties in the dealings he and his wife had with Texas Pacific. Senator Vicki Walker, in particular, emerged as an outspoken critic of Goldschmidt.

Revelation of sexual abuse
The increased scrutiny on Goldschmidt's career, including reporters' difficulties accessing records from his time as governor, ultimately led to the revelation of his years-long sexual abuse of a minor girl, which had occurred decades before, during his time as Mayor of Portland. These revelations ended Goldschmidt's extensive career at the center of Oregon politics and policymaking. In May 2004, a rapid series of events resulted in Goldschmidt's confession to repeatedly raping a young teenage girl in the mid-1970s; the quick demise of his political career, including resignations from several prominent organizations; and the transfer of his many documents from the privately run Oregon Historical Society to the state-run Oregon State Archives.

On May 6, under pressure from Willamette Week, Goldschmidt publicly announced that he had repeatedly raped a 14-year-old girl (the victim later indicated she was 13) for an extended period during his first term as Mayor of Portland. Sex with a person under 16 years of age constitutes third degree rape under Oregon law, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. By the time the abuse had become public, however, the statute of limitations of three years had expired, making Goldschmidt immune from any prosecution over the matter.

Goldschmidt's confessional letter was published on the front page of The Oregonian on May 7, 2004. It differed from the Willamette Week ' s account, most notably in the length of the abuse ("nearly a year" according to Goldschmidt, but three years according to Willamette Week at the time; it was later revealed by Willamette Week that the abuse actually continued through 1991, after Goldschmidt's single term as governor) and in Goldschmidt's use of the term "affair" to characterize it. The Oregonian was criticized for its coverage and use of the term "affair". Writers and editors at The Oregonian acknowledged mistakes in their handling of the story, but denied that a desire to protect Goldschmidt motivated the mistakes. The Willamette Week article, written by Nigel Jaquiss, was awarded the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting.

In his initial negotiations with Willamette Week, Goldschmidt agreed to resign his positions with the Texas Pacific Group and the Board of Higher Education, which he did. His decision in 1990 not to run for a second term as governor, long the subject of speculation, was finally explained. Further developments revealed that Goldschmidt was assisted by businessman Robert K. Burtchaell in keeping his molestation of the girl a secret. In return, Goldschmidt gave his support to Burtchaell's (unsuccessful) bid to extend a lease for a houseboat moorage on the Willamette River.

Goldschmidt's rabbi made an appeal in The Oregonian for forgiveness. Although Goldschmidt could no longer be prosecuted for the offense, the Oregon State Bar began an investigation into the matter. Goldschmidt submitted a Form B resignation, which was received by the bar on May 13, and rendered him ineligible for readmission.

Following complaints from local media over limited access to Goldschmidt's public papers stored at the Oregon Historical Society (OHS), the state archivist announced May 29 that Goldschmidt would seize the 256 boxes of documents to guarantee public access as defined in a state law passed in 1973. That law required that public access to such records be maintained, but did not specify where the records be kept. Following Goldschmidt's decision to put the documents in the care of the OHS, the state legislature passed a law requiring future governors to leave their documents in the state archives. Many records were published on the state archives' website in early 2005.

The scandal has affected numerous people and organizations associated with Goldschmidt. Many people have been accused of knowing of the crime, but failing to act accordingly. Debby Kennedy, who worked for Goldschmidt while he was governor, recalled, "I just can't tell you how many rumors there were about him then." Multnomah County Sheriff Bernie Giusto, who admitted knowing about the abuse, announced his early retirement in February 2008.

On March 7, 2011, the Oregon Senate President and Co-Speakers of the House released a statement that Goldschmidt's Governor's portrait had been removed from the walls of the State Capitol building in Salem and put into storage, out of respect for his victim, Elizabeth Lynn Dunham, who died from cancer on January 16, 2011, at the age of 49.

Personal life
Goldschmidt married Margaret Wood in 1965. They had two children, Joshua and Rebecca, and divorced in 1990. Around the time he started his consulting firm, he met his second wife, Diana Snowden, who worked for PacifiCorp as a senior vice president.

Goldschmidt died from heart failure at his home in Portland, on June 12, 2024, at the age of 83, four days before his 84th birthday.

title: Neil Goldschmidt


text:
Middle Peninsula

The Middle Peninsula is the second of three large peninsulas on the western shore of Chesapeake Bay in Virginia. To the north the Rappahannock River separates it from the Northern Neck peninsula. To the south the York River separates it from the Virginia Peninsula. It encompasses six Virginia counties: Essex, Gloucester, King and Queen, King William, Mathews, and Middlesex. Developed for tobacco plantations in the colonial era, in the 21st century the Middle Peninsula is known for its quiet rural life, vegetable truck-farming, and fishing industry. As of the 2020 census, the Middle Peninsula was home to 92,886 people.

There are no cities on the Middle Peninsula and little industry. Among the towns found there, West Point has a pulp-and-paper mill. The unincorporated community of Deltaville is a popular spot for city-dwellers seeking a weekend boating on the bay. Tappahannock is a thriving community on the Rappahannock River, and Urbanna has a small but prosperous tourism industry.

Two small land reservations are home to the state-recognized Pamunkey and Mattaponi Indian tribes.

The primary highways on the peninsula are U.S. Route 17 (Tidewater Trail), which connects Fredericksburg with the Hampton Roads area, and U.S. Route 360 (Northumberland Highway), which connects the Northern Neck with Richmond and Danville. Before modern highways existed, passenger ferries and steam freighters linked the entire Chesapeake Bay region.

The two southernmost counties on the Middle Peninsula, Gloucester and Mathews, are now considered to be part of the Hampton Roads metropolitan area. Gloucester County is connected to the Virginia Peninsula by the George P. Coleman Memorial Bridge, which spans the York River. King William County and King and Queen County to the west are part of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA).

title: Middle Peninsula


text:
Diction

Diction (dictionem (nom. dictio), "a saying, expression, word"), in its original meaning, is a writer's or speaker's distinctive vocabulary choices and style of expression in a piece of writing such as a poem or story. In its common meaning, it is the distinctiveness of speech: the art of speaking so that each word is clearly heard and understood to its fullest complexity and extremity, and concerns pronunciation and tone, rather than word choice and style. This is more precisely and commonly expressed with the term enunciation or with its synonym, articulation.

Diction has multiple concerns, of which register, the adaptation of style and formality to the social context, is foremost. Literary diction analysis reveals how a passage establishes tone and characterization, e.g. a preponderance of verbs relating physical movement suggests an active character, while a preponderance of verbs relating states of mind portrays an introspective character. Diction also has an impact upon word choice and syntax.

Aristotle, in The Poetics (20), defines the parts of diction as the letter, the syllable, the conjunction, the article, the noun, the verb, the case, and the speech, though one commentator remarks that "the text is so confused and some of the words have such a variety of meanings that one cannot always be certain what the Greek says, much less what Aristotle means."

In literature
Diction is usually judged in reference to the prevailing standards of proper writing and speech and is seen as the mark of quality of the writing. It is also understood as the selection of certain words or phrases that become peculiar to a writer.

 * Example :

"Certain writers in the modern day and age use archaic terms such as 'thy', 'thee', and 'wherefore' to imbue a Shakespearean mood to their work."

Forms of diction include: archaic diction (diction that is antique, that is rarely used), high diction (lofty sounding language), and low diction (everyday language). Each of these forms is meant to enhance the meaning or artistry of an author's work.

General sources

 * (preview of 1997 edition)

title: Diction


text:
Hall v Durham Catholic School Board

Hall v Durham Catholic School Board was a 2002 court case in which Marc Hall, a Canadian teenager, fought a successful legal battle against the Durham Catholic District School Board to bring a same-sex date to his high school prom. The case made Canadian and international headlines.

Legal case
Hall v Durham Catholic School Board began when Oshawa, Ontario's Monsignor John Pereyma Catholic Secondary School asked students attending the prom to submit the names of the guests they intended to bring. Hall, who is gay, submitted the name of his 21-year-old boyfriend, Jean-Paul Dumond, and was denied on the grounds that homosexuality is incompatible with Roman Catholic teaching.

Supported by his family and a wide variety of community organizations, Hall thus took the school board to court in a two-day hearing that began on May 6, 2002. Hall's lawyer, David Corbett, argued that the denial of his request violated the Ontario Education Act, which requires school boards in the province not to discriminate. The school board, on the other hand, argued that court interference in its decision would amount to denying its religious freedom.

Corbett argued that an organization that accepts public funding (Catholic school boards in Ontario are fully funded in the same manner as public schools) has to be accountable to the same laws (including anti-discrimination laws) as other public institutions. The school board's lawyer countered that Section 93 of the Canadian constitution protects the Catholic board's rights to conduct its affairs in accordance with Catholic teaching.

In addition, Corbett noted that while extramarital sex is also contrary to Catholic teaching, the school board had previously allowed pregnant, unmarried students to attend the prom.

On May 10, Justice Robert McKinnon granted an interlocutory injunction ordering that Hall be allowed to attend the prom with Dumond and also that the school does not cancel the prom. He did not decide on the larger issues raised by the case, leaving those to be heard at a later trial. Hall attended the prom with Dumond that evening.

The case was set for trial in October 2005. In June 2005, Hall applied to discontinue the action and not proceed to trial; this was opposed by the school board, which desired a final judgement on the case. Hall's application was granted by Justice Bryan Shaughnessy on June 28, 2005, thereby ending the case.

Television
Director Larry Peloso created a one-hour documentary on the case entitled Prom Fight: The Marc Hall Story. An unrelated television movie, Prom Queen: The Marc Hall Story, aired on CTV in 2004 with Aaron Ashmore starring as Hall.

Hall also appeared in the Queer as Folk season 2 finale as a party guest during the Rage party at Babylon.

Hall later recounted a story from the prom in the 2019 documentary film Take Me to Prom.

Stage
The case was adapted into a theatrical musical entitled Prom Queen, with songs by Colleen Dauncey and Akiva Romer-Segal.

The Louder We Get, originally produced as Prom Queen, debuted in Calgary, January 28-February 22, 2020 as part of the 2019-20 Theatre Calgary season.

Literature
Author Robert Joseph Greene referenced the court case in his book This High School Has Closets, where Marc Hall is seen as a hero to the main character.

title: Hall v Durham Catholic School Board


text:
Durum

Durum wheat, also called pasta wheat or macaroni wheat (Triticum durum or Triticum turgidum subsp. durum), is a tetraploid species of wheat. It is the second most cultivated species of wheat after common wheat, although it represents only 5% to 8% of global wheat production. It was developed by artificial selection of the domesticated emmer wheat strains formerly grown in Central Europe and the Near East around 7000 BC, which developed a naked, free-threshing form. Like emmer, durum wheat is awned (with bristles). It is the predominant wheat that grows in the Middle East.

Durum in Latin means "hard", and the species is the hardest of all wheats. This refers to the resistance of the grain to milling, in particular of the starchy endosperm, causing dough made from its flour to be weak or "soft". This makes durum favorable for semolina and pasta and less practical for flour, which requires more work than with hexaploid wheats like common bread wheats. Despite its high protein content, durum is not a strong wheat in the sense of giving strength to dough through the formation of a gluten network. Durum contains 27% extractable wet gluten, about 3% higher than common wheat (T. aestivum L.).

Taxonomy
Some authorities synonymize "durum" and Triticum turgidum. Some reserve "durum" for Triticum turgidum subsp. durum.

Genetics
Durum wheat is a tetraploid wheat, having four sets of chromosomes for a total of 28, unlike hard red winter and hard red spring wheats, which are hexaploid (six sets of chromosomes) for a total of 42.

Durum wheat originated through intergeneric hybridization and polyploidization involving two diploid (having two sets of chromosomes) grass species: T. urartu (2n=2x=14, AA genome) and a B-genome diploid related to Aegilops speltoides (2n=2x=14, SS genome) and is thus an allotetraploid (having four sets of chromosomes, from unlike parents) species.

Durum and indeed all tetraploids  lack Fhb1 alleles. The only exception is found by Buerstmayr et al., 2012 on the 3B chromosome.

One of the predominant production areas of durum – Italy – has domesticated varieties with lower genetic diversity than wild types, but ssp. turanicum, ssp. polonicum and ssp. carthlicum have a level of diversity intermediate between those groups. There is evidence of an increase in the intensity of breeding after 1990.

Uses
Commercially produced dry pasta, or pasta secca, is made almost exclusively from durum semolina. Most home-made fresh pastas also use durum wheat or a combination of soft and hard wheats.

Husked but unground, or coarsely ground, it is used to produce the semolina in the couscous of North Africa and the Levant. It is also used for Levantine dishes such as tabbouleh, kashk, kibbeh, bitfun and the bulgur for pilafs. In North African cuisine and Levantine cuisine, it forms the basis of many soups, gruels, stuffings, puddings and pastries. When ground as fine as flour, it is used for making bread. In the Middle East, it is used for flat round breads, and in Europe and elsewhere, it can be used for pizza or torte.

The use of wheat to produce pasta was described as early as the 10th century by Ibn Wahshīya of Cairo. The North Africans called the product itrīya, from which Italian sources derived the term tria (or aletría in the case of Spanish sources) during the 15th century.

Production
Durum wheat (Triticum turgidum ssp. durum) is the 10th most cultivated cereal worldwide, with a total production of about 38 million tons.

Most of the durum grown today is amber durum, the grains of which are amber-colored due to the extra carotenoid pigments and are larger than those of other types of wheat. Durum has a yellow endosperm, which gives pasta its color. When durum is milled, the endosperm is ground into a granular product called semolina. Semolina made from durum is used for premium pastas and breads. Notably semolina is also one of the only flours that is purposely oxidized for flavor and color. There is also a red durum, used mostly for livestock feed.

The cultivation of durum generates greater yield than other wheats in areas of low precipitation. Good yields can be obtained by irrigation, but this is rarely done. In the first half of the 20th century, the crop was widely grown in Russia. Durum is one of the most important food crops in West Asia. Although the variety of the wheat there is diverse, it is not extensively grown there, and thus must be imported. West amber durum produced in Canada is used mostly as semolina/pasta, but some is also exported to Italy for bread production.

In the Middle East and North Africa, local bread-making accounts for half the consumption of durum. Some flour is even imported. On the other hand, many countries in Europe produce durum in commercially significant quantities.

In India durum accounts for roughly 5% of total wheat production in the country, and is used to make products such as rava and sooji.

Processing and protein content
Durum wheat is subject to four processes: cleaning, tempering, milling and purifying. First, durum wheat is cleaned to remove foreign material and shrunken and broken kernels. Then it is tempered to a moisture content, toughening the seed coat for efficient separation of bran and endosperm. Durum milling is a complex procedure involving repetitive grinding and sieving. Proper purifying results in maximum semolina yield and the least amount of bran powder.

To produce bread, durum wheat is ground into flour. The flour is mixed with water to produce dough. The quantities mixed vary, depending on the acidity of the mixture. To produce fluffy bread, the dough is mixed with yeast and lukewarm water, heavily kneaded to form a gas-retaining gluten network, and then fermented for hours, producing bubbles.

The quality of the bread produced depends on the viscoelastic properties of gluten, the protein content and protein composition. Containing about 12% total protein in defatted flour compared to 11% in common wheat, durum wheat yields 27% extractable, wet gluten compared to 24% in common wheat.

Health concerns
Because durum wheat contains gluten, it is unsuitable for people with gluten-related disorders such as celiac disease, non-celiac gluten sensitivity and wheat allergy.

title: Durum


text:
Stanhopea

Stanhopea is a genus of the orchid family (Orchidaceae) from Central and South America. The abbreviation used in horticultural trade is Stan. The genus is named for the 4th Earl of Stanhope (Philip Henry Stanhope) (1781-1855), president of the Medico-Botanical Society of London (1829-1837). It comprises 55 species and 5 natural hybrids. These epiphytic, but occasionally terrestrial orchids can be found in damp forests from Mexico to Trinidad to NW Argentina. Their ovate pseudobulbs carry from the top one long, plicate, elliptic leaf.

Stanhopea is noted for its complex and usually fragrant flowers that are generally spectacular and short-lived. Their pendant inflorescences are noted for flowering out of the bottom of the containers in which they grow, lending themselves to culture in baskets that have enough open space for the inflorescence to push through. They are sometimes called upside-down orchids.

The majority of species are robust plants that grow readily in cultivation. For relatives of Stanhopea see Stanhopeinae and the closely related sister subtribe Coeliopsidinae.

Description
Most Stanhopea flowers flash prominent, elegant horns on the epichile. The exception are the species; S. annulata, S. avicula, S. cirrhata, S. ecornuta and S. pulla. A second group have short or truncated horns, they include the species; S. candida, S. grandiflora, S. reichenbachiana, S. tricornis and the natural hybrid S. x herrenhusana. The structure of the labellum of this group is in general, not as complex as other members of the genus.

With most Stanhopea flowers lasting three days or less, the flowers must attract pollinators very quickly. These chemical attractants are generated in the hypochile, attracting the male euglossine bees to the flower. These male euglossine bees are known to be important pollinators of Stanhopea flowers, collecting fragrances at these flowers over their lifetime and storing them in their hind tibia. Bees in the Euglossini tribe, including Eulaema meriana, are known to pollinate these flowers supposedly because the orchids can deceptively mimic the form of a female and her sex pheromone. When the bee touches down on the flower, a great effort is made to collect chemical scent - he eventually slides on the waxy surface of the hypochile, gliding down on the slippery lip to exit the flower. The long column is touched in the process, resulting in the bee taking up pollinia at the very tip of the column. When the bee slides down another flower, the pollinia are deposited on the sticky surface of the stigma.

Species

 * Stanhopea aliceae Pérez-García, Chiron & Szlach. (Guatemala)
 * Stanhopea anfracta Rolfe (SE. Ecuador to Bolivia)
 * Stanhopea annulata Mansf. (S. Colombia to Ecuador)
 * Stanhopea avicula Dressler (Panama)
 * Stanhopea bueraremensis Campacci & Marçal (E. Brazil)
 * Stanhopea candida Barb.Rodr. (S. Trop. America)
 * Stanhopea cephalopodaa Archila, Pérez-García, Chiron & Szlach. (Guatemala)
 * Stanhopea chironii Archila, Pérez-García & Szlach. (Guatemala)
 * Stanhopea cirrhata Lindl. (C. America)
 * Stanhopea confusa G.Gerlach & Beeche (C. America)
 * Stanhopea connata Klotzsch (Colombia to Peru)
 * Stanhopea costaricensis Rchb.f. (C. America)
 * Stanhopea deltoidea Lem. (Peru to Bolivia)
 * Stanhopea dodsoniana Salazar & Soto Arenas (NC. & S. Mexico to Guatemala)
 * Stanhopea ecornuta Lem. (C. America)
 * Stanhopea embreei Dodson (Ecuador)
 * Stanhopea florida Rchb.f. (Ecuador to Peru)
 * Stanhopea fonsecae Archila, Pérez-García, Chiron & Szlach. (Guatemala)
 * Stanhopea frymirei Dodson (Ecuador)
 * Stanhopea gibbosa Rchb.f. (= S. carchiensis, = S. impressa; S Colombia to Ecuador)
 * Stanhopea grandiflora Lindl. (Trinidad to S. Trop. America)
 * Stanhopea graveolens Lindl. (Mexico to C. America, Brazil to NW. Argentina)
 * Stanhopea greeri Jenny (Peru)
 * Stanhopea guttulata Lindl. (SE. Brazil)
 * Stanhopea haseloffiana Rchb.f. (N. Peru)
 * Stanhopea hernandezii (Kunth) Schltr. (C. & SW. Mexico)
 * Stanhopea insignis J.Frost ex Hook. (SE. & S. Brazil)
 * Stanhopea intermedia Klinge (SW. Mexico)
 * Stanhopea javieri Archila, Pérez-García, Chiron & Szlach. (Guatemala)
 * Stanhopea jenischiana F.Kramer ex Rchb.f. (Colombia to NW. Venezuela and S. Ecuador)
 * Stanhopea lietzei (Regel) Schltr. (E. & S. Brazil)
 * Stanhopea macrocornata Archila, Pérez-García, Chiron & Szlach. (Guatemala)
 * Stanhopea maculosa Knowles & Westc. (W. Mexico)
 * Stanhopea madouxiana Cogn. (Colombia)
 * Stanhopea maduroi Dodson & Dressler (Panama to N.Colombia)
 * Stanhopea manriqueii Jenny & Nauray (Peru)
 * Stanhopea marizana Jenny (Peru)
 * Stanhopea martiana Bateman ex Lindl. (SW. Mexico)
 * Stanhopea marylenae Archila, Chiron & Pérez-García (Guatemala)
 * Stanhopea moliana Rolfe (Peru)
 * Stanhopea napoensis Dodson (Ecuador)
 * Stanhopea naurayi Jenny (Peru)
 * Stanhopea nicaraguensis G.Gerlach (Nicaragua)
 * Stanhopea nigripes Rolfe (Peru)
 * Stanhopea novogaliciana S.Rosillo (Mexico - Nayarit, Jalisco)
 * Stanhopea oculata (Lodd.)Lindl. (Mexico to Colombia, SE. Brazil)
 * Stanhopea oscarrodrigoi Archila, Pérez-García, Chiron & Szlach. (Guatemala)
 * Stanhopea ospinae Dodson (Colombia)
 * Stanhopea panamensis N.H.Williams & W.M.Whitten (Panama)
 * Stanhopea peruviana Rolfe (Peru)
 * Stanhopea platyceras Rchb.f. (Colombia)
 * Stanhopea posadae Jenny et Braem (Colombia)
 * Stanhopea pozoi Dodson & D.E.Benn. (S. Ecuador)
 * Stanhopea pseudoradiosa Jenny & R.Gonzalez (SW. Mexico)
 * Stanhopea pulla Rchb.f. (Costa Rica to N. Colombia)
 * Stanhopea radiosa Lem. (W. Mexico)
 * Stanhopea reichenbachiana Roezl ex Rchb.f. (Colombia)
 * Stanhopea rubroatrata Archila, Pérez-García, Chiron & Szlach. (Guatemala)
 * Stanhopea rubromaculata Archila, Pérez-García, Chiron & Szlach. (Guatemala)
 * Stanhopea ruckeri Lindl. (= S. inodora; Mexico to C. America)
 * Stanhopea saccata Bateman (Mexico - Chiapas to C. America)
 * Stanhopea saintexuperyi Archila, Pérez-García, Chiron & Szlach. (Guatemala)
 * Stanhopea schilleriana Rchb.f. (Colombia)
 * Stanhopea shuttleworthii Rchb.f. (Colombia)
 * Stanhopea stevensonii A.Mejia & R.Escobar ex Jenny (Colombia)
 * Stanhopea szlachetkoana Archila, Pérez-García & Chiron (Guatemala)
 * Stanhopea tigrina Bateman ex Lindl. (Mexico)
 * Stanhopea tolimensis G.Gerlach (Colombia)
 * Stanhopea tricornis Lindl. (W. South America)
 * Stanhopea victoriana Archila, Pérez-García, Chiron & Szlach. (Guatemala)
 * Stanhopea wardii Lodd. ex Lindl. (Nicaragua to Venezuela)
 * Stanhopea warszewicziana Klotzsch (Costa Rica)
 * Stanhopea whittenii Soto Arenas, Salazar & G.Gerlach (Mexico to Guatemala)
 * Stanhopea xanthoviridea Archila, Pérez-García, Chiron & Szlach. (Guatemala)
 * Stanhopea xytriophora Rchb.f. (S. Peru to Bolivia)

Natural hybrids

 * Stanhopea × fowlieana Jenny (S. costaricensis × S. ecornuta) (Costa Rica)
 * Stanhopea × herrenhusana Jenny (S. reichenbachiana × S. tricornis) (Colombia)
 * Stanhopea × horichiana Jenny (S. ecornuta × S. wardii) (Costa Rica)
 * Stanhopea × lewisae Ames & Correll (S. ecornuta × S. inodora) (Guatemala)
 * Stanhopea × quadricornis Lindl. (S. grandflora × S. wardii) (Colombia)
 * Stanhopea × thienii Dodson (S. annulata × S. impressa) (Ecuador)

Intergeneric hybrids

 * × Aciopea (Acineta × Stanhopea). Aciopea Guillermo Gaviria (Acineta erythroxantha × Stanhopea wardii) was registered Nov-Dec 2004 by Guillermo Gaviria-Correa (Colombia).
 * × Aciopea is abbreviated Aip.
 * × Cirrhopea (Cirrhaea × Stanhopea)
 * × Coryhopea (Coryanthes × Stanhopea)
 * × Stangora (Gongora × Stanhopea)
 * × Stanhocycnis (Polycycnis × Stanhopea)

title: Stanhopea


text:
Familiar (disambiguation)

A familiar is a supernatural entity believed to assist witches and cunning folk in their practice of magic.

Familiar may also refer to:

Literature

 * The Familiars (novel), a 2010 series of children's fantasy books
 * The Familiar (novel), 41st book in the Animorphs series
 * The Familiar, a book series by Mark Z. Danielewski starting with The Familiar, Volume 1: One Rainy Day in May
 * Familiar (play), a 2015 play by Danai Gurira

Music

 * Familiar, a 2012 album by Brooke Miller
 * Familiars (album), 2014 album by The Antlers
 * Familiar, a 2017 album by Dieter Moebius
 * "Familiar" (song), a 2018 song by Liam Payne and J Balvin

Other

 * T–V distinction, contrast between second-person pronouns that are specialized for varying levels of familiarity
 * The Familiar (film), 2009 film
 * Familiar Linux, Linux distribution for iPAQ machines and other PDAs
 * "Familiar" (The X-Files), a 2018 episode of the American science fiction television series The X-Files

title: Familiar (disambiguation)


text:
User talk:Sayeya

Por favor no hace paginas en español en la Wikipedia inglesa. - phma

This user is a native Spanish speaker and can't speak English at all. His contributions consist mainly of crude translations from the Spanish Wikipedia (mostly of articles he wrote) using the on-line translator at http://babel.altavista.com, and therefore should be kept an eye on. Pilaf 23:29, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

title: User talk:Sayeya


text:
User:Rockhopper~enwiki

Hello, fellow Wikipedia users. If you know some of the species of penguins, you'll know that that's where my Username came from. I love penguins.

Here are a few links to other articles:

Penguin

Little Penguin

Here are some links to pages I have created:

Philosophy for Non-Philosophers

title: User:Rockhopper~enwiki


text:
Enhanced Versatile Disc

The Enhanced Versatile Disc (EVD) is an optical-medium-based digital audio/video format, developed by Beijing E-World (a multi-company partnership including SVA, Shinco, Xiaxin, Yuxing, Skyworth, Nintaus, Malata, Changhong, and BBK Electronics), as a rival to the DVD to avoid the high royalty costs associated with the DVD format. Its development was supported by the Chinese government. While it was intended to replace the DVD standard in China by 2008, the format had failed to gain traction and ultimately faded into obsolescence.

It was announced on November 18, 2003, by the People's Republic of China's Xinhua News Agency as a response to the DVD-Video format and its licensing costs (which some considered excessive). It uses an optical storage medium in CD size (120 mm) that is physically a DVD disc with the same UDF file system. China started development on EVD in 1999, because DVD Video (CSS, Macrovision, etc.) and MPEG-2 (Video and Systems) licensing costs were relatively high—reportedly in the range of $13–$20 USD per hardware video player. Soon after, Prototype EVD discs and software players were presented in April 2004. As the disc is physically a DVD it could be read with any computer DVD drive. Successful copies were made with DVD-R discs. Despite its versatility, the number of films ever offered in the format was very limited.

The audio codec was to come from Coding Technologies and was called the EAC (Enhanced Audio Codec) 2.0. It is the successor of a prior design known as EAC and works on the basis of spectral band replication. EAC 2.0 supports mono, stereo and 5.1 surround sound. The original plan was that the video codecs VP5 and VP6 from On2 Technologies would be used. These are more efficient than MPEG-2 Video and could enable the disc to store HDTV resolutions, which the standard DVD format does not support. With EVD, royalties to On2 for the VP6 codec part of the EVD design were anticipated to be about US$2 per video player (a much lower fee than that associated with MPEG-2 Video). However, a contract dispute rapidly developed between On2 and Beijing E-World (the consortium of companies developing the EVD format). On2 announced in April 2004 that it was not being properly paid and would file multiple breach of contract claims against E-World for arbitration. Approximately one year later, the arbitrator dismissed all of On2's claims and ruled that nothing was owed to On2, primarily because no significant number of player devices had ever been produced by the E-World companies. While the EVD format design including VP6 had been proposed to the Chinese government to become a standard, the effort appears to have stalled at that point and no further progress is evident. Following this, very little news was available about EVD until December 6, 2006, when 20 Chinese electronic firms unveiled 54 prototype EVD players, announcing their intention to fully switch to this format by 2008 in an effort to decrease dependency on foreign electronic products and establish a niche in the market. While many devices were made, the format failed to replace the DVD standard.

The Chinese government had reported the overcoming of development, chip-design and production problems with EVD. The team had applied for 25 patents, of which at least seven have been granted. While Beijing E-World sought widespread adoption for the EVD, the format has not had any new compatible hardware released since 2008.

List of EVDs released

 * Big Momma's House (2002)
 * Black Mask 2: City of Masks (2002)
 * Hero (Director's Cut) (2002)
 * House of Flying Daggers (2004)

title: Enhanced Versatile Disc


text:
EVD

EVD may refer to:

 * Ebola virus disease
 * Eigenvalue decomposition
 * Enhanced Versatile Disc
 * English Version for the Deaf, a Bible translation
 * External ventricular drain
 * Extreme value distribution
 * Electronic visual display

title: EVD