text:
User talk:DontMessWithThis

Moved from user page: A user with no user page? I'm lost.JWSchmidt 15:23, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I guess I got to your new user page before you did.

>"longstanding tradition" is redundant repitition

I am also sensitive to the mindless use of phrases such as "longstanding tradition", but I think that there may have been a good reason for using "longstanding" rather than "some" when introducing those religious traditions that include classical concepts of evil. In my experience there is a significant difference between the way the idea of evil is incorporated into religions founded in the modern era and religions that pre-date the modern era. Unfortunately, I do not know enough about comparative religion to substantiate my hunch. Thanks for stimulating my thoughts on this topic. I wonder what your background is?JWSchmidt 00:59, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * I was the victim of religous programers as a child and learned to recognize religiously motivated lies. I reinforced my experience as an adult by training for and participating in cultural warfare.

 * Especially in discussing religion, if people don't name which religion they are describing, generalizations of traditions are likely to be ill-informed at best.

 * A non-sectarian publisher would likely require an author to cite specific circumstances as evidence of a tradition, and then demonstrate some knowledge that those circumstances were being accurately represented in a proper context. I don't see much evidence of deep knowledge of world cosmologies in that sad personal essay about how everybody in the world sees evil the same way Euro-American Christians do.

 * The modern/historic duality might feel comfortable, but Christian beliefs about evil go back 2000 years, which is a long time to be considered modern. Atheism, among others has grown as a world culture since then. It has no concept of good and evil. Atheistic governments killed a lot of people, but there is no evidence the concept of good or evil was a factor, unless one stretches the word good to mean "things I want" and evil to mean "things I don't want". That would be a cheap way out for Western people trying to explain their complex superstitions about cosmic Good and Evil.

 * A more likely division would be geographic, with various regional concepts, or lack of concept, regarding good and evil.

DontMessWithThis 01:10, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

title: User talk:DontMessWithThis


text:
British Columbia Institute of Technology

The British Columbia Institute of Technology (also referred to as BCIT), is a public polytechnic institute in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. The technical institute has five campuses located in the Metro Vancouver region, with its main campus in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. There is also the Aerospace Technology Campus in Richmond, the Marine Campus in the City of North Vancouver, Downtown campus in Vancouver, and Annacis Island Campus in Delta. It is provincially chartered through legislation in the College and Institute Act. The school operates as a vocational and technical school, offering apprenticeships for the skilled trades and diplomas and degrees in vocational education for skilled technicians and workers in professions such as engineering, accountancy, business administration, broadcast/media communications, digital arts, nursing, computing, medicine, architecture, and law.

BCIT was first established as the British Columbia Vocational School in 1960. When BCIT opened its Burnaby campus in 1964, initial enrollment was 498 students. , enrollment has swelled to 18,755 full-time students and 30,593 part-time students. Since its foundation, the institution has been home to over 125,000 alumni.

Establishment
In 1960, the British Columbia Vocational School (BCVS) was established in Burnaby, opening at Willingdon and Canada Way. It was the first permanent trades school of its kind in British Columbia; its programs included carpentry, welding and aircraft maintenance. A year later, plans were announced to establish the British Columbia Institute of Technology on adjacent land. It was the first provincial institution dedicated to advanced technical education in BC, and its principal was named in 1962. It offered education in the areas of engineering, business and health, enrolling 498 students in 1964. In 1966, it celebrated its first graduates.

Expansion and growth
By 1975, enrolment grew to 3,200 students. BCIT's first Board of Governors was formed in 1974, and in 1977, the school established a campus on Sea Island in Richmond. In 1979, the BCIT Alumni Association was formed. A year later, the BCVS and the Haney Educational Centre amalgamated to form the Pacific Vocational Institute (PVI).

In 1986, PVI merged with BCIT, incorporating PVI's satellite facilities such as the Aircraft Maintenance Centre at Vancouver International Airport. Legislative changes came in 1989 when BCIT's mandate was broadened to include applied research, and the Technology Centre, a facility for multi-disciplinary research and development, was established. BCIT would be the province's focal point for applied technology transfer.

Recent history
In 1994, the Pacific Marine Training Institute amalgamated with BCIT, along with its nautical engineering programs. The first Bachelor of Technology degree in Environmental Engineering was awarded in 1996. 1997 marked the opening of the Downtown Vancouver campus to accommodate expansion of BCIT's part-time programs.

BCIT's Arms, Supporters, Flag and Badge were registered with the Canadian Heraldic Authority on February 29, 1996.

BCIT, UBC, SFU, and ECUAD jointly opened the Great Northern Way Campus in 2002. In 2004, the number of students grew to more than 48,000, and the polytechnic status of the institution was enshrined in provincial legislation. A year later, a Research Services Office was opened to further support applied research.

BCIT opened a new 300000 sqft Aerospace Technology Campus in 2007, at the gateway to Vancouver International Airport for its aerospace programs.

Campus
The British Columbia Institute of Technology has six campuses across the Metro Vancouver area. BCIT's main campus is located in the City of Burnaby. It operates an aerospace technology campus in the City of Richmond, a marine campus is located in the City of North Vancouver, and a heavy-duty trades campus on Annacis Island, in City of Delta. BCIT also runs two campuses, the Downtown Vancouver campus, and the Great Northern Way campus, in East Vancouver. Furthermore, there are students who attend or conduct studies virtually; 8,310 students are distance education learners.

Burnaby Campus
The main BCIT Campus is located on Willingdon Avenue in the City of Burnaby next to Moscrop Secondary School and Deer Lake (British Columbia). It includes a library, gym and sports field, lecture rooms, computer labs as well as student services and administration offices. The Centre for Applied Research and Innovation is a notable recent campus addition. It's known to have most of its full-time programs for Construction & Trade, School of Business and School of Engineering.

Aerospace Technology Campus
The British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) Aerospace Technology Campus (ATC), located near Vancouver International Airport (YVR) in Richmond. It offers aircraft maintenance engineering programs in avionics, maintenance, structures, aircraft gas turbine (jet engine) overhaul training and repair and aircraft mechanical component training programs.

BCIT also offers commercial pilot training, as well as airport operations training program for those pursuing a career in airport management. Training is conducted at the 285000 sqft Aerospace Technology Campus, opened in September 2007.

The RBC Foundation Aviation Library at the Aerospace Technology Campus holds one of the largest collections of aviation resources in Western Canada, and has become a centre of learning and study for aviation students, staff and the broader aerospace industry in the region.

Marine Campus
Known previously as PMTI (the Pacific Marine Training Institute) it is now sometimes referred to as BMC (BCIT Marine Campus). The institute offers a variety of training in the marine field including cadet programs such as the four-year diploma in Nautical Sciences and the Marine Engineer training program. The campus is located in North Vancouver on the water a short distance from Lonsdale Quay. The school is open all year round except for major holidays.

Downtown Vancouver Campus
The predominant areas of study at the downtown campus are business and media, computing and information, and international student entry programs. It was opened to allow for a greater number of students in part-time studies.

Great Northern Way Campus
The Great Northern Way Campus (GNWC) Heavy Equipment programs have been moved to Annacis Island, and BCIT's interests in the shared campus have been sold to allow a new Emily Carr University to be built on the site.

Annacis Island Campus
Located on Annacis Island in the City of Delta, this 142,000-square-foot facility is home to motive power programs offered by BCIT and Vancouver Community College. Programs at Annacis Island Campus train heavy-duty mechanics, transport trailer mechanics, diesel mechanics, commercial transportation mechanics, railway conductors and forklift operators.

Profile
BCIT has six Schools providing full-time and part-time studies in a variety of subjects.
 * School of Business & Media
 * School of Computing & Academic Studies
 * School of Construction & the Environment
 * School of Energy
 * School of Health Sciences|School of Health Sciences
 * School of Transportation

BCIT also has a Technology Centre which undertakes and coordinates applied research, and provides technology transfer and commercialization assistance.

Education philosophy
BCIT has a unique education philosophy which sets it apart from typical post-secondary institutions. BCIT focuses on the practical aspects of studies, as opposed to theoretical. Thus, the students get an exceptional amount of hands-on experience while in school. For example, the school has:
 * A full-equipped radio and standard definition television studio, broadcasting Evolution 107.9 FM BCITevolution.jpg
 * An automated manufacturing robotics lab
 * A Technology Centre dedicated to applied high tech research and development
 * Western Canada's only Marine Engine Room Simulator, which provides true-to-life training for marine engineers
 * Thermal Power Plant Simulator (250 MW generating capacity) for training power engineering students
 * An interactive fire simulation theatre
 * A fully operational pulp mill
 * The Telus Call Centre of Excellence, featuring advanced telecommunications equipment for leading-edge industry training.

Awards and recognition
In June 2010, the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB) granted national accreditation to BCIT's Civil Engineering Bachelor of Engineering program. This represented a milestone as the first accreditation of a non-university Civil Engineering program in Canada.

In 2011, the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board granted national accreditation to BCIT's Bachelor of Electrical Engineering program, and the school's Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering program was accredited in 2014.

Student association
The British Columbia Institute of Technology Student Association (BCITSA) is a student-led society that exists to serve the school's student body. It is dedicated to the social and academic support and advocacy of all students attending BCIT. The BCITSA is active on all five campuses, but operates primarily out of the Burnaby campus

The student newspaper at BCIT is monthly and called "The Link."

People
To date, BCIT has more than 170,000 alumni and over 4,000 new graduates each year. Some notable attendees include Canadian MP Chuck Cadman, Georgian Cabinet member Vera Kobalia, Gemini Award-winning journalist Gloria Macarenko, Internet entrepreneur PlentyofFish, field hockey player Rob Short

Notable faculty members include Henry C. Gunning, Hassan Farhangi, and Mark Angelo.

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


text:
1940 Armistice Day Blizzard

The Armistice Day Blizzard (or the Armistice Day Storm) took place in the Midwest region of the United States on November 11 (Armistice Day) and November 12, 1940. The intense early-season "panhandle hook" winter storm cut a 1,000-mile-wide (1600 km) swath through the middle of the country from Kansas to Michigan.

Meteorological synopsis
On November 7, 1940, the low pressure system that later developed into the storm was affecting the Pacific Northwest and produced the 40 mph winds that destroyed the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. On November 10 the fast-moving storm crossed the Rocky Mountains in just two hours on its way to the Midwest.

The morning of November 11, 1940, brought with it unseasonably high temperatures in the Upper Midwest. By early afternoon, temperatures approached 65 F over most of the affected region. However, as the day wore on conditions quickly deteriorated. Severe weather was reported across much of the Midwest with heavy rain and snow, a tornado, and gale-force winds were all reported. Temperatures dropped sharply, winds picked up and rain, followed by sleet and then snow, began to fall. An intense low pressure system tracked from the southern plains northeastward into western Wisconsin, pulling Gulf of Mexico moisture up from the South and pulling down a cold arctic air mass from the North.

The result was a raging blizzard that would last into the next day. Snowfalls of up to 27 in, winds of 50 to 80 mph, 20 ft snow drifts, and 50 F-change temperature drops were common over parts of the states of Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. In Minnesota, 27 in of snow fell at Collegeville, and the Twin Cities recorded 16 in. Record low pressures were recorded in La Crosse, Wisconsin, and Duluth, Minnesota. Transportation and communications were crippled, which made finding the dead and injured more difficult. The Armistice Day Blizzard ranks #2 in Minnesota's list of the top five weather events of the 20th century.

Survivors describe the cold as so severe that it was difficult to breathe, with the air so moisture laden it was thick like syrup and that the cold seared the survivors lungs like a red-hot blade. Many individuals claim that animals were aware of the upcoming weather shifts which led to animals moving rapidly from the area. Duck hunters who were out at the time were amazed at the amount of ducks that were in the area and on the move through the skies, one survivor recounting there were thousands. Future Minnesota Vikings coach Bud Grant was caught in this storm.

Casualties
A total of 146 deaths were blamed on the storm, with the following instances being noteworthy: Additionally, 1.5 million turkeys intended for Thanksgiving dinners across Minnesota perished from exposure to the cold conditions.
 * Along the Mississippi River several hundred duck hunters had taken time off from work and school to take advantage of the ideal hunting conditions. Weather forecasters had not predicted the severity of the oncoming storm, and as a result many of the hunters were not dressed for cold weather. When the storm began many hunters took shelter on small islands in the Mississippi River, and the 50 mph winds and 5-foot (1.5 m) waves overcame their encampments. Some became stranded on the islands and then froze to death as temperatures went below 10 F overnight. Others tried to make it to shore and drowned. Duck hunters constituted about half of the 49 deaths in Minnesota. Those who survived told of how ducks came south with the storm by the thousands, and everybody could have shot their daily limit had they not been focused on survival.
 * Casualties were lessened by the efforts of Max Conrad, a pioneering light plane pilot and flight school owner and John R. "Bob" Bean (one of the flight school instructors) both based in Winona, Minnesota, 25 miles upriver from La Crosse. They flew up and down the river in the wake of the storm, locating survivors and dropping supplies to them. Both men were nominated for the Carnegie Medal for their heroism.
 * One survivor, Gerald Tarras, survived the storm in Minneapolis due to the two family Labrador retriever dogs who lay beside him and provided body heat to protect him.
 * In Watkins, Minnesota, 2 people died when a passenger train and a freight train collided in the blinding snow. Watkins residents formed a human chain to lead the passengers to safety.
 * In Lake Michigan, 66 sailors died in the sinking of three freighters, the SS Anna C. Minch, the SS Novadoc, and the SS William B. Davock, and two smaller boats.
 * 13 people died in Illinois, 13 in Wisconsin, and 4 in Michigan.

Aftermath
Prior to this event, all of the weather forecasts for the region originated in Chicago. After the failure to provide an accurate forecast for this blizzard, forecasting responsibilities were expanded to include 24-hour coverage and more forecasting offices were created, yielding more accurate local forecasts.

The U.S. Weather Bureau was criticized that it failed to predict the huge blizzard and officials released a statement that they were aware that the storm was coming but wrong about its strength and scope. The Twin Cities (Minneapolis/St. Paul) branch of Meteorology was upgraded to issue forecasts and not rely on the Chicago site.

title: 1940 Armistice Day Blizzard


text:
Robert Parker

Robert Parker may refer to:

 * Sir Robert Parker, 1st Baronet (c. 1655–1691), English politician; Member of Parliament for Hastings, 1679–1685
 * Robert Parker, Baron Parker of Waddington (1857–1918), British law lord
 * Robert Parker (cricketer) (born 1942), Australian cricketer
 * Robert Parker (dancer), British dancer, principal dancer at Birmingham Royal Ballet
 * Robert Parker (historian) (born 1950), Wykeham Professor of Ancient History at Oxford University
 * Robert Parker (judge) (1796–1865), lawyer, judge and politician in New Brunswick
 * Robert Parker (minister) (1564–1614), English Puritan scholar and divine
 * Robert Parker (music producer), electronic musician from Stockholm, Sweden
 * Robert Parker (musician) (1847–1937), New Zealand organist, choirmaster and conductor
 * Robert Parker (singer) (1930–2020), American R&B singer
 * Robert Parker (sound engineer) (1936–2004), Australian sound engineer and broadcaster
 * Robert Parker (water polo) (born 1987), British water polo player
 * Robert A. Parker (born 1936), astronaut
 * Robert B. Parker (1932–2010), author of the Spenser detective novels
 * Robert C. Parker (born 1957), United States Coast Guard officer
 * Bob Parker (accounting scholar) (Robert Henry Parker, 1932–2016), British accounting scholar
 * R. Hunt Parker (1892–1969), American jurist
 * R. W. Parker (1912-1984), American football and track coach
 * Robert Ladislav Parker, American geophysicist and mathematician
 * Robert LeRoy Parker (1866–1908?), birth name of American outlaw Butch Cassidy
 * Robert Parker (wine critic) (born 1947), American wine critic
 * Robert Manley Parker (born 1937), American judge
 * Robert Townley Parker (1793–1879), British Member of Parliament for Preston
 * Robert Redmayne Parker (born 1954), Bowbearer of the Forest of Bowland
 * Robert W. Parker (composer) (1960-2020), American composer
 * Robert Parker (coach) (1960-2021), American track and field coach
 * Robert W. Parker (general), U.S. Air Force general
 * Col. Robert Parker, ring name of wrestler Robert Fuller
 * Johnson v. Parker defendant, employer of John Casor

title: Robert Parker


text:
Matthew Whitworth-Aylmer, 5th Baron Aylmer

Matthew Whitworth-Aylmer, 5th Baron Aylmer, (24 May 1775 – 23 February 1850) was a British military officer and colonial administrator.

Napoleonic Wars
Aylmer was gazetted ensign in 1787, lieutenant in 1791 and major in 1800, after being held in a French prison for six months in 1798. His career continued as colonel in 1810, being aide-de-camp to King George III between 1810 and 1812 and then major general in 1813. He was present at most of the battles in the Peninsular War.

In 1814, following service in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars, he was appointed adjutant general of British forces in Ireland, where he remained until 1823.

North American administration
After reaching the position of lieutenant-general in 1825, Aylmer was, in 1830, appointed commander of British military forces in North America as well as Governor General of British North America and Lieutenant Governor of Lower Canada.

Lord Aylmer had no previous experience as a civil administrator and no political experience. He was unable to pacify the growing demands in Lower Canada for responsible government and, in 1834, the radical Assembly of Lower Canada passed 92 resolutions of grievance including a demand that Aylmer be recalled. Lord Aylmer exacerbated ethnic tensions in Lower Canada by favouring the English over the French. The deterioration of the situation led to his recall in 1835. His administration may have been a contributing factor to the Lower Canada Rebellion of 1837.

Return to England
Returning to England, Aylmer was promoted to the rank of general in 1845, but he never obtained a British peerage (his dignity was in the Irish peerage) or another administrative post.

He died at 15 Eaton Square, Belgravia, on 23 February 1850 and was buried at West Norwood Cemetery.

Aylmer's sister Rose Aylmer was the inspiration behind the poem of that name by Walter Savage Landor.

Family
His sister was Rose Whitworth-Aylmer who travelled with their aunt, Anne Barbara, and her husband Sir Henry Russell, 1st Baronet to India in 1798. She fell ill with cholera and died in 1800. She has been immortalized by his friend and the famous British poet Walter Savage Landor in his Rose Aylmer eulogy.

General the Right Honourable Matthew Whitworth, 5th Lord Aylmer, G.C.B., married Louisa Anne Call, daughter of Sir John Call, Bart. on 4 August 1801. When her husband was appointed in 1830 to administer the government of Canada, as Governor-General, from February 1831 to August 1835, the couple entertained at the Castle of St. Louis, Quebec. During the cholera epidemic of 1831–32, she was interested in the relief of the sufferers. Since she was interested in education, she regularly visited and bestowed prizes in the schools. She served as the patroness of the Societe d'Education sous la direction des dames de Quebec. She died on 13 August 1862.


text:
Byron K. Lichtenberg

'''Byron Kurt Lichtenberg, Sc. D.''' (born February 19, 1948) is an American engineer and fighter pilot who flew aboard two NASA Space Shuttle missions as a Payload Specialist. In 1983, he and Ulf Merbold became the first Payload Specialists to fly on the shuttle.

Personal
Born February 19, 1948, in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. Married to Tamara Lichtenberg with five children, including two adopted Chinese daughters.

Education

 * Sc.B., aerospace engineering, Brown University (1969)
 * S.M., mechanical engineering, MIT (1975)
 * Sc.D., biomedical engineering, MIT (1979)
 * Sc.D., Westminster College (honorary)

Awards and honors

 * NASA Space Flight Medals (2)
 * AIAA Haley Space Flight Award
 * FAI Komarov Award
 * Went to Space

Organizations
Founding Member:
 * Association of Space Explorers
 * X-Prize Foundation

Member:
 * User Panel for National Space Biomedical Research Institute
 * Tau Beta Pi (honorary engineering society)
 * Sigma Xi (honorary scientific society)

Career
From 1978 to 1984 he was a researcher for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)/Canadian Vestibular experiments on Spacelab 1, Spacelab D-1, Spacelab SLS-1 and SLS-2, and a co-principal investigator for the Mental Workload and Performance experiment flown on IML-1 to assess human-computer workstation characteristics for the Space Station.

He was a founder of Payload Systems, Inc., a company that has provided hardware and flight support for MODE and MACE experiments for the Space Shuttle and International Space Station (ISS). They also were the first commercial user of the Mir Space Station, flying protein crystal growth experiments to Mir in the early 1990s. He is now the Chief Technical Officer of Zero Gravity Corporation, founded to make parabolic, weightless aircraft flights available to the general public. He was a U.S. Air Force fighter pilot for 23 years, flying the F-4, F-100, and A-10, reaching the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Massachusetts Air National Guard. Lichtenberg flew 138 combat missions during the Vietnam War, and received two Distinguished Flying Crosses, ten Air Medals, and numerous other decorations. He flew as a captain for Southwest Airlines and is now a professor at LeTourneau University in Longview Texas.

Spaceflight experience
Lichtenberg was among the first Payload Specialists to fly in space. He flew on Spacelab-1 (STS-9) mission for ten days in 1983, conducted multiple experiments in life sciences, materials sciences, Earth observations, astronomy and solar physics, upper atmosphere and plasma physics. His second flight was ATLAS-1 (STS-45) Spacelab mission for nine days in 1992; conducted 13 experiments in Atmospheric sciences and astronomy. He flew 310 orbits, and logged 468 hours in space.

title: Byron K. Lichtenberg


text:
Family tree of Kingdom of Jerusalem monarchs

This a family tree of the kings of Jerusalem.

This diagram lists the rulers of the kingdom of Jerusalem, since the conquest of the city in 1099, during the First Crusade, to 1291, year of the fall of Acre.


text:
Burlington College

Burlington College was a private college in Burlington, Vermont. It offered associate, bachelor's, and master's degrees, as well as several professional certificates. Although regionally accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, the college was placed on probation in July 2014 for failing to meet the accreditor's standards regarding financial resources. The college ceased operations in 2016.

History
Burlington College started in 1972 as the Vermont Institute of Community Involvement. A handful of students met in the living room of founder Dr. Steward LaCasce. It originally served adult learners and veterans.

In 2007, the college had 204 students at its main campus in buildings in downtown Burlington. Since most were part-time, this worked out to 130 "full-time equivalents." An additional 30 students studied off-campus.

In 2010, Jane O'Meara Sanders oversaw the purchase of 33 acres of property to be used for college expansion, with the resulting significant debt to be covered by already pledged donations and tuition from planned increased enrollment over five years. Sanders departed shortly after, with Christine Plunkett assuming the position of president.

In 2014, the regional accreditor of the college placed it on probation because of its financial condition, and votes of no confidence were given to Plunkett from organizations representing students, faculty, and staff. She resigned shortly thereafter. In 2015, the college resold 27.5 acres of the land it had purchased. In May 2016, the college board of trustees decided to close the school. According to David A. Graham, writing in The Atlantic, some of the school's financial difficulties dated back to 2010 when the board of directors and Sanders purchased the property. The original $11 million of debt had been worked down to about $2 million, but because of remaining debt and "insufficient financial resources," the school's bank declined to renew their $1 million line of credit, and the school was facing the loss of their accreditation. Local Burlington developer Eric Farrell planned to purchase the campus from the bank to develop a park and housing.

Presidents

 * 1) 1972–1994: J. Steward LaCasce
 * 2) 1994–2002: Daniel Casey
 * 3) 2002–2003: Mary Clancy
 * 4) 2004–2011: Jane O'Meara Sanders
 * 5) 2012–2014: Christine Plunkett
 * 6) 2014: Michael Smith (interim)
 * 7) 2014–2016: Carol A. Moore

Campus

In 2011, the college sold its original campus to the Committee for Temporary Shelter, a welfare agency, and purchased 32.4 acre of waterfront property from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington for use as its main campus. This new campus was located on North Avenue.

In 2015, the college sold a parcel of land, as well as the former diocesan orphanage attached to the office and classroom building, to a local developer, Farrell Real Estate. The developer drafted a master plan to convert the orphanage into student housing. The college retained the original diocese building for classrooms, studios, art rooms, film and radio, laboratories, and other facilities.

At the press conference announcing the closure, the school stated that the developer would purchase the rest of the college's campus from the bank.

Academics
Burlington College offered a range of undergraduate programs in the arts, writing and literature, film studies, photography, fine arts, legal studies, transpersonal psychology/psychology, human services, media activism, and graphic design. It also provided individualized undergraduate and graduate degree programs. The college offered study-abroad options in Europe, and in 2008, Burlington College became one of the few universities in the United States to offer a study-abroad program in Havana, Cuba in conjunction with the University of Havana. Students could spend a semester at the university or participate in one of several one-week trips offered throughout the academic year. Burlington College joined several other universities in the United States by offering students the option of a narrative evaluation in addition to traditional transcripts.

In connection with the undergraduate legal studies program, Burlington College had an articulation agreement with Vermont Law School that allowed Burlington College graduates to proceed into the Juris Doctor and joint Juris Doctor programs at Vermont Law School upon successful completion of their undergraduate studies. Burlington College also had an affiliation with the Vermont Woodworking School in Fairfax. Courses in woodworking and fine craftsmanship were offered for credit to support both Associate of Arts and Bachelor of Fine Arts degree programs. In addition to woodworking skills, students took the usual general education requirements of the college. The degree could be pursued on campus, at a distance, or in combination.

Burlington College also offered a low-residency Master of Arts degree. This degree was individualized and tailored to meet the academic needs and focus of individual graduate students.

Rankings
In August 2011, The Daily Beast and Newsweek ranked Burlington College as the number one school in the United States for free-spirited students. They defined free-spirited schools as those where "there are no mandatory classes, tests, or official letter or number grades".

In October 2013, Newsweek named Burlington College as one of the 10 colleges in the United States with the highest rate of student participation in internships in their field of study.

title: Burlington College


text:
Michael Weiner

Michael Weiner may refer to:

 * Michael Weiner (professor) (born 1949), professor of East Asian History
 * Michael Weiner (actor) (born 1975), American actor and composer
 * Michael Savage (Michael Weiner, born 1942), American talk-radio host and commentator
 * Michael Weiner (executive) (1961–2013), executive director of Major League Baseball Players Association
 * Michael Weiner (referee) (born 1969), German football referee

title: Michael Weiner


text:
CEDA

The Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomas (lit. 'Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Rights', CEDA) was a Spanish political party in the Second Spanish Republic. A Catholic conservative force, it was the political heir to Ángel Herrera Oria's Acción Popular and defined itself in terms of the 'affirmation and defence of the principles of Christian civilization,' translating this theoretical stand into a political demand for the revision of the anti-Catholic passages of the republican constitution. CEDA saw itself as a defensive organisation, formed to protect religious toleration, family, and private property rights. José María Gil-Robles declared his intention to "give Spain a true unity, a new spirit, a totalitarian polity..." and went on to say "Democracy is not an end but a mean to achieve the conquest of the new state. When the time comes, either parliament submits or we will eliminate it." The CEDA held Fascist-style rallies, called Gil-Robles "Jefe", the Castillian Spanish equivalent to Duce, and sometimes debated whether CEDA might lead a "March on Madrid" (similar to the Italian Fascist March on Rome) to forcefully seize power.

The CEDA claimed that it was defending the Catholic Church in Spain and "Christian civilization" against authoritarian socialism, State Atheism, and religious persecution. CEDA often claimed that the Far Left political parties leading the Second Spanish Republic had already made politics a matter of Marxism versus anti-Marxism. With the advent of the rise of the Nazi Party to power in Germany, the CEDA emulated the propaganda ploys of the Nazis, including a similar emphasis upon obedience to authority, extreme nationalism, and social hierarchy. Gil-Robles observed a Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg and was greatly influenced by it, henceforth becoming committed to creating a single anti-Marxist and pro-Catholic political party in Spain.

CEDA was largely the party of practicing Roman Catholics, the middle-class, and small holding farm families. It would ultimately become the most popular individual party in Spain in the 1936 elections.

The CEDA failed to make the substantive electoral gains from 1933 to 1936 (though it did see an increase in the number of individual votes ) that were needed for it to form government. This resulted in right-wing voters draining away and turning instead towards the Monarchist Renovación Española political party and its leader José Calvo Sotelo. Outrage over both Calvo Sotelo's 1936 assassination and the Red Terror unleashed by death squads linked to all Far Left parties against the Catholic Church in Spain led to CEDA abandoning moderation and providing support for the military uprising against the republic, which included donating its electoral funds to the initial leader of the Nationalist faction, General Emilio Mola. Subsequently, many members of CEDA's youth movement, Juventudes de Acción Popular (JAP; "Youth for Popular Action") defected en masse to the Falange Española de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista or "Falange".

The CEDA eclipses the republican centre
Gil Robles set up CEDA to contest the 1933 election, and tacitly embraced Fascism. Despite dismissing the idea of a party as a 'rigid fiction', the CEDA leaders created a stable party organisation which would lead the Spanish right into the age of mass politics. The CEDA was constructed around organisational units known as Derechas Autónomas, the first of which had been established in Salamanca in December 1932. Having accepted the "principles of Christian civilization", confederated bodies retained full freedom both of thought and of action – such a definition was framed with the Carlists in mind. The right would work together for 'the radical transformation of the regime.' October 1933 announcement of a snap general election in November brought about an unprecedented mobilization of the Spanish right. El Debate instructed its readers to make the coming elections into an "obsession", the " sublime culmination of citizenly duties," so that victory in the polls would bring an end to the republican bienio rojo. Great emphasis was placed on the techniques of electoral propaganda. Gil Robles visited Nazi Germany to study modern methods, including the Nuremberg Rally. A national electoral committee was established, comprising CEDA, Alfonsist, Traditionalist, and Agrarian representatives – but excluding Miguel Maura's Conservative Republicans. The CEDA swamped entire localities with electoral publicity. The party produced ten million leaflets, together with some two hundred thousand coloured posters and hundreds of cars were used to distribute this material through the provinces. In all of the major cities propaganda films were shown around the streets on screens mounted on large lorries.

The polarization of political opinions and the CEDA
The need for unity was the constant theme of the campaign fought by the CEDA and the election was presented as a confrontation of ideas, not of personalities. The electors' choice was simple: they voted for redemption or revolution and they voted for Christianity or Communism. The fortunes of Republican Spain, according to one of its posters had been decided by 'immorality and anarchy'. Catholics who continued to proclaim their republicanism were moved into the revolutionary camp and many speeches argued that the Catholic republican option had become totally illegitimate. 'A good Catholic may not vote for the Conservative Republican party' declared a Gaceta Regional editorial and the impression was given that Conservative Republicans, far from being Catholics, were in fact anti-religious. In this all-round attack on the political centre, the mobilization of women also became a major electoral tactic of the Catholic right. The Asociación Femenina de Educación had been formed in October 1931. As the 1933 general election approached women were warned that unless they voted correctly communism would come " which will tear your children from your arms, your parish church will be destroyed, the husband you love will flee from your side authorized by the divorce law, anarchy will come to the countryside, hunger and misery to your home." AFEC orators and organisers urged women to vote 'For God and for Spain!' Mirroring the female qualities emphasized by AFEC the CEDA's self-styled sección de defensa brought young male activists to the fore. In one incident in the last week of the campaign, in Guijuelo the efforts of a group of left wing sympathisers to prevent people entering the bullring, where José María Lamamié de Clairac was speaking, led to a running battle with CEDA's sección de defensa. Later stopped and searched they were found to be carrying a quantity of pizzle whips – (bullwhips made from the dried penises of bulls) – taken along to 'fend off the violence which had been promised.' It was one example of the polarisation of political opinions which had occurred in the province of Salamanca, Robles's province, since the early days of the Republic. This new CEDA squad was also very much in evidence on election day itself, when its members patrolled the streets and polling stations in the provincial capital, supposedly to prevent the left from tampering with the ballot boxes.

In the 1933 elections, the CEDA won the most seats in the Cortes in no small part because the massive CNT membership abstained, holding true to their anarchist principles. The CEDA had won a plurality of seats; however, these were not enough to form a majority, but then President Niceto Alcalá-Zamora declined to invite the leader of the CEDA, Gil Robles, to form a government and instead invited the Radical Republican Party's Alejandro Lerroux to do so. CEDA supported the centrist government led by Lerroux; it later demanded and, on October 1, 1934, received three ministerial positions. They suspended most of the reforms of the previous Manuel Azaña government, provoking an armed miners' rebellion in Asturias on October 6, and an independentist rebellion in Catalonia—both rebellions were suppressed (the Asturias rebellion by young General Francisco Franco), being followed by mass political arrests and trials. CEDA continued to mimic the German Nazi Party, Robles staging a rally in March 1934, to shouts of "Jefe" ("Chief", after the Italian "Duce" used in support of Mussolini). Robles used anti-strike law to pick union leaders off one by one, and attempted to undermine the republican government of the Republican Left of Catalonia, who attempted to continue the republic's previous reforms. Using the title jefe, the JAP created an intense and often disturbing cult around the figure of Gil Robles. Robles himself had returned from Nuremberg Rally in 1933 and spoken of its " youthful enthusiasm, steeped in optimism, so different to the desolate and enervating scepticism of our defeatists and intellectuals."

Stanley Payne argues that CEDA was neither fascist nor democratic. Payne argues that CEDA's goal was to win power through legal means and to then enact a constitutional revision that would protect property and religion and alter the basic political system. They would create neither a fascist state nor an absolute monarchy but a Catholic, corporative republic. While this would entail the limitation of direct democratic rights, it would not be a state in the style of Hitler or Mussolini's but probably closer to the neighbouring Portuguese Estado Novo.

The Juventudes de Acción Popular, the youth wing within the CEDA, "soon developed its own character. The JAP emphasized sporting and political activity. It had its own fortnightly paper, the first issue of which proclaimed: 'We want a new state.' The JAP's distaste for the principles of universal suffrage was such that internal decisions were never voted upon. As the thirteenth point of the JAP put it: "Anti-parliamentarianism. Anti-dictatorship. The people participating in Government in an organic manner, not by degenerate democracy." The JAP held a series of rallies during the course of 1934.

On 26 September, the CEDA announced it would no longer support the RRP's minority government; it was replaced by a RRP cabinet, led by Lerroux once more, that included three members of the CEDA.

Rifts, moving further to the right
Between November 1934 and March 1935, the CEDA minister for agriculture, Manuel Giménez Fernández, introduced into parliament a series of agrarian reform measures designed to better conditions in the Spanish countryside. These moderate proposals met with a hostile response from reactionary elements within the Cortes, including the conservative wing of the CEDA and the proposed reform was defeated. A change of personnel in the ministry also followed. The agrarian reform bill proved to be a catalyst for a series of increasingly bitter divisions within the Catholic right, rifts that indicated that the broad based CEDA alliance was disintegrating. Partly as a result of the impetus of the JAP, the Catholic party had been moving further to the right, forcing the resignation of moderate government figures, including Filiberto Villalobos. Gil-Robles was not prepared to return the agriculture portfolio to Giménez Fernández. "For all the social Catholic rhetoric, the extreme right had won the day."

Lerroux's Radical government collapsed after two large scandals, the Straperlo affair and the Nombela scandal. However, Zamora did not allow the CEDA to form a government, and called elections. The elections of February 16, 1936 were narrowly won by the Popular Front, with vastly smaller resources than the political right, who followed Nazi propaganda techniques. CEDA turned its campaign chest over to army plotter Emilio Mola. Monarchist José Calvo Sotelo replaced Gil Robles as the right's leading spokesman in parliament. The Falange expanded massively, and thousands of the JAP joined the organisation (though the majority of the JAP seem to have abandoned politics). They successfully created a sense of militancy on the streets, in order to make an authoritarian regime justifiable. CEDA came under direct attack from the Falange. This rapid radicalization of the CEDA youth movement effectively meant that all attempts to save parliamentary Catholicism were doomed to failure.

Many of the party's supporters welcomed the military rebellion in the summer of 1936 which led to the Spanish Civil War. In April 1937, the rebel leader Francisco Franco issued the Unification Decree which laid out the creation of the FET y de las JONS upon the merging of the Fascist FE de las JONS and the traditionalist carlists, outlawing the rest of political parties in the rebel-controlled territory. As result, CEDA ceased to exist. Many party cadres, including Franco's co-brother-in-law Ramón Serrano Suñer (who ended up becoming chief of the political junta of the FET y de las JONS) joined the new organization.

title: CEDA


text:
Mandinka people

The Mandinka or Malinke are a West African ethnic group primarily found in southern Mali, The Gambia, southern Senegal and eastern Guinea. Numbering about 11 million, they are the largest subgroup of the Mandé peoples and one of the largest ethnic-linguistic groups in Africa. They speak the Manding languages in the Mande language family, which are a lingua franca in much of West Africa. Virtually all of Mandinka people are adherent to Islam, mostly based on the Maliki jurisprudence. They are predominantly subsistence farmers and live in rural villages. Their largest urban center is Bamako, the capital of Mali.

The Mandinka are the descendants of the Mali Empire, which rose to power in the 13th century under the rule of king Sundiata Keita, who founded an empire that would go on to span a large part of West Africa. They migrated west from the Niger River in search of better agricultural lands and more opportunities for conquest. Nowadays, the Mandinka inhabit the West Sudanian savanna region extending from The Gambia and the Casamance region in Senegal, Mali, Guinea and Guinea Bissau. Although widespread, the Mandinka constitute the largest ethnic group only in the countries of Mali, Guinea and The Gambia. Most Mandinka live in family-related compounds in traditional rural villages. Their traditional society has featured socially stratified castes. Mandinka communities have been fairly autonomous and self-ruled, being led by a chief and group of elders. Mandinka has been an oral society, where mythologies, history and knowledge are verbally transmitted from one generation to the next. Their music and literary traditions are preserved by a caste of griots, known locally as jelis, as well as guilds and brotherhoods like the donso (hunters).

Between the 16th and 19th centuries, many Muslim and non-Muslim Mandinka people, along with numerous other African ethnic groups, were captured, enslaved and shipped to the Americas. They intermixed with slaves and workers of other ethnicities, creating a Creole culture. The Mandinka people significantly influenced the African heritage of descended peoples now found in Brazil, the Southern United States and, to a lesser extent, the Caribbean.

Origins
The history of Mandinka, as with many Mandé peoples, begins with the Ghana Empire, also known as Wagadu. Mande hunters founded communities in Manden, which would become the political and cultural center of the Mandinka, but also in Bambuk and the Senegal river valley. The Mande diaspora from Ghana extended from the Atlantic Ocean to Gao.

The mythical ancestors of the Malinké and the Bambara people are Kontron and Sanin, the founding "hunter brotherhood". Manden was famous for the large number of animals and game that it sheltered, as well as its dense vegetation, so was a very popular hunting ground. The Camara (or Kamara) are believed to be the oldest family to have lived in Manden, after having left Wagadou, due to drought. They founded the first village of Manding, Kiri, then Kirina, Siby, Kita. A very large number of families that make up the Mandinka community were born in Manden. Manding is the province from which the Mali Empire started, under the leadership of Sundiata Keita. The Manden were initially a part of many fragmented kingdoms that formed after the collapse of Ghana empire in the 11th century.

Mali Empire
During the rule of Sundiata Keita, these kingdoms were consolidated, and the Mandinka expanded west from the Niger River basin under Sundiata's general Tiramakhan Traore. This expansion was a part of creating a region of conquest, according to the oral tradition of the Mandinka people. This migration began in the later part of the 13th century.

Another group of Mandinka people, under Faran Kamara – the son of the king of Tabou – expanded southeast of Mali, while a third group expanded with Fakoli Kourouma.

With the migration, many gold artisans and metal working Mandinka smiths settled along the coast and in the hilly Fouta Djallon and plateau areas of West Africa. Their presence and products attracted Mandika merchants and brought trading caravans from north Africa and the eastern Sahel, states Toby Green – a professor of African History and Culture. It also brought conflicts with other ethnic groups, such as the Wolof people, particularly the Jolof Empire.

The caravan trade to North Africa and Middle East brought Islamic people into Mandinka people's original and expanded home region. The Muslim traders sought presence in the host Mandinka community, and this likely initiated proselytizing efforts to convert the Mandinka from their traditional religious beliefs into Islam. In Ghana, for example, the Almoravids had divided its capital into two parts by 1077, one part was Muslim and the other non-Muslim. The Muslim influence from North Africa had arrived in the Mandinka region before this, via Islamic trading diasporas.

In 1324, Mansa Musa who ruled Mali, went on Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca with a caravan carrying gold. Shihab al-Umari, the Arabic historian, described his visit and stated that Musa built mosques in his kingdom, established Islamic prayers and took back Maliki school of Sunni jurists with him. According to Richard Turner – a professor of African American Religious History, Musa was highly influential in attracting North African and Middle Eastern Muslims to West Africa.

The Mandinka people of Mali converted early, but those who migrated to the west did not convert and retained their traditional religious rites. One of the legends among the Mandingo of western Africa is that the general Tiramakhan Traore led the migration, because people in Mali had converted to Islam and he did not want to. Another legend gives a contrasting account, and states that Traore himself had converted and married Muhammad's granddaughter. The Traore's marriage with a Muhammad's granddaughter, states Toby Green, is fanciful, but these conflicting oral histories suggest that Islam had arrived well before the 13th century and had a complex interaction with the Mandinka people.

Through a series of conflicts, primarily with the Fula-led jihads under Imamate of Futa Jallon, many Mandinka converted to Islam. In contemporary West Africa, the Mandinka are predominantly Muslim, with a few regions where significant portions of the population are not Muslim, such as Guinea Bissau, where 35 percent of the Mandinka practice Islam, more than 20 percent are Christian, and 15 percent follow traditional beliefs.

Slavery
Slave raiding, capture and trading in the Mandinka regions may have existed in significant numbers before the European colonial era, as is evidenced in the memoirs of the 14th century Moroccan traveller and Islamic historian Ibn Battuta. Slaves were part of the socially stratified Mandinka people, and several Mandinka language words, such as Jong or Jongo refer to slaves. There were fourteen Mandinke kingdoms along the Gambia River in the Senegambia region during the early 19th century, for example, where slaves were a part of the social strata in all these kingdoms.

According to Toby Green, selling slaves along with gold was already a significant part of the trans-Saharan caravan trade across the Sahel between West Africa and the Middle East after the 13th century. With the arrival of Portuguese explorers in Africa as they looked for a sea route to India, the European purchase of slaves had begun. The shipment of slaves by the Portuguese, primarily from the Jolof people, along with some Mandinka, started in the 15th century, states Green, but the earliest evidence of a trade involving Mandinka slaves is from and after 1497 CE. In parallel with the start of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, the institution of slavery and slave-trading of West Africans into the Mediterranean region and inside Africa continued as a historic normal practice.

Slavery grew significantly between the 16th and 19th centuries. The Portuguese considered slave sources in Guinea and Senegambia parts of Mandinka territory as belonging to them; their 16th to 18th-century slave trade-related documents refer to "our Guinea" and complain about slave traders from other European nations superseding them in the slave trade. Their slave exports from this region nearly doubled in the second half of the 18th century compared to the first, and most of these slaves disembarked in Brazil.

Scholars have offered several theories on the source of the transatlantic slave trade of Mandinka people. According to Boubacar Barry, a professor of History and African Studies, chronic violence between ethnic groups such as the Mandinka people and their neighbours, combined with weapons sold by slave traders and lucrative income from slave ships to the slave sellers, fed the practice of groups raiding for captives, conducting manhunts, and taking slaves. The victimised ethnic group felt justified in retaliating. Slavery was already an accepted practice before the 15th century, when most enslaved people were taken on routes to North Africa and western Asia by Arab traders.

As the demand grew, states Barry, Futa Jallon, led by an Islamic military theocracy, became one of the centers of this slavery-perpetuating violence. Farim of Kaabu (the commander of Mandinka people in Kaabu) energetically hunted for slaves on a large scale. Martin Klein (a professor of African Studies) states that Kaabu was one of the early suppliers of African slaves to European merchants.

The historian Walter Rodney states that Mandinka and other ethnic groups already held slaves who had inherited slavery by birth, and who could be sold. The Islamic armies from Sudan had long established the practice of slave raids and trade. Fula jihad from Futa Jallon plateau perpetuated and expanded this practice.

These jihads captured the highest number of slaves to sell to Portuguese traders at the ports controlled by Mandinka people. The insecure ethnic groups, states Rodney, stopped working productively and tried to withdraw for security, which made their social and economic conditions more desperate. Though less powerful, such groups also joined the retaliatory cycle of slave raids and violence.

Walter Hawthorne (a professor of African History) states that the Barry and Rodney explanation was not universally true for all of Senegambia and Guinea, where high concentrations of Mandinka people have traditionally lived. Hawthorne says that numerous Mandinka were not exported to the various European colonies in North America, South America and the Caribbean until the period between the mid-18th through to the 19th century. During these years, slave trade records show that nearly 33% of the slaves from Senegambia and Guinea-Bissau coasts were Mandinka people. Hawthorne suggests three causes of Mandinka people being taken captive as slaves during this era: small-scale jihads by Muslims against non-Muslim Mandinka, non-religious reasons such as the economic greed of Islamic elites who wanted imports of goods and tools from the coast, and attacks by the Fula people on the Mandinka's Kaabu, with consequent cycle of violence.

Economy
In the 21st century, the Mandinka continue as rural subsistence farmers who rely on peanuts, rice, millet, maize, and small-scale husbandry for their livelihood. During the wet season, men plant peanuts as their main cash crop. Men also grow millet. The women grow rice (traditionally, African rice), tending the plants by hand. This is extremely labour-intensive and physically demanding work. Only about 50% of the rice consumption needs are met by local planting; the rest is imported from Asia and the United States.

The oldest male is the head of the family, and marriages are commonly arranged. Small mud houses with conical thatch or tin roofs make up their villages, which are organised on the basis of clan groups. While farming is the predominant profession among the Mandinka, men also work as tailors, butchers, taxi drivers, woodworkers, metalworkers, soldiers, nurses, and extension workers for aid agencies.

Religion
Today, most Mandinka people practice Islam.

Some Mandinka syncretise Islam and traditional African religions. Among these syncretists, it is believed that spirits can be controlled mainly through the power of a marabout, who knows the protective formulas. In most cases, the people do not make important decisions without first consulting a marabout. Marabouts, who have Islamic training, write Qur'anic verses on slips of paper and sew them into leather pouches (talisman); these are worn as protective amulets.

The conversion of the Mandinka to Islam took place over many centuries. According to Robert Wyndham Nicholls, Mandinka in Senegambia started converting to Islam as early as the 17th century, and most of Mandinka leatherworkers there converted to Islam before the 19th century. Mandinka musicians, however, were last, converting to Islam mostly in the first half of the 20th century. As in other locales, these Muslims have continued some of their pre-Islamic religious practices as well, such as their annual rain ceremony and "sacrifice of the black bull" to their past deities.

Society and culture
Most Mandinka live in family-related compounds in traditional rural villages. Mandinka villages are fairly autonomous and self-ruled, being led by a council of upper-class elders and a chief who functions as a first among equals.

Family and political organisation
In Mandinka society the lu (extended family) is the basic unit, and is led by a fa (family head) who manages relations with other fa. A dugu (village) is formed by a collection of lu, and the dugu is led by the fa of the most important lu, aided by the dugu-tigi (village head or fa of the first lu that settled there). A group of dugu-tigi form a kafu (confederation) headed by a kafu-tigi. The Keita clan initially held the status of kafu-tigi before Sundiata's expansion and the creation of the mansa (king/emperor).

Social stratification
The Mandinka people have traditionally been a socially stratified society, as are many West African ethnic groups with castes. The Mandinka society, states Arnold Hughes, a professor of West African Studies and African Politics, has been "divided into three endogamous castes – the freeborn (foro), slaves (jongo), and artisans and praise singers (nyamolo). The freeborn castes are primarily farmers. The enslaved strata included labor providers to the farmers, as well as leather workers, pottery makers, metal smiths, griots, and others.

The Mandinka Muslim clerics and scribes have traditionally been considered a separate occupational caste called Jakhanke, with their Islamic roots traceable to about the 13th century.

The Mandinka castes are hereditary, and marriages outside the caste was forbidden. Their caste system is similar to those of other ethnic groups of the African Sahel region. These castes are also common across Mandinka communities such as those in The Gambia, Mali, Guinea, and other countries.

Rites of passage
The Mandinka practice a rite of passage, kuyangwoo, which marks the beginning of adulthood for their children. At an age between four and fourteen, the youngsters have their genitalia ritually cut (see articles on male and female genital cutting), in separate groups according to their sex. In years past, the children spent up to a year in the bush, but that has been reduced now to coincide with their physical healing time, between three and four weeks.

During this time, they learn about their adult social responsibilities and rules of behaviour. Preparation is made in the village or compound for the return of the children. A celebration marks the return of these new adults to their families. As a result of these traditional teachings, in marriage a woman's loyalty remains to her parents and her family; a man's to his.

Female genital mutilation
The women among the Mandinka people, like other ethnic groups near them, have traditionally practiced female genital mutilation (FGM), traditionally referred to as "female circumcision." According to UNICEF, the female genital mutilation prevalence rates among the Mandinka of The Gambia is the highest at over 96%, followed by FGM among the women of the Jola people at 91%, and Fula people at 88%.

Among the Mandinka women of some other countries of West Africa, the FGM prevalence rates are lower, but still range between 40% and 90%. This cultural practice, locally called Niaka or Kuyungo or Musolula Karoola or Bondo, involves the partial or total removal of the clitoris, or alternatively, the partial or total removal of the labia minora with the clitoris.

Some surveys, such as those by the Gambia Committee on Traditional Practices (GAMCOTRAP), estimate FGM is prevalent among 100% of the Mandinka in Gambia. In 2010, after community efforts of UNICEF and the local government bodies, several Mandinka women's organization pledged to abandon the female genital mutilation practices.

Marriage
Marriages are traditionally arranged by family members rather than by either the bride or groom. This practice is particularly prevalent in the rural areas. The suitor's family formally sends Kola nuts, a bitter nut from a tree, to the male elders of the bride-to-be. If they accept the nuts, the courtship may begin.

Polygamy has been practiced among the Mandinka since pre-Islamic days. A Mandinka man is legally allowed to have up to four wives, as long as he is able to care for each of them equally. Mandinka believe the crowning glory of any woman is the ability to produce children, especially sons. The first wife has authority over any subsequent wives. The husband has complete control over his wives and is responsible for feeding and clothing them. He also helps the wives' parents when necessary. Wives are expected to live together in harmony, at least superficially. They share work responsibilities of the compound, such as cooking, laundry, and other tasks.

Music

Mandinka culture is rich in tradition, music, and spiritual ritual. The Mandinka continue a long oral history tradition through stories, songs, and proverbs. In rural areas, the influence of western education is minimal; the literacy rate in Latin script among these Mandinka is quite low. But, more than half the adult population can read the local Arabic script (including Mandinka Ajami). Small Qur'anic schools for children where this is taught are quite common. Mandinka children are given their name on the eighth day after their birth. The children are almost always named after a very important person in their family.

The Mandinka have a rich oral history that is passed down through sung versions by griots. This passing down of oral history through music has made the practice of music one of the most distinctive traits of the Mandinka. They have long been known for their drumming and also for their unique musical instrument, the kora. The kora is a twenty-one-stringed West African harp made from a halved, dried, hollowed-out gourd covered with cow or goat skin. The strings are made of fishing line (these were traditionally made from a cow's tendons). It is played to accompany a griot's singing or simply on its own.

A Mandinka religious and cultural site under consideration for World Heritage status is located in Guinea at Gberedou/Hamana.

The kora
The kora has become the hallmark of traditional Mandinka musicians". The kora with its 21 strings is made from half a calabash, covered with cow's hide fastened on by decorative tacks. The kora has sound holes in the side which are used to store coins offered to the praise singers, in appreciation of their performance. The praise singers are called jalibaas or jalis in Mandinka.

In literature and other media

 * Malian author Massa Makan Diabaté wrote novels that refer to Mandinka legends, including Janjon, which won the 1971 Grand prix littéraire d'Afrique noire. His novels The Lieutenant of Kouta, The Barber of Kouta and The Butcher of Kouta attempt to capture the proverbs and customs of the Mandinka people.
 * In 1976 American writer Alex Haley published his novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family, tracing his family connections through free and enslaved generations to an 18th-century ancestor taken captive and brought to North America, a Mandinka man known as Kunta Kinte. In the course of his research, he traveled to West Africa and heard about his people from a griot. The book was on the New York Times bestseller for many weeks and was also adapted as a popular TV mini-series. Many professional historians and at least one genealogist commented that this familial link was highly improbable (see D. Wright's The World And A Very Small Place).
 * Martin R. Delany, a 19th-century abolitionist, military leader, politician and physician in the United States, was of partial Mandinka descent.
 * Sinéad O'Connor's 1988 hit "Mandinka" was inspired by Alex Haley's book.
 * Mr. T, of American television fame, once claimed that his distinctive hairstyle was modelled after a Mandinka warrior that he saw in National Geographic magazine. In his motivational video Be Somebody... or Be Somebody's Fool!, Mr. T states: "My folks came from Africa. They were from the Mandinka tribe. They wore their hair like this. These gold chains I wear symbolize the fact that my ancestors were brought over here as slaves." In a 2006 interview, he reiterated that he modeled his hair style after photographs of Mandinka men he saw in National Geographic.

Burkina Faso

 * Joffrey Bazié, Burkinabé footballer
 * Amadou Coulibaly, Burkinabé footballer
 * Yaya Darlaine Coulibaly
 * Djibril Ouattara
 * Joseph Ki-Zerbo, political leader and historian
 * Bakary Koné, Burkinabé footballer
 * Cheick Kongo, Burkinabé mixed martial artist
 * General Sangoulé Lamizana, former President 1966–1980
 * Oumarou Nébié
 * Gustavo Sangaré
 * Colonel Saye Zerbo, former President 1980–1982

The Gambia

 * Adama Barrow, politician; third president of The Gambia
 * Modou Barrow
 * Musa Barrow
 * Assan Ceesay
 * Jatto Ceesay, footballer
 * Ousainou Darboe, Foreign Minister of The Gambia
 * Sheriff Mustapha Dibba, veteran politician and the First vice President of The Gambia
 * Alieu Fadera
 * Abdoulie Janneh, former UN Under-Secretary General
 * Sidia Jatta, opposition politician
 * Alhajj Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara, first President of The Gambia
 * Sona Jobarteh, first female kora artist (musician)
 * Modou Jobe
 * Jaliba Kuyateh, kora artist and celebrated musician in the Mandinka language
 * Alasana Manneh
 * Kekuta Manneh
 * Yankuba Minteh
 * Professor Lamin O. Sanneh, academician and author
 * Abdoulie Sanyang
 * Amadou Sanyang
 * Ebrima Sohna
 * Alagie Sosseh
 * Foday Musa Suso, international musician.
 * Mohamadou Sumareh
 * Momodou Touray
 * Saikou Touray

Guinea

 * Sekouba Bambino, Guinean musician

 * Abdoul Camara
 * Moussa Camara
 * Ibrahima Cissé
 * Momo Cissé
 * Seydouba Cissé
 * Alpha Condé, former Guinean President
 * Cheick Condé
 * Mamady Condé, Guinean foreign minister from 2004 to 2007
 * Sékou Condé, Guinean footballer
 * Sona Tata Condé, Guinean musician

 * Amadou Diawara
 * Djeli Moussa Diawara, Guinean musician (also known as Jali Musa Jawara - 32-stringed Kora player)
 * Kaba Diawara, Guinean footballer
 * Mamady Doumbouya, Guinean military officer

 * Daouda Jabi, Guinean footballer

 * Mamadi Kaba, Guinean footballer
 * Sory Kaba, Guinean footballer
 * Mamadou Kane
 * Mory Kanté, Guinean kora musician
 * Alhassane Keita, Guinean footballer
 * Mamady Keïta, Guinean musician
 * Naby Keita, Guinean footballer
 * Kabiné Komara, former Prime Minister of Guinea
 * Famoudou Konaté, Guinean musician
 * Mory Konaté
 * General Sékouba Konaté, former Head of State of Guinea
 * Lansana Kouyaté, former prime minister of Guinea
 * N'Faly Kouyate, Guinean musician

 * Fodé Mansaré, Guinean footballer

 * Petit Sory, Guinean footballer
 * Morlaye Sylla

 * Sekou Touré, President of Guinea from 1958 to 1984; grandson of Samory Touré
 * Diarra Traoré, former Prime Minister of Guinea
 * Samori Ture, founder of the Wassoulou Empire, an Islamic military state that resisted French rule in West Africa

 * Mohamed Yattara

Guinea Bissau

 * Aladje
 * Yalany Baio, Bissau-Guinean footballer
 * Mamadi Camará
 * Romário Baró
 * Mimito Biai, Bissau-Guinean footballer
 * Sana Canté, Bissau-Guinean activist
 * Rui Dabó, Bissau-Guinean footballer
 * Tomás Dabó, Bissau-Guinean footballer
 * João Jaquité, Bissau-Guinean footballer
 * Jorginho
 * Madi Queta, Bissau-Guinean footballer
 * Neemias Queta, Bissau-Guinean basketball player
 * Alfa Semedo
 * Panutche Camará, Bissau-Guinean footballer

Ivory Coast

 * Sidiki Bakaba, Ivorian actor and filmmaker
 * Alpha Blondy, Ivorian (reggae) musician
 * Ibrahim Cissé, Ivorian footballer
 * Sekou Cissé, Ivorian footballer
 * Fousseny Coulibaly, footballer
 * Kafoumba Coulibaly, footballer
 * Souleymane Coulibaly
 * Siriki Dembélé, Ivorian footballer
 * Henriette Diabaté, former Ivorian politician
 * Oumar Diakité
 * Ismaël Diomandé
 * Sinaly Diomande, footballer
 * Cheick Doukouré
 * Emmanuel Eboué, footballer
 * Tiken Jah Fakoly, Ivorian (reggae) musician
 * Moryké Fofana
 * Hassane Kamara, Ivorian Footballer
 * Abdul Kader Keïta, Ivorian footballer
 * Fadel Keïta
 * Karim Konaté, footballer
 * Arouna Koné, Ivorian footballer
 * Bakari Koné, Ivorian footballer
 * Moussa Koné
 * Tiassé Koné, Ivorian footballer
 * Ahmadou Kourouma, Ivorian writer
 * Alassane Ouattara, Côte d'Ivoire president ; Prime Minister of Côte d'Ivoire, 1990 - 1993
 * Badra Ali Sangaré
 * Ibrahim Sangaré
 * Alpha Sissoko
 * Guillaume Soro, Ivorian politician
 * Kolo Touré, Ivorian footballer
 * Sékou Touré Ivorian politician, environmental engineer, former UN Executive
 * Yaya Touré, Ivorian footballer
 * Abdou Razack Traoré
 * Adama Traoré
 * Hamed Traorè
 * Lacina Traoré
 * Marco Zoro, footballer

Liberia

 * Prince Balde
 * Momolu Dukuly, former Liberian Foreign Minister
 * Abu Kamara
 * Mohammed Kamara
 * Nohan Kenneh
 * Amara Mohamed Konneh, Minister of Finance
 * G. V. Kromah, member of the defunct Liberian Council of State
 * Alex Nimely
 * Sylvanus Nimely
 * Mohammed Sangare
 * Ansu Toure

Mali

 * Zoumana Camara
 * Soumaila Coulibaly, Malian footballer

 * Bako Dagnon, Malian female griot singer
 * Souleymane Dembélé
 * Cheick Diabaté, Malian footballer
 * Massa Makan Diabaté, Malian historian, writer and playwright
 * Mamadou Diabate, Malian musician
 * Toumani Diabaté, Malian musician
 * Drissa Diakité
 * Yoro Diakité, former Malian Prime Minister
 * Aboubacar Diarra
 * Mahamadou Diarra
 * Fatoumata Diawara, Malian musician
 * Fousseni Diawara, Malian footballer
 * Daba Diawara, Malian politician
 * Moussa Djenepo

 * Diaranké Fofana
 * Youssouf Fofana

 * Aoua Kéita, Malian politician and activist
 * Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, President of Mali, September 2013 - August 2020
 * Habib Keïta
 * Modibo Keïta, President of Mali from 1960 to 1968
 * Salif Keita, Malian musician
 * Seydou Keita, Malian footballer
 * Sundiata Keita, founder of the Mali Empire
 * Tiécoro Keita
 * Amy Koita, Malian musician
 * Ibrahima Konaté
 * Pa Konate
 * Sidy Koné
 * Makan Konaté
 * Moussa Kouyate, Malian musician

 * Mansa Musa, (c. 1280 – c. 1337), the ninth, especially renowned, Mansa (emperor) of the Mali Empire

 * Hadi Sacko
 * Oumou Sangaré, Malian musician
 * Djibril Sidibé, Malian footballer
 * Mamady Sidibé, Malian footballer
 * Modibo Sidibé, Prime Minister of Mali, 2007 - 2011
 * Baba Sissoko, Malian musician
 * Mohamed Sissoko, Malian footballer
 * Adama Soumaoro

 * Almamy Touré
 * Amadou Toumani Touré, President of Mali from 2002 to 2012
 * Birama Touré
 * Adama Traoré
 * Djimi Traoré
 * Dramane Traoré
 * Kalilou Traoré
 * Mahamane Traoré
 * Sidiki Diabaté

Senegal

 * Brancou Badio
 * Ibrahima Baldé
 * Keita Baldé, Senegalese footballer
 * Dawda Camara
 * Lamine Camara
 * Papa Demba Camara, Senegalese footballer
 * Souleymane Camara
 * Pathé Ciss
 * Aliou Cissé, former Senegalese footballer
 * Pape Abou Cissé

 * Papiss Cissé, Senegalese footballer
 * Aly Cissokho
 * Issa Cissokho
 * Abdou Diakhaté
 * Pape Diakhaté
 * Lamine Diatta
 * Krépin Diatta, Senegalese footballer
 * Souleymane Diawara, Senegalese footballer
 * Baba Diawara
 * Boukary Dramé, Senegalese footballer
 * Lamine Gassama, Senegalese footballer
 * Sidiki Kaba, Justice Minister of Senegal
 * General Balla Keita, MiNUSCA Force Commander
 * Seckou Keita, Senegalese musician
 * Kalidou Koulibaly
 * Moussa Konaté, Senegalese footballer
 * Cheikhou Kouyaté, Senegalese footballer
 * Moustapha Mbow
 * Opa Nguette, Senegalese footballer
 * Amadou Onana
 * Abdoulaye Sané
 * Lamine Sané, Senegalese footballer
 * Boubakary Soumaré
 * Tony Sylva
 * Amara Traoré, former Senegalese footballer
 * Aminata Touré, former Prime Minister of Senegal
 * Zargo Touré, Senegalese footballer

Sierra Leone

 * Amadou Bakayoko
 * Ibrahim Jaffa Condeh, Sierra Leonean journalist and news anchor

 * Kanji Daramy, journalist and spokesman for former Sierra Leone's president Ahmad Tejan Kabbah. He is also the former Chairman of Sierra Leone National Telecommunications Commission
 * Mabinty Daramy, current Sierra Leone's Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry
 * Mohamed B. Daramy, former minister of Development and Economic Planning from 2002 to 2007, former ECOWAS Commissioner of Income Tax

 * Kemoh Fadika, current Sierra Leone's High Commissioner to the Gambia and former High Commissioner to Nigeria, former Ambassador to Egypt and Iran.
 * Lansana Fadika, Sierra Leonean businessman and former SLPP chairman for the Western Area. He is the younger brother of Kemoh Fadika
 * Saidu Fofanah

 * Bomba Jawara, former MP of Sierra Leone from Koinadugu District (SLPP)

 * Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, President of Sierra Leone from 1996 to 2007
 * Haja Afsatu Kabba, former Sierra Leone's Minister of Marine Resources and Fisheries; Energy and Power; Lands
 * Karamoh Kabba, Sierra Leonean author, writer and journalist
 * Mohamed Kakay, former MP of Sierra Leone from Koinadugu District (SLPP)
 * Alhaji Kamara
 * Glen Kamara
 * Mohamed Kamara
 * Musa Noah Kamara
 * Saidu Bah Kamara
 * Kadijatu Kebbay, Sierra Leonean model; Miss University Sierra Leone 2006 winner and represent Sierra Leone at the Miss World 2006 contest
 * Brima Dawson Kuyateh, journalist and the current president of the Sierra Leone Reporters Union

 * Sidique Mansaray, Sierra Leonean footballer
 * Tejan Amadu Mansaray, former MP of Sierra Leone representing Koinadugu District (APC)

 * Shekuba Saccoh, former Sierra Leone's ambassador to Guinea and former Minister of Social Welfare
 * K-Man (born Mohamed Saccoh), Sierra Leonean musician
 * Alhaji A. B. Sheriff, former MP from Koinadugu District (SLPP)

 * Sheka Tarawalie, Sierra Leonean journalist and former State House Press Secretary to president Koroma. Former Deputy Minister of Information and current Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs.
 * Mohamed Buya Turay
 * Sitta Umaru Turay, Sierra Leonean journalist

Togo

 * Mohamed Kader Toure
 * Assimiou Touré

United States

 * Aboubacar Keita
 * Mo Bamba, professional basketball player
 * Martin Delany, abolitionist, journalist, physician and writer (had two Mandinka grandparents brought to America as slaves)
 * Alex Haley, writer, author of the 1976 book Roots: The Saga of an American Family
 * Kunta Kinte, documented captured Mandinka warrior during the last years of the Atlantic slave trade. He is Alex Haley's ancestor and the key character in Haley's book Roots, and is also portrayed in the record-breaking TV miniseries Roots.
 * Gabourey Sidibe, actress
 * Foday Musa Suso, griot musician and composer
 * Sheck Wes, rapper and professional basketball player.

title: Mandinka people


text:
HMAS Pioneer

HMAS Pioneer (formerly HMS Pioneer) was a Pelorus-class cruiser protected cruiser built for the Royal Navy at the end of the 19th century. She was transferred to the fledgling Royal Australian Navy (RAN) in 1912. During World War I, the cruiser captured two German merchant ships, and was involved in the East African Campaign, including the blockade of the cruiser SMS Königsberg and a bombardment of Dar-es-Salaam. She returned to Australia in late 1916 and was decommissioned. Pioneer was used as an accommodation ship for the following six years, then was stripped down and sold off by 1926. The cruiser was scuttled outside Sydney Heads in 1931.

Design and construction
Pioneer was a third-class protected cruiser of the nine-ship Pelorus or P class. These ships had a displacement of 2,200 tons, were 313 ft long overall and 305 ft long between perpendiculars, had a beam of 36 ft, and a draught of 15 ft. Propulsion was supplied by inverted three-cylinder triple expansion steam engines, providing 5000 ihp to two propeller shafts. Although designed to reach speeds of 20 kn, Pioneer was only capable of 19.5 kn.

The cruiser was armed with eight single QF 4 in guns, eight single QF 3-pounder guns, two field guns, three Maxim machine guns, and two 14 in torpedo tubes sited above the waterline. The ship's company initially stood at 225, but this was later reduced to 188; 12 officers, and 176 sailors.

Pioneer was laid down for the Royal Navy at HM Dockyard, Chatham, Kent on 16 December 1897. She was launched 28 June 1899 by Miss Andoe, daughter of the dockyard's admiral superintendent. Pioneer underwent steaming trials on 2 September making 17.6 knots during six runs over the measured mile off Maplin Sands. The cruiser was completed on 23 January 1900, and was placed in reserve until her commissioning on 10 July 1900.

Operational history
Pioneer spent the majority of 1900 in British waters, before sailing for the Mediterranean Fleet under the command of Commander Hugh Evan-Thomas on 15 November. Commander George Hope was appointed in command on 5 July 1902, taking up the command later that month after a visit by the ship to Brindisi. In late December 1902 she was in Greek waters when she visited Astakos in the Ionian Sea with HMS Irresistible and HMS Bulwark. The ship remained in the Mediterranean until returning to Chatham on 20 November 1904. Pioneer was decommissioned until 5 September 1905, when she was reactivated for service as a drill ship with the Australian Squadron of the Royal Navy.

On 29 November 1912, Pioneer was decommissioned and gifted to the Australian government, who commissioned the ship as part of the Royal Australian Navy on 1 March 1913. Initially used as a tender for the naval base at Garden Island, New South Wales, Pioneer was refitted during the second half of 1913, and on 1 January 1914, was reassigned for reservist training.

At the start of World War I, Pioneer sailed from Victoria to Western Australia, where she served as a patrol vessel. On 16 August, she captured the German merchant ship Neumunster, which was taken by the Australian government as a prize of war and renamed Cooee. Ten days later, the cruiser captured a second German ship, the Norddeutscher Lloyd liner Thuringen, which was presented to the government of India for use as a troop transport. On 1 November, Pioneer joined the escort of the convoy transporting the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps to Egypt as a replacement for the Japanese cruiser Nisshin, and with orders to check on the Cocos Islands during the voyage. However, as the Australian warship took up position, she suffered a major engine malfunction, and HMAS Sydney (1912) joined the convoy instead.

In late December, the cruiser was assigned to the blockade of German East Africa, and sailed for Zanzibar on 9 January 1915. On arrival, Pioneer was ordered to help contain the German cruiser SMS Königsberg in the Rufiji River and prevent German supply ships from arriving. Königsberg was scuttled on 12 July following shelling by two monitors, although Pioneer remained in the region until 31 August, when she sailed to Simon's Town in South Africa for a six-week refit. Pioneer returned to uneventful patrols of German East Africa on 22 October, and continued until early February 1916, when the Admiralty instructed the ship to return to Australia. However, before she could leave, demands by General Jan Smuts for more Admiralty involvement in the East African Campaign saw Pioneer return to patrols on 24 February. On 30 July, the cruiser fired 100 4-inch shells during the bombardment of Dar-es-Salaam.

Decommissioning and fate
Pioneer was ordered to return to Australia on 8 August 1916, and was paid off on 7 November 1916. Despite being "obsolete and decrepit" she saw more actual combat than any other Australian ship of World War I. Pioneer returned to Garden Island and was used as an accommodation vessel until 1922. She was handed to Cockatoo Island Dockyard for stripping in May 1923, was passed to the control of the Commonwealth Shipping Board in 1924, who then sold the hulk to H. P. Stacey of Sydney, in 1926. The ship was scuttled off Sydney Heads on 18 February 1931.

Wreck
The location of the wreck was lost until March 2014, when it was rediscovered by wreck-hunters analysing data taken from the research vessel Southern Surveyor. Pioneer's wreck sits 67 m below sea level, at -33.86417°N, 151.33073°W, approximately 4 km east of Vaucluse. The wreck lies with the bow towards the south-east, and is intact in places, with structures rising up to 5 m from the sea floor.

Honours and awards
Following a reorganisation of the RAN battle honours system, completed in March 2010, Pioneer was retroactively awarded the honour "German East Africa 1915–16" in recognition of her wartime service.

title: HMAS Pioneer


text:
Council of Science Editors

The Council of Science Editors (CSE), formerly the Council of Biology Editors (CBE; 1965–2000) and originally the Conference of Biology Editors (CBE; 1957–1965), is a United States–based nonprofit organization that supports editorial practice among scientific writers. In 2008, the CSE adopted the slogan "CSE: Education, Ethics, and Evidence for Editors (E4)".

A volunteer board of directors leads the Council, with the assistance of several committees. CSE is managed by Kellen Company, located in Wheat Ridge, Colorado.

History and organization
The organization was established in 1957 by the National Science Foundation and the American Institute of Biological Sciences as the Conference of Biology Editors (CBE). In 1965, the organization incorporated as the Council of Biology Editors "and soon thereafter expanded membership to include all scientific publishing endeavors from science editors to copy editors." On January 1, 2000, it was renamed the Council of Science Editors.

The membership of CSE comprises editorial professionals, mainly in the United States.

As well as providing services and advice online, CSE holds an annual meeting that includes short courses on topics such as journal editorship, publication management, manuscript editing, and journal metrics.

Publications
CSE publishes a style guide for scientific papers, Scientific Style and Format: The CSE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers, although CSE style is not as widely used as other scientific styles such as AMA style and APA style. In 2014, CSE partnered with the University of Chicago Press to use the successful online platform of The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS or CMS; which provides users with search and personal annotation of the manual) to publish Scientific Style and Format online. As of 2014, it is in the 8th edition. The 7th edition was published in 2006 and the 6th in 1994. Science Editor is the quarterly publication of the CSE; after one year, articles are available as open access (delayed open access).

title: Council of Science Editors


text:
Talk:Excellence In Broadcasting

Merovingian, I don't understand why you even made the edit. It's obvious that the caller was critical by the context of his words. I jazzed it up a little for you, but now it sounds stilted. H2O 01:01, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

This page was proposed for deletion January 2005. The discussion is archived at Votes for deletion/Excellence In Broadcasting. Joyous 12:09, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)

title: Talk:Excellence In Broadcasting


text:
Robert L. Stewart

Robert Lee Stewart (born August 13, 1942) is an American retired military officer and NASA astronaut who was a brigadier general of the United States Army.

Personal
Stewart was born August 13, 1942, in Washington, D.C. He graduated from Hattiesburg High School in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, in 1960. He also received a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from the University of Southern Mississippi in 1964, and a Master of Science degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington in 1972. Stewart is married and has two children.

His interests include woodworking, photography, and skiing.

Military career
Stewart entered on active duty with the United States Army in May 1964 and was assigned as an air defense artillery director at the 32nd NORAD Region Headquarters (SAGE), Gunter Air Force Base, Alabama. In July 1966, after completing rotary wing training at Fort Wolters, Texas, and Fort Rucker, Alabama, he was designated an Army Aviator. He flew 1,035 hours of combat time during Vietnam War from August 1966 to 1967, primarily as a fire team leader in the armed helicopter platoon of "A" Company, 101st Aviation Battalion (redesignated 336th Assault Helicopter Company). He was an instructor pilot at the U.S. Army Primary Helicopter School—serving one year in the pre-solo/primary-1 phase of instruction and about 6 months as commander of methods of instruction flight III, training rated aviators to become instructor pilots. He is a graduate of the U.S. Army Air Defense Artillery School's Air Defense Officers Advanced Course and Guided Missile Systems Officers Course. Stewart served in Seoul, South Korea, from 1972 to 1973, with the 309th Aviation Battalion (Combat) as a battalion operations officer and battalion executive officer. He next attended the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School at NAS Patuxent River, Maryland, completing the Rotary Wing Test Pilot Course in 1974, and was then assigned as an experimental test pilot to the U.S. Army Aviation Engineering Flight Activity at Edwards Air Force Base, California. His duties there included chief of the integrated systems test division, as well as participating in engineering flight tests of UH-1 and AH-1 helicopters and U-21 and OV-1 fixed wing aircraft, serving as project officer and senior test pilot on the Hughes YAH-64 advanced attack helicopter during government competitive testing; and participation with Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation test pilots in developing an electronic automatic flight control system for the new Army transport helicopter—the UH-60A Black Hawk.

He has military and civilian experience in 38 types of airplanes and helicopters and logged approximately 6,000 hours total flight time.

NASA career
Selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA in January 1978, Stewart became a NASA astronaut in August 1979. His technical duties in the Astronaut Office included: testing and evaluation of the entry flight control systems for STS-1 (the first Space Shuttle orbital mission), ascent abort procedures development, and payload coordination. He also served as support crewman for STS-4, and Ascent/Orbit CAPCOM for STS-5. He served as a mission specialist on STS-41-B in 1984 and STS-51-J in 1985, and logged a total of 289 hours in space, including approximately 12 hours of EVA operations.

Although astronauts who had served in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II (including Gus Grissom and Deke Slayton) had previously flown, Stewart was the first active-duty Army officer to make a spaceflight.

While in training for his scheduled third flight (STS-61-K, ultimately cancelled as a result of the Challenger disaster) in 1986, Stewart was selected by the Army for promotion to brigadier general. Upon accepting this promotion, Stewart was reassigned from NASA to be the Deputy Commanding General, U.S. Army Strategic Defense Command, in Huntsville, Alabama. In this capacity, Stewart managed research efforts in developing ballistic missile defense technology. He was reassigned as Director of Plans, United States Space Command, Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 1989.

Spaceflight experience
STS-41-B Challenger (February 3–11, 1984) was launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, and returned to land there 8 days later. During the mission, Stewart and fellow astronaut Bruce McCandless participated in two extravehicular activities (EVAs) to conduct first flight evaluations of the Manned Maneuvering Units (MMUs). These EVAs represented man's first untethered operations from a spacecraft in flight. Upon completion of this mission Stewart became the first Army officer awarded the Army Astronaut Badge.

Stewart first EVA, together with Bruce McCandless lasted 6 hours and 17 minutes. During the second EVA, Stewart used the MMU for an untethered spacewalk, lasted 5 hours and 55 minutes.

STS-51-J Atlantis (October 3–7, 1985) was launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, and after 98 hours of orbital operations returned to land at Edwards Air Force Base, California. It was the second Space Shuttle Department of Defense mission, and the maiden voyage of Atlantis. During the mission, he was responsible for a number of on-orbit activities.

Later career
Stewart retired from the Army in 1992 and made his home in Woodland Park, Colorado, for many years. He was employed as director of advanced programs at the Nichols Research Corporation in Colorado Springs, Colorado, before retiring. He later moved to Huntsville, Alabama, where he currently resides. He makes appearances at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, greeting visitors and signing autographs.

Organizations
He has been a member of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, Association of Space Explorers, Phi Eta Sigma, and the Scabbard and Blade (a military honor society).

Awards and honors

 * Distinguished Service Medal ribbon.svg Army Distinguished Service Medal
 * US Defense Superior Service Medal ribbon.svg Defense Superior Service Medal
 * Legion of Merit ribbon.svg Legion of Merit with oak leaf cluster
 * Distinguished Flying Cross ribbon.svg Distinguished Flying Cross with three oak leaf clusters
 * Bronze Star ribbon.svg Bronze Star
 * Purple Heart ribbon.svg Purple Heart with oak leaf cluster
 * Meritorious Service Medal ribbon.svg Meritorious Service Medal
 * Air Medal ribbon.svg Air Medal with six silver oak leaf clusters and two bronze oak leaf clusters
 * Army Commendation Medal ribbon.svg Army Commendation Medal with oak leaf cluster and Valor device
 * SpaceFltRib.svg NASA Space Flight Medals (1984 & 1985)
 * National Defense Service Medal ribbon.svg National Defense Service Medal
 * Armed Forces Expedtionary Medal ribbon.svg Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal
 * Vietnam Service Medal ribbon.svg Vietnam Service Medal
 * Vietnamese Gallantry Cross, with palm.svg Vietnam Cross of Gallantry
 * Vietnam Campaign Medal ribbon with 60- clasp.svg Vietnam Campaign Medal
 * Army Aviation Award of the Year, 1984
 * AHS Feinberg Memorial Award
 * AIAA Oberth Award

title: Robert L. Stewart


text:
Phosphatase

In biochemistry, a phosphatase is an enzyme that uses water to cleave a phosphoric acid monoester into a phosphate ion and an alcohol. Because a phosphatase enzyme catalyzes the hydrolysis of its substrate, it is a subcategory of hydrolases. Phosphatase enzymes are essential to many biological functions, because phosphorylation (e.g. by protein kinases) and dephosphorylation (by phosphatases) serve diverse roles in cellular regulation and signaling. Whereas phosphatases remove phosphate groups from molecules, kinases catalyze the transfer of phosphate groups to molecules from ATP. Together, kinases and phosphatases direct a form of post-translational modification that is essential to the cell's regulatory network.

Phosphatase enzymes are not to be confused with phosphorylase enzymes, which catalyze the transfer of a phosphate group from hydrogen phosphate to an acceptor. Due to their prevalence in cellular regulation, phosphatases are an area of interest for pharmaceutical research.

Biochemistry
Phosphatases catalyze the hydrolysis of a phosphomonoester, removing a phosphate moiety from the substrate. Water is split in the reaction, with the -OH group attaching to the phosphate ion, and the H+ protonating the hydroxyl group of the other product. The net result of the reaction is the destruction of a phosphomonoester and the creation of both a phosphate ion and a molecule with a free hydroxyl group.

Phosphatases are able to dephosphorylate seemingly different sites on their substrates with great specificity. Identifying the "phosphatase code," that is, the mechanisms and rules that govern substrate recognition for phosphatases, is still a work in progress, but the first comparative analysis of all the protein phosphatases encoded across nine eukaryotic 'phosphatome' genomes is now available. Studies reveal that so called "docking interactions" play a significant role in substrate binding. A phosphatase recognizes and interacts with various motifs (elements of secondary structure) on its substrate; these motifs bind with low affinity to docking sites on the phosphatase, which are not contained within its active site. Although each individual docking interaction is weak, many interactions occur simultaneously, conferring a cumulative effect on binding specificity. Docking interactions can also allosterically regulate phosphatases and thus influence their catalytic activity.

Functions
In contrast to kinases, phosphatase enzymes recognize and catalyze a wider array of substrates and reactions. For example, in humans, Ser/Thr kinases outnumber Ser/Thr phosphatases by a factor of ten. To some extent, this disparity results from incomplete knowledge of the human phosphatome, that is, the complete set of phosphatases expressed in a cell, tissue, or organism. Many phosphatases have yet to be discovered, and for numerous known phosphatases, a substrate has yet to be identified. However, among well-studied phosphatase/kinase pairs, phosphatases exhibit greater variety than their kinase counterparts in both form and function; this may result from the lesser degree of conservation among phosphatases.

Distinctions
Phosphatases should not be confused with phosphorylases, which add phosphate groups.

Protein phosphatases
A protein phosphatase is an enzyme that dephosphorylates an amino acid residue of its protein substrate. Whereas protein kinases act as signaling molecules by phosphorylating proteins, phosphatases remove the phosphate group, which is essential if the system of intracellular signaling is to be able to reset for future use. The tandem work of kinases and phosphatases constitute a significant element of the cell's regulatory network. Phosphorylation (and dephosphorylation) is among the most common modes of posttranslational modification in proteins, and it is estimated that, at any given time, up to 30% of all proteins are phosphorylated.

Two notable protein phosphatases are PP2A and PP2B. PP2A is involved in multiple regulatory processes, such as DNA replication, metabolism, transcription, and development. PP2B, also called calcineurin, is involved in the proliferation of T cells; because of this, it is the target of some drugs that seek to suppress the immune system.

Nucleotidases
A nucleotidase is an enzyme that catalyzes the hydrolysis of a nucleotide, forming a nucleoside and a phosphate ion. Nucleotidases are essential for cellular homeostasis, because they are partially responsible for maintaining a balanced ratio of nucleotides to nucleosides. Some nucleotidases function outside the cell, creating nucleosides that can be transported into the cell and used to regenerate nucleotides via salvage pathways. Inside the cell, nucleotidases may help to maintain energy levels under stress conditions. A cell deprived of oxygen and nutrients may catabolize more nucleotides to boost levels of nucleoside triphosphates such as ATP, the primary energy currency of the cell.

In gluconeogenesis
Phosphatases can also act on carbohydrates, such as intermediates in gluconeogenesis. Gluconeogenesis is a biosynthetic pathway wherein glucose is created from noncarbohydrate precursors; the pathway is essential because many tissues can only derive energy from glucose. Two phosphatases, glucose-6-phosphatase and fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase, catalyze irreversible steps in gluconeogenesis. Each cleaves a phosphate group from a six-carbon sugar phosphate intermediate.

Classification
Within the larger class of phosphatase, the Enzyme Commission recognizes 104 distinct enzyme families. Phosphatases are classified by substrate specificity and sequence homology in catalytic domains. Despite their classification into over one hundred families, all phosphatases still catalyze the same general hydrolysis reaction.

In in-vitro experiments, phosphatase enzymes seem to recognize many different substrates, and one substrate may be recognized by many different phosphatases. However, when experiments have been carried out in-vivo, phosphatase enzymes have been shown to be incredibly specific. In some cases, a protein phosphatase (i.e. one defined by its recognition of protein substrates) can catalyze the dephosphorylation of nonprotein substrates. Similarly, dual-specificity tyrosine phosphatases can dephosphorylate not only tyrosine residues, but also serine residues. Thus, one phosphatase can exhibit the qualities of multiple phosphatase families.

title: Phosphatase