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Trinity (The Matrix)

Trinity is a fictional character in the Matrix franchise. She is portrayed by Carrie-Anne Moss in the films. In the gameplay segments of Path of Neo, she is voiced by Jennifer Hale. Trinity first appears in the 1999 film The Matrix.

Character overview
Like the series' other main characters, Trinity is a computer programmer and a hacker who has escaped from the Matrix, a sophisticated computer program where most humans are imprisoned. Though few specifics are revealed about her previous life inside the Matrix, it is told that she cracked a database so secure that she is famous among hackers, and that Morpheus, one of a number of real-world hovercraft commanders, initially identified her and helped her escape from the program. At the beginning of the series, she is first mate on Morpheus' Nebuchadnezzar and serves mainly as a go-between for him and the individuals he wishes to free from the Matrix. As the series progresses, her primary importance as a character becomes her close relationship with Neo. She is skilled with computers, at operating vehicles both inside and outside the Matrix, and in martial arts.

The Matrix
Trinity is first introduced at the beginning of The Matrix, in a phone conversation with Cypher, which is heard offscreen. This cuts to a dingy hotel room fight scene between Trinity and a group of police officers. Also on hand are Agents, sentient programs that police the Matrix to pinpoint potential troublemakers and neutralize them.

Trinity is next seen communicating with Neo for Morpheus in several encounters. Eventually, she and the rest of the Nebuchadnezzar's crew unplug Neo from the Matrix and begin his training as a new recruit in the war against the machines. She participates in several missions into the Matrix, including taking Neo to The Oracle, a sentient program inside the Matrix who seems, almost paradoxically, to possess greatly enhanced powers of intuition and foresight.

Throughout the film, it is apparent that Trinity has been in love with Neo from afar for some time, although she continues to conceal her feelings for him. Near the end of the first film, after he is killed by Agent Smith inside the Matrix, she speaks to his interfaced physical body and reveals that the Oracle told her that she would fall in love with The One, a prophesied individual capable of manipulating the Matrix to an unprecedented degree. She then kisses him, whereupon he miraculously returns to life both in the real world and within the Matrix. The resurrected Neo easily defeats the three Agents and returns to his body back on the ship. The first film ends with Neo returning to the Matrix to show people still unknowingly trapped there what they, too, might achieve someday. This marks the beginning of a romantic relationship between Neo and Trinity which proves decisive in the outcome of the series.

The Matrix Reloaded
In The Matrix Reloaded, the second film in the series, Trinity aids in the rescue of the Keymaker from the Merovingian and in the subsequent escape. Later, when the crews of the Nebuchadnezzar and two other ships team up to destroy an electric power station so that Neo can reach the Source (the machine mainframe), Trinity stays out of the Matrix at Neo's request. However, she later enters the Matrix after the mission goes wrong and is mortally wounded by an Agent's gunshot. At the same time, Neo is given a choice by the Architect between reaching the Source and preserving humanity, or returning to the Matrix to save Trinity. He chooses to save Trinity, interfacing with the computer code of her virtual self to extract the bullet and restart her heart.

The Matrix Revolutions
In The Matrix Revolutions, the third installment of the Matrix series, Trinity helps rescue Neo from a cut-off segment of the Matrix, where he is being held by a program in the employ of the Merovingian. In the real world, Trinity goes with Neo to the Machine City in an attempt to negotiate with the Machines. While attempting to evade Machine pursuers, their hovercraft crashes, and Trinity is fatally impaled by a piece of rebar. She dies in Neo's arms, and he negotiates a truce with the Machines to enter the Matrix and wipe out the Agent Smith infection. Afterward, the Architect meets with the Oracle and promises that any humans wishing to leave the Matrix will be freed.

The Matrix Resurrections
In the fourth film The Matrix Resurrections, during the 60 year time period after Trinity's death in the Machine City, and the subsequent end of the Machine War, her body was recovered by the machines and is revived, only appearing to age twenty years due to the machine's modifications. Trinity was reinserted into the Matrix, where she was given the name "Tiffany" and became a married mother of three. She kept her penchant for motorcycles, working in a motorcycle workshop. She comes into contact with Neo at Simulatte, as his original identity of Thomas Anderson and she begins to feel that something is not right with her life.

After Neo is reawakened, he sees Trinity still-plugged-in body in a pod across from him before he is retrieved by machines allied to the humans. Neo enacts a plan to rescue her, but is interrupted by the Analyst; who enters Bullet Time to stop Neo and Trinity from reaching each other. The Analyst reveals that as a machine he had rebuilt Neo and Trinity in the real world by discovering that by keeping Neo and Trinity close but not too close to each other they generated a new form of energy that could give more power to the machines when channeled through the Matrix. Then he built a new matrix with that in mind, posing as its new Architect. In order to keep them subdued, the Analyst suppressed all memories of their life before reinsertion and invented a family for Tiffany in order to dissuade Neo from attempting to form a romantic relationship with her, while himself posing as a therapist for Neo. He also created an illusion that covered their real faces.

After Sati contacts Niobe, Neo enacts a new plan to rescue Trinity, agreeing to the Analyst's terms that if Trinity chooses to remain Tiffany, then he will surrender. Tiffany arrives at Simulatte and she appears to reject Neo. However, before her husband can take her from Simulatte, Trinity wakes up and rejects the life created by the Analyst. The Analyst enters Bullet Time again to try and kill Trinity, but is killed by Smith; who can also enter Bullet Time, with a purging gun. Trinity and Neo fight the Analyst's and suites forces and escape into a skyscraper, where they are pursued by helicopters. Neo destroys the helicopters, but they are surrounded by police. Neo and Trinity jump from the building, and Trinity is revealed to have developed the ability to fly on her own and they do not die as she saw in her nightmare.

After Trinity is released from the Matrix, she embraces Neo. They re-enter the Matrix to tell the (apparently) alive Analyst that they plan on redesigning the Matrix as they see fit and to warn him to stay out of their way and the Analyst mentions that the leaders of machines, "the suits", did not purge him. The two then fly off together, circling each other while holding hands.

Other appearances
In the video game Enter the Matrix, Trinity appears in a scene where she faces off against Ghost in a practice spar, the two subsequently discussing their shared belief that Neo can defeat the Machines. Over the course of the game, it is heavily implied, although never expressly stated, that Ghost is in love with Trinity, but that she regards him as a brother for their having been freed from the Matrix at or near the same time.

Her role in The Matrix: Path of Neo is relatively similar to her appearances with Neo in the films; she has a spar with him during his sword-fighting training, accompanies him during the raid on the military building to rescue Morpheus (subsequently helping him to defeat an Agent on the rooftop), and is later rescued by him from some attacking Agents after the last meeting with the assorted ship captains.

Trinity also appears in The Animatrix and The Matrix Comics.

The Matrix Online
Despite having "died" during the course of the third film, Trinity made a return to the series in the official continuation, The Matrix Online. Taking on a major role in the game's final chapters it is revealed both she and Neo are actually the culmination of decades of Machine research into translating human DNA perfectly into Machine code, allowing them to interface directly with technology without the need for simulated interfaces. Originally developed by The Oracle, this program is called The Biological Interface Program and is strongly sought after by the Oligarchy as a means to transfer their digital minds to physical bodies instead of the mechanical androids they had developed.

Without a physical form, Trinity takes the appearance of a floating figure made of golden code when within The Matrix. Initially distraught with her condition, she eventually finds solace in the fact her existence is the key to finally rebooting the Matrix and erasing Oligarch override control once and for all.

She ultimately meets her end in the Source of The Matrix, merging with a human inside the core of the Machine code base itself, combining the three core groups; Man, Machine and Program. This initializes the final reboot sequence, removing the Oligarch control and allowing the Machines to finally exist without fear of cruel masters.

Casting choices
A certain number of actresses were considered for the role of Trinity. They include: Jennifer Connelly, Jada Pinkett-Smith, Janet Jackson, Marisa Tomei, Ashley Judd, Salma Hayek, Angelina Jolie, Michelle Yeoh, Jennifer Lopez, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Drew Barrymore, Gabrielle Union, Kate Hudson, Uma Thurman, Jennifer Beals, Mariska Hargitay, Lucy Liu, Courteney Cox, Angie Harmon, Ming-Na Wen, Elizabeth Hurley, Sandra Bullock, Gillian Anderson, Heather Graham, Rosie Perez, Winona Ryder as well as Madonna who has revealed that she had turned the role down and has admitted regretting that decision.

Name
The name "Trinity" is heavily associated with Christian theology, which involves the Trinity: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. When she cracks the IRS database before her release from the Matrix, she chooses the hacker handle "Trinity" to imply that she is as enigmatic as the concept of a "Three-In-One Being". Trinity is the force who guides Neo to his "salvation," as well as commanding Neo to rise up from his apparent death in the first film, implying a further parallel between her character and God.

The name Trinity increased in popularity as a given name for female babies born after the release of The Matrix in 1999. In the United States, the name had been increasing in popularity throughout the 1990s, and was the 523rd most popular by 1998. In 1999 it was 209th, and in 2000 it was 74th. It peaked as 48th most popular in 2004 and 2005, and remained in the top 100 female baby names until 2012.

Skills and abilities
Throughout the Matrix franchise, Trinity is shown to have many skills both inside and outside the Matrix, including martial arts, computer hacking, the use of firearms and other weapons, and operating a range of vehicles. Some of these skills can be downloaded from outside the Matrix as needed, such as when Trinity flies a helicopter during the first film. Other skills are trained or inherent.

Trinity is seen to be especially skilled at the use of cars, motorcycles, and other vehicles, even in comparison to other hackers. In the first film, she pilots a Bell 212 helicopter to help rescue Morpheus; even after its hydraulic system is damaged, she maintains control long enough to get Neo and Morpheus to safety, then jumps out before it crashes. In The Matrix Reloaded, she drives a Cadillac sedan with ease while being chased by the Merovingian's twins, agents of the Matrix, and the police; even able to drive while helping Morpheus protect the Keymaker from one of the twins. She also carries the Keymaker to safety on a Ducati 996 motorcycle in a harrowing chase through oncoming traffic.

Trinity also excels in combat, both armed and unarmed. At several times during the three films, she is able to defeat large numbers of well-armed opponents, either by herself or with help from other characters.

In The Matrix Resurrections, Trinity develops the same reality warping powers as Neo after being reawakened to her true identity. By touching hands, Neo and Trinity can let out a powerful telekinetic shockwave and she is later able to manipulate the appearance of the Analyst with just snaps of her fingers. Trinity also develops Neo's ability to fly after they jump off of a roof and he can't fly himself. At the end of the movie, Trinity and Neo fly off together, playfully circling around each other.

title: Trinity (The Matrix)


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Black Ships

The Black Ships (in 黒船, Edo period term) were the Western vessels arriving in Japan in the 16th and 19th centuries.

In 1543, Portuguese initiated the first contacts, establishing a trade route linking Goa to Nagasaki. The large carracks engaged in this trade had the hull painted black with pitch, and the term came to represent all Western vessels. In 1639, after suppressing a rebellion blamed on the influence of Christian thought, the ruling Tokugawa shogunate retreated into an isolationist policy, the Sakoku. During this "locked state", contact with Japan by Westerners was restricted to Dutch traders on Dejima island at Nagasaki.

In 1844, William II of the Netherlands urged Japan to also open the mainland to trade, but was rejected. On July 8, 1853, the U.S. Navy sent four warships into the bay at Edo and threatened to attack if Japan did not begin trade with the West. The ships were Mississippi, Plymouth, Saratoga, and Susquehanna of the Expedition for the opening of Japan, under the command of Commodore Matthew Perry. The expedition arrived on July 14, 1853 at Uraga Harbor (present-day Yokosuka) in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. Though their hulls were not black, their coal-fired steam engines belched black smoke.

Their arrival marked the reopening of the country to political dialogue after more than two hundred years of self-imposed isolation. Trade with Western nations followed five years later with the Treaty of Amity and Commerce. After this, the kurofune became a symbol of the end of isolation.

First kurofune ships: nau do trato

In 1543 Portuguese traders arrived in Japan initiating the first contacts with the West. Soon they established a trade route linking their headquarters in Goa, via Malacca to Nagasaki. Large carracks engaged in the flourishing "Nanban trade", introducing modern inventions from the European traders, such as refined sugar, optics, and firearms; it was the firearms, arquebuses, which became a major innovation of the Sengoku period—a time of intense internal warfare—when the matchlocks were replicated. Later, they engaged in triangular trade, exchanging silver from Japan with silk from China via Macau.

Carracks of 1200 to 1600 tons, named nau do trato ('treaty ship') or nau da China by the Portuguese, engaged in this trade had the hull painted black with pitch, and the term came to apply for all western vessels. The name was inscribed in the Nippo Jisho, the first western Japanese dictionary compiled in 1603.

In 1549 Spanish missionary Francis Xavier started a Jesuit mission in Japan. Christianity spread, mingled with the new trade, making 300,000 converts among peasants and some daimyō (warlords). In 1637 the Shimabara Rebellion blamed on the Christian influence was suppressed. Portuguese traders and Jesuit missionaries faced progressively tighter restrictions, and were confined to the island of Dejima before being expelled in 1639.

The Tokugawa shogunate retreated back into a policy of isolationism identified as Sakoku (鎖国), forbidding contact with most outside countries. Only a limited-scale trade and diplomatic relations with China, Korea, the Ryukyu Islands, and the Dutch was maintained. The Sakoku policy remained in effect until 1853 with the arrival of Commodore Perry and the "opening" of Japan.

Gunboat diplomacy
Commodore Perry's superior military force was the principal factor in negotiating a treaty allowing American trade with Japan, thus effectively ending the Sakoku period of more than 200 years in which trading with Japan had been permitted to the Dutch, Koreans, Chinese, and Ainu exclusively.

The sight of the four ships entering Edo Bay, roaring black smoke into the air and capable of moving under their own power, deeply frightened the Japanese. Perry ignored the requests arriving from the shore that he should move to Nagasaki—the official port for trade with the outside—and threatened in turn to take his ships directly to Edo, and burn the city to the ground if he was not allowed to land. It was eventually agreed upon that he should land nearby at Kurihama, whereupon he delivered his letter and left.

The following year, at the Convention of Kanagawa, Perry returned with a fleet of eight of the fearsome Black Ships, to demonstrate the power of the United States navy, and to lend weight to his announcement that he would not leave again, until he had a treaty. In the interim, after a debate by officials the Japanese government had decided to avoid war and agree to a treaty with the United States.

After roughly a month of negotiations, the shōgun's officials presented Perry with the Treaty of Peace and Amity. Perry refused certain conditions of the treaty but agreed to defer their resolution to a later time, and finally establishing formal diplomatic relations between Japan and the United States. The fleet departed, leaving behind a consul, Townsend Harris, at Shimoda to negotiate a more permanent agreement. The Harris Treaty was signed with the United States on July 29, 1858, and within five years of the signing of the Treaty of Peace and Amity, Japan had moved to sign treaties with other Western countries.

In Japanese culture
The surprise and fear inspired by the first visit of the Black Ships are described in this famous kyōka (a humorous poem in 31-syllable waka form):

This poem is a complex set of puns (in Japanese, kakekotoba or "pivot words"). means 'tranquil'; is the name of a costly brand of green tea containing large amounts of caffeine; and  means 'four cups', so a literal translation of the poem is: "Awoken from sleep of a peaceful quiet world by Jokisen tea; with only four cups of it one can't sleep even at night."

There is an alternative translation, based on the pivot words. Taihei can refer to the "Pacific Ocean" (太平); jōkisen also means 'steam-powered ships' ; and shihai also means 'four vessels'. The poem, therefore, has a hidden meaning: "Breaking the halcyon slumber of the Pacific; The steam-powered ships, a mere four boats are enough to make us lose sleep at night."

Kurofune ("The Black Ships") is also the title of the first Japanese opera, composed by Kosaku Yamada and premiering in 1940, "based on the story of Tojin Okichi, a geisha caught up in the turmoil that swept Japan in the waning years of the Tokugawa shogunate".

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

title: Black Ships


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Talk:Cerebrum

Lehession (talk) 02:46, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Definition
I'm missing a short definition of cerebrum in the first sentence and/or disambiguation hatnotes. Is cerebrum a part of the brain, a synonym for brain or just the latin word for human brain? Isheden (talk) 16:37, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
 * ✅ (not by me though).  Lova Falk     talk   16:12, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

"Superior-most region"
The beginning of the article says that "the cerebrum is the superior-most region of the central nervous system". While, as a layman in this area, I do have an idea of what "superior-most" mean (my guess is "uppermost" in a standing human), I am not sure, and even when I followed the link to superior-most and tried to read what it said there, I still found no answer; I was actually just more puzzled (or confirmed in my uncertainty), as it says this:

"In Man, the directional terms "superior" and "inferior" essentially refer to this rostrocaudal dimension, because our body axis is roughly oriented vertically in the erect position. However, all vertebrates develop a kink in the neural tube that is still detectable in the adult central nervous system, known as the cephalic flexure. The latter bends the rostral part of the CNS at a 90 degree angle relative to the caudal part, at the transition between the forebrain and the brainstem and spinal cord. This change in axial dimension is problematic when trying to describe relative position and sectioning planes in the brain."

What I am left with is only an "essential" (non-complete) definition and a statement that it is "problematic", and I am still not sure if "superior-most" means "uppermost" or "frontmost" when talking about the brain or the nervous system.

This might mostly be a problem with the section "Orientation in neuroanatomy" in the neuroanatomy article (it is not very easy to read if you just want a quick answer for a human orientational term, as the article tries to be general for all animals), but it could also help if it was made clearer in this article, for instance by stating " (uppermost)" or " (frontmost)" after "superior-most".

I was also thinking about changing the "superior-most" link to refer to Anatomical terms of location instead, as it gives a more direct description of superior and inferior which leaves me 99% sure it means "uppermost" (or "uppermost in a standing human") in this case.

Can anyone medically educated (or anyone through a credible reference) clear the last 1% of doubt in me? Does superior-most mean uppermost in this case? --Jhertel (talk) 19:03, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

 * Hi Jhertel it can only mean uppermost in the context - unless somebody knows better! Have changed it. cheers --Iztwoz (talk) 21:11, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Iztwoz! --Jhertel (talk) 13:59, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

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Phylogeny
I deleted the sentence ″The cerebrum is the newest structure in the phylogenetic sense, and in mammals it is the largest and most developed, out of all known species.″ Reason: The cerebrum is not phylogenetically newer than other parts of the brain: every known vertebrate, extant of fossil has (had) a cerebrum. The second part of the sentence is meaningless nonsense (if it is to refer to the large human cerebrum, elephants and some whales have bigger cerebrums). Marci68 (talk) 08:00, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

 * the second part doesn't seem to be meaningless nonsense, but just a gross summary of different proportions of the brain parts, in different branches of animals, which seems to be roughly correct, if these diagrams are representative of the groups. I don't see why humans specifically would be implicitly the only "mammals" on the phrase. And even the preceding part is arguably just a somewhat poor phrasing of evolutionary history. The brain didn't arise "fully formed" in evolution, even if a primitive telencephalon was already present in the earliest vertebrates. It's absent in amphioxi and tunicate larvae, AFAIK, although researches speculate potential analogies between it and their primitive ganglia. Once the "tripartite" brain is fully there, its parts don't evolve all at the same rate, but there's this "correlation" of further development of the telencephalon in more "advanced" animals, with things like the already mentioned proportionately larger cerebrum in mammals, but also extant birds having it larger than their dinosaur relatives and even extinct birds, phylogenetically more basal. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 45.234.133.142 (talk) 17:20, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Lobes of the brain
In this article and in the text of the illustration the four lobes are summed up incorrectly as the frontal, parietal, temporal, and occipital lobes.

Embryologically, the (human) cerebrum is a c-shaped structure and therefore the four lobes of its cortex (frontal, parietal, occipital and temporal) are named in a specific order, as indicated in the anatomy template below and in wiki/Cerebral_cortex and Lobes_of_the_brain. --Tmajoor (talk) 09:04, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

 * You are welcome to edit the article to change this, but I wouldn't say that "incorrect" is quite the right word. With the exception of the frontal-parietal boundary (which follows the central sulcus), the lobes are defined by the overlying bones of the skull and not by any aspect of internal brain structure, so the rules governing their use are essentially arbitrary. Looie496 (talk) 12:59, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

Self-referential etymology
Can anyone explain what the article means by "The Latin word cerebrum comes from Latin cerebrum, meaning 'brain'."? Because to me this sounds like a joke from a Clyde Crashcup cartoon. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.121.6.113 (talk) 19:00, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Translations

 * Greek: ο άνωνους (masculine) (νους etymologically means mind and not brain, but etymology is not the same as meaning/definition/word interpretation)

Telencephalon
"Telencephalon" redirects to this page, and is used on the body of the article, but is not explained. I have found some sources that says the telencephalon and the cerebrum are the same thing, while others say "The telencephalon includes the cerebrum and olfactory bulbs". This is a key piece of terminology that should be explained at the top of the article. Jess_Riedel (talk) 15:37, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
 * In any case, there's no purpose in having a link for "telencephalon" if it merely redirects to the same page (Cerebrum). I'd remove the link.Omc (talk) 02:29, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Anatomy
Why cerebrum is called cerebrum 2402:8100:3855:9E2F:B498:1FB7:3D54:5C3C (talk) 03:47, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Apparently it's not the largest brain part in fishes, at least
"The cerebrum is the largest part of the brain," stated at least twice, in different sections. But at least in fishes, the cerebellum is apparently larger. It in fact changes its proportions considerably even within the same group of animals, with some apparent phylogenetic trend. 45.234.133.142 (talk) 21:22, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

"Cerebrum(brain struture)" listed at Redirects for discussion
The redirect [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cerebrum(brain_struture)&redirect=no Cerebrum(brain struture)] has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at  until a consensus is reached. Steel1943 (talk) 17:03, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Cerebrum


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Burst mode

Burst mode may refer to:

Science and technology

 * Burst mode (computing), a data transmission mode
 * Burst mode (weapon), a firing mode
 * Burst mode (photography), a camera mode
 * Bursting or burst mode, a mode in neurons

Other uses

 * Burst mode, a type of creature in Digimon Data Squad in the Digimon fictional universe

title: Burst mode


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Japanese National Railways

The Japanese National Railways (日本国有鉄道) abbreviated JNR or Kokutetsu (国鉄), was the business entity that operated Japan's national railway network from 1949 to 1987.

Railways
As of June 1, 1949, the date of establishment of JNR, it operated 19756.8 km of narrow gauge railways in all 46 prefectures of Japan. This figure expanded to 21421.1 km in 1981 (excluding Shinkansen), but later reduced to 19633.6 km as of March 31, 1987, the last day of JNR.

JNR operated both passenger and freight services.

Shinkansen

Shinkansen, the world's first high-speed railway was debuted by JNR in 1964. By the end of JNR in 1987, four lines had been constructed:
 * Tōkaidō Shinkansen: 515.4 km, completed in 1964
 * Sanyō Shinkansen: 553.7 km, completed in 1975
 * Tōhoku Shinkansen: 492.9 km, as of 1987
 * Jōetsu Shinkansen: 269.5 km, completed in 1982

Buses
JNR operated bus lines as feeders, supplements or substitutions of railways. Unlike railway operation, JNR Bus was not superior to other local bus operators. The JR Bus companies are the successors of the bus operation of JNR.

Ships
JNR operated ferries to connect railway networks separated by sea or to meet other local demands:
 * Kanmon Ferry (discontinued in 1964): Shimonoseki Station (Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi) – Mojikō Station (Kitakyūshū, Fukuoka)
 * Miyajima Ferry: Miyajimaguchi Station (Ōno, Hiroshima) – Miyajima Station (Miyajima, Hiroshima)
 * Nihori Ferry (discontinued in 1982): Nigata Station (Kure, Hiroshima) – Horie Station (Matsuyama, Ehime)
 * Ōshima Ferry (discontinued in 1976): Ōbatake Station (Yanai, Yamaguchi) – Komatsukō Station (Suō-Ōshima, Yamaguchi)
 * Seikan Ferry: Aomori Station (Aomori, Aomori) – Hakodate Station (Hakodate, Hokkaidō)
 * Ukō Ferry: Uno Station (Tamano, Okayama) – Takamatsu Station (Takamatsu, Kagawa)

Out of three routes assigned to JR companies in 1987, only the Miyajima Ferry remains active as of 2023.

Unions
A number of unions represented workers at JNR, including the National Railway Workers' Union (Kokuro), the National Railway Locomotive Engineers' Union (Doro), and Doro-Chiba, a break-away group from Doro.

History

The term Kokuyū Tetsudō "state-owned railway" originally referred to a network of railway lines operated by 17 private companies that were nationalized following the Railway Nationalization Act of 1906 and placed under the control of the Railway Institute. Later, the Ministry of Railways and the Ministry of Transportation and Communications took over control of the network. The ministries used the name Japanese Government Railways (JGR) to refer their network in English. During World War II, many JGR lines were dismantled to supply steel for the war effort.

On June 1, 1949, by a directive of the U.S. General HQ in Tokyo, JGR was reorganized into Japanese National Railways, a state-owned public corporation. JNR enjoyed many successes, including the inauguration of high-speed Shinkansen service along the Tōkaidō Shinkansen line on October 1, 1964. However, JNR was not a state-run corporation; its accounting was independent from the national budget. Rural sections without enough passengers began to press its management, pulling it further and further into debt. In 1983, JNR started to close its unprofitable 83 local lines (the closure continued three years after the privatization).

By 1987, JNR's debt was over ¥27 trillion ($442 billion at 2021 exchange rates) and the company was spending ¥147 for every ¥100 earned. Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, an avowed fan of privatization, strongly supported breaking up JNR and in August 1982 launched the JNR Reform Commission to officially begin the process. By an act of the Diet of Japan, on April 1, 1987, JNR was privatized and divided into seven railway companies, six passenger and one freight, collectively called the Japan Railways Group or JR Group. Long-term liabilities of JNR were taken over by the Japanese National Railway Settlement Corporation. That corporation was subsequently disbanded on October 22, 1998, and its remaining debts were transferred to the national budget's general accounting. By this time the debt has risen to ¥30 trillion ($491 billion in 2021 dollars).

JNR dismissal lawsuit
Many lawsuits and labor commission cases were filed over the decades from the privatization in 1987. Kokuro and the National Railway Locomotive Engineers' Union (Zendoro), both prominent Japanese railway unions, represented a number of the JNR workers.

Lists of workers to be employed by the new organizations were drawn up by JNR and given to the JR companies. There was substantial pressure on union members to leave their unions, and within a year, the membership of the National Railway Workers' Union (Kokuro) fell from 200,000 to 44,000. Workers who had supported the privatization, or those who left Kokuro, were hired at substantially higher rates than Kokuro members.

There was a government pledge that no one would be "thrown out onto the street", and so unhired workers were classified as "needing to be employed" and were transferred to the JNR Settlement Corporation, where they could be assigned for up to three years. Around 7,600 workers were transferred in this way, and around 2,000 of them were hired by JR firms, and 3,000 found work elsewhere. Mitomu Yamaguchi, a former JNR employee from Tosu in Saga prefecture who had been transferred to the JNR Settlement Corporation, later stated that their help in finding work consisted of giving him photocopies of recruitment ads from newspapers. This period ended in April 1990, and 1,047 were dismissed. This included 64 Zendoro members and 966 Kokuro members.

Twenty-three years after the original privatization, on June 28, 2010, the Supreme Court settled the dispute between the workers and the Japan Railway Construction, Transport and Technology Agency, the successor body to the JNR Settlement Corporation. The agency said it would pay 20 billion yen, approximately 22 million yen per worker, to 904 plaintiffs. However, as the workers were not reinstated, it was not a full settlement.

Baseball team
Between 1950 and 1965, JNR indirectly owned a professional baseball team named Kokutetsu Swallows (国鉄スワローズ). Swallow was a symbol of JNR as it is the English equivalent of the Japanese Tsubame, the name of a deluxe train operated by JNR in the 1950s. JNR sold the team to the Sankei Shinbun in 1965, and called the Atoms from 1966 to 1973; the team is now the Tokyo Yakult Swallows and has been owned by the Yakult company since 1970.

Accidents
JNR as a public corporation (from 1949 to 1987) experienced five major accidents (including two shipwrecks of railway ferries) with casualties more than 100:
 * Sakuragichō train fire: A train fire at Sakuragichō Station in Yokohama on April 24, 1951, killed 106.
 * Tōya Maru disaster: A Seikan ferryboat sank off Hakodate killing 1,155 in a typhoon storm on September 26, 1954.
 * Shiun Maru disaster: An Ukō ferryboat collided with a fellow boat in a dense fog and sank killing 168 on May 11, 1955.
 * Mikawashima train crash: A three-train collision near Mikawashima Station in Tokyo on May 3, 1962, killed 160.
 * Tsurumi rail accident: A three-train collision near Tsurumi Station in Yokohama on November 9, 1963, killed 161.

Criminal incidents
In its very early days as a public corporation, JNR experienced a series of mysterious incidents as follows. Although the police at that time treated them as terrorism by the communists, doubts have been raised as to the validity of this conclusion.

 * Shimoyama incident : The dismembered body of JNR President Sadanori Shimoyama was found on a railway track on July 5, 1949. The possibility of non-criminal suicide has not been ruled out.
 * Mitaka incident : A train running without crew crashed into passengers and killed six people on July 15, 1949.
 * Matsukawa derailment : A train was derailed because of destroyed track and three crew were killed on August 17, 1949.

In later years, JNR was a target of radical leftists. On October 21, 1968, groups of extremist students celebrating "International Antiwar Day" occupied and vandalized Shinjuku Station in Tokyo. They criticized JNR's collaboration in the Vietnam War by operating freight trains carrying jet fuel for U.S. military use. On November 29, 1985, militants supporting a radical sect of JNR's labor union objecting to the privatization of JNR damaged signal cables at 33 points around Tokyo and Osaka to halt thousands of commuter trains and then set fire to Asakusabashi Station in Tokyo.

As such, relationships with labor unions were always a difficult problem for JNR. Since public workers were prohibited to strike, they carried out "work-to-rule protests" that caused trains to be delayed. On March 13, 1973, train delays caused by such protests resulted in a riot of angered passengers at Ageo Station in Saitama Prefecture. From November 26, 1975, to December 3, 1975, major labor unions of JNR conducted an eight-day-long illegal "strike for the right to strike", which resulted in a total defeat of the unions.

title: Japanese National Railways


text:
Directional derivative

A directional derivative is a concept in multivariable calculus that measures the rate at which a function changes in a particular direction at a given point.

The directional derivative of a multivariable differentiable (scalar) function along a given vector v at a given point x intuitively represents the instantaneous rate of change of the function, moving through x with a velocity specified by v.

The directional derivative of a scalar function f with respect to a vector v at a point (e.g., position) x may be denoted by any of the following: $$\nabla_{\mathbf{v}}{f}(\mathbf{x})=f'_\mathbf{v}(\mathbf{x})=D_\mathbf{v}f(\mathbf{x})=Df(\mathbf{x})(\mathbf{v})=\partial_\mathbf{v}f(\mathbf{x})=\mathbf{v}\cdot{\nabla f(\mathbf{x})}=\mathbf{v}\cdot \frac{\partial f(\mathbf{x})}{\partial\mathbf{x}}.$$

It therefore generalizes the notion of a partial derivative, in which the rate of change is taken along one of the curvilinear coordinate curves, all other coordinates being constant. The directional derivative is a special case of the Gateaux derivative.

Definition

The directional derivative of a scalar function $$f(\mathbf{x}) = f(x_1, x_2, \ldots, x_n)$$ along a vector $$\mathbf{v} = (v_1, \ldots, v_n)$$ is the function $$\nabla_{\mathbf{v}}{f}$$ defined by the limit $$\nabla_{\mathbf{v}}{f}(\mathbf{x}) = \lim_{h \to 0}{\frac{f(\mathbf{x} + h\mathbf{v}) - f(\mathbf{x})}{h}}.$$

This definition is valid in a broad range of contexts, for example where the norm of a vector (and hence a unit vector) is undefined.

For differentiable functions
If the function f is differentiable at x, then the directional derivative exists along any unit vector v at x, and one has

$$\nabla_{\mathbf{v}}{f}(\mathbf{x}) = \nabla f(\mathbf{x}) \cdot \mathbf{v}$$

where the $$\nabla$$ on the right denotes the gradient, $$\cdot$$ is the dot product and v is a unit vector. This follows from defining a path $$h(t) = x + tv$$ and using the definition of the derivative as a limit which can be calculated along this path to get: $$\begin{align} 0 &=\lim_{t \to 0}\frac {f(x+tv)-f(x)-tDf(x)(v)} t \\ &=\lim_{t \to 0}\frac {f(x+tv)-f(x)} t - Df(x)(v) \\ &=\nabla_v f(x)-Df(x)(v). \end{align}$$

Intuitively, the directional derivative of f at a point x represents the rate of change of f, in the direction of v with respect to time, when moving past x.

Using only direction of vector
In a Euclidean space, some authors define the directional derivative to be with respect to an arbitrary nonzero vector v after normalization, thus being independent of its magnitude and depending only on its direction.

This definition gives the rate of increase of $f$ per unit of distance moved in the direction given by $v$. In this case, one has $$\nabla_{\mathbf{v}}{f}(\mathbf{x}) = \lim_{h \to 0}{\frac{f(\mathbf{x} + h\mathbf{v}) - f(\mathbf{x})}{h|\mathbf{v}|}},$$ or in case f is differentiable at x, $$\nabla_{\mathbf{v}}{f}(\mathbf{x}) = \nabla f(\mathbf{x}) \cdot \frac{\mathbf{v}}{|\mathbf{v}|} .$$

Restriction to a unit vector
In the context of a function on a Euclidean space, some texts restrict the vector v to being a unit vector. With this restriction, both the above definitions are equivalent.

Properties
Many of the familiar properties of the ordinary derivative hold for the directional derivative. These include, for any functions f and g defined in a neighborhood of, and differentiable at, p:

 * 1) sum rule: $$\nabla_{\mathbf{v}} (f + g) = \nabla_{\mathbf{v}} f + \nabla_{\mathbf{v}} g.$$
 * 2) constant factor rule: For any constant c, $$\nabla_{\mathbf{v}} (cf) = c\nabla_{\mathbf{v}} f.$$
 * 3) product rule (or Leibniz's rule): $$\nabla_{\mathbf{v}} (fg) = g\nabla_{\mathbf{v}} f + f\nabla_{\mathbf{v}} g.$$
 * 4) chain rule: If g is differentiable at p and h is differentiable at g(p), then $$\nabla_{\mathbf{v}}(h\circ g)(\mathbf{p}) = h'(g(\mathbf{p})) \nabla_{\mathbf{v}} g (\mathbf{p}).$$

In differential geometry
Let $M$ be a differentiable manifold and $p$ a point of $M$. Suppose that $f$ is a function defined in a neighborhood of $p$, and differentiable at $p$. If $v$ is a tangent vector to $M$ at $p$, then the directional derivative of $f$ along $v$, denoted variously as $df(v)$ (see Exterior derivative), $$\nabla_{\mathbf{v}} f(\mathbf{p})$$ (see Covariant derivative), $$L_{\mathbf{v}} f(\mathbf{p})$$ (see Lie derivative), or $${\mathbf{v}}_{\mathbf{p}}(f)$$ (see ), can be defined as follows. Let $γ : [−1, 1] → M$ be a differentiable curve with $γ(0) = p$ and $γ′(0) = v$. Then the directional derivative is defined by $$\nabla_{\mathbf{v}} f(\mathbf{p}) = \left.\frac{d}{d\tau} f\circ\gamma(\tau)\right|_{\tau=0}.$$ This definition can be proven independent of the choice of $γ$, provided $γ$ is selected in the prescribed manner so that $γ(0) = p$ and $γ′(0) = v$.

The Lie derivative
The Lie derivative of a vector field $$ W^\mu(x)$$ along a vector field $$ V^\mu(x)$$ is given by the difference of two directional derivatives (with vanishing torsion): $$\mathcal{L}_V W^\mu=(V\cdot\nabla) W^\mu-(W\cdot\nabla) V^\mu.$$ In particular, for a scalar field $$ \phi(x)$$, the Lie derivative reduces to the standard directional derivative: $$\mathcal{L}_V \phi=(V\cdot\nabla) \phi.$$

The Riemann tensor
Directional derivatives are often used in introductory derivations of the Riemann curvature tensor. Consider a curved rectangle with an infinitesimal vector $$\delta$$ along one edge and $$\delta'$$ along the other. We translate a covector $$S$$ along $$\delta$$ then $$\delta'$$ and then subtract the translation along $$\delta'$$ and then $$\delta$$. Instead of building the directional derivative using partial derivatives, we use the covariant derivative. The translation operator for $$\delta$$ is thus $$1+\sum_\nu \delta^\nu D_\nu=1+\delta\cdot D,$$ and for $$\delta'$$, $$1+\sum_\mu \delta'^\mu D_\mu=1+\delta'\cdot D.$$ The difference between the two paths is then $$(1+\delta'\cdot D)(1+\delta\cdot D)S^\rho-(1+\delta\cdot D)(1+\delta'\cdot D)S^\rho=\sum_{\mu,\nu}\delta'^\mu \delta^\nu[D_\mu,D_\nu]S_\rho.$$ It can be argued that the noncommutativity of the covariant derivatives measures the curvature of the manifold: $$[D_\mu,D_\nu]S_\rho=\pm \sum_\sigma R^\sigma{}_{\rho\mu\nu}S_\sigma,$$ where $$R$$ is the Riemann curvature tensor and the sign depends on the sign convention of the author.

Translations
In the Poincaré algebra, we can define an infinitesimal translation operator P as $$\mathbf{P}=i\nabla.$$ (the i ensures that P is a self-adjoint operator) For a finite displacement λ, the unitary Hilbert space representation for translations is $$U(\boldsymbol{\lambda})=\exp\left(-i\boldsymbol{\lambda}\cdot\mathbf{P}\right).$$ By using the above definition of the infinitesimal translation operator, we see that the finite translation operator is an exponentiated directional derivative: $$U(\boldsymbol{\lambda})=\exp\left(\boldsymbol{\lambda}\cdot\nabla\right).$$ This is a translation operator in the sense that it acts on multivariable functions f(x) as $$U(\boldsymbol{\lambda}) f(\mathbf{x})=\exp\left(\boldsymbol{\lambda}\cdot\nabla\right) f(\mathbf{x}) = f(\mathbf{x}+\boldsymbol{\lambda}).$$

$$

Rotations
The rotation operator also contains a directional derivative. The rotation operator for an angle θ, i.e. by an amount θ = |θ| about an axis parallel to $$ \hat{\theta} = \boldsymbol{\theta}/\theta$$ is $$U(R(\mathbf{\theta}))=\exp(-i\mathbf{\theta}\cdot\mathbf{L}).$$ Here L is the vector operator that generates SO(3): $$\mathbf{L}=\begin{pmatrix} 0& 0 & 0\\ 0& 0 & 1\\  0& -1 & 0 \end{pmatrix}\mathbf{i}+\begin{pmatrix} 0 &0 & -1\\  0& 0 &0 \\ 1 & 0 & 0 \end{pmatrix}\mathbf{j}+\begin{pmatrix} 0&1 &0 \\  -1&0  &0 \\ 0 & 0 & 0 \end{pmatrix}\mathbf{k}.$$ It may be shown geometrically that an infinitesimal right-handed rotation changes the position vector x by $$\mathbf{x}\rightarrow \mathbf{x}-\delta\boldsymbol{\theta}\times\mathbf{x}.$$ So we would expect under infinitesimal rotation: $$U(R(\delta\boldsymbol{\theta})) f(\mathbf{x}) = f(\mathbf{x}-\delta\boldsymbol{\theta}\times\mathbf{x})=f(\mathbf{x})-(\delta\boldsymbol{\theta}\times\mathbf{x})\cdot\nabla f.$$ It follows that $$U(R(\delta\mathbf{\theta}))=1-(\delta\mathbf{\theta}\times\mathbf{x})\cdot\nabla.$$ Following the same exponentiation procedure as above, we arrive at the rotation operator in the position basis, which is an exponentiated directional derivative: $$U(R(\mathbf{\theta}))=\exp(-(\mathbf{\theta}\times\mathbf{x})\cdot\nabla).$$

Normal derivative
A normal derivative is a directional derivative taken in the direction normal (that is, orthogonal) to some surface in space, or more generally along a normal vector field orthogonal to some hypersurface. See for example Neumann boundary condition. If the normal direction is denoted by $$\mathbf{n}$$, then the normal derivative of a function f is sometimes denoted as $\frac{ \partial f}{\partial \mathbf{n}}$. In other notations, $$\frac{ \partial f}{\partial \mathbf{n}} = \nabla f(\mathbf{x}) \cdot \mathbf{n} = \nabla_{\mathbf{n}}{f}(\mathbf{x}) = \frac{\partial f}{\partial \mathbf{x}} \cdot \mathbf{n} = Df(\mathbf{x})[\mathbf{n}].$$

In the continuum mechanics of solids
Several important results in continuum mechanics require the derivatives of vectors with respect to vectors and of tensors with respect to vectors and tensors. The directional directive provides a systematic way of finding these derivatives.

title: Directional derivative


text:
Mbaqanga

Mbaqanga is a style of South African music with rural Zulu roots that continues to influence musicians worldwide today. The style originated in the early 1960s, and blends traditional African vocal styles and melodies with European and American popular music.

History
In Zulu, the term mbaqanga means an everyday cornmeal porridge. Mbaqanga aficionados were mostly plebeian, metropolitan African jazz enthusiasts. Many of them were not permitted to establish themselves in the city, but they were unable to sustain themselves in the rural country. Mbaqanga gave them a staple form of musical and spiritual sustenance; it was their "musical daily bread."

Mbaqanga musicians received little money. For example, Simon "Mahlathini" Nkabinde, one of the most well-known mbaqanga singers (and arguably the most famous mbaqanga "groaner", nicknamed the "lion of Soweto"), died a poor man. This was partly due to the exploitation of black South African musicians at home and abroad as Mahlathini pointed out. Mbaqanga groups of the 1960s also found it difficult to get air time on local radio stations, and had to perform outside record stores to attract audiences.

Mbaqanga developed in the South African shebeens during the 1960s. Its use of western instruments allowed mbaqanga to develop into a South African version of jazz. Musically, the sound indicated a mix between western instrumentation and South African vocal style. Many mbaqanga scholars consider it to be the result of a coalition between marabi and kwela. A South African tourist website sponsored by the government describes mbaqanga as "the cyclic structure of marabi . . . with a heavy dollop of American big band swing thrown on top." Mbaqanga also provided a very early forum for black and white interaction in a segregated country. As a result, the "white Nationalist government brought this vital era to an end" by razing the townships that supported mbaqanga such as Sophiatown.

The genre gained popularity as a result of radio play by stations under the South African Broadcasting Corporation. Early artists included Miriam Makeba, Dolly Rathebe and Letta Mbulu. Mbaqanga maintained its popularity until the 1980s when it was replaced by South African pop music known as bubblegum. Bubblegum is a genre highly influenced by mbaqanga. One of the few remaining mbaqanga bands is The Cool Crooners. This band consists of a coalition between two rival bands that eventually merged: The Cool Four and The Golden Delicious Rhythm Crooners.

Formation
By the middle of the 1950s, the evolving indigenous South African music exploded in popularity given its increased reach to a massively growing urban population. A typical area was the township of Sophiatown, near Johannesburg, which had since the 1930s offered a black urban lifestyle. Sophiatown and Alexandra were rare "freehold" areas where blacks could own property. Its proximity to Johannesburg's downtown area made Sophiatown attractive to performers eager to explore new avenues of music. The area became an important seed-bed for the rapidly developing black musical culture. But when Sophiatown's residents were forcibly removed to newly formed townships such as Soweto, outside Johannesburg, this era came to an end.

One of the earliest innovators of mbaqanga was the Makgona Tsohle Band, a group comprising five domestic workers from Pretoria – Marks Mankwane (lead guitar), Joseph Makwela (bass guitar), Vivian Ngubane (rhythm guitar), Lucky Monama (drums) and West Nkosi (saxophone). Mbaqanga, a Zulu word for steamed cornbread, fused marabi and kwela influences. The cyclic structure of marabi melded with traditional dance styles such as the Zulu indlamu, combined with big band swing. The indlamu input developed into the "African stomp" style, giving a notably African rhythmic impulse to the music and making it quite irresistible to its new audiences.

Rupert Bopape, enticed by the successful Gallo Record Company to be their African production manager, brought together the musicians of the Makgona Tsohle Band with Mahlathini and a new female chorus, the Mahotella Queens. This was when mbaqanga really took off – or more specifically, "vocal mbaqanga" (later nicknamed simanje-manje or mgqashiyo). In addition to Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens, singing stars such as Miriam Makeba, Dolly Rathebe and Letta Mbulu (who had all begun as marabi stars during the '50s) created a large base of fans, as did the Dark City Sisters and The Soul Brothers. Other mbaqanga musicians included Simon Baba Mokoena and West Nkosi, who broke away from the Makgona Tsohle Band in 1990 for a successful solo career until his death in 1998.

International popularity

Mbaqanga's popularity faded during the 1970s because of the influence of Western pop, soul and disco into South Africa. Public performances declined because labour migrants no longer wanted to be in the spotlight. Additionally, audiences sought more urbanised language, vocal, and instrumental styles. However, it was revived between 1983 and 1986. The reversal of fortunes was in part due to Paul Simon's incorporation of South African music into his Graceland album (1986) and subsequent tour. Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens' appearances at festivals in France and at Nelson Mandela's 70th birthday concert in Wembley Stadium, London in 1988 (featuring "white Zulu" Johnny Clegg) signalled its return. White South African musicians influenced by this style include singer songwriter Robin Auld. Veteran Afrikaans piano accordion player Nico Carstens produced a boereqanga hit with Viva Madiba.

Mbaqanga was fully replaced as the dominant music genre in the 1980s by a new urban genre called 'bubblegum.' An Afro-dance pop, Bubblegum was mainly influenced by mbaqanga and other popular African styles. With the introduction of television in 1976, this musical genre was promoted as music across all ethnic groups. Characterized as a representation of a move towards music that was more urban than traditional, the Bubblegum genre had many successful musicians, including Chico Twala, Yvonne Chaka Chaka and Brenda Fassie. The derivation of mbaqanga into bubblegum contributed enormously towards the development of kwaito.

Several mbaqanga acts are still recording and performing today, including the Mahotella Queens and the Soul Brothers. Mbaqanga also continues to influence musicians worldwide. For example, the Norwegian group Real Ones included a tribute track, "All the Way Back (Shades of Mbaqanga)", on their 2003 album This is Camping.

title: Mbaqanga


text:
Azem Hajdari

Azem Shpend Hajdari (, March 11, 1963 – September 12, 1998) was the leader of the student movement in 1990–1991 that led to the fall of communism in Albania. He then became a politician of the Democratic Party of Albania (DP). He symbolizes the start of the democratic era in Albania. He was a member of the Albanian parliament and the Chairman of the Defence Parliamentary Commission. He was assassinated in Tirana on September 12, 1998.

Early life
Hajdari came from a working family. He finished elementary school and high school in Bajram Curri. Hajdari studied philosophy at the University of Tirana, and was married to Fatmira Hajdari, with whom he had three children: Kirardi, Rudina, and Azem Junior (who was born four months after Hajdari's assassination). He was one of the main leaders of student demonstrations that brought the collapse of the Party of Labour of Albania in December 1990. He was also, briefly, the first leader of the Democratic Party of Albania (DP). He remained in that position until he was replaced in early 1991 by Sali Berisha, who later became Prime Minister of Albania. Hajdari was a close associate of Berisha, and came from the same district of Tropojë.

Education
In 1993 Hajdari graduated on Philosophy Branch at the University of Tirana. In 1995 he graduated Jurisprudence again at the University of Tirana. On 1993 until 1994: Studied English language and philosophy in the United States and at 1996 he studied defense and security policy in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Germany. Political activities in his youth included serving as a leader of the students' movement which overthrew communism in Albania. From December 1990 to February 1991, he was Chairman of the Leading Commission of the Democratic Party (the first opposition party after 50 years of totalitarian regime). From February 1991 to September 1993 he was Deputy-Chairman of the Democratic Party and a member of its steering committee.

Public service
In the four free elections after the collapse of communism, Hajdari has been elected a Member of Parliament. Hajdari served as Chairman of the Parliamentary Commission on the Public Order and the National Intelligence Service from 1992–1996. In 1996 he was the Chairman of the Parliamentary Commission on the Public Order and the National Intelligence Service, and is November 1996 became President of the United Independent Albanian Trade Unions. In June 1997 he became the Chairman of the Parliamentary Commission of Defense.
 * March 31, 1991 MP of Shkodër
 * March 22, 1992 MP of Shijak
 * May 26, 1996 MP of Bulqizë
 * June 29, 1997 MP of Tropojë

From 1995 to 1998, Hajdari was the President of the KS Vllaznia Shkodër, the first sport club in Albania. He also served as the President of the Albanian Federation of Martial arts.

Assassination attempts
Hajdari began receiving death threats from the beginning of his involvement in the student protests. On March 22, 1991, he received a package containing a severed rooster head and a letter written in blood: "Azem Hajdari, you are sentenced to death."

Tropojë attack
On June 4, 1998, at about 22:30, Hajdari and other members of the DP (including Jozefina Topalli and Vili Minarolli) were ambushed by gunmen. Bardhyl Pollo, former General Director of Albanian Radio and TV, was seriously wounded.

Shot in Parliament
On September 18, 1997, Hajdari fought with Gafur Mazreku, a Member of Parliament of the Prime Minister Fatos Nano's governing Socialist Party, in a dispute over a proposed increase in the added value tax. Mazreku shot Hajdari five times with a pistol and ran from the hall. Hajdari was taken to a military hospital in grave condition.

Mazreku ran to the nearby Albanian telegraph agency building, where he surrendered to police.

Mazreku was sentenced to eight years imprisonment by parliament.

On December 17, the court located in Tirana sentenced Mazreku to eleven years in prison for attempted murder. The prosecutor had demanded a 16-year sentence. Mazreku argued that he fired the shots in an act of revenge after Hajdari verbally assaulted and punched him. Hajdari, however, claimed the attack was politically motivated.

Death
On September 12, 1998, Hajdari was shot and killed as he stepped out of the Democratic Party's office in Tirana with his two bodyguards, Besim Çera, who was killed, and Zenel Neza, who was seriously injured but survived. The three men were shot by Fatmir Haklaj who had been waiting in a car parked nearby. Hajdari was taken to the hospital by Besnik Docaj, a fellow Democrat. Cangu was seriously injured, and later died in hospital.

Hajdari died of severe shock from trauma and hemorrhaging due to numerous wounds to the chest and stomach. He was posthumously awarded a Martyr of Democracy award. Neza asked for asylum in the United States.

Reactions
The murder triggered two days of violent protests. During Hajdari's funeral procession on September 14, 1998, armed DP supporters ransacked government offices, and for a brief period, held the PM's office, the parliament building, and the Albanian State television and radio building. Estimates of casualties during the protests and riots ranged between 3 and 7 deaths and 14 and 76 injuries. After 72 hours, the government restored order and reclaimed tanks and armored personnel carriers seized by DP supporters. Parliament subsequently lifted Berisha's immunity due to his alleged role in what the government described as a coup d'état, but no charges were laid. Berisha blamed the Socialist Party of Albania and its leaders for the murder. Twelve people were arrested for their alleged involvement in the violence. In February 2002, five people, including Jaho Mulosmani, were sentenced for the murder by a Tirana district court.

Legacy
A monument honoring Hajdari and his bodyguard Besim Çera was placed on the crime scene where both were killed (41.32722°N, 19.82194°W).

The entrance road towards Valbona Valley National Park in northern Albania bears his name.

Awards
On October 2, 1998, Hajdari was posthumously awarded honorary citizenship of Tirana, and in 2007 he was decorated with the Skanderbeg's Order by president Bamir Topi.

title: Azem Hajdari


text:
Pingali Venkayya

Pingali Venkayya (2 August 1876 4 July 1963) was an Indian freedom fighter. He was the designer of the flag on which the initial Indian National Flag was based. He was also a lecturer, author, geologist, educationalist, agriculturist, and a polyglot.

At the age of 19, Venkayya had enrolled in the British Indian Army and was deployed to South Africa during the Second Boer War (1899–1902). During the war when the soldiers had to salute the Union Jack, the national flag of Britain, Venkayya realised the need for having a flag for Indians. When Venkayya attended the AICC session in 1906 in Calcutta, he was inspired to design a flag for the Indian National Congress as he opposed the idea of hoisting the British flag at Congress meetings.

Various flags had been used by members of the Indian independence movement before independence was achieved in 1947. Pingali Venkayya designed the National Flag and presented it to Mahatma Gandhi during the latter's visit to Vijayawada on 1 April 1921. Venkayya's first draft of the flag was in red and green — the red representing Hindus and green the Muslims living in the country. On Gandhi's suggestion, Venkayya added a white stripe to represent all other denominations and religions present in India. Since 1921, Venkayya's flag has been used informally at all Congress meetings. The flag was adopted in its present form during a meeting of the Constituent Assembly on 22 July 1947. Pingali venkaya studied in Hindu high school in machilipatnam Andhra Pradesh

Venkayya was an agriculturist, as well as an educationist who set up an educational institution in Machilipatnam. He died in relative poverty in 1963 and was largely forgotten by society. A postage stamp was issued to commemorate him in 2009. In 2012, his name was proposed for a posthumous Bharat Ratna though there has been no response from the central government on the proposal.

Early life
Pingali Venkayya was born on 2 August 1876 or 1878 at Bhatlapenumarru, near Machilipatnam, in what is now the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. His parents were Hanumantha Rayudu and Venkata Ratnam. He studied at the Hindu High School in Machilipatnam, but also spent his childhood in various places in the Krishna district like Yarlagadda and Pedakallepalli. He married Rukminamma, the daughter of the Karanam of Pamarru village.

At the age of 19, he enrolled in the British Indian Army and was deployed to South Africa during the Second Boer War (1899–1902), where he met Gandhi for the first time. It was during the war when the soldiers had to salute the Union Jack, the national flag of Britain, that Venkayya realised the need for having a flag for Indians.

Career
Venkayya earned a diploma in Geology from the Madras Presidency College. From 1911–1944, he worked as a lecturer at the Andhra National College in Machilipatnam. From 1924 to 1944, he researched mica in Nellore. He also authored a book titled 'Thalli Raayi' on geology.

Venkayya was also popularly nicknamed 'Diamond Venkayya', as he was an expert in diamond mining. He was also called 'Patti Venkayya' (Cotton Venkayya), because he dedicated most of his time to researching staple varieties of cotton and did a detailed study on a variety called Cambodia Cotton. He was a polyglot who was proficient in many languages including Japanese and Urdu. He delivered a full-length speech in Japanese at a school in Bapatla in 1913. From then, he also came to be referred to as 'Japan Venkayya'.

Design of National Flag
When Venkayya attended the All India Congress Committee (AICC) session in 1906 in Calcutta under the leadership of Dadabhai Naoroji, he was inspired to design a flag for the Indian National Congress as he opposed the idea of hoisting the British flag at Congress meetings. Venkayya worked on potential designs that could be used as flags for the newly coined Swaraj movement to signify independence. There were over 25 drafts of the flags with different significance and relations with Indian culture, heritage and history. In 1916, he published a book titled Bharatha Desaniki Oka Jatiya Patakam with 30 potential designs for a flag. From 1918 to 1921, he proposed various ideas to the Congress leadership while also working at the Andhra National College in Machilipatnam.

In 1921, the AICC held its two-day crucial session in Bezawada (now Vijayawada) on March 31 and April 1. When Gandhi asked Venkayya to submit a design for the flag at the session, he did it within three hours. Venkayya had shown Gandhi a rudimentary design of a flag on a Khadi bunting. This first flag was coloured red and green — the red representing Hindus and the green representing Muslims in the country. On Gandhi's suggestion, Venkayya added a white stripe to represent all the other denominations and religions present in the country. While the flag was not officially adopted by the AICC, which reordered the stripes and changed the red to orange in 1931, it came to be used across the country. Since 1921, Venkayya's flag has been used informally at all Congress meetings. The flag was adopted in its present form during a meeting of the Constituent Assembly on 22 July 1947, twenty days before India's Independence.

Death and legacy
Venkayya lived humbly according to Gandhian ideologies and died in 1963. Venkayya's daughter Ghantasala Seetha Mahalakshmi passed away on 21 July 2022 at the age of 100.

A postage stamp to commemorate Venkayya and the first flag was issued in 2009. The Vijayawada station of All India Radio was named after him in 2014. In 2012, his name was proposed for a posthumous Bharat Ratna though there has been no response from the central government on the proposal.

In 1992, then Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh N. T. Rama Rao commissioned a statue of Venkayya – one among the 31 state icons – at Tank Bund Road in Hyderabad. In January 2015, a statue of him was unveiled by the then Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu, in the forelawns of the All India Radio building in Vijayawada. Several statues of Venkayya have been built all over Andhra Pradesh.

title: Pingali Venkayya


text:
Rail shooter

Rail shooter, also known as on-rails shooter, is a subgenre of shoot 'em up video game. Beginning with arcade games such as the 1985 Space Harrier, the gameplay locks the player character into a set path, only allowing for limited or no divergence from it, in a similar manner to a theme park dark ride, which are typically on train tracks. While moving on this path, players must aim and shoot enemies while dodging projectiles and avoiding damage.

Many rail shooters feature a flying protagonist or ship. Some take place while walking, running or driving. While rail shooters saw a resurgence on the Wii due to its Wii Remote control scheme, new games in the genre are considered a rarity in the modern day, although many games of other genres contain rail shooter segments.

History
The rail shooter genre stemmed from arcade games, with seminal games being Space Harrier (1985) and After Burner (1987), both developed by Sega. The original Star Fox (1993) further popularized rail shooters, adding 3D graphics. By the mid-1990s, first-person rail shooters became popular in arcades, such as Time Crisis (1995) and The House of the Dead (1996). Panzer Dragoon (1995) and Panzer Dragoon II Zwei (1996) were two well-regarded rail shooters released around this time.

Star Fox 64 was released in 1997 and gained wide renown for its graphics, level design and non-linearity. It was the last primarily rail shooter Star Fox game, with Nintendo switching to a fully 3D range of movement going forwards. Bucking the trend of combat-oriented games, Pokémon Snap (1999) was one of the first nonviolent rail shooters, and popularized the photography game genre.

Starting in the late 1990s, the genre started to become unpopular, with on-rails gameplay becoming a "dark mark" due to a stigma of being overly shallow. While games such as Rez (2001) and Panzer Dragoon Orta (2002) were still released during this time, the lull lasted until the advent of motion control on home consoles, leading to a "rebirth" of the genre with major third-party releases in order to capitalize on the light gun-style gameplay. These included The House of the Dead: Overkill (2009), a grindhouse-style prequel to the original, and Dead Space: Extraction (2009), a spin-off of the survival horror Dead Space franchise. The developers, facing controversy over its differences from the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions, used the term "guided experience" to describe its gameplay. Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles (2009) featured shakycam movement. Sin & Punishment: Star Successor (2009) was praised for its impressive graphics. The Kinect saw its own games, such as Child of Eden (2011), although other developers avoided making their games rail shooters, fearing negative reception.

Following this motion control "boom", the genre dried up yet again, with releases like Crimson Dragon (2013) being sporadic and low-quality. While many modern games limit the player to linear levels, they still allow for free movement within those levels. In the modern day, the genre has become largely relegated to indie games, such as Ex-Zodiac, a retro-styled game heavily inspired by the now-defunct Star Fox series.

title: Rail shooter


text:
Louis McLane

Louis McLane (May 28, 1786 – October 7, 1857) was an American lawyer and politician from Wilmington, in New Castle County, Delaware, and Baltimore, Maryland. He was a veteran of the War of 1812, a member of the Federalist Party and later the Democratic Party. He served as the U.S. representative from Delaware, U.S. senator from Delaware, the tenth U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, the twelfth U.S. Secretary of State, ambassador (Minister Plenipotentiary) to Great Britain, and president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.

As a member of President Andrew Jackson's Cabinet, McLane was a prominent figure during the Bank War. McLane pursued a more moderate approach towards the Second Bank of the United States than the President, but agreed with Jackson's decision in 1832 to veto a Congressional bill renewing the Bank's charter. He also helped draft the Force Bill in 1833. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1831.

Early life and family
Louis McLane was born in Smyrna, Delaware, on May 28, 1786 to Allan McLane and Rebecca Wells McLane.

McLane's father, was a veteran of the American Revolutionary War, appointed by George Washington in 1797 to the lucrative federal position of Customs collector for the Port of Wilmington. As a well-known and fervently loyal Federalist, he received the strong backing of James A. Bayard, enabling him to keep his appointment despite the election of a political opponent, Thomas Jefferson. Allan McLane retained the position for over 30 years, under presidents of both parties, until his death during the administration of Andrew Jackson. Much of his income came from the seizure of contraband. Louis McLane inherited much of this wealth, along with legal issues that lasted well beyond the death of his father.

Louis married Catherine Mary (Kitty) Milligan in 1812. Their 13 children included Robert Milligan McLane (1815–1898), a governor of Maryland and U.S. ambassador; Louis McLane (1819–1905), who became a president of Wells Fargo & Co.; and Lydia Milligan Sims McLane (1822–1887), wife of Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston.

Education and early career
Louis McLane attended private schools and served as a midshipman on the USS Philadelphia (1799) for one year before he turned 18. He then attended Newark College, later the University of Delaware.

He studied law under James A. Bayard, and was admitted to the bar in 1807. He began a practice in Wilmington, Delaware.

During the War of 1812, McLane joined the Wilmington Artillery Company, formed for the purpose of defending Wilmington. When Baltimore was threatened, they marched to its defense, but were sent back due to lack of provisions for them in Baltimore. Ultimately, they saw no action, and McLane left the unit with the rank of first lieutenant.

Congressional service
Following the War of 1812, Delaware was unique in continuing to have a viable Federalist Party. Never tainted by the secessionist activities of the New England Federalists and adaptive enough to institute modern electioneering practices, they held the loyalty of the majority Anglican/Methodist downstate population against the seemingly more radical Presbyterians and Irish immigrants in New Castle County. They remained the dominant political force in the state well into the 1820s, when the party finally disappeared, split between an allegiances to Andrew Jackson or to John Quincy Adams and the "American system" of Henry Clay and the Whigs. New Castle County manufacturers joined most of the old Federalist Party leadership in making the Whigs the new majority in the state. This included McLane's mentor, James A. Bayard and various members of the Clayton family, especially Thomas Clayton and his cousin, John M. Clayton.

McLane was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives by defeating Thomas Clayton for the Federalist nomination, as Clayton was politically damaged by having voted for a Congressional pay raise in the previous session. From then on the Clayton cousins became McLane's principal political opponents in Delaware. Nevertheless, McLane was elected six times as a Federalist to the U.S. House of Representatives, from 1816 through 1826. He had a most distinguished career in the U.S. House, serving five full terms from March 4, 1817 to March 3, 1827. In spite being a Federalist, he was Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and it was only his Federalist affiliation that prevented him from being elected Speaker.

During these sessions the Federalist Party was so small and weak that partisan divisions mattered much less than the personal relationships that developed among the members. McLane quickly became a friend and admirer of William H. Crawford and Martin Van Buren, and at the same time became an opponent of Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams. These friendships were based more on personality than policy agreement, and were so important that McLane was one of Crawford's strongest proponents in the presidential election of 1824. Once Crawford returned to Georgia, McLane, Van Buren, and the other Crawford supporters fell into the party of Andrew Jackson. This was all the easier for him given his existing friendship with Martin Van Buren, who became his mentor and advocate.

McLane moved to the U.S. Senate and served there from March 4, 1827 until his resignation in 1829, in expectation that President Jackson would appoint him to a federal office. During the period leading up to Andrew Jackson's victory in the presidential election of 1828, Senator McLane had worked very hard in an unsuccessful effort to win Delaware's electoral votes for Jackson.

Service in the Jackson administration
Having failed to win an appointment to Jackson's initial cabinet, as he had hoped, McLane nevertheless resigned from the Senate on April 29, 1829. In doing so, he completely cut his ties to the Claytons and the dominant political faction in the state. With little hope of reelection to the U.S. Senate or any future in Delaware politics, McLane counted on the new president to reward all of his considerable hopes with a prestigious position. However, a former Federalist from an inconsequential opposition state would have to wait until Jackson met other obligations. In October 1829, McLane reluctantly accepted an appointment as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the United Kingdom, which had been arranged by his friend Martin Van Buren, now U.S. Secretary of State.

McLane was instructed to inform the English that his appointment signaled a break from the John Quincy Adams administration, and that issues of dispute under the Adams Administration would no longer be issues in a Jackson administration. His main assignment was to open up trade between the United States and the British West Indies. In this effort he was well received by Lord Aberdeen, the Foreign Secretary, and successfully accomplished his mission. During his tenure, his personal secretary was Washington Irving, who was thereafter a close and loyal family friend.

Two years later, McLane finally received the cabinet appointment he had so longed for. When Jackson decided he needed to purge his cabinet of supporters of U.S. Senator John C. Calhoun, Van Buren was able to convince the president to appoint McLane to be the Secretary of the Treasury. McLane returned from England and served as Treasury Secretary from August 8, 1831 to May 28, 1833. The major issues confronting McLane in this new role were the tariff rates and the status of the Second Bank of the United States.

When McLane entered Jackson's cabinet, he immediately assumed a position of leadership. Articulate, persuasive and energetic, he had mastered the issues under debate and was confident he could lead the others in the administration, including the President. Recognizing there was a difference of opinion with Jackson over the Bank, he sought to work out a plan with the bank president, Nicholas Biddle, to provide for the upcoming renewal of the bank's charter in return for the accomplishment of a key objective of the President, the retirement of the national debt. On December 7, 1831 he proposed a sweeping plan to accomplish that and more. Acclaimed for its Hamiltonian creativity, McLane had taken the initiative on the administration's agenda, and was acting very much in the role of a Prime Minister. With enough time he was certain Jackson would soften his position and consent to the approach.

Events conspired to frustrate the plan, however. First of all, Attorney General Roger B. Taney sought to convince Jackson that McLane's plan was really a new packaging of the old Federalist program and in contradiction with Jackson's own past positions. At the time Jackson was somewhat flexible on the issue, and McLane wanted to postpone the decision until after the presidential election of 1832. But Henry Clay decided that renewal of the bank charter was an issue he could use to defeat Jackson and convinced bank president Biddle to press for an immediate re-charter. By itself, this crystallized Jackson's opposition to re-chartering, which he vetoed when passed by the Congress. This caused him to view his eventual victory in the presidential election as a popular endorsement of his bank policy.

Liking McLane personally and unwilling to make more controversial Cabinet changes so quickly, Jackson removed the bank issue from McLane's purview. However, when McLane refused to remove the governments deposits from the Second Bank of the United States, Jackson had to replace him with someone that would, and offered McLane the prestigious U. S. Secretary of State instead. As his replacement, Jackson settled on William J. Duane, a man as unwilling as McLane to withdraw the deposits. The appointment was a great embarrassment to Jackson, and many blamed McLane for urging it.

While all this was going on, McLane negotiated what seemed to be a satisfactory tariff bill, but when South Carolina continued to object and triggered the Nullification Crisis, McLane prepared the important Force Bill of 1833 to provide for the tariff's enforcement.

By shuffling his cabinet, Jackson hoped to keep the talented McLane in his service by removing from him the obligation to implement his planned permanent destruction of the Second Bank of the United States. Appointed U.S. Secretary of State in a recess appointment, McLane served from May 29, 1833 until June 30, 1834. He quickly managed the first major reorganization of the department, by establishing seven new bureaus. He also managed a dispute with France, over what were known as the "Spoliation Claims". In 1832 France had agreed to reimburse the United States for certain shipping losses incurred during the Napoleonic Wars. However, successive French governments had failed to appropriate the funds required, all the while maintaining their desire to do so. Jackson was impatient to resolve the issue and worked with McLane to develop a hard line policy, confronting the French. Martin Van Buren was now Vice President and felt otherwise. Without consulting McLane, he intervened directly and convinced Jackson to give the French more time. McLane was furious with his old mentor for this intervention, and resigned his position, recognizing his apparent lack of authority in a direct area of responsibility. The incident also ended his friendship with Van Buren, and they never spoke again.

Canal and railroad businesses
Although he had some inherited wealth from his father, with 13 children McLane always needed to provide additional earned income in his own right. With his managerial talents, resume and connections, he was quickly sought out. The first to find him was the Morris Canal and Banking Company. A New Jersey corporation, largely based in New York City, it operated a canal from Phillipsburg to Newark, New Jersey, primarily to carry coal from Pennsylvania to New York City. It was also a bank and had a charter that provided banking opportunities. McLane was President for one year, implemented many improvements, and produced one of the few profitable years the company had. But his beloved family was in Wilmington and at their second home, "Bohemia," was in Cecil County, Maryland. New York City was too far away.

Therefore, when an offer to assume the Presidency of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was made, it was quickly accepted. This company operated a railroad between Baltimore and Washington, but its ambition was built a route to the Ohio River, and move commerce from the west through the City of Baltimore. In 1837 the western tracks went only as far as Harpers Ferry, Virginia and McLane's great accomplishment was seeing to the extension of the "main line" as far as Cumberland, Maryland. This brought the route into proximity with enough coalfields to provide a regular profit. The profits were not substantial, however, and McLane was consumed with financing rearrangements and negotiations with Pennsylvania and Virginia over possible routes west. Ultimately Wheeling and an all Virginia route was decided upon, but it was left to McLane's immediate successor to see the goal realized. McLane never seemed to appreciate the value of this work and ultimately retired on September 13, 1848.

Further diplomatic service and the Oregon cession
In spite of his political setbacks McLane never lost his ambition for high political office. One of his last remaining political friends from the congressional days was James K. Polk, who was now President of the United States. While he dreamed of something much greater, McLane took a leave of absence from the railroad in 1845 and 1846 to return to England as Minister Plenipotentiary, primarily for the purpose of coordinating negotiations over the Oregon boundary. McLane was remembered fondly from his previous service, and renewed his old friendships. The basis of the settlement was easily established, but the hard line public position of Polk was shaken only by outbreak of the Mexican–American War. McLane succeeded in keeping the British agreeable to the eventual settlement until the administration came to the same conclusion, even if he risked suggesting the president was posturing when he insisted on "54-40 or Fight." McLane never received the higher appointment desired and reluctantly returned to the railroad.

Death and legacy
The son of a Scots-Irish adventurer and politician from Delaware, McLane had married into the Eastern shore gentry of Maryland and ever longed for the idyllic plantation life seemingly promised. Acquiring Milligan Hall from his wife's family gave him a beautiful seat on the Bohemia River that became his favorite home. Called Bohemia, by the McLane family, it was always their gathering place and favorite retreat. Further, with his adherence to the party of Andrew Jackson and resignation from the United States Senate in 1829, McLane effectively admitted his political career in Delaware was over. So it was only natural for McLane to move his primary residence to Baltimore when he joined the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. He remained there after his retirement and entered the political life of his new home. Most notably he was an active participant in the Maryland constitutional convention of 1850.

McLane died in Baltimore, Maryland and is buried in Green Mount Cemetery.

McLane's biographer, Professor John A. Munroe, described him as follows: "[T]he problem was that few people could love Louis McLane... He was intelligent and able, clear-minded and efficient, but to the average man and even to some of his children, he was not lovable. He was almost sinfully ambitious, as his father had encouraged him to be. He was often meanly suspicious, and life had encouraged him to be ever mindful of his welfare and that of the large family dependent on him. He was easily affronted and held grudges almost with glee against those who crossed him. He was immensely persuasive, but in the long run he abandoned in disgust each of the successive scenes of his triumphs. It was to Kitty and the children that he was true, and the children learned to admire but not to love this stern, busy, handsome, sensitive man."

He owned the Zachariah Ferris House, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970. His own house, the Louis McLane House, was listed in 1973.

title: Louis McLane


text:
Talk:—We Also Walk Dogs

Untitled
The second-to-last edit on this page was made by a known Michael IP. Can someone confirm that the change is factual? I suspect it's disinformation, but I've never read the story. Isomorphic 06:40, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Page Move
Per request on WP:RM with no objections after several days, the page has been moved to here. -Goldom ‽‽‽ ⁂ 02:54, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Error in "-We Also Walk Dogs"
References - Short Stories - The Short Stories "Let There Be Light", "Universe" and "Common Sense" do not appear in the Copyright 1967 SBN 425-02738-4 paperback that I have in front of me (Published in 1975). However the Short Story "Methusela's Children" is included (pages 655 through 830). The back cover states that there are 21 stories, novellas and novel that make up this paperback, (if you remove the three wrong titles and add the missing one, it adds up to 21).

References - Novels - Only three novels are listed. Your link to the page on R.A. Heinlein states that he published 32 novels "during his lifetime", and names many of them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.33.21.239 (talk) 23:15, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Removing Link
I am removing the link on "The Flower of Forgetfulness," as it links to a disambiguation page that provides no further information and links back here. The other definitions of the term don't appear to be relevant. CatherS (talk) 06:20, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Naming
Per WP:NAMING I think this article needs to be renamed/moved without the leading dashes. "To maintain the functionality of alphabetical indexing, page names should avoid beginning with non-alphanumeric (anything other than A–Z or 0–9) characters if possible. For example, if an article title is a quote, do not enclose it in quotation marks.". I will make the move in a few days if nobody objects and RFD the original.  7   talk   00:14, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I concur with the renaming, but once the move happens I do not think this original should be RfD'd. WP:NAMING applies only to the "main" articles, not to the all the redirects that point to them. UnitedStatesian (talk) 06:17, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the reply, and you bring up an very interesting point. However I cannot see in NAMING where it differentiates between the main article and a redirect.  The policy, as I read it, is about naming conventions for PAGES, not just for articles.  I am especially interested in this because just today I have RFD'd three redirects that begin with quotes here (including the original version of this page with quotes, and one which has 11 separate quoted redirects to it).  Please let me know if you have more detail on WP:NAMING not applying to redirects.  Thanks.     7   talk   06:30, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * There are 24 occurrences of the word redirect in WP:NAMING, almost all saying a "redirect is appropriate" or "may be appropriate." WP has literally millions of redirects that do not meet WP:NAMING, but redirect to articles that do, and these redirects are almost never deleted at WP:RfD (unless there are other issues with them), and that is going to be my comment to those nominations. I will be very surprised if the ones you nominated are deleted at RfD. UnitedStatesian (talk) 06:42, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks, and sorry I didn't mean to make you (or Chrome?) count them. I did a search on the page also and found many instances of the word, but I never could find (and still can't find) anywhere that says the rules against beginning with non-alphanumeric applies only to main pages.  But I get your point and I understand that's how you will comment at RFD, and I see that you are right that there are lots of pages (main and redirect) that don't follow the rules.  I'll focus on the main articles for now.  Regards.     7   talk   06:49, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It was Safari, actually. :) Thanks for focusing on the mainspace, there is definitely a lot of work there (I was laboring in that very vineyard just a few days ago).  The one piece of advice I will give: make sure you approach this effort with a health helping of ignore all rules: I think people will have issues with a universal application of that particular naming convention to main pages, for instance if you moved "A" Is for Alibi (over redirect) to A Is for Alibi UnitedStatesian (talk) 07:02, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Will do. Thanks.    7   talk   07:09, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

title: Talk:—We Also Walk Dogs


text:
List of Jewish comic book characters

This is a list of fictional Jewish comic book characters. Characters on this list range from secular with Jewish parentage to fully practicing. These are characters specific to comic-book universes; characters from TV or film universes are not present on this list, nor are characters from autobiographical/memoir comics such as Maus and American Splendor.

DC Comics

 * Aliceundefined
 * Atom Smasher
 * Batwoman
 * Colossal Boy
 * Dr Fate (Eric & Linda Strauss)
 * Doctor Manhattan
 * Green Lantern (Hal Jordan)
 * Harley Quinn
 * The Monolith
 * Morgan Edge
 * Nite Owl II/Daniel Dreiberg
 * Nyssa Raatko
 * Ragman
 * Sandman (Golden Age)
 * Seraph
 * Whistle

Marvel Comics

 * Benjamin Grimm
 * Bernie Rosenthal
 * Blue Bullet
 * Doc Samson
 * Dominic Fortune
 * Gertrude Yorkes
 * Iceman
 * Izzy Cohen
 * Justice
 * Legion
 * Magneto
 * Moon Knight
 * Polaris
 * Quicksilver
 * Sabra
 * Sasquatch
 * Scarlet Witch
 * Kitty Pryde
 * Shadow Knight
 * Songbird
 * Two-Gun Kid
 * Volcana
 * White Tiger (Kasper Cole)
 * Wiccan

Other comic presses

 * Dark Horse Comics
 * The Escapist
 * First Comics
 * Reuben Flagg
 * Image Comics:
 * Masada
 * Judaica Press
 * Dreidel Maidel
 * Kippah Kid
 * Magen David
 * Matzah Woman
 * Menorah Man
 * Minyan Man
 * Shabbos Queen
 * Malibu Comics
 * Prime
 * Mendy Enterprises/The Golem Factory
 * Mendy Klein
 * Rivkie Klein
 * Yaakov Klein
 * Sara Klein
 * Reb Zushe
 * New England Comics
 * Arthur
 * Wildstorm Comics
 * Sublime

title: List of Jewish comic book characters


text:
17th (Northern) Division

The 17th (Northern) Division was an infantry division of the British Army, a Kitchener's Army formation raised during the Great War.

Formation history

The 17th (Northern) Division was created under Northern Command in September 1914, just a month after the British entry into the Great War, from men volunteering for Lord Kitchener's New Armies. Most of the volunteers had had little prior military experience. Worsening the situation was an acute lack of experienced officers and NCO's to train the new men as, due to the huge expansion of the British Army, experienced soldiers were needed everywhere. Furthermore, weapons and equipment, along with billets, were scarce.

The division, commanded by Major General Walter Kenyon-Slaney, part of Kitchener's Second New Army (K2), concentrated throughout Dorset for training, moving to Hampshire in late May 1915. In early July the division sent advance parties to France in preparation for a move overseas, the rest of the division following a week later, moving to Saint-Omer for concentration. The division was to remain on the Western Front for the rest of the war, with most of the rest of 1915 being spent in the southern sector of the Ypres Salient, being instructed in trench warfare.

The division's first major engagement was in July 1916, where the division, as part of V Corps, fought in the battles of Albert and Delville Wood, both part of the larger Battle of the Somme. On the first day on the Somme, on 1 July 1916, the 50th Brigade, in particular the 10th (Service) Battalion, West Yorkshires, suffered very heavy casualties, the highest sustained by any British unit on that day. On 13 July Major General Thomas Pilcher, who had been in command since January 1915, was sacked by his superiors, who were not impressed with him. He was replaced by Major General Philip Robertson, who was to remain in command for the rest of the war.

In April 1917 the division, now part of VI Corps, fought in the first and second battles of the Scarpe, both part of the Battle of Arras, where heavy casualties were sustained. The division later fought in the First and Second Battles of Passchendaele, part of the much longer Third Battle of Ypres.

Early 1918 saw the division resting after the battles of the previous year, again as part of V Corps. The division fought in the German Army's Spring Offensives, followed by the Battle of Epehy and the Battle of Cambrai, both part of the attempt to smash the German Hindenburg Line during the Hundred Days Offensive which saw the end of the trench warfare and brought the war to an end on 11 November 1918.

During the Great War the 17th (Northern) Division had, from 1915, when it departed for the Western Front, until 1918, when the war ended, sustained 40,258 casualties.

Order of battle
The 17th (Northern) Division was constituted as follows during the war:

 * 50th Brigade :
 * 10th (Service) Battalion, Prince of Wales's Own (West Yorkshire Regiment)
 * 7th (Service) Battalion, East Yorkshire Regiment
 * 7th (Service) Battalion, Alexandra, Princess of Wales's Own (Yorkshire Regiment) (disbanded February 1918)
 * 6th (Service) Battalion, Dorsetshire Regiment (from March 1915)
 * 7th (Service) Battalion, York and Lancaster Regiment (until March 1915)

 * 51st Brigade :
 * 7th (Service) Battalion, Lincolnshire Regimeht
 * 7th (Service) Battalion, Border Regiment
 * 10th (Service) Battalion, Sherwood Foresters
 * 8th (Service) Battalion, South Staffordshire Regiment (disbanded February 1918)
 * 3/4th Battalion, Queen's Own (Royal West Kent Regiment) (from June 1917 to 52nd Brigade August 1917)

 * 52nd Brigade :
 * 10th (Service) Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers
 * 12th (Service) Battalion, Manchester Regiment
 * 9th (Service) Battalion, Duke of Wellington's (West Riding Regiment)
 * 9th (Service) Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers (until August 1917)
 * 3/4th Battalion, Queen's Own (Royal West Kent Regiment) (from 51st Brigade August 1917, disbanded February 1918)

 * Divisional Troops :
 * 6th (Service) Battalion, Dorsetshire Regiment (left March 1915)
 * 7th (Service) Battalion, York and Lancaster Regiment (joined as Pioneer battalion March 1915)
 * 3/4th Battalion, Queen's Own (Royal West Kent Regiment) (attached as Pioneer battalion 12 July – 3 August 1917)
 * 12th Motor Machine Gun Battery (joined 10 July 1915, left 7 May 1916)
 * 236th Machine Gun Company, Machine Gun Corps (joined 17 July 1917, left to move into 17th Machine Gun Battalion 24 February 1918)
 * 17th Battalion, Machine Gun Corps (formed 24 February 1918)

 * Divisional Mounted Troops :
 * A Squadron, Queen's Own Yorkshire Dragoons (left 10 May 1916)
 * 17th Divisional Cyclist Company, Army Cyclist Corps (left 24 May 1916)

 * Divisional Artillery :
 * LXXVIII Brigade, Royal Field Artillery
 * LXXIX Brigade, Royal Field Artillery
 * LXXX Brigade, Royal Field Artillery (broken up 31 August 1916)
 * LXXXI (Howitzer) Brigade, Royal Field Artillery (broken up 1–27 January 1917)
 * 17th Divisional Ammunition Column, Royal Field Artillery
 * 17th Heavy Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery (raised with the division but moved independently to France and joined XXIX Heavy Artillery Brigade on 9 October 1915)
 * V.17 Heavy Trench Mortar Battery Royal Field Artillery (joined 22 August 1916, left 28 February 1918)
 * X.17, Y.17 and Z.17 Medium Mortar Batteries Royal Field Artillery (formed by 22 August 1916; by 28 February 1918, Z broken up and batteries reorganised to have 6 x 6-inch weapons each)

 * Royal Engineers :
 * 77th Field Company, Royal Engineers
 * 78th Field Company, Royal Engineers
 * 93rd Field Company, Royal Engineers
 * 17th Divisional Signals Company, Royal Engineers

 * Royal Army Medical Corps :
 * 51st Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps
 * 52nd Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps
 * 53rd Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corpe
 * 34th Sanitary Section, Royal Army Medical Corps (left 10 March 1917)

 * Other Divisional Troops :
 * 17th Divisional Train, Army Service Corps (146, 147, 148 and 149 Companies)
 * 29th Mobile Veterinary Section, Army Veterinary Corps
 * 218th Divisional Employment Company (joined 9 June 1917)
 * 17th Divisional Motor Ambulance Workshop (absorbed into divisional train 2 April 1916)

Commanders

 * Major General Walter Kenyon-Slaney September 1914 — January 1915
 * Major General Thomas Pilcher January 1915 — July 1916
 * Major General Philip Robertson July 1916 — May 1919

Victoria Cross recipients

 * Sergeant Harold Colley, 10th (Service) Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers
 * Private Tom Dresser, 7th (Service) Battalion, Alexandra, Princess of Wales's Own (Yorkshire Regiment)
 * Sergeant Harold Jackson, 7th (Service) Battalion, East Yorkshire Regiment
 * Corporal Frank Lester, 10th (Service) Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers

title: 17th (Northern) Division


text:
User:Elf/Sandbox

  User:Elf I am one of several squillion Administrators in the English Wikipedia.

title: User:Elf/Sandbox