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User:DO'Neil/Latin America

Here is a list of all the contributions I've made to Wikipedia about or relating to Latin America. For the sake of simplicity, I'm going to pretend that Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana are Latin American. ;-)

People are listed by the surname they were (or are) most commonly called by.

Spanish Names
In Spanish speaking countries, people have two surnames, normally the father's first surname followed by the mother's. The first surname is by far the most common when used to referring to a person. Daniel Ortega Saavedra is nearly always just referred to as Daniel Ortega. A notable exception is Pablo Ruiz Picasso.

Portuguese Names
The surname system in Portuguese speaking countries is the exact opposite of the Spanish system! António de Oliveira Salazar is nearly always called António Salazar.

Be careful never to confuse these. After all, who is Getúlio Dornelles or Fidel Ruz?

Geography People Culture Airports History Miscellaneous
 * Amazonas, Brazil significant contribution
 * Brokopondo started
 * Camagüey Province rewritten entirely
 * Ceará rewritten entirely
 * Ciego de Ávila Province rewritten entirely
 * Cienfuegos Province rewritten entirely
 * Commewijne started
 * Coronie started
 * Essequibo River started
 * Demerara River started
 * Districts of Suriname started
 * Fordlândia started
 * Granma Province rewritten entirely
 * Guantánamo Province rewritten entirely
 * Gulf of Honduras started
 * La Habana Province significant contribution
 * Huatabampo started
 * Içá River rewritten entirely
 * Lake Valencia started
 * Las Tunas Province rewritten entirely
 * Marowijne started
 * Matanzas Province rewritten entirely
 * Template:Districts of Suriname started
 * Template:Honduras started
 * Template:Provinces of Cuba started
 * Mexican Empire rewritten entirely
 * Nickerie started
 * Nombre de Dios started
 * Para, Suriname started
 * Paraíba rewritten entirely
 * Paramaribo district started
 * Piauí significant contribution
 * Pinar del Río Province rewritten entirely
 * Pucallpa significant contribution
 * Rio Grande do Norte rewritten entirely
 * Rondônia rewritten entirely
 * Sancti Spíritus Province rewritten entirely
 * Santa Cruz, Bolivia started
 * Santiago de Cuba Province significant contribution
 * Saramacca started
 * Sergipe rewritten entirely
 * Sipaliwini started
 * Tocantins (state) rewritten entirely
 * Villa Clara rewritten entirely
 * Wanica started
 * Windward Passage started
 * Fernando Belaúnde Terry rewritten entirely
 * Ibrahim Ferrer started
 * Nuño Guzmán de Beltran started
 * Juan Montalvo started
 * Arnaldo Ochoa started
 * Cristóbal de Olid completely rewritten
 * Francisco de Orellana significant contribution
 * Felipe Quispe rewritten entirely
 * Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez started
 * Culture of Colombia rewritten entirely
 * Culture of Cuba started
 * Culture of Ecuador started
 * Culture of Honduras started
 * Himno Istmeño significant contribution
 * La Cucaracha started
 * Miskito started
 * Mozambique (music) started
 * Alfonso Bonilla Aragón International Airport started
 * Augusto C. Sandino International Airport started
 * Don Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla International Airport rewritten entirely
 * Guarulhos International Airport started
 * Juana Azurduy de Padilla International Airport started
 * La Aurora International Airport started
 * Olaya Herrera Airport started
 * Simón Bolívar International Airport started
 * Toncontin International Airport started
 * Irish immigration to Puerto Rico started
 * Moncada Barracks started
 * Second Battle of Guararapes started
 * Comités de Defensa de la Revolución started
 * OSPAAAL started
 * Tricontinental started

title: User:DO'Neil/Latin America


text:
Talk:Pfaffian

Introduction
The intro says: "The Pfaffian is nonvanishing only for 2n × 2n skew-symmetric matrices". This is not true. As a counter example, take some skew-symmetric matrix A, which has some nonzero pfaffian Pf(A). All of the diagonal elements $$A_{ii}$$ must be zero by assumption of skew-symmetry. Now change $$A_{11}$$ to one. A is no longer skew symmetric, but it still has the same Pfaffian because the definition of the Pfaffian does not "see" the diagonal elements. It is only a function of matrix elements like $$A_{P(a)P(2)}$$ which are permutations of distinct indices. Ltgoff —Preceding undated comment added 22:52, 2 February 2010 (UTC). Indeed - the definition of the Pfaffian projects out the symmetric part of the matrix, but there is no harm in starting with a general matrix.

The attribution of $$\operatorname{pf}^2(A) = \operatorname{det}(A)$$ to Muir is likely incorrect. Contributors to the FKT algorithm article attribute this to Caley, and give ref Cayley, Arthur (1847). "Sur les determinants gauches" [On skew determinants]. Crelle's Journal 38: 93–96. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.72.144.66 (talk) 00:20, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

About time this was corrected (I'm doing it now)! I've read Cayley's paper from 1847, and while he doesn't call them Pfaffians these are the point of the paper. What is interesting is he attributes the fact that $$\operatorname{pf}(A)$$ divides $$\operatorname{det}(A)$$ to Jacobi, but says Jacobi is apparently unaware that the quotient is also $$\operatorname{pf}(A)$$. The later name Pfaffian seems to be due to the fact that Jacobi was using it for studying Pfaffian systems of ODEs! (Seems a bit tenuous to me. Perhaps he should have called it the Jacobian of the matrix!) James Montaldi 14:08, 25 February 2018 (UTC)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jamontaldi (talk • contribs)

I don't see any problem in the introduction. Pfaffian is only defined for 2n × 2n skew-symmetric matrices. Applying Pfaffian to a non-skew-symmetric matrix is illegal and not defined. For skew-symmetric matrices, it is always true that the Pfaffian squares to the determinant.Everett (talk) 23:46, 7 April 2016 (UTC) It can be easily defined using the sum over permutations, even if it is not obviously useful to do so. N Geraint Jones (talk) 14:57, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Derivation from Determinant
Although we have

 * $$C_{ij}^2 = \det(A_{ij,ij})\det(A), \,$$

It doesn't directly imply the sign of $$C_{ij}$$ as $$(-1)^{i+j}$$ by simply taking the square root. May I know how to reach this step in detail?

--221.127.68.176 (talk) 16:26, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

I do not think one should try hard to change \times to x both ways it looks ugly, but hopefully with Mathml the first one will look better... Tosha 15:29, 23 May 2004 (UTC)

Johann Friedrich Pfaff
Is this the guy? Tosha

Do you know the story? Gauss's mother asked a mathematician 'who is the best mathematician in Germany?' and the answer was 'Pfaff'. 'What about my son?' - 'Oh, he's the best mathematician in Europe!'. Pfaff was Gauss's teacher, in a sense.

Charles Matthews 09:04, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Nice story, but is Johann Friedrich Pfaff is one who responsible for Pfaffian?

 * This web page says so: http://members.aol.com/jeff570/p.html. He had a brother JW Pfaff, who was also a mathematician, which I hadn't realised. Charles Matthews 18:55, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Thank you Tosha

The Pfaffian in coordinates
(moved from generalized Gauss-Bonnet theorem)

Suppose given a coordinate coframe $$dx^i$$. The curvature 2-form admits an expression $${\Omega_i}^j$$ relative to this coframe. Define the alternating Kronecker tensor
 * $$\delta_{j_1j_2\dots j_k}^{i_1i_2\dots i_k}$$

to be the identity endomorphism of $$\bigwedge^kT^*M$$. Then

 * $$Pf(\Omega)=\delta_{j_1j_2\dots j_n}^{i_1i_2\dots i_n}{\Omega_{i_1}}^{j_1}\wedge{\Omega_{i_2}}^{j_2}\wedge\dots\wedge{\Omega_{i_n}}^{j_n}$$

where repeated indices are summed.

Mathematica code
Here's a Mathematica function for computing the Pfaffian of a matrix. I don't suspect this belongs on the main page, so I'll just post it here and let the Wikipedia experts decide:

Pf[A_] := If[Length[A] == 0, 1, Module[{L, A1, MatrixDelete}, MatrixDelete[M_, i_] := Delete[#, i] & /@ Delete[M, i]; L = Length[A]; A1 = MatrixDelete[A, 1]; Sum[(-1)^i (A1i Pf[MatrixDelete[A1, i - 1]]), {i, 2, L}]]]

 * The above recursive algorithm calculates the pfaffian for the general n×n matrix in O(n!) time. However for a skew symmetric matrix, the pfaffian can be calculated more efficiently in O(n3) time by generalized Gaussian elimination. The Mathematica package implements such algorithm is originally written by R. W. Cherng, which is available here: http://physics.harvard.edu/~cherng/programs.html. However the package is written in a C/FORTRAN manner, which runs slowly on Mathematica. I modify the code by vectorizing loops to avoid explicit part references, which allows Mathematica to optimize the performance. The modified package code is posted as bellow. To use the package: copy and past to Mathematica notebook, and evaluate the cell once, then can use Pf[A] to obtain the pfaffian of the skew symmetric matrix A. Everett (talk) 08:35, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

BeginPackage["Pfaffian`"]; Pf::usage="Pf[A] gives the pfaffian of the skew symmetric A."; Begin["`Private`"]; Pf[A_] := Switch[Length[A], 0, 1, _?OddQ, 0, _?EvenQ, xPf[A, 1]]; xPf[A_, p0_] := Module[{A0, n, pivot, sign = 1, A1, p1}, n = Length[A]/2; If[n != 1, A0 = A;   pivot = First[Ordering[Normal[Abs[A02 n - 1, All]], -1]]; If[pivot != 2 n, A0{pivot, 2 n}, All = A0{2 n, pivot}, All; A0All, {pivot, 2 n} = A0All, {2 n, pivot}; sign = -1;]; p1 = A02 n - 1, 2 n; A1 = p1 A01 ;; 2 n - 2, 1 ;; 2 n - 2; A1 += (# - Transpose[#]) &@ Outer[Times, A01 ;; 2 n - 2, 2 n, A01 ;; 2 n - 2, 2 n - 1]; A1 /= p0; sign xPf[A1, p1], A1, 2]]; End[]; EndPackage[];

Applications
It would be nice to see a qualified writer add to the applications section to include minimal free resolutions of codimension three Gorenstein quotients (a la Buchsbaum-Eisenbud in the 70s). Courtney Gibbons 24 Mar 2011 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Virtualcourtney (talk • contribs) 22:47, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

While unifying the format of the references, I noticed that most of the references in this article where about an application that was removed in the revision made on 14:27, 2 February 2011. I personally agree with the removal (at least it should have been clarified where the Pfaffian enters there!), and would also favor removing the corresponding references.

However, before doing so, I wanted to start a general discussion about the Applications section. The two mathematical contexts in which Pfaffians arise seem fine to me. However, the physics and especially the machine learning applications mentioned there (with references) seem somewhat arbitrary and biased to me - at least I don't see why these applications should be so outstanding that they are mentioned as sole examples in a wikipedia article.

In my opinion, one should probably extend the Applications section by more examples, to make it more biased again. Alternatively, one could restrict the whole Applications section to the pure mathematical level, but that would mean removing more examples and references, and I'm not a particular fan of that.

I know a lot of physics examples (with references), but that alone would be biased again. Any other ideas?

Wmmrmchl (talk) 13:32, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Simple proof of equation $$ \operatorname{pf||O^T A O||} = \operatorname{det||O||} \operatorname{pf||A||}$$
The definition of Pfaffian:
 * $$\mathrm{pf}\left\| A\right\| =\frac{1}{2^{n}n!}\epsilon

_{i_{1}i_{2}...i_{2n}}A_{i_{1}i_{2}}A_{i_{3}i_{4}}...A_{i_{2n-1}i_{2n}}.$$ Here ε is the totally antisymmetric tensor, ε12...2n = 1. One has
 * $$\mathrm{pf}\left\| O^{T}AO\right\| = \frac{1}{2^{n}n!}\epsilon

_{i_{1}i_{2}...i_{2n}}\left( O_{i_{1}j_{1}}O_{i_{2}j_{2}}A_{j_{1}j_{2}}\right) \left( O_{i_{3}j_{3}}O_{i_{4}j_{4}}A_{j_{3}j_{4}}\right) ...\left( O_{i_{2n-1}j_{2n-1}}O_{i_{2n}j_{2n}}A_{j_{2n-1}j_{2n}}\right)$$
 * $$ =\frac{1}{2^{n}n!}\det \left\| O\right\| \epsilon

_{j_{1}j_{2}...j_{2n}}A_{j_{1}j_{2}}A_{j_{3}j_{4}}...A_{j_{2n-1}j_{2n}} = \det\left\| O\right\| \mathrm{pf}\left\| A\right\|. $$

Simple proof of equation $$ \operatorname{pf^2||A||}=\operatorname{det||A||}$$
Matrix A is antisymmetric. It defines a symplectic structure. According to the Darboux theorem, there exists 2n × 2n matrix O that brings A into the canonical form
 * $$O^TAO = J \equiv \begin{bmatrix}

\begin{matrix} 0 & 1\\ -1 & 0\end{matrix} & 0 & \cdots & 0 \\ 0 & \begin{matrix}0 & 1\\ -1 & 0\end{matrix} & & 0 \\ \vdots & & \ddots & \vdots \\ 0 & 0 & \cdots & \begin{matrix}0 & 1\\ -1 & 0\end{matrix} \end{bmatrix}.$$ One can check that det||J|| = pf||J|| = 1, and so
 * $$ \operatorname{det||O^TAO||}=\operatorname{det^2||O||} \operatorname{det||A||} = 1,$$
 * $$ \operatorname{pf||O^TAO||}=\operatorname{det||O||} \operatorname{pf||A||} = 1.$$

These two lines being combined give
 * $$ \operatorname{pf^2||A||}=\operatorname{det||A||}.$$

Trompedo (talk) 08:21, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Simple proof of equation $$ \operatorname{pf||A^{2m + 1}||}= (-1)^{nm}\operatorname{pf||A||}^{2m + 1}$$
that caused difficulties for Ms. Pendleton. The following equations are obvious
 * $$\operatorname{pf}(A^{m}A(A^{T})^{m})=\operatorname{pf}(A^{m}A(-A)^{m})=\operatorname{pf}(A^{m}A(-)^{m}A^{m})=(-)^{nm}\operatorname{pf}(A^{2m+1}),$$

and
 * $$\operatorname{pf}(A^{m}A(A^{T})^{m})=\det (A^{m})\operatorname{pf}(A)

=(\operatorname{det}(A))^{m}\operatorname{pf}(A) =(\operatorname{pf}(A)^{2})^{m}\operatorname{pf}(A)=\operatorname{pf}(A)^{2m+1}.$$ Comparing these two lines, we obtain
 * $$\operatorname{pf}(A^{2m+1})=(-)^{nm}\operatorname{pf}(A)^{2m+1}.$$

In the special case m = - 1, we arrive at the equation in the text. Trompedo (talk) 06:30, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Reference to Wells
There's a reference to Wells' Curious and Interesting Numbers in the References section. I have this work (metaphorically) open in front of me now, and I can't see anything on p.182 that seems remotely relevant. Can anyone help explain what that's all about? --Matt Westwood 07:21, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Is it the same as Pfaffinant?
WaterWaterWaterLooLooLoo (talk) 22:11, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

References and clarification for the trace formula
The trace log identity for the product of pfaffians, and the resulting numerical method lacks references. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1605.00447.pdf appears to be a possible relevant reference, but the range of applicability of the formula is not clear from there either. The trace identity is stated for the case when A^T B is positive definite, but there is no mention of this restriction in the numerical methods section. The trace identity tr(log(AB)) = tr(log(A)) + tr(log(B)) is not true in general, only modulo 2 pi i because of the ambiguity of choosing the branch cut of the log. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dvarjas (talk • contribs) 21:08, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

PARI/gp code
I saw someone contributing Mmca code in an earlier section, so I allow myself to contribute PARI code: pf(A)=if(#A>1,sum(j=2,#A,(-1)^j*A[1,j]*pf(A[^j,^j][^1,^1])),!#A) This is not optimized but certainly much more efficient than to factor the determinant which already for a 6x6 antisymmetric matrix is a homogeneous polynomial of degree 6 with about 200 terms in the 10 independent components. — MFH:Talk 01:41, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Problem in Examples section
The section Examples ends with this sentence:

"(Note that any skew-symmetric matrix can be reduced to this form with all $$b_i$$ equal to zero; see Spectral theory of a skew-symmetric matrix.)"

This makes no sense at all, however, because the symbol "$$b_i$$" has not been defined. 2601:200:C000:1A0:3932:3D49:97C7:A86A (talk) 17:21, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Bad sentence
The section Examples ends with this sentence (in parentheses):

"Note that any skew-symmetric matrix can be reduced to this form; see Spectral theory of a skew-symmetric matrix."

But nowhere in this section or earlier in the article is anything defined as a bi for any value of i.

I hope someone can fix this or else delete the otherwise meaningless sentence.

 * Never mind; I took care of it by removing the unneeded and confusing phrase "with all bi equal to zero".

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

title: Talk:Pfaffian


text:
Town of East Fremantle

The Town of East Fremantle is a local government area in the southern suburbs of the Western Australian capital city of Perth, located immediately northeast of the port city of Fremantle and about 17 km southwest of Perth's central business district. The Town covers an area of 3.1 km2, maintains 46 km of roads and had a population of over 7,000 as at the 2016 Census.

History
The Municipality of East Fremantle was gazetted on 2 April 1897. On 1 July 1961, it became a town following the enactment of the Local Government Act 1960.

Wards
The town has been divided into four wards, each electing two councillors. Each councillor serves a four-year term, and half-elections are held every two years. The mayor is directly elected.

 * Mayor: Jim O'Neill (elected 2017)
 * Preston Point Ward: Michael McPhail (2017) and Tony Natale (2019)
 * Richmond Ward: Andrew McPhail (2017) and Dean Nardi (2019)
 * Plympton Ward: Jenny Harrington (2017) and Cliff Collinson (2019)
 * Woodside Ward: Tony Watkins (2017) and Kerry Donovan (2019)

Suburbs

 * East Fremantle

Heritage listed places
, 1,146 places are heritage-listed in the Town of East Fremantle, of which fifteen are on the State Register of Heritage Places.

title: Town of East Fremantle


text:
Talk:USS Philadelphia

Untitled
You state that the first Philadelphia was a gondola, defined as a boat used in the canals of Venice. I believe that the Philadelphia was in fact a gundalow, a much larger freight barge type of boat that would have been more capable of fighting in a naval battle than an oversized rowboat.

 * There are three kinds of vessels called "gondola", the meaning here is one of those. Benedict Arnold called them gondolas in reports, and probably meant "gundalow", although it's not 100% certain. Gondola needs additions to explain all this. Stan 17:55, 23 May 2004 (UTC)

title: Talk:USS Philadelphia


text:
City of Gosnells

The City of Gosnells is a local government area in the southeastern suburbs of the Western Australian capital city of Perth, located northwest of Armadale and about 20 km southeast of Perth's central business district. The City covers an area of 128 km2, a portion of which is state forest rising into the Darling Scarp to the east, and had a population of approximately 118,000 at the 2016 Census. The largest activity centre in the City is the Central Maddington shopping centre. District centres exist in the Gosnells town centre and Thornlie.

History
The name Gosnells dates back to 1862 when Charles Gosnell who was the owner of London cosmetic company John Gosnell & Co., bought Canning location 16 from the Davis family who were the original grantees in 1829. While the purchase of the land was a personal investment by Charles Gosnell, when the land was sold to developers in 1903 the developers used the association to the well known cosmetic company, claiming it had bought the land because of its fertile soil to grow flowers for the manufacture of its perfume range. The abundance of the Arum Lily (Zantedeschia aethiopica) in the area and the marketing by the developers contributed to the myth about the Gosnell company, being so successful that the Gosnells railway station was constructed on the Armadale line in 1903.

The Gosnells Road District was created out of the abolished Canning Road District on 1 July 1907. Industry in the form of brickworks were introduced to Beckenham in the early 1990s. Between 1912 and 1915 fruit fly wiped out nearly all of the stone fruit crops in the region and many farmers turned to dairying and market gardening. Irrigation was vital due to sandy, infertile soils of Canning Vale. In 1923, the City received land from Jandakot Road District when that entity was abolished. Significant development did not occur until the post-war years. The population grew from 7,400 in 1954 to about 11,000 in 1966, and then to 21,000 in 1970. On 1 July 1961, Gosnells Road District became the Shire of Gosnells following enactment of the Local Government Act 1960. On 1 July 1973 it gained town status as the Town of Gosnells and assumed its current name when it attained City status on 1 July 1977.

A large industrial estate was first established in Maddington in the 1970s, expanding over the subsequent decades. Commercial and industrial development has also occurred in a linear pattern along Albany Highway between Beckenham and Gosnells.

Mayors
The present mayor is Terresa Lynes, who was elected to the position in October 2021, and reelected in 2023.

Wards
There are currently no wards within the City of Gosnells with the entire electorate represented by 12 councillors. The mayor is now elected by popular vote from the elected councillors.

Prior to 2011, the city was divided into 3 wards, each of 4 councillors. The mayor was directly elected. The three wards were:
 * Canning Vale Ward
 * Bickley Ward
 * Gosnells Ward

Suburbs
The suburbs of the City of Gosnells with population and size figures based on the most recent Australian census: ( * indicates suburb partially located within City)

Heritage listed places
, 193 places are heritage-listed in the City of Gosnells, of which three are on the State Register of Heritage Places.

title: City of Gosnells


text:
TV Nation

TV Nation is a satirical news magazine television series written, co-produced, directed and hosted by Michael Moore that was co-funded and originally broadcast by NBC in the United States and BBC2 in the United Kingdom. The show blended humor and journalism into provocative reports about various issues. After moving to Fox for its second (and final) season, the show won an Emmy Award in 1995 for Outstanding Informational Series.

TV Nation was created in the wake of the success Moore had with the documentary Roger & Me, prompting Warner Bros. Television to ask Moore for television series ideas. In January 1993, NBC green-lit a pilot episode which took three months to complete. Interest from the BBC prompted NBC to insert the show into its summer 1994 lineup.

Conception
After the success of the 1989 documentary Roger & Me, Michael Moore and producer Kathleen Glynn, then a married couple, were approached by Warner Bros. television about creating ideas for a television series. However, Moore was intent on making the full-length film Canadian Bacon after writing the script in the summer of 1991. After having his script passed on many times, it was on a visit to Hollywood in November 1992 about the movie that Moore received a phone call in his hotel room from NBC. Without a single TV show idea in mind, Moore agreed to meet with NBC executives about TV show ideas that afternoon. Frantic for ideas, Moore brainstormed over a carphone with producer Glynn on his half-hour drive to Burbank, out of which TV Nation spawned. As Moore and Glynn would later describe it, TV Nation "would be a humorous magazine show but with one distinct difference—it would have a point of view." Expecting the concept to be quickly dismissed by NBC executives during the meeting, Moore proceeded to describe the show in the most ludicrous ways possible, saying, "it would be a cross between 60 Minutes and Fidel Castro on laughing gas." Instead of quickly dismissing Moore's pitch, the NBC executives (including Warren Littlefield) were laughing. When Moore returned to his hotel, a message had already been left for him saying that production of a pilot episode had the go-ahead.

Production on the pilot episode of TV Nation began in January 1993. Moore initially turned to friends and colleagues in many production areas, while also making a point of ensuring the show's employees were unionized. For the show's title sequence, graphic designer Chris Harvey put together the images, and music group tomandandy wrote the TV Nation theme. After completing the pilot in three months, both NBC executives and focus groups were highly impressed with the show. But without room in their fall 1993 schedule, NBC indefinitely delayed committing to a full season. That winter, the head of BBC2 heard about the pilot, and after watching it offered to buy the show. With firm interest in the show, NBC offered to put TV Nation into its summer 1994 lineup.

Episodes and format
Season one was originally broadcast in the United States on NBC in the summer of 1994, with the premiere airing July 19, 1994. After NBC canceled the show after one season, it was subsequently picked up by Fox, and the second season aired in the summer of 1995.

TV Nation was formatted as a newsmagazine, with stories interspersed by short clips of the show's theme (for example, Moore spending a day with Dr. Jack Kevorkian) and factual polls surveying the American public. The show's investigative reports delved into various aspects of American life, and they were filmed and presented in a style similar to Moore's feature-length documentaries such as The Big One (1998).

The show featured segments such as "The Corporate Challenge," in which CEOs were challenged to prove they could use the products their companies created; the storming of the supposedly "private" beach in Greenwich, Connecticut; hiring ex-KGB officer Yuri Shvets to conduct investigations; an experiment to see if hiring a lobbyist for $5,000 could get the Congress to declare a "TV Nation Day" (he got a bill introduced, but it never passed); and "Crackers the Corporate Crime Fighting Chicken." Among its correspondents were Merrill Markoe, Janeane Garofalo, Karen Duffy, Jonathan Katz, Rusty Cundieff and Louis Theroux. Crackers was first portrayed by Lee Brownstein, but TV Nation writer John Derevlany played Crackers for the remainder of the show's run. TV Nation also featured humorous (but true) public opinion polls, each conducted by the firm of Widgery and Associates from a random sample of Americans.

Unaired segments
The release of TV Nation on two VHS volumes in 1997 offered a chance to view two unaired segments considered too controversial to be aired on broadcast television at the time. In the first segment at the end of Volume One, one of the correspondents visits drug stores and inquires about extra-small sized condoms. The second unaired segment at the end of Volume Two looks at the Phelps family, known for picketing the funerals of AIDS victims. Three additional segments were not allowed to air on American television, although all aired in United Kingdom: A segment on a support group formed for executives involved in the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s; an examination of the extreme anti-abortion movement; and re-enacting the 1992 Los Angeles riots using Civil War re-enactors.

Awards and recognition
TV Nation won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Informational Series on September 8, 1995, and was later named number 90 on the list of the British Film Institute's 100 Greatest British Television Programmes. During its original broadcast run, TV Nation working with the well known Washington lobbyist William C. Chasey was recognized by the United States Congress in resolution H.J. 365, which declared August 16, 1994 as "TV Nation Day." The bill was introduced by Rep. Howard Coble, R, North Carolina, co-sponsored by Rep. Floyd H. Flake D, New York. TV Guide named TV Nation one of the ten best television shows of 1995.

Cancellation and post-TV Nation
In December 1995, the Fox network decided not to pick up its option for more episodes of the show, despite receiving more letters and mail than they ever had for any show. By January 1997, the BBC had raised all of the necessary money for an eight-episode-long third season of TV Nation, receiving funds from TV networks in five different countries (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and France). What prevented the third season from becoming a reality was a lack of a major American television network outlet for the show. During this time reruns of the show began appearing on Comedy Central, and ratings for the first week were, in Moore's words, "incredible."

After TV Nation ended, two VHS volumes of the show were released in 1997. Adventures in a TV Nation, a book about the series written by Moore and Glynn, was published in 1998. The funding previously acquired from British broadcaster Channel 4 for a third season eventually turned into the new TV series The Awful Truth. It was broadcast on the Bravo cable television network in the US from 1999 to 2000. There are currently no known reruns of TV Nation being shown by a United States TV station or cable channel, nor are there any plans to release it on DVD or to online video sites like Hulu.com.

Home video releases
Two VHS videocassettes were released in 1997 by Columbia TriStar Home Video.

Reboot
In 2019, TBS cancelled plans to reboot TV Nation. The series was originally greenlighted in 2017 with the title "Live from the Apocalypse" and developed for TNT.

title: TV Nation


text:
USS Florida (1850)

The second USS Florida was a sidewheel steamer in the United States Navy.

Florida was purchased and commissioned on 5 October 1861, with Lieutenant John R. Goldsborough in command.

Florida stood out of New York Harbor on 19 October 1861 to join the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron in patrolling the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. She helped capture a ship and a schooner who were running the blockade. Returning to New York during November 1862, she was decommissioned for repairs, and was recommissioned 7 March 1863 for service with the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron. She was particularly successful in this assignment, capturing a steamer and a schooner off Wilmington, North Carolina, in June 1863, and aiding the destruction of a number of British steamers used as blockade runners in February 1864, including PS Fanny and Jennie.

Again out of commission for repairs between 12 December 1864 and 26 February 1865, Florida sailed 10 March with supplies for ships on station along the Atlantic coast. She proceeded through the Gulf of Mexico to New Orleans where she embarked Confederate prisoners from the ram CSS Webb, transporting them to New York. Florida weighed anchor again to cruise the Gulf of Mexico until the end of 1865.

On her final voyage, Florida sailed in the West Indies from 4 January 1866 to 8 April 1867. She was placed out of commission for the last time on 26 April 1867 and subsequently sold.

title: USS Florida (1850)


text:
Stanley Spencer

Sir Stanley Spencer, CBE RA (30 June 1891 – 14 December 1959) was an English painter. Shortly after leaving the Slade School of Art, Spencer became well known for his paintings depicting Biblical scenes occurring as if in Cookham, the small village beside the River Thames where he was born and spent much of his life. Spencer referred to Cookham as "a village in Heaven" and in his biblical scenes, fellow-villagers are shown as their Gospel counterparts. Spencer was skilled at organising multi-figure compositions such as in his large paintings for the Sandham Memorial Chapel and the Shipbuilding on the Clyde series, the former being a First World War memorial while the latter was a commission for the War Artists' Advisory Committee during the Second World War.

As his career progressed Spencer often produced landscapes for commercial necessity and the intensity of his early visionary years diminished somewhat while elements of eccentricity came more to the fore. Although his compositions became more claustrophobic and his use of colour less vivid he maintained an attention to detail in his paintings akin to that of the Pre-Raphaelites. Spencer's works often express his fervent if unconventional Christian faith. This is especially evident in the scenes that he based in Cookham which show the compassion that he felt for his fellow residents and also his romantic and sexual obsessions. Spencer's works originally provoked great shock and controversy. Nowadays, they still seem stylistic and experimental, while the nude works depicting his futile relationship with his second wife, Patricia Preece, such as the Leg of mutton nude, foreshadow some of the much later works of Lucian Freud. Spencer's early work is regarded as a synthesis of French Post-Impressionism, exemplified for instance by Paul Gauguin, plus early Italian painting typified by Giotto. In later life Spencer remained an independent artist and did not join any of the artistic movements of the period, although he did show three works at the Second Post-Impressionist Exhibition in 1912.

Early life
Stanley Spencer was born in Cookham, Berkshire, the eighth surviving child of William and Anna Caroline Spencer (née Slack). His father, usually known as Par, was a music teacher and church organist. Stanley's younger brother, Gilbert Spencer (1892–1979), also became a notable artist, known principally for his landscape paintings. The family home, "Fernlea", on Cookham High Street, had been built by Spencer's grandfather Julius Spencer. Stanley Spencer was educated at home by his sisters Annie and Florence, as his parents had reservations about the local council school but could not afford private education for him. However, Gilbert and Stanley took drawing lessons from a local artist, Dorothy Bailey. Eventually, Gilbert was sent to a school in Maidenhead, but the family did not feel this would be beneficial for Stanley, who was developing into a solitary teenager given to long walks, yet with a passion for drawing. Par Spencer approached local landowners, Lord and Lady Boston, for advice, and Lady Boston agreed Stanley could spend time drawing with her each week. In 1907 Lady Boston arranged for Stanley to attend Maidenhead Technical Institute, where his father insisted he should not take any exams.

From 1908 to 1912, Spencer studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London, under Henry Tonks and others. His contemporaries at the Slade included Dora Carrington, Maxwell Gordon Lightfoot, Mark Gertler, Paul Nash, Edward Wadsworth, Isaac Rosenberg and David Bomberg. So profound was his attachment to Cookham that most days he would take the train back home in time for tea. It even became his nickname: his fellow student C. R. W. Nevinson dubbed him Cookham, a name which Spencer himself took to using for a time. While at the Slade, Spencer allied with a short-lived group who called themselves the "Neo-Primitives" which was centred on Bomberg and William Roberts.

In 1912 Spencer exhibited the painting John Donne Arriving in Heaven and some drawings in the British section of the Second Post-Impressionist Exhibition organised by Roger Fry in London. The same year he painted The Nativity. for which he won a Slade Composition Prize and he also began painting Apple Gatherers, which was shown in the first Contemporary Art Society exhibition the following year. In 1914 Spencer completed Zacharias and Elizabeth and The Centurion's Servant. The latter painting featured not only Spencer himself as the servant, but also his brothers and the bed from his own nursery. He also began work on a self-portrait. Self-portrait (1914) was painted in Wisteria Cottage, a decaying Georgian house Spencer rented, from the local coalman in Cookham, for use as a studio. Painted with a mirror, the painting is bold and austere with a direct and penetrating gaze, softened by the deep shadow on the right hand side – the head fills the picture space and is painted one and a half times life size. Apple Gatherers had been bought by the artist Henry Lamb, who promptly sold it to the art collector Edward Marsh. Marsh later bought Self-portrait and considered it to be "masterly...glowing with genius."

First World War
At the start of the First World War Spencer was keen to enlist but his mother persuaded him, given his poor physique, to apply for ambulance duties. In 1915 Spencer volunteered to serve with the Royal Army Medical Corps, RAMC, and worked as an orderly at the Beaufort War Hospital, Bristol, a large Victorian gothic building that had been a lunatic asylum. After thirteen months at Beaufort, the RAMC transferred Spencer to overseas duties. He left Beaufort in May 1916 and after ten weeks' training at Tweseldown Camp in Hampshire, the 24-year-old Spencer was sent to Macedonia, with the 68th Field Ambulance unit. In 1917 he subsequently volunteered to be transferred to an infantry unit, the 7th Battalion, the Berkshire Regiment. In all, Spencer spent two and a half years on the front line in Macedonia, facing both German and Bulgarian troops, before he was invalided out of the Army following persistent bouts of malaria. His survival of the war that killed so many of his fellows, including his elder brother Sydney, who died in action in September 1918, indelibly marked Spencer's attitude to life and death. Such preoccupations came through time and again in his subsequent works.

Spencer returned to England at the end of 1918 and went back to his parents at Fernlea in Cookham, where he completed Swan Upping, the painting he had left unfinished when he enlisted. Swan Upping was first exhibited at the New English Art Club in 1920 and was bought by J. L. Behrend. Spencer had begun the painting by making a small oil study and several drawings from memory before visiting Turks Boatyard beside Cookham Bridge to confirm his composition. Spencer worked systematically from top to bottom on the canvas but had only completed the top two-thirds of the picture when he had to leave it in 1915. Returning to the work Spencer found it difficult to continue after his war-time experiences, often stating "It is not proper or sensible to expect to paint after such experience."

Travoys Arriving with Wounded ...
In 1919 Spencer was commissioned by the British War Memorials Committee of the Ministry of Information to paint a large work for a proposed, but never built, Hall of Remembrance. The resulting painting, Travoys Arriving with Wounded at a Dressing Station at Smol, Macedonia, September 1916, now in the Imperial War Museum, was clearly the consequence of Spencer's experience in the medical corps. He wrote, "'About the middle of September 1916 the 22nd Division made an attack on Machine Gun Hill on the Doiran Vardar Sector and held it for a few nights. During these nights the wounded passed through the dressing stations in a never-ending stream.'" Among the dressing stations was an old Greek church which Spencer drew such that, with the animal and human onlookers surrounding it, it would recall depictions of the birth of Christ, but to Spencer the wounded figures on the stretchers spoke of Christ on the Cross while the lifesaving work of the surgeons represented the Resurrection. He wrote, "'I meant it not a scene of horror but a scene of redemption.' And also, 'One would have thought that the scene was a sordid one...but I felt there was grandeur...all those wounded men were calm and at peace with everything, so the pain seemed a small thing with them.'"

1920–1927
Spencer lived in Cookham until April 1920 when he moved to Bourne End to stay with the trade union lawyer Henry Slesser and his wife. While there, he worked on a series of paintings for their private oratory. In all, during the year he spent at the Slessor's home, Spencer painted some twenty pictures including Christ Carrying the Cross, which is now in the Tate. In 1921 Spencer stayed with Muirhead Bone at Steep in Hampshire where he worked on mural designs for a village hall war memorial scheme which was never completed. In 1923 Spencer spent the summer in Poole, Dorset, with Henry Lamb. While there he worked on sketch designs for another possible war memorial scheme. These designs convinced two early patrons of Spencer's work, Louis and Mary Behrend, to commission a group of paintings as a memorial to Mary's brother, Lieutenant Henry Willoughby Sandham, who had died in the war. The Behrends planned to build a chapel in the village of Burghclere in Berkshire to house the paintings. In October 1923, Spencer started renting Henry Lamb's studio in Hampstead where he began work on The Resurrection, Cookham. In 1925, Spencer married Hilda Carline, a former student at the Slade and the sister of the artists Richard and Sydney Carline. The couple first met in 1919 and had originally announced their engagement in 1922 after a Carline family painting trip to Yugoslavia. Spencer repeatedly cancelled, or otherwise postponed, their wedding until 1925. A daughter, Shirin, was born in November of that year and a second daughter, Unity, in 1930.

The Resurrection, Cookham
In February 1927 Spencer held his first one-man exhibition at the Goupil Gallery. The centre piece of the exhibition was The Resurrection, Cookham which received rave reviews in the British press. The Times' art critic described it as "the most important picture painted by any English artist in the present century. ... What makes it so astonishing is the combination in it of careful detail with the modern freedom of form. It is as if a Pre-Raphaelite had shaken hands with a Cubist."

The huge painting is set in the grounds of the Holy Trinity Church, Cookham, and shows Spencer's friends and family from Cookham and Hampstead, and others emerging from graves watched by figures of God, Christ and the saints. To the left of the church some of the resurrected are climbing over a stile, others are making their way to the river to board a Thames pleasure boat, others are simply inspecting their headstones. Spencer created the picture in the early years of his marriage to Hilda and she appears three times in the picture. Overall, the Goupil exhibition was a great success with thirty-nine of the displayed paintings being sold. The Resurrection, Cookham was purchased by Lord Duveen, who presented it to the Tate. After the exhibition Spencer moved to Burghclere to begin work on the Sandham Memorial Chapel for the Behrends.

Burghclere, 1927–1932
The Sandham Memorial Chapel in Burghclere was a colossal undertaking. Spencer's paintings cover a twenty-one foot high, seventeen-and-half foot wide end wall, eight seven foot high lunettes, each above a predella, with two twenty-eight feet long irregularly shaped strips between the lunettes and the ceiling. The Behrends were exceptionally generous patrons and not only paid for the chapel to be built to Spencer's specifications but also paid the rent on the London studio where he completed The Resurrection, Cookham and built a house for him and Hilda to live in nearby while working at Burghclere, as Spencer would be painting the canvases in situ. The chapel was designed to Spencer's specifications by the architect Lionel Pearson and was modelled on Giotto's Arena Chapel in Padua.

The sixteen paintings in the chapel are double hung on opposite walls akin to the progression of altarpieces in a Renaissance church nave. The series begins with a lunette depicting shell-shocked troops arriving at the gates of Beaufort, continues with a scene of kit inspection at the RAMC Training Depot in Hampshire which is followed by scenes of Macedonia. Spencer did not depict heroism and sacrifice, but rather in panels such as Scrubbing the Floor, Bedmaking, Filling Tea Urns and Sorting and Moving Kit Bags, the unremarkable everyday facts of daily life in camp or hospital and a sense of human companionship rarely found in civilian life as he remembered events from Beaufort, Macedonia and Tweseldown Camp. Such is the absence of violence in the panels, The Dugout panel was based on Spencer's thought of "how marvellous it would be if one morning, when we came out of our dug-outs, we found that somehow everything was peace and the war was no more." The scene, Map Reading offers a contrast to the dark earth of the hospital and military camps in the other panels and shows a company of soldiers resting by a roadside paying little attention to the only officer depicted among the hundreds of figures Spencer painted for the chapel. Bilberry bushes fill the background of the painting, making the scene appear green and Arcadian which seems to prefigure the paradise promised in the Resurrection of the Soldiers on the end, altar, wall. Spencer imagined the Resurrection of the Soldiers taking place outside the walled village of Kalinova in Macedonia with soldiers rising out of their graves and handing in identical white crosses to a Christ figure towards the top of the wall. Working on the Memorial Chapel has been described as a six-year process of remembrance and exorcism for Spencer and he explained the emphasis on the colossal resurrection scene, "I had buried so many people and saw so many bodies that I felt death could not be the end of everything."

While working at Burghclere, Spencer also undertook other small commissions including a series of five paintings, on the theme of Industry and Peace, for the Empire Marketing Board in 1929, which were not used, and a series of 24 pen-and-ink sketches for a 1927 Almanack. Much later in his life Spencer adapted seven of these sketches into paintings including The Dustbin, Cookham painted in 1958.

Cookham, 1932–1935
By 1932 Spencer was back in Cookham with his two daughters and Hilda living in a large house, Lindworth, off the High Street. Here Spencer painted observational studies of his surroundings and other landscapes, which would become the major themes of his work over the following years. During 1932 he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy and exhibited ten works at the Venice Biennale. However he was becoming dissatisfied with married life. Hilda was often in Hampstead as her elder brother was badly ill and when she was in Cookham life with her was not the cosy domestic idyll Spencer expected. In 1929 Spencer had met the artist Patricia Preece, and he soon became infatuated with her. Preece was a young fashion-conscious artist who had lived in Cookham since 1927 with her lesbian partner, the artist Dorothy Hepworth. In 1933 she first modelled for Spencer and when he visited Switzerland that summer, to paint landscapes, Preece joined him there.

The Church-House project
During the First World War Spencer had begun to conceive of a chapel of peace and love in which to display his works and these ideas developed further while working at Burghclere. Eventually he developed a complete scheme of domestic and religious spaces mixing his love of Cookham with cycles of paintings illustrating sacred and profane love. The original lay-out of the Church-House would have mirrored the geography of Cookham with the nave based on the High Street, while School Lane and the path beside the Thames would be the aisles. In one version, Spencer envisaged the building would include bedrooms as chapels, fireplaces as altars and decorated bathrooms and lavatories while other versions of the scheme were more like an English parish church. As well as a chapel dedicated to Hilda, there would be a chapel dedicated to Elise Munday, the Spencer family servant, and the subject of Hilda's finest painting. Spencer had at least two significant affairs during his life, one with Daphne Charlton while at Leonard Stanley, and the other with Charlotte Murray, a Jungian analyst, when he was working in Port Glasgow, and there were to be chapels dedicated to both of them. Although the structure was never built, Spencer continually returned to the project throughout his life and continued to paint works for the building long after it had become clear it would never be constructed. His original scheme included three sequences of paintings, two of which The Marriage of Cana and The Baptism of Christ were completed. The Turkish Windows,(1934), and Love Among the Nations,(1935), were designed as long friezes for the nave of the Church-House.

Numerous other paintings were intended for the Church-House. These included the two paintings Spencer submitted for the 1935 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Saint Francis and the Birds and The Dustman or The Lovers. The Royal Academy rejected both pictures, and Spencer resigned from the Academy in protest. The rejection of the Saint Francis picture was particularly galling for Spencer as the model for the figure of Saint Francis had been his own father, wearing his own dressing gown and slippers, which Spencer had intended to hang in the nave of the Church-House.

Divorce and remarriage, 1935–1938
Spencer made a return visit to Switzerland in 1935, and Patricia Preece travelled with him. When they returned to Cookham, Spencer's wife, Hilda, moved to Hampstead, and his contact with his daughters became limited. Hilda was growing increasingly despondent and hurt at Spencer's fixation with Preece. She sent their older daughter Shirin to live with a relative. Shirin later commented: "When I was young I just thought this is how things were. But as I got older, and realised what Patricia had done, she became the one person I really hated." Preece began to manage Spencer's finances and he later signed the deeds of his house, Lindworth, over to her. Between the middle of 1935 and 1936 Spencer painted a series of nine pictures, known as the Domestic Scenes in which he recalled, or re-imagined, life with Hilda at home. While Spencer was painting these, Hilda, as shown by her letters from the time, finally started divorce proceedings and a decree absolute was issued in May 1937.

A week later Spencer married Preece; she, however, continued to live with Hepworth, and refused to consummate the marriage. When Spencer's bizarre relationship with Preece finally fell apart, she refused to grant him a divorce. Spencer would often visit Hilda, and he continued to do so throughout her subsequent mental breakdown and until her death from cancer in November 1950. The painful intricacies of this three-way relationship became the subject in 1996 of a play, Stanley by the feminist playwright Pam Gems.

Spencer painted naked portraits of Preece in 1935 and 1936 and, also in 1936, a double nude portrait of himself and Preece, Self-Portrait with Patricia Preece, now in the Fitzwilliam Museum. This was followed, in 1937, by Double Nude Portrait: The Artist and His Second Wife, known as the Leg of mutton nude, a painting never publicly exhibited during Spencer's lifetime. In a futile attempt to be reconciled with Hilda, Spencer went to stay with her in Hampstead for ten days. Her rejection of this approach is the basis of Hilda, Unity and Dolls, which Spencer painted during that visit. During the winter of 1937, alone in Southwold, Suffolk, Spencer begin a series of paintings, The Beatitudes of Love, about ill-matched couples. These pictures, and others of often radical sexual imagery, were intended for cubicles in the Church-House where the visitor could "meditate on the sanctity and beauty of sex". When Sir Edward Marsh, Spencer's early patron, was shown these paintings his response was "Terrible, terrible Stanley!"

In October 1938 Spencer had to leave Cookham and moved to London, spending six weeks with John Rothenstein before moving to a bedsit in Swiss Cottage. There was now no realistic hope of reconciliation with Hilda and he was already distanced from Preece, who had rented out Lindworth so effectively evicting Spencer. At this low point Spencer painted four of the canvases in the Christ in the Wilderness series. He originally intended to paint a series of 40, one representing each day of Jesus's sojourn in the wilderness, but in the end only eight were completed and a ninth was left unfinished. By September 1939, he was staying at Leonard Stanley in Gloucestershire with the artists George and Daphne Charlton. Spencer created many important works in his room above the bar of the White Hart Inn which he used as a studio, including Us in Gloucestershire and The Wool Shop. While in Gloucestershire, Spencer also began a series of over 100 pencil works, now known as the Scrapbook Drawings, which he continued to add to for at least ten years.

Port Glasgow, 1939–1945
Since late in 1938, Spencer's agent, Dudley Tooth had been managing Spencer's finances and when the Second World War broke out he wrote to E.M.O'R. Dickey, the secretary of the War Artists' Advisory Committee, WAAC, seeking employment for Spencer. In May 1940 WAAC sent Spencer to the Lithgows Shipyard in Port Glasgow on the River Clyde to depict the civilians at work there. Spencer became fascinated by what he saw and sent WAAC proposals for a scheme involving up to sixty-four canvases displayed on all four sides of a room.

WAAC agreed to a more modest series of up to eleven canvases, some of which would be up to six metres long. The first two of these, Burners and Caulkers were completed by the end of August 1940. WAAC purchased the three parts of Burners, but not Caulkers, for £300 and requested a further painting, Welders, for balance. Spencer delivered Welders in March 1941 and in May 1941 saw the two paintings hanging together for the first time at the WAAC exhibition in the National Gallery. WAAC held Spencer in the highest regard, and in particular Dickey ensured he received, almost, all the expenses and materials he requested and even accepted his refusal to fill in any forms or sign a contract.

Between trips to Port Glasgow, Spencer was renting a room in Epsom, to be near Hilda and his children, but the landlady there disliked him and he wanted to move back to Cookham and work on the paintings in his old studio but he could not afford to rent it from Preece, so WAAC agreed further financial help for that purpose. In May 1942, Spencer delivered Template, followed by twelve portraits of Clydesiders in October 1942.

By June 1943, Spencer was having problems with the composition of the next painting in the series, Bending the Keel plate and considered abandoning it. Although he was not entirely happy with the painting, WAAC purchased it in October 1943 for 150 guineas. About this time, the owner of the shipyard, James Lithgow, complained to WAAC about Spencer's portrayal of his shipyard. WAAC duly commissioned Henry Rushbury to go to Port Glasgow and produce some rather more conventional views of shipbuilding for Lithgow. Spencer made further visits to Glasgow and by June 1944 had completed Riggers and begun work on Plumbers. After WAAC had purchased these two paintings, they did not have enough funds to authorise the completion of the entire original scheme of paintings. By the time WAAC was wound up, money had been made available for one further picture, The Furnaces, which would become the central piece of the scheme. After the war, when the WAAC collection of artworks was dispersed to different museums, the complete Shipbuilding on the Clyde series was offered to the National Maritime Museum who refused to accept the pictures and they were given to the Imperial War Museum instead.

In November 2006, the Imperial War Museum asked Sir Alex Ferguson, whose father, brother and an uncle were working in the yards while Spencer was there, to lead a campaign to fund restoration of Spencer's paintings of the Port Glasgow's shipyards.

The Riverside Museum, Glasgow, now displays Spencer's shipyard paintings as a biannual rotation of works on loan from the Imperial War Museum.

In 1982, Robert Wyatt used sections from two of the panels on sleeve art for his single "Shipbuilding".

In 2014 on the site of the former Kingston Shipyard in Port Glasgow, which is now a retail park, a memorial in plate steel was erected to Spencer.

In 1945 Spencer returned to live in Cookham in a house called Cliveden View, which had once belonged to his brother Percy.

Resurrection pictures, 1945–1950
While the Resurrection had long been a recurring theme in Spencer's work, in the years after the war it became especially so. Writing in his notebooks, Spencer attributed this to a revelation he had while in Port Glasgow working on the Shipbuilding on the Clyde series, "One evening in Port Glasgow when unable to write due to a jazz band playing in the drawing-room just below me, I walked up along the road past the gas works to where I saw a cemetery on a gently rising slope... I seemed then to see that it rose in the midst of a great plain and that all in the plain were resurrecting and moving towards it... I knew then that the resurrection would be directed from this hill."

Later he wrote,"I have read somewhere (might be Donne or Bunyan or Blake) that the resurrection is a kind of climbing of the Hill of Zion. I want to express this climbing idea... the hill will be illumined from the right, casting a long shadow across the plain far into the left side of the picture... Those resurrecting away in the plain on the left shadow-side of the hill must come round in front of the hill to join those coming from the right sunlit side, so there must be ground to walk on in front of the hill."

Spencer's original plan for realising this vision would have required a canvas some fifty feet wide. Appreciating that this was impractical, he instead embarked on a series of paintings of various sizes. The two largest of these, Resurrection: The Hill of Sion and Resurrection: Port Glasgow, at some twenty-two feet long each, matched the scale of his original vision. These were supplemented by a series of triptychs, Reunion, Rejoicing, Waking Up and The Raising of Jairus' Daughter plus two smaller pieces. A number of additional panels for some of the triptychs were planned but never completed. Spencer wanted the entire series displayed together, but each piece was sold to a different collector or gallery. Resurrection: Port Glasgow was exhibited with the Shipbuilding on the Clyde series for the first time in 2000 to great acclaim.

Final years
In 1950, the outgoing president of the Royal Academy, Sir Alfred Munnings, got hold of some of Spencer's Scrapbook Drawings and initiated a police prosecution against Spencer for obscenity. It was reported in the press that the, unnamed, owner of the pictures agreed to destroy them. Spencer also appears to have removed some drawings from his private scrapbooks and continued to ensure that the Leg of mutton nude would not be exhibited during his lifetime. He was appointed a CBE and the new President of the Royal Academy, Sir Gerald Kelly, who had supported Spencer in the obscenity case, persuaded him to rejoin the Royal Academy, as an Associate before being elected an Academician. Spencer visited his elder brother Harold in Northern Ireland in 1951, 1952 and 1953, painting portraits of Harold's daughter, Daphne, and urban scenes there, most notably Merville Garden Village near Belfast in 1951. In 1952 Spencer made a small number of lithographs on the theme of the Marriage at Cana which were published in a limited edition of thirty that year and reprinted in an edition of 70 after his death.

In the spring of 1954, the Chinese government invited various western delegations to visit China for the fifth anniversary celebrations of the "Liberation" of October 1949. Members of the hastily assembled "cultural delegation" included Stanley Spencer, Leonard Hawkes, Rex Warner, Hugh Casson and A. J. Ayer. Spencer told Zhou Enlai that "I feel at home in China because I feel that Cookham is somewhere near, only just around the corner." Towards the end of 1955, a large retrospective of Spencer's work was held at the Tate and he began a series of large paintings centred on the work Christ Preaching at Cookham Regatta, which were intended for the Church-House.

In his later years Spencer was seen as a "small man with twinkling eyes and shaggy grey hair, often wearing his pyjamas under his suit if it was cold." Spencer became a "familiar sight, wandering the lanes of Cookham pushing the old pram in which he carried his canvas and easel." A scene of Spencer pushing his easel along in a pram, and surrounded by angels, was the subject of the painting Homage to Spencer by the artist Derek Clarke. The pram, black and battered, has survived to become an exhibit in the Stanley Spencer Gallery in Cookham, which is dedicated to Spencer's life and works.

In 1958 Spencer painted The Crucifixion which was set in Cookham High Street and first displayed in Cookham Church. The painting employed a similar composition and viewpoint to an earlier painting, The Scarecrow, Cookham (1934) but with the two gargoyle-like carpenters nailing Christ to the cross and a screaming crucified thief, was by far the most violent of all Spencer's paintings. Spencer was made an Honorary Doctor of Letters by Southampton University in 1958, three days before he received his knighthood at Buckingham Palace.

In December 1958 Spencer was diagnosed with cancer. He underwent an operation at the Canadian Red Cross Memorial Hospital on the Cliveden estate in 1959. After his operation, he went to stay with friends in Dewsbury. There, over five days from July 12 to July 16 he painted a final self-portrait. Self-Portrait (1959) shows a fierce, almost defiant individual. Lord Astor made arrangements so that Spencer could move into his childhood home, Fernlea, and he died of cancer at the Canadian Red Cross Memorial Hospital in December that year. At the time of his death Christ Preaching at Cookham Regatta remained unfinished at his home. Spencer was cremated and his ashes interred in Cookham churchyard, beside the path through to Bellrope Meadow. A discreet stone memorial marks the spot. The commemorative wording is: "To the memory of Stanley Spencer Kt. CBE RA, 1891–1959, and his wife Hilda, buried in Cookham cemetery 1950. Everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God: He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love."

Art market
The value of Spencer's paintings soared after a retrospective exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1980. The Resurrection; waking up fetched £770,000 at Christie's early in 1990, and in May of that year his Crucifixion (1958) fetched £1,320,000. "It was an all-time record for a modern British painting, and would have astounded Stanley, who was poor for so long." On 6 June 2011 Sunflower and Dog Worship sold for £5.4m, beating a record of £4.7m set a few minutes earlier for Workmen in the House.

Archives
In 1973 the Tate acquired a large proportion of the Spencer family archives. These included Spencer's notebooks, sketchbooks and correspondence including the weekly letters he wrote to his sister Florence, while he was stationed in Salonika during the First World War. Spencer was a prolific writer of lists and the archive contains several that offer insights to specific paintings plus other material such as lists of rooms for the Church-House project, lists of plants in his own paintings and even a list of the jewellery he bought for Patricia Preece. Other correspondence by Spencer, some of which also dates from the First World War, is held in the archives of the Stanley Spencer Gallery in Cookham. Tate Britain holds the largest collection of Spencer works in the world, but the largest collection on display at any one time is at the Stanley Spencer Gallery.

In popular culture

 * In her 2022 novel, Salonika Burning, The Australian writer Gail Jones fictionalises Stanley Spencer (as 'Stanley'), and his experiences in Macedonia, along with British painter Grace Pailthorpe, Australian writer Miles Franklin and Australian adventurer Olive King.

Exhibitions
Exhibitions of his work held during Spencer's life included:
 * 1927: Goupil Gallery,
 * 1932: Venice Biennale,
 * 1936: Tooth's Gallery, Bond Street,
 * 1938: Venice Biennale,
 * 1939: Leger Gallery,
 * 1947: Retrospective at Temple Newsam House, Leeds,
 * 1954: Arts Council exhibition,
 * 1955: Tate retrospective,
 * 1958: Exhibition at Cookham church and vicarage.

Posthumous exhibitions:
 * 1980: Royal Academy
 * 1981: Spencer in the Shipyard, Arts Council touring exhibition
 * 1997: Stanley Spencer: An English Vision, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C, then on tour to Mexico City and California,
 * 2000: Men of the Clyde:Stanley Spencer's Vision at Port Glasgow, Scottish National Portrait Gallery
 * 2001: Tate Britain retrospective, then on tour to the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Ulster Museum,
 * 2002: Love, Desire, Faith, Abbothall Gallery, Kendel,
 * 2008: Laing Art Gallery,
 * 2009: York Art Gallery
 * 2009: Sargent, Sickert & Spencer, The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge,
 * 2011: Stanley Spencer And The English Garden, Compton Verney House,
 * 2013: Heaven in a Hell of War, Somerset House,
 * 2013-14: Stanley Spencer in Cookham, Stanley Spencer Gallery,
 * 2014: Paradise Regained, Stanley Spencer Gallery
 * 2015:  The Creative Genius of Stanley Spencer, Stanley Spencer Gallery
 * 2016: Stanley Spencer: Of Angels & Dirt, The Hepworth Wakefield,
 * 2016: Stanley Spencer: a twentieth century British Master, Carrick Hill, Adelaide, Australia

title: Stanley Spencer


text:
Renal cortex

The renal cortex is the outer portion of the kidney between the renal capsule and the renal medulla. In the adult, it forms a continuous smooth outer zone with a number of projections (cortical columns) that extend down between the pyramids. It contains the renal corpuscles and the renal tubules except for parts of the loop of Henle which descend into the renal medulla. It also contains blood vessels and cortical collecting ducts.

The renal cortex is the part of the kidney where ultrafiltration occurs. Erythropoietin is produced in the renal cortex.

title: Renal cortex


text:
Kalamunda, Western Australia

Kalamunda is a town and eastern suburb of Perth, Western Australia, located in the Darling Scarp at the eastern limits of the Perth metropolitan area.

History
Indigenous Noongar people were the first inhabitants of the area. The first permanent European settlers were the family of Frederick and Elizabeth Stirk, who arrived in 1881 and established a property called Headingly Hill at what is now Stirk Park; their house, Stirk Cottage, is now a museum. More settlers moved in during the 1890s, aided by the advent of the Kalamunda Zig Zag railway. At this time the Kalamunda area was known as "Gooseberry Hill". The name Kalamunda was declared on 13 December 1901 after a request from thirty-two residents to form a townsite. They requested the name "Calamunnda", derived from two words in the indigenous Noongar language, as recorded in a book by Bishop Rosendo Salvado: cala meaning "fire", "home", "district", or "settlement" and mun-da meaning "forest" or "bush". Surveyor-General Harry Johnston respelt the name as "Kalamunnda" and it was changed to "Kalamunda" by 1901. The local government area's unofficial motto is "A home in the forest".

Geography
At 300 m above sea level, Kalamunda and the surrounding areas experience colder night temperatures than the bulk of the Perth Metropolitan area to the west. Deep clay soils in the valleys in this area provide ideal growing conditions for stone fruits, apples and pears, wine production and for a small commercial rose growing industry.

The suburb of Gooseberry Hill is located to the north of Kalamunda where the terrain drops away sharply to the Helena Valley effectively isolating Kalamunda from other Darling Scarp population centres to the north. To the south and east the urban area transitions into the semi-rural and orchard growing areas of Bickley, Carmel and Pickering Brook, which in turn give way to extensive jarrah and marri forests.

Located nearby is the Kalamunda National Park and the northern terminus of the Bibbulmun Track, a 963 km recreational walking trail.

Important Bird Area
The town lies within the Mundaring-Kalamunda Important Bird Area, so identified by BirdLife International because of its importance as a non-breeding season roost site and foraging base for Long-billed Black Cockatoos.

Climate
Kalamunda has a Mediterranean climate with hot dry summers and cool wet winters. Due to the suburb's high elevation of around 250 - 300 m above mean sea level and location on the Darling Scarp, it is a few degrees cooler in winter than Perth; however, this difference is less pronounced in summer as Kalamunda is less affected than Perth by the regular afternoon sea breeze, the Fremantle Doctor, due to its inland location. Kalamunda is far wetter than the city with over 1000 mm of annual rainfall, due to its location in the Darling Scarp.

Transport
Kalamunda Road serves as a major access road for Perth Airport, and provides the foothills suburbs with access to the Perth central business district.

The suburb is serviced by the Kalamunda bus station, which provides bus services across the Perth metropolitan area.

Kalamunda was once part of a thriving logging region, with Kalamunda railway station the largest station on the Upper Darling Range Railway. The area has a number of features as a result of this railway including a museum at the site of the original station. Typical rail side road structures with a rail reserve between and the Zig Zag road on the old section where the railway climbed the Darling Scarp. It is at Gooseberry Hill that the railway used to descend from the hills to Midland Junction, dropping 300 metres in a series of five zig-zag shunts. The railway line has been replaced by a single lane, one-way scenic drive that follows the old track.

Bus Stations

 * Kalamunda Bus Station

Bus Routes

 * 272 Kalamunda Bus Station to Kalamunda Community Centre – serves Mead Street and Crescent Road
 * 273 Kalamunda Bus Station to Kalamunda Bus Station – Circular Route, serves Canning Road, Recreation Road, Peet Road and Cotherstone Road
 * 274 Kalamunda Bus Station to Gooseberry Hill – serves Mead Street and Railway Road
 * 275 Walliston to High Wycombe Station – serves Canning Road, Railway Road, Mead Street, Kalamunda Bus Station and Kalamunda Road
 * 276 Kalamunda Bus Station to High Wycombe Station – serves Mead Street and Railway Road
 * 279 Kalamunda Bus Station to Maddington Central – serves Canning Road and Lesmurdie Road
 * 282 Kalamunda Bus Station to Elizabeth Quay Bus Station – serves Canning Road
 * 283 Kalamunda Bus Station to Elizabeth Quay Bus Station – serves Canning Road and Lesmurdie Road
 * 307 Kalamunda Bus Station to Midland Station – serves Mead Street and Railway Road

Facilities
Kalamunda has extensive areas with orchards, primarily involved in apple and stone fruit production. The region largely serves as a dormitory suburb for Perth workers. It has a modest retail, government and education sector, and a small industrial base. While the town's retail centre is the largest in the Darling Scarp it primarily services Kalamunda and the contiguous urbanised areas of Lesmurdie and Walliston.

Kalamunda and the surrounding areas have an arts and crafts tradition, and are home to three major Perth residential colleges. Conservation groups are active within the community, and efforts have been made (largely successfully) to maintain native vegetation adjacent to the urban areas, and to some extent with the urban area.

Kalamunda is home to the television towers of all free-to-air Perth Television stations, and the approach control radar for Perth Airport.

Demographics
In the, Kalamunda had a population of 6,970; 48.3% male and 51.7% female. The median age of Kalamunda residents was 47, and median weekly personal income was $676. Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people made up 0.7% of the population.

The most popular religious affiliations in descending order in the 2016 census were No Religion 33.1%, Catholic 22.4%, Anglican 18.8%, Not Stated 9.0% and Christian, nfd 3.8%. Christianity was the largest religious group reported overall (61.4%) (this figure excludes not stated responses).

The population profile of Kalamunda is slightly in advance of the Perth Metropolitan area with a media age of 47, compared with Perth Metropolitan areas median age of 36, and it is likely that in time it will develop a large retirement population. The population of Kalamunda and the surrounding areas have a diverse ethnicity. Notably however, there are many Italian families who became involved in the orchard industry in the post-Second World War migration period.

Despite the steady encroach of the urban sprawl in recent times which has eroded the sense of a 'regional centre', Kalamunda remains a quiet town amongst the jarrah forests on the Darling Scarp.

Short stay accommodation in a forest setting close to Perth is a growth area, and Kalamunda is increasingly offering eco-tourism experiences for local and overseas visitors.

title: Kalamunda, Western Australia


text:
War pigeon

Homing pigeons have long played an important role in war. Due to their homing ability, speed, and altitude, they were often used as military messengers. Carrier pigeons of the Racing Homer breed were used to carry messages in World War I and World War II, and 32 such pigeons were presented with the Dickin Medal. Medals such as the Croix de Guerre, awarded to Cher Ami, and the Dickin Medal awarded to the pigeons G.I. Joe and Paddy, amongst 32 others, have been awarded to pigeons for their services in saving human lives.

During World War I and World War II, carrier pigeons were used to transport messages back to their home coop behind the lines. When they landed, wires in the coop would sound a bell or buzzer and a soldier of the Signal Corps would know a message had arrived. The soldier would go to the coop, remove the message from the canister, and send it to its destination by telegraph, field phone, or personal messenger.

A carrier pigeon's job was dangerous. Nearby, enemy soldiers often tried to shoot down pigeons, knowing that released birds were carrying important messages. Some of these pigeons became quite famous amongst the infantrymen for whom they worked. One pigeon, named “Spike”, flew 52 missions without receiving a single wound. Another, named Cher Ami, lost his foot and one eye, but his message got through, saving a large group of surrounded American infantrymen.

History
Before the advent of radio, carrier pigeons were frequently used on the battlefield as a means for a mobile force to communicate with a stationary headquarters. In the sixth century BC, Cyrus, king of Persia, used carrier pigeons to communicate with various parts of his empire. In Ancient Rome, Julius Caesar used pigeons to send messages to the territory of Gaul.

During the 19th-century (1870–71) Franco-Prussian War, besieged Parisians used carrier pigeons to transmit messages outside the city; in response, the besieging Prussian Army employed hawks to hunt the pigeons. The French military used balloons to transport homing pigeons past enemy lines. Microfilm images containing hundreds of messages allowed letters to be carried into Paris by pigeon from as far away as London. More than one million different messages traveled this way during the four-month siege. They were then discovered to be very useful, and carrier pigeons were well considered in military theory leading up to World War I.

World War I
Homing pigeons were used extensively during World War I. In 1914, during the First Battle of the Marne, the French army advanced 72 pigeon lofts with the troops. The US Army Signal Corps used 600 pigeons in France alone.

One of their homing pigeons, a Blue Check cock named Cher Ami, was awarded the French "Croix de Guerre with Palm” for heroic service delivering 12 important messages during the Battle of Verdun. On his final mission in October 1918, he delivered a message despite having been shot through the breast or wing. The crucial message, found in the capsule hanging from a ligament of his shattered leg, saved 194 US soldiers of the 77th Infantry Division's “Lost Battalion". United States Navy aviators maintained 12 pigeon stations in France, with a total inventory of 1,508 pigeons when the war ended. Pigeons were carried in airplanes to rapidly return messages to these stations, and 829 birds flew in 10,995 wartime aircraft patrols. Airmen of the 230 patrols with messages entrusted to pigeons threw the message-carrying pigeon either up or down, depending on the type of aircraft, to keep the pigeon out of the propeller and away from airflow toward the aircraft wings and struts. Eleven of the thrown pigeons went missing in action, but the remaining 219 messages were delivered successfully.

Pigeons were considered an essential element of naval aviation communication when the first United States aircraft carrier USS Langley (CV-1) was commissioned on 20 March 1922, so the ship included a pigeon house on the stern. The pigeons were trained at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard while Langley was undergoing conversion. As long as the pigeons were released a few at a time for exercise, they returned to the ship; but when the whole flock was released while Langley was anchored off Tangier Island, the pigeons flew south and roosted in the cranes of the Norfolk shipyard. The pigeons never went to sea again.

World War II and later deployments
During World War II, the United Kingdom used about 250,000 homing pigeons for many purposes, including communicating with those behind enemy lines such as Belgian spy Jozef Raskin. The Dickin Medal, the highest possible decoration for valor given to animals, was awarded to 32 pigeons, including the United States Army Pigeon Service's G.I. Joe and the Irish pigeon Paddy.

The UK maintained the Air Ministry Pigeon Section during World War II and for a while thereafter. A Pigeon Policy Committee made decisions about the uses of pigeons in military contexts. The head of the section, Lea Rayner, reported in 1945 that pigeons could be trained to deliver small explosives or bioweapons to precise targets. The ideas were not taken up by the committee, and in 1948 the UK military stated that pigeons were of no further use. During the war, messenger pigeons could draw a special allowance of corn and seed, but as soon as the war ended this had been cancelled and anyone keeping pigeons would have to draw on their own personal rationed corn and seed to also feed the pigeons. However, the UK security service MI5 was still concerned about the use of pigeons by enemy forces. Until 1950, they arranged for 100 birds to be maintained by a civilian pigeon fancier in order to prepare for any eventuality. The Swiss army disbanded its Pigeon section in 1996.

21st Century
In 2010, Indian police expressed suspicion that a recently captured pigeon from Pakistan might have been carrying a message from Pakistan. In 2015, a pigeon from Pakistan was logged into Indian records as a "suspected spy". In May 2020, another suspected Pakistani spy pigeon was captured by Indian security forces in Jammu and Kashmir. After finding nothing suspicious, India authorities released the pigeon back into Pakistan.

In 2016, a Jordanian border official said at a news conference that Islamic State militants were using homing pigeons to deliver messages to operatives outside its "so called caliphate".

Decorated war pigeons
In total, 32 pigeons were decorated with the Dickin Medal including:

 * All Alone (1943)
 * Winkie (1943)
 * Commando (1944)
 * Paddy (1944)
 * William of Orange (1944)
 * Mary of Exeter (1945)
 * Jimmy John Pigeon III (1943) (featured in Happy Wheels the video game)
 * G.I. Joe (1946)
 * Gustav (1944)
 * Beach Comber (1944)
 * Royal Blue (1945)

title: War pigeon


text:
Renal pelvis

The renal pelvis or pelvis of the kidney is the funnel-like dilated part of the ureter in the kidney. It is formed by the convergence of the major calyces, acting as a funnel for urine flowing from the major calyces to the ureter. It has a mucous membrane and is covered with transitional epithelium and an underlying lamina propria of loose-to-dense connective tissue.

The renal pelvis is situated within the renal sinus alongside the other structures of the renal sinus.

Clinical significance
The renal pelvis is the location of several kinds of kidney cancer and is affected by infection in pyelonephritis. A large "staghorn" kidney stone may block all or part of the renal pelvis.

The size of the renal pelvis plays a major role in the grading of hydronephrosis. Normally, the anteroposterior diameter of the renal pelvis is less than 4 mm in fetuses up to 32 weeks of gestational age and 7 mm afterwards. In adults, 13% of the normal population have a transverse pelvic diameter of over 10 mm.

Etymology and pronunciation
Like the bony pelvis, the renal pelvis gets its English name via Neo-Latin from the older Latin word pelvis, "basin", as in "wash basin". In both cases the name reflects the shape of the structure, and in the case of the renal pelvis, it also reflects the function. The name reflects that each renal pelvis collects urine from the calyces and funnels it into the ureter like a wash basin collects water and funnels it into a drain pipe. The renal pelvis is occasionally called the pyelum (from Greek πύελος pýelos, "trough", ‘anything hollow’), and the combining form pyelo- denotes the renal pelvis (pyelo- is not to be confused with pyo-). The words infundibulum and choana are other words for funnel-shaped cavities (which medical English got from the Latin and Greek words for "funnel", respectively), and the renal pelvis is sometimes called the renal infundibulum. The form *renal choana is logical but is not used.

title: Renal pelvis