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Gideon Johnson Pillow

Gideon Johnson Pillow (June 8, 1806 – October 8, 1878) was an American lawyer, politician, speculator, slaveowner, United States Army major general of volunteers during the Mexican–American War and Confederate brigadier general in the American Civil War.

Before his military career, Pillow practiced law and was active in Democratic Party politics. He was a floor leader in support of the nomination of fellow-Tennessean James K. Polk at the 1844 Democratic National Convention. In 1847, Pillow was commissioned a brigadier general of volunteers to serve in the Mexican–American War, and was later promoted to major general. He performed reasonably well, and was wounded that year at Cerro Gordo and Chapultepec. However, controversy arose when, in a series of letters, Pillow tried to take what was perceived by some as undue credit for American victories at the expense of his commander, Major General Winfield Scott. Pillow was court-martialed for insubordination, but with President Polk's assistance, the court-martial was reduced to a court of inquiry, which in 1848 exonerated Pillow.

After the war, Pillow served as a delegate to the Nashville Convention of 1850, where he supported compromise. He remained active in supporting the Democratic Party. At the start of the Civil War in 1861, Pillow supported secession, and was commissioned a brigadier general in the Confederate Army in July. Pillow received the thanks of the Confederate Congress for driving off the Union force at the Battle of Belmont, Missouri.

Pillow controversially failed to exploit a temporary breakthrough of Union lines by his troops which might have allowed the Confederate garrison of Fort Donelson to escape at the Battle of Fort Donelson on February 15, 1862. The next night, before the surrender of the fort, Brigadier General John B. Floyd passed overall command of the fort to Pillow, who in turn passed it to Brigadier General Simon Buckner. Floyd and Pillow managed to personally escape with a few aides before Buckner surrendered the remaining garrison to the Union Army of Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant. These actions sent his military career and reputation into decline.

Pillow commanded a brigade at the Battle of Stones River in 1863, where he performed poorly, and was among the few generals in the army to praise the leadership of commanding General Braxton Bragg. Removed from combat duty, he worked mainly in recruiting assignments through the remainder of the war. Bankrupt after the war, Pillow recovered financially and resumed a successful legal career. He died near Helena, Arkansas, in 1878; initially buried in Helena, Pillow was later reinterred at Elmwood Cemetery in Memphis.

Early life
Pillow was born on June 8, 1806, in Williamson County, Tennessee, to Gideon Pillow and Ann Payne Pillow.

He came from a well connected, property owning family with a reputation for Indian fighting and loyalty to Andrew Jackson. He graduated from the University of Nashville in 1827 and practiced law in Columbia, Tennessee, where he became friends with future President James K. Polk. Pillow married Mary Elizabeth Martin, March 24, 1831.

In 1831, Tennessee Governor William Carroll appointed Pillow as district attorney general. Pillow served as a brigadier general in the Tennessee Militia from 1833 to 1836. Pillow played "an important role" in the 1844 Democratic Party convention which nominated Polk for president, although Pillow exaggerated his contribution to the exclusion of other prominent Polk supporters.

Mexican–American War
During the Mexican–American War, Pillow was appointed brigadier general of United States Volunteers by President Polk on July 1, 1846. He was promoted to major general of volunteers on April 13, 1847. He was wounded in the right arm at the Battle of Cerro Gordo and in the left leg at Chapultepec.

During the war he came into conflict with one of the principal commanders of the American forces in Mexico, Major General Winfield Scott. The quarrel began when Scott asked Pillow to revise his exaggerated battle reports in which Pillow took credit for the American victories at the Battles of Contreras and Churubusco, but Pillow refused.

Although Pillow had performed reasonably well despite some mistakes in troop dispositions, the battles were still won by troops under the overall command of Scott.

Then, an anonymous letter—actually written by Pillow—published in the New Orleans Delta on September 10, 1847, and signed "Leonidas", wrongfully credited Pillow with the victories at Contreras, including the plan of battle and command of all the forces engaged, and Churubusco.

When Pillow's intrigue was exposed, he was arrested by Scott and held for court-martial for insubordination and violating regulations, along with Colonel James Duncan and Brigadier General William J. Worth.

Pillow wrote to President Polk about Scott's involvement in a bribery scheme proposed by Mexican leader Antonio López de Santa Anna for his help in ending the war without further bloodshed. Polk relieved Scott of command by a letter of February 18, 1848.

Polk reduced the proceedings against Pillow, Duncan and Worth from a court martial to a court of inquiry which had no criminal implications and added that Pillow could question Scott about the bribery scheme. Polk and Secretary of War William L. Marcy chose the three members of the court for their hostility to Scott. During the court of inquiry that began in March 1848 in Mexico City, Major Archibald W. Burns, a paymaster and Pillow protege, claimed authorship of the "Leonidas" letter, at Pillow's behest. When the court of inquiry took as much testimony as they could in Mexico City, on April 21, 1848, they adjourned to reconvene in Frederick, Maryland. Scott left Mexico City the next day. The court reconvened on June 5, 1848, with Scott ill. Scott dropped the charges against Worth and Duncan and Pillow was exonerated when the court announced their findings on July 1, 1848. Scott resumed his duties as general-in-chief of the army early that month.

Pillow was discharged from the United States Volunteers on July 20, 1848. In early 1849, two other courts of inquiry cleared Pillow of any misconduct during the war. Pillow assisted Roswell S. Ripley in writing The war with Mexico.

In his memoirs, Scott wrote that Pillow was "amiable and possessed of some acuteness, but the only person I have ever known who was wholly indifferent in the choice between truth and falsehood, honesty and dishonesty:—ever as ready to attain an end by the one as the other, and habitually boastful of acts of cleverness at the total sacrifice of moral character."

On the other hand, Pillow's friend and patron, President Polk, stated after the court of inquiry was closed: "General Pillow is a gallant and highly meritorious officer, and has been greatly persecuted by General Scott, for no other reason than that he is a Democrat in his politics and was supposed to be my personal and political friend."

Return to civilian life
Pillow was a Tennessee delegate to the 1850 Nashville Convention, which met to consider possible courses of action if the federal government decided to ban slavery in territories acquired and organized as part of Westward Expansion and the Mexican–American War. Pillow supported compromise, opposing delegates who favored nullification and secession.

Pillow's antagonism for Scott was reflected in the 1852 election for president, when he opposed Scott and supported Franklin Pierce. Pillow attempted to win the vice presidential nomination, which went to William R. King. He intended to be a candidate for vice president in 1856, but supported his brother-in-law Aaron V. Brown, who lost the nomination to John C. Breckinridge. In 1857, Pillow tried unsuccessfully to secure the Democratic nomination for a seat in the United States Senate.

Pillow supported the candidacy of Stephen A. Douglas in the presidential election of 1860. With the election of Abraham Lincoln as president, Pillow ultimately supported secession as the will of the majority in Tennessee.

In addition to his law practice and management of the family farm, Pillow engaged in highly profitable land speculation. By 1860, he was one of the largest landholders in the South and possibly the wealthiest man in Tennessee.

Early commands
Pillow joined the Confederacy just after the start of the Civil War. Tennessee Governor Isham G. Harris appointed Pillow as the senior major general in the Tennessee Militia and commander of the Provisional Army of Tennessee as of May 9, 1861.

Pillow worked closely with Harris to develop a regional munitions industry and to create the structure that would become the Army of Tennessee.

In July 1861, Pillow was appointed brigadier general in the Confederate States Army and was given command of the unit that was briefly called the "Army of Liberation". Pillow soon came under the command of Major General Leonidas Polk and General Albert Sidney Johnston in the Western Theater.

Polk ordered Pillow to lead a force into Kentucky on September 3, 1861, violating Kentucky's declared "neutrality" and provoking the State and the majority of its citizens to adhere to the Union.

Battle of Belmont
Pillow's first combat was against Union Army Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant, also in his first battle, at Belmont, Missouri, in November. Grant crossed the Mississippi River from Cairo, Illinois on the night of November 6, 1861, to demonstrate against Confederate forces in Missouri to keep them occupied while Major General John C. Fremont tried to maintain control of the western part of the State.

Grant decided to attack the small Confederate Camp Johnston at Belmont, Missouri across the river from the Confederate fort at Columbus, Kentucky. Pillow, who had left the area with 5,000 men for Clarksville, Tennessee, a few hours earlier, was recalled by Polk to confront the attackers.

Pillow ordered an assault on the Union force through the woods, giving the Union troops cover from which to push back the Confederates. Then the Union troops turned to the camp to pillage and celebrate, which Grant attempted to stop by burning the camp. Pillow, assisted by Brigadier General Benjamin F. Cheatham, reorganized the Confederates and counterattacked.

The disorganized Union soldiers fled for their gunboats, leaving the 27th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment behind, only to be rescued by boats sent back for that purpose.

The battle is considered a Confederate victory because the Union force withdrew across the river under fire, although it was primarily inconclusive with the Confederate force of about 5,000 men and the Union force of about 3,100 men suffering about the same number of casualties and the armies returning to their original positions.

Nevertheless, Pillow and his command were voted the Thanks of the Confederate Congress on December 6, 1861:"... for the desperate courage they exhibited in sustaining for several hours, and under most disadvantageous circumstances, an attack by a force of the enemy greatly superior to their own, both in numbers and appointments; and for the skill and gallantry by which they converted what at first threatened so much disaster, into a triumphant victory."

Battle of Fort Donelson
Pillow resigned from the Army on December 28, 1861, in a dispute with Major General Leonidas Polk, but he soon realized that this was a rash decision and was able to cancel his resignation by obtaining an order from Confederate President Jefferson Davis on February 2, 1862. When he returned, under direct command of General Albert Sidney Johnston rather than under Polk, he was given command at Clarksville, Tennessee. Without permission, Pillow began to forward men and supplies to Fort Donelson, a crucial installation protecting the Cumberland River. On February 9, Pillow was briefly assigned to command at Fort Donelson and began to make improvements. Three additional brigadier generals were assigned to the fort soon thereafter. One, John B. Floyd, former governor of Virginia and Secretary of War under James Buchanan, outranked Pillow, who found himself displaced as commander and put in the unofficial position of second-in-command.

On February 12, 1862, Union forces under the command of Brigadier General Grant began to arrive near Fort Donelson. On the night of February 14, Floyd and his subordinate commanders decided to try to break out of the fort and escape a likely Union siege before the full Union force could arrive. Pillow set forth a plan to surprise the Union force which was accepted. Floyd gave no orders concerning the details of the operations, including the evacuation and order of march, in order to exploit any breakthrough.

As the Battle of Fort Donelson continued into February 15, 1862, under Floyd's order, Pillow took control from the general who was in formal command of the left wing of the army, Brigadier General Bushrod Johnson, who continued to ably assist Pillow. Pillow led this wing in a surprise assault with the intention of opening an escape route to relieve the besieged Confederate forces in the fort. Although the assault against the division of Brigadier General John A. McClernand was initially successful, Pillow inexplicably decided to pull his men from their advance positions and back into the trenches so that they could be resupplied before their escape, squandering the advances they had fought for so hard that morning. Floyd and the other generals were furious with Pillow, but it was too late to correct his error, especially because Floyd and Pillow saw Union troop movements and heard false reports about the arrival of substantial Union Army reinforcements. Floyd then panicked and ordered all troops back to their trenches. The Union force then retook the lost ground and the outer defenses of the fort.

At a council of war early on the morning of February 16, the generals agreed to surrender their army. Floyd, who feared prosecution for treason if he should be captured, turned command of the army over to Pillow, who had similar concerns and immediately passed command to Simon Bolivar Buckner, who had argued that the Confederate position was untenable. Believing the garrison could hold out long enough to be evacuated by river transport, Pillow still wanted to fight. He finally agreed with the other generals to surrender the fort and garrison, but not himself personally. Pillow did ask cavalry commander Nathan Bedford Forrest, who was determined to escape with his command, to lead Pillow's brigade out as well. Pillow escaped in the night in a small boat across the Cumberland River; Floyd likewise escaped, taking two regiments of his Virginia command with him before Buckner could surrender to Grant. Forrest inquired of Floyd about Pillow's whereabouts and was told he had already retreated and Forrest was free to follow his own course.

Some historians have judged Ulysses S. Grant as being too rash in his haste to assault Fort Donelson without possessing overwhelming superiority. However, his acquaintance with Gideon Pillow played a key factor in his confidence. As he wrote in his memoirs,

"I had known General Pillow in Mexico, and judged that with any force, no matter how small, I could march up to within gunshot of any intrenchments he was given to hold. I said this to the officers of my staff at the time. I knew that Floyd was in command, but he was no soldier, and I judged that he would yield to Pillow's pretensions. ... General Pillow, next in command, was conceited, and prided himself much on his services in the Mexican war. He telegraphed to General Johnston, at Nashville, after our men were within the rebel rifle-pits, and almost on the eve of his making his escape, that the Southern troops had had great success all day."

Grant also recalled that, following the surrender of Fort Donelson, he met with his old friend Buckner, who told him of Pillow's escape. At the Confederate council of war the night before, the vain Pillow had expressed concern that his capture would be a disaster for the Southern cause.

"He thought you'd rather get hold of him than any other man in the Southern Confederacy," Buckner told Grant.

"Oh," replied Grant, "if I had got him, I'd let him go again. He will do us more good commanding you fellows."

Suspension and later commands
Pillow assumed command of the 3rd Division of the Army of Central Kentucky, but was suspended from command by order of Jefferson Davis on April 16 for "grave errors in judgement in the military operations which resulted in the surrender of the army" (at Fort Donelson). Pillow resigned October 21, 1862, but Confederate President Jefferson Davis rescinded the resignation and restored Pillow to command on December 10, 1862.

Pillow commanded a brigade in Major General John C. Breckinridge's division of the Army of Tennessee, commanded by General Braxton Bragg, during the third day at the Battle of Stones River, January 2, 1863, arriving on the battlefield just an hour before Breckinridge's assault. Breckinridge was furious to find Pillow cowering behind a tree and ordered him forward. After the battle, Pillow was one of the few Confederate officers to speak in favor of General Bragg's battlefield decisions, denigrating Breckinridge's execution of the ill-fated assault.

Pillow commanded the Volunteer and Conscription Bureau of the Army of Tennessee and related recruiting assignments starting January 16, 1863. Although he had no combat assignments after Stones River, he had a short and unsuccessful field command in June 1864 when he was assigned to disrupt Major General William Tecumseh Sherman's communications between Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Atlanta, Georgia, during the Atlanta Campaign. He then resumed recruiting assignments.

Pillow was the Commissary General of Prisoners for the Confederacy starting February 10, 1865, after the death of Brigadier General John H. Winder on February 7, 1865. He was captured by Union forces at Union Springs, Alabama, on April 20, 1865, and was paroled in Montgomery, Alabama, in May. He received a presidential pardon on August 28, 1865.

Fort Pillow
Fort Pillow on the Mississippi River in Tennessee, the site of the controversial 1864 Battle of Fort Pillow, was constructed by and named for Pillow.

Post Civil War career and death
After the war, Pillow was forced into bankruptcy, but embarked on a successful law practice in Memphis, Tennessee, as partner with former Governor Isham G. Harris. He died October 8, 1878, at age 72 near Helena, Arkansas, in Phillips County.

Initially buried at Helena, he was reinterred in Elmwood Cemetery, Memphis.

title: Gideon Johnson Pillow


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Davidic line

The Davidic line or House of David (בֵּית דָּוִד) is the lineage of the Israelite king David. In Judaism it is based on texts from the Hebrew Bible and through the succeeding centuries based on later traditions.

According to the Bible, David, of the Tribe of Judah, was the third king of the United Monarchy of Israel and Judah. He was later succeeded by his son, Solomon. After Solomon's death, the ten northern tribes rejected the Davidic line, refusing to accept Solomon's son, Rehoboam, and instead chose Jeroboam as king and formed the northern Kingdom of Israel. The southern tribes of Judah and Benjamin remained loyal to the House of David, and this kingdom came to be known as the Kingdom of Judah. All subsequent monarchs of Judah, except Athaliah, are said to be direct descendants of David. The kingdom fell to the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 587/6 BCE. The Hasmoneans, who established their own monarchy in Judea in the 2nd century BCE, were not considered connected to the Davidic line nor to the Tribe of Judah.

In Judaism, the Davidic Line is the bloodline from which the Hebrew Messiah has a patrilineal descent. In Jewish eschatology, the Messiah is a future Jewish king from the Davidic line, who is expected to rule the Jewish people during the Messianic Age and world to come.

Historicity
Very little is conclusively known about the House of David. The Tel Dan Stele mentions the death of the reigning king from "BYTDWD", (interpreted as "House of David") and thus far is the only extrabiblical explicit mention of David himself. The stele is dated to circa 840 BCE; however, the name of the Davidic king is not totally preserved, as much of the stele has not survived since the 9th century BCE. All that remains of the name is the final syllable, the extremely common theophoric suffix -yahū. Because the stele coincides the death of the Davidic king with the death of [Jeho]ram, the king of the Kingdom of Samaria, scholars have reconstructed the second slain king as Ahaziah of Judah, the only king contemporary to Jehoram with a name ending in -yahū.

The earliest unambiguously attested king from the Davidic line is Uzziah, who reigned in the 8th century BCE, about 75 years after Ahaziah, who is named on bullae seals belonging to his servants Abijah and Shubnayahu. Uzziah may also be mentioned in the annals of Tiglath-Pileser III; however, the texts are largely fragmentary. Additionally, a tombstone dated to the Second Temple Period claiming to mark the grave (or, reburial) site of Uzziah, was discovered in a convent on the Mount of Olives in 1931, but there is no way of determining if the remains were genuinely Uzziah's as the stone had to have been carved more than 700 years after Uzziah died and was originally interred, and the tablet's provenance remains a mystery. A controversial artifact called the Jehoash Tablet recalls deeds performed by Jehoash of Judah, who reigned about 44 years before Uzziah; however, scholars are tensely divided on whether or not the inscription is genuine. After Uzziah, each successive king of Judah is attested to in some form, with the exception of Amon of Judah: Jotham, Uzziah's successor, is named on the seals of his own son and successor, Ahaz, who ruled from 732 to 716 BCE. Hezekiah, Ahaz's son, is attested to by numerous royal seals and Sennacherib's Annals; Manasseh is recorded giving tribute to Esarhaddon; Josiah has no relics explicitly naming him; however, seals belonging to his son Eliashib and officials Nathan-melech  and Asaiah have been discovered; and the kings Jehoahaz II, Jehoiakim, and Zedekiah are never explicitly named in historical records but are instead alluded to; however, Jeconiah is mentioned by name in Babylonian documents detailing the rations he and his sons were given while held prisoner during the Babylonian captivity.

The origins of the dynasty, on the other hand, are shrouded in mystery. The Tel Dan Stele, as aforementioned, remains the only mention of David himself outside the Bible, and the historical reliability of the United Monarchy of Israel is archaeologically weak. The Stepped Stone Structure and Large Stone Structure in Jerusalem, assuming Eilat Mazar's contested stratigraphic dating of the structures to the Iron Age I is accurate, show that Jerusalem was at least somewhat populated in King David's time, and lends some credence to the biblical claim that Jerusalem was originally a Canaanite fortress; however, Jerusalem seems to have been barely developed until long after David's death, bringing into question the possibility that it could have been the imperial capital described in the Bible. In David's time, the capital probably served as little more than a formidable citadel, and the Davidic "kingdom" was most likely closer to a loosely-confederated regional polity, albeit a relatively substantial one. On the other hand, excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa and Eglon, as well as structures from Hazor, Gezer, Megiddo and other sites conventionally dated to the 10th century BCE, are interpreted by many scholars to show that Judah was capable of accommodating large-scale urban societies centuries before minimalist scholars claim,  and some have taken the physical archaeology of tenth-century Canaan as consistent with the former existence of a unified state on its territory, as archaeological findings demonstrate substantial development and growth at several sites, plausibly related to the tenth century. Even so, as for David and his immediate descendants themselves, the position of some scholars, as described by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Silberman, authors of The Bible Unearthed, espouses that David and Solomon may well be based on "certain historical kernels", and probably did exist in their own right, but their historical counterparts simply could not have ruled over a wealthy lavish empire as described in the Bible, and were more likely chieftains of a comparatively modest Israelite society in Judah and not regents over a kingdom proper.

Kings of Israel and Judah
According to the Tanakh, upon being chosen and becoming king, one was customarily anointed with holy oil poured on one's head. In David's case, this was done by the prophet Samuel.

Initially, David was king over the Tribe of Judah only and ruled from Hebron, but after seven and a half years, the other Israelite tribes, who found themselves leaderless after the death of Ish-bosheth, chose him to be their king as well.

All subsequent kings in both the ancient first united Kingdom of Israel and the later Kingdom of Judah claimed direct descent from King David to validate their claim to the throne in order to rule over the Israelite tribes.

After the death of David's son, King Solomon, the ten northern tribes of the Kingdom of Israel rejected the Davidic line, refusing to accept Solomon's son, Rehoboam, and instead chose as king Jeroboam and formed the northern Kingdom of Israel. This kingdom was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the 8th century BCE which exiled much of the Northern Kingdom population and ended its sovereign status. The bulk population of the Northern Kingdom of Israel was forced to relocate to Mesopotamia and mostly disappeared from history as The Ten Lost Tribes or intermixed with exiled Judean populations two centuries later, while the remaining Israelite peoples in Samaria highlands have become known as Samaritans during the classic era and to modern times.

The Exilarchate
Later rabbinical authorities grant the office of exilarch to family members that traced its patrilineal descent from David, King of Israel. The highest official of Babylonian Jewry was the exilarch (Reish Galuta, "Head of the Diaspora"). Those who held the position traced their ancestry to the House of David in the male line. The position holder was regarded as a king-in-waiting, residing in Babylonia in the Achaemenid Empire as well as during the classic era. The Seder Olam Zutta attributes the office to Zerubbabel, a member of the Davidic line, who is mentioned as one of the leaders of the Jewish community in the 6th century BC, holding the title of Achaemenid Governor of Yehud Medinata.

The Hasmonean and Herodian periods
The Hasmoneans, also known as the Maccabees, established their own monarchy in Judea following their revolt against the Hellenistic Seleucid dynasty. The Hasmoneans were not considered connected to the Davidic line nor to the Tribe of Judah. The Levites had always been excluded from the Israelite monarchy, so when the Maccabees assumed the throne in order to rededicate the defiled Second Temple, a cardinal rule was broken. According to scholars within Orthodox Judaism, this is considered to have contributed to their downfall and the eventual downfall of Judea; internal strife allowing for Roman occupation and the violent installation of Herod the Great as client king over the Roman province of Judea; and the subsequent destruction of the Second Temple by the future Emperor Titus.

During the Hasmonean period the Davidic line was largely excluded from the royal house in Judea, but some members had risen to prominence as religious and communal leaders. One of the most notable of those was Hillel the Elder, who moved to Judea from his birthplace in Babylon. His great-grandson Simeon ben Gamliel became one of the Jewish leaders during the First Jewish–Roman War.

Middle Ages
The Exilarchate in the Sasanian Empire was briefly abolished as a result of revolt by the Mar-Zutra II in the late 5th century CE, with his son Mar-Zutra III being denied the office and relocating to Tiberias, then within the Byzantine Empire. Mar Ahunai lived in the period succeeding Mar Zutra II, but for almost fifty years after the failed revolt he did not dare to appear in public, and it is not known whether even then (c. 550) he really acted as Exilarch. The names of Kafnai and his son Haninai, who were Exilarchs in the second half of the 6th century, have been preserved.

The Exilarchate in Mesopotamia was officially restored after the Arab conquest in the 7th century and continued to function during the early Caliphates. Exilarchs continued to be appointed until the 11th century, with some members of the Davidic line dispersing across the Islamic world. There are conflicting accounts of the fate of the Exilarch family in the 11th century; according to one version Hezekiah ben David, who was the last Exilarch and also the last Gaon, was imprisoned and tortured to death. Two of his sons fled to Al-Andalus, where they found refuge with Joseph, the son and successor of Samuel ibn Naghrillah. However, The Jewish Quarterly Review mentions that Hezekiah was liberated from prison, and became head of the academy, and is mentioned as such by a contemporary in 1046. An unsuccessful attempt of David ben Daniel of the Davidic line to establish an Exilarchate in the Fatimid Caliphate failed and ended with his downfall in 1094.

In the 11th–15th century, families that descended from the Exilarchs that lived in the South of France (Narbonne and Provence) and in northern Iberian peninsula (Barcelona, Aragon and Castile) received the title "Nasi" in the communities and were called "free men". They had a special economic and social status in the Jewish community, and they were close to their respective governments, some serving as advisers and tax collectors/finance ministers.

These families had special rights in Narbonne, Barcelona, and Castile. They possessed real estate and received the title "Don" and de la Kblriih (De la Cavalleria). Among the families of the "Sons of the Free" are the families of Abravanel and Benveniste.

In his book, A Jewish Princedom in Feudal France, Arthur J. Zuckerman proposes a theory that from 768 to 900 CE a Jewish Princedom ruled by members of the Exilarchs existed in feudal France. However, this theory has been widely contested. Descendants of the house of exilarchs were living in various places long after the office became extinct. The grandson of Hezekiah ben David through his eldest son David ben Chyzkia, Hiyya al-Daudi, died in 1154 in Castile according to Abraham ibn Daud and is the ancestor of the ibn Yahya family. Several families, as late as the 14th century, traced their descent back to Josiah, the brother of David ben Zakkai who had been banished to Chorasan (see the genealogies in [Lazarus 1890] pp. 180 et seq.). The descendants of the Karaite Exilarchs have been referred to above.

A number of Jewish families in the Iberian peninsula and within Mesopotamia continued to preserve the tradition of descent from Exilarchs in the Late Middle Ages, including the families of Abravanel, ibn Yahya and Ben-David. Several Ashkenazi scholars also claimed descent from King David. On his father's side, Rashi has been claimed to be a 33rd-generation descendant of Johanan HaSandlar, who was a fourth-generation descendant of Gamaliel, who was reputedly descended from the Davidic line. Similarly Maimonides claimed 37 generations between him and Simeon ben Judah ha-Nasi, who was also a fourth-generation descendant of Gamaliel. Meir Perels traced the ancestry of Judah Loew ben Bezalel to the Hai Gaon through Judah Loew's alleged great-great-grandfather Judah Leib the Elder and therefore also from the Davidic dynasty; however, this claim is widely disputed, by many scholars such as Otto Muneles. Hai Gaon was the son of Sherira Gaon, who claimed descent from Rabbah b. Abuha, who belonged to the family of the exilarch, thereby claiming descent from the Davidic line. Sherira's son-in-law was Elijah ben Menahem HaZaken. The patriarch of the Meisels family, Yitskhak Eizik Meisels, was an alleged 10th generation descendant of the Exilarch, Mar Ukba. The Berduga family of Meknes claim paternal descent from the Exilarch, Bostanai. The Jewish banking family Louis Cahen d'Anvers claimed descent from the Davidic Line Rabbi Yosef Dayan, who is a modern-day claimant to the Davidic throne in Israel and the founder of the Monarchist party Malchut Israel, descends from the Dayan family of Aleppo, who paternally descend from Hasan ben Zakkai, the younger brother of the Exilarch David I (d. 940). One of Hasan's descendants Solomon ben Azariah ha-Nasi settled in Aleppo were the family became Dayan's (judges) of the city and thus adopted the surname Dayan.

Modern legacy
In 2012, The Jerusalem Post reported that philanthropist Susan Roth created Davidic Dynasty as subsidiary of her Eshet Chayil Foundation, dedicated to finding, databasing, and connecting Davidic descendants and running the King David Legacy Center in Jerusalem. In 2020, Roth chose Brando Crawford, a descendant from both grandfathers, to represent the organization internationally. The King David Legacy Center has seen support from Haredi Jews in Jerusalem.

Jewish interpretations
In Jewish eschatology, the term mashiach, or "Messiah", came to refer to a future Jewish king from the Davidic line, who is expected to be anointed with holy anointing oil and rule the Jewish people during the Messianic Age. The Messiah is often referred to as "King Messiah", or, in Hebrew, מלך משיח (melekh mashiach), and, in Aramaic, malka meshiḥa.

Orthodox views have generally held that the Messiah will be a patrilineal descendant of King David, and will gather the Jews back into the Land of Israel, usher in an era of peace, build the Third Temple, father a male heir, re-institute the Sanhedrin, and so on. Jewish tradition alludes to two redeemers, both of whom are called mashiach and are involved in ushering in the Messianic age: Mashiach ben David; and Mashiach ben Yosef. In general, the term Messiah unqualified refers to Mashiach ben David (Messiah, son of David).

Christian interpretations
In the Christian interpretation the "Davidic covenant" of a Davidic line in 2 Samuel 7 is understood in various ways, traditionally referring to the genealogies of Jesus in the New Testament. One Christian interpretation of the Davidic line counts the line as continuing to Jesus son of Joseph, according to the genealogies which are written in Matthew 1:1-16 descendants of Solomon and Luke 3:23-38 descendants of Nathan son of David through the line of Mary.

Because Jews have historically believed that the Messiah will be a male-line descendant of David, the lineage of Jesus is sometimes cited as a reason why Jews do not believe that he was the Messiah. As the proposed son of God, he could not have been a male descendant of David because according to the genealogy of his earthly parents, Mary and Joseph, he did not have the proper lineage, because he would not have been a male descendant of Mary, and Joseph, who was a descendant of Jeconiah, because Jeconiah's descendants are explicitly barred from ever ruling Israel by God.

Another Christian interpretation emphasizes the minor, non-royal, line of David through Solomon's brother Nathan as it is recorded in the Gospel of Luke chapter 3 (entirely undocumented in the Hebrew Bible), which is often understood to be the family tree of Mary's father. A widely spread traditional Christian interpretation relates the non-continuation of the main Davidic line from Solomon to the godlessness of the line of Jehoiachin which started in the early 500s BC, when Jeremiah cursed the main branch of the Solomonic line, by saying that no descendant of "[Je]Coniah" would ever reign on the throne of Israel again (Jeremiah 22:30). Some Christian commentators also believe that this same "curse" is the reason why Zerubbabel, the rightful Solomonic king during the time of Nehemiah, was not given a kingship under the Persian empire.

The Tree of Jesse (a reference to David' father) is a traditional Christian artistic representation of Jesus' genealogical connection to David.

Latter Day Saint interpretations
The Latter Day Saint movement accepts Christ as the "Stem of Jesse" and the Messiah. In addition, Mormon eschatology includes multiple references to other prophesied Davidic figures, including one by the name of David who would come in the last days to inherit the throne and kingdom of David.

Islamic interpretations
The Quran mentions the House of David once: "Work, O family of David, in gratitude. And few of My servants are grateful." and mentions David himself sixteen times.

According to some Islamic sources, some of the Jewish settlers in Arabia were of the Davidic line, Mohammad-Baqer Majlesi recorded: "A Jewish man from the Davidic line entered Medina and found the people in deep sorrow. He enquired the people, 'What is wrong?' Some of the people replied: Prophet Muhammad passed away".

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

title: Davidic line


text:
Project Moonbase

Project Moonbase (a.k.a. Project Moon Base) is a 1953 independently made black-and-white science fiction film, produced by Jack Seaman, directed by Richard Talmadge, and starring Ross Ford, Donna Martell, and Hayden Rorke. It co-stars Larry Johns, Herb Jacobs, Barbara Morrison, and Ernestine Barrier. The film was distributed by Lippert Pictures and is based on a story by Robert A. Heinlein, who shares the screenwriting credit with producer Jack Seaman.

Project Moonbase is unusual for its time in attempting to portray space travel in a "realistic" manner and for depicting a future in which women hold positions of authority and responsibility equal to men; as an example, the President of the United States is a woman. However, Colonel Breiteis, the female commander of the moon mission, is shown be picked for her gender, generally shown as a member of a "weaker sex", and even threatened with a spanking by her superior officer.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 featured the film in January 1990 as an episode during its first season on The Comedy Channel. It had been originally broadcast in 1986 as a syndicated television episode of the Canned Film Festival.

Plot
In a future 1970, the United States is considering building bases on the Moon. Colonel Briteis (pronounced "Bright Eyes", whose first name is never stated, played by Donna Martell), Major Bill Moore (Ross Ford), and Doctor Wernher (Larry Johns) are sent to orbit the Moon to survey landing sites for future lunar missions. However, Wernher is an impostor whose secret mission is to destroy the US's Earth-orbiting space station, which he plans to do by colliding the rocket with the station on the way back from the Moon. Col. Briteis, who made the first orbital flight around the Earth four years earlier, is arrogant and distrusting of Major Moore. Moore, in turn had a romantic interest in Briteis when they began in the United States Space Force, but was rejected in favor of Briteis's ambition to be the first person on the Moon.

Moore realizes that the man claiming to be Wernher is actually a spy for an unnamed country, because the impostor has no knowledge of Wernher's expertise nor of the Brooklyn Dodgers, despite having supposedly taught in Brooklyn. In the ensuing struggle for control of the rocket, Colonel Briteis accidentally hits the boosters, which saves their lives but leaves the ship critically low on fuel. She takes unfair blame which Moore assures her is not her fault. Briteis then realizes she may not have all the answers and does need Moore's help on the mission. They are forced to make an emergency landing on the Moon, and with them all marooned the fake Wernher redeems himself by helping Moore establish communications with Earth, although an accident results in his untimely death.

In response to the unexpected turn of events, the US authorities decide to make the immobilized spaceship the core of a Moon base. Later General Greene has a man-to-man talk with Moore about his feelings for Briteis. Greene observes that Briteis and Moore will be isolated for weeks or months, perhaps even years, and public opinion, the USSF and the President would want them to be married. Moore expresses doubts about her feelings for him, and tells Green, "she has no use for me." Briteis, after overhearing this, agrees to marry Moore and she cuts a deal with Greene to promote Moore to brigadier general and in command of Project Moonbase to make up for her earlier actions towards him.

After a video wedding officiated by a USSF chaplain, and witnessed by Greene, Briteis pins a paper star on Moore, thereby indicating his new rank of Brigadier General, one above her rank of Colonel. The couple then kisses, thereby signaling the beginning of their married life, and the end of the movie.

Cast

 * Donna Martell as Colonel Briteis
 * Hayden Rorke as Gen. 'Pappy' Greene
 * Ross Ford as Maj. Bill Moore
 * Larry Johns as Doctor Wernher
 * Herb Jacobs as Mr. Roundtree
 * Barbara Morrison as Polly Prattles
 * Ernestine Barrier as Madame President
 * James Craven as Commodore Carlson
 * John Hedloe as Adjutant
 * Peter Adams as Captain Carmody

Production and release
Both Project Moonbase and Cat-Women of the Moon (also 1953) were made using some of the same sets and costumes. The two films were released within one day of each other, though from different distributors. Project Moonbase was shot in 10 days.

Mystery Science Theater 3000
Project Moonbase was featured in episode #109 of Mystery Science Theater 3000 along with Chapters 7 and 8 of Radar Men from the Moon, a Commando Cody serial. The episode debuted January 6, 1990, on the Comedy Channel. Kevin Murphy, who worked on the show and would become a cast member the next season, wrote, "The best thing I can say about it is that it was very very short," calling the film "openly and condescendingly hostile toward women as a gender".

As with most first-season episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000, Project Moonbase is not considered one of the series' better efforts; it did not make their Top 100 list, as voted upon by MST3K Season 11 Kickstarter backers. Writer Jim Vogel ranked the episode #164 (out of 191 total MST3K episodes). Vogel said, "There's some glimmers of later-season MST3k goodness in there..."

The MST3K version of Project Moonbase was included as part of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 Volume XX DVD collection, released by Shout! Factory in March 2011. The other episodes in the four-disc set include Master Ninja I (episode #320), Master Ninja II (episode #324), and The Magic Voyage of Sinbad (episode #505).

title: Project Moonbase


text:
Flat Rock Assembly Plant

Flat Rock Assembly Plant, formerly known as the Michigan Casting Center (1972–1981), Mazda Motor Manufacturing USA (1987–1992) and AutoAlliance International (1992–2012), is a Ford Motor Company assembly plant located at 1 International Drive in Flat Rock, Michigan in Metro Detroit.

The plant currently comprises 2900000 sqft of production space and employs 3,510 hourly workers and 140 salaried workers. The plant currently manufactures the Ford Mustang.

Michigan Casting Center (1972–1981)
Following three years of work and the largest single investment by Ford, the Michigan Casting Center (MCC) opened in January 1972, at the time one of the most technologically advanced casting facilities in the world. Despite the sizable capital investment, frequent union labor problems and work injuries and declining demand for the V8 engine blocks produced there led the facility's closure in 1981.

A worker, Robert Williams, was killed by an industrial robot arm on January 25, 1979. He is the first known human to be killed by a robot.

Mazda Motor Manufacturing USA (1987–1992)
Mazda Motor Corporation started construction of a new building on the site of the Michigan Casting Center in 1985 and cars started production at Mazda Motor Manufacturing USA in September 1987 with the Mazda MX-6 and Ford Probe coupes. In 1991 the plant had 3,600 employees, including 250 Japanese employees.

AutoAlliance International (1992–2012)
Ford repurchased a 50% share in the plant on April 15, 1992, and it officially became a joint-venture and was renamed AutoAlliance International on July 1, 1992. The plant began production of all models of the Mazda 626 sold in America starting in 1993. During this era, Deepak Ahuja was Chief Financial Officer of the joint venture. The Ford Contour-derived Mercury Cougar was produced at the plant from 1998 to 2002. Production of North American Mazda 6 began in the 2003 model year, followed by the Ford Mustang starting in 2005.

The last Mazda 6 rolled off the line on Friday, August 24, 2012, with Mazda discontinuing production on American soil, effectively ending the 20 year joint-venture between Mazda and Ford. Mazda moved production of the Mazda 6 back to the Hofu factory in Japan and opened a new factory in Salamanca, Mexico to build the Mazda 2 and Mazda 3 subcompact and compact cars.

Flat Rock Assembly Plant (since 2012)
On September 10, 2012, Ford Motor Company re-took full management control of the plant, renaming it the Ford Flat Rock Assembly Plant, and confirming $555 million in investments designed to retool the plant for the production of the 2013 Ford Fusion midsize sedan.

On July 15, 2015, Ford confirmed that the new 2017 Lincoln Continental sedan would be produced at the Flat Rock plant starting in 2016.

On January 3, 2017, Ford announced that it will begin manufacturing an electric small SUV by 2020, and a high passenger volume autonomous vehicle designed for commercial ride hailing or ride sharing by 2021, both to be built at Flat Rock.

Ford reduced production of the plant from two shifts to one due to lower demand for the Ford Mustang and especially the Lincoln Continental. Over 1,000 workers were laid off in April 2019, including almost 500 temporary workers.

In March 2019, Ford announced change of its plan, production of battery-electric vehicle would not start until 2023.

Current

 * Ford Mustang (2005–present)

Past

 * Lincoln Continental (2017–2020)
 * Ford Fusion (2013–2016)
 * Mazda 6 (2003–2012)
 * Mercury Cougar (1999–2002)
 * Mazda 626 (1990–2002)
 * Ford Probe (1989–1997)
 * Mazda MX-6 (1988–1997)

title: Flat Rock Assembly Plant


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Iou Kuroda

Iou Kuroda (黒田硫黄) is the pen name of a Japanese manga artist.

Biography
Born in Sapporo as one of two twins, Kuroda moved many times in his youth. He graduated from Hitotsubashi University. The pen name "Kuroda Iou" (in Japanese order) is a combination of his family name (Kuroda) and the name of a toy robot, Mars King (Kasei Daiō): Kuroda + Kasei Daiō -> Kurodaiō -> Kuroda Iō.

Kuroda's works are known for their dynamic plot developments and the rhythm of their stories. His drawings are widely praised for their almost magical appeal. Elephants, cameras, bicycles, ships, robots, and cooking are common motifs in Kuroda's manga.

In 2002, Kuroda won the Excellence Prize at the 2002 Japan Media Arts Festival for his manga Sexy Voice and Robo. In 2007, the manga was adapted into a television drama, starring Kenichi Matsuyama and Suzuka Ohgo, which aired between April and June 2007 on Nippon Television.

In 2003, Kuroda's work Nasu was brought to the attention of animator and director Kitarō Kōsaka by Kōsaka's long-time collaborator from Studio Ghibli, Hayao Miyazaki, a fan of cycling. He adapted the Summer in Andalusia chapter from the manga into the film, Nasu: Summer in Andalusia, which soon went on to become the first Japanese anime film ever to be selected for the Cannes Film Festival. A sequel, Nasu: A Migratory Bird with Suitcase, was also later produced, which won the best Original Video Animation award at the seventh annual Tokyo Anime Awards, held at the 2008 Tokyo International Anime Fair.

Selected works

 * Dai-Nippon Tengu-tō Ekotoba (大日本天狗党絵詞)
 * Kurofune (黒船)
 * Daiō (大王)
 * Nasu (茄子)
 * Sexy Voice and Robo (セクシーボイスアンドロボ)
 * Eiga ni Ke ga Sanbon! (映画に毛が3本!)
 * Atarashii Asa (あたらしい朝)
 * Appleseeed Alpha (アップルシードα)

title: Iou Kuroda


text: Category:Japanese poets

title: Category:Japanese poets


text:
The Pharaoh's Daughter

The Pharaoh's Daughter (Дочь фараона, La Fille du pharaon), is a ballet choreographed by Marius Petipa to music by Cesare Pugni. The libretto was a collaboration between Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Petipa from Théophile Gautier's Le Roman de la momie. It was first presented by the Imperial Ballet at the Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre, in St. Petersburg, Russia, on 18 January (30 January) 1862, with the design by A. Roller, G. Wagner (scenery), Kelwer and Stolyakov (costumes).

The principal dancers at the opening night were Carolina Rosati (Mummy/Aspicia), Nicholas Goltz (Pharaoh), Marius Petipa (Ta-Hor), Timofey Stoukolkin as John Bull, Lubov Radina (Ramzaya), Felix Kschessinskiy (King of Nubia), and Lev Ivanov (Fisherman). For Petipa it was the last role: he has finished his career as a dancer; he became ballet master. The Sergeyev Collection, which is part of the Harvard University Theatre Collection, contains choreographic notations of the Imperial Ballet's production of The Pharaoh's Daughter, created circa 1905. The notations document the choreography and mise-en-scène as staged by Marius Petipa for his last revival of 1898, which was mounted especially for the benefit performance of Mathilde Kschessinskaya.

Plot
An English lord and John Bull, his servant, and a guide shelter from a sandstorm in a pyramid during an African safari. They start to become noisy, but the guide asks them to quiet down in respect for the Pharaoh's daughter who is lying in a coffin somewhere in the pyramid. So, to pass the time, the guide gives out opium. As soon as the nobleman puffs the opium, weird things start to happen. The many other mummies in the pyramid start to come alive. Suddenly the Pharaoh's daughter, Aspicia, comes alive and lays her hand over the nobleman's heart, and the nobleman is transported into the past. He becomes Ta-Hor, an ancient Egyptian man who saves Aspicia from a lion. Ta-Hor and Aspicia fall in love, but she is betrothed to the Nubian king. They run away together and the king chases them. Ta-Hor and Aspicia stop in a fishermen's inn to hide out, and the local fishermen ask them if they want to come on a fishing trip. Aspicia decides to stay behind. Then the Nubian king stops at the inn to rest and finds Aspicia who jumps into the Nile River to escape his guards.

At the bottom of the river, the Spirit of the Nile summons the great rivers of the world to dance for Aspicia, then he tells her that she must stay. When she hears this, she asks for one wish: to bring her back to land. When the fishermen and Ta-Hor arrive back on land, the Nubian king detains Ta-Hor and brings him back to the Pharaoh's palace to be punished for "kidnapping" the princess.

When Aspicia comes back to land, the fishermen bring her back to the palace. She gets there in time to see Ta-Hor sentenced to death by a cobra bite. She explains that if he dies, she dies, and reaches out for the snake to bite her. The Pharaoh pulls her back and grants her permission to marry Ta-Hor, and the Nubian king leaves in a fit of rage, swearing revenge. Everyone starts to celebrate, but as the party reaches its peak, the opium dream ends and Ta-Hor is transformed back into the English lord. As they leave the pyramid, the nobleman looks back at Aspicia's coffin and remembers the love that they shared and still share.

History
The Pharaoh's Daughter (La Fille du pharaon) was the first multi-act grand ballet Marius Petipa staged during his long career with the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres. The ballet was staged especially for the benefit performance of the Italian ballerina Carolina Rosati, who performed the principal role of the Princess Aspicia. She danced opposite Marius Petipa, who portrayed Aspicia's hero and lover, Lord Wilson/Ta-Hor. The premiere on 30 January 1862 was an enormous success, and soon the ballet became the most popular work in the repertoire of the Imperial Ballet.

Marius Petipa staged The Pharaoh's Daughter while he was still serving as assistant ballet master to Arthur Saint-Léon, who from 1859 until 1869 served as Premier Maître de Ballet to the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres. The success of The Pharaoh's Daughter earned for Petipa the position of second Maître de Ballet, a position he would hold until Saint-Léon's departure from Russia in 1869.

Petipa revived The Pharaoh's Daughter in 1885 and again in 1898. In 1905, Alexander Gorsky put on a modified production for the Imperial Bolshoi Ballet without Petipa's approval, and the ballet continued to be performed until 1928. In 2000, it was revived in Pierre Lacotte's restaging for the Bolshoi Ballet, which Lacotte based partly on the Stepanov notation recording Petipa's final production and partly on the personal recollections of Russian dancers. It has since become a regular part of the Bolshoi's repertory. In 2023 the Mariinsky Ballet premiered a historical production. This production is based on the Stepanov notations and other materials. It was staged by the choreographer Toni Candeloro in collaboration with notation interpreter Juan Bockamp. Set and costume designs where produced by Robert Perdizola.

It was also a production of the choreographic trend parallel to that of the grand opera in music, towards the ballet à grand spectacle, which lasted four hours and used different styles and techniques and a large number of people (about 400), with plots characterized by strong dramatic contrasts.

Marius Petipa changed the art of classical ballet by inserting divertissements, or displays of dance that were perhaps symbolic or loose importance to the story, as a display for dancers that were not the leads. This was important because, at the time, many foreign guest artists were being brought in and the Russian-trained, Russian-dancers were not being given the chance to display their own talents. Marius Petipa started putting these divertissements in all of his ballets (Swan Lake, La Bayadère, The Sleeping Beauty, etc.) and the divertissement itself became a technique used by many choreographers as a way to give dancers time to change costumes, shoes, or create a scene break.

The interest in Ancient Egypt at the time, inspired by recent archaeological finds, as well as Gautier's Le Roman de la momie, gave Petipa the push to create The Pharaoh's Daughter. These interests and finds inspired a new wave of costuming, such as the newly shortened tutu being decorated with Egyptian jewelry and ornamentation. These decorations were meant to give the audience a better feel to the ballet and reflect Egyptian nationality. Some of these costumes could be considered racist, as the leads were dressed in beautiful, expensive costumes, where the Nationalistic dances could be covered in blackface. They were meant to inspire a feeling of Egyptian taste, but authenticity was often compromised for opulence and could be considered entirely offensive.

The ballet's literary source is Le Roman de la momie by Théophile Gautier, an exponent of literary exoticism which offered all sorts of romantic expedients: the passionate love story of the great Pharaoh's daughter and Tahoser set in a Biblical Egypt which, however, disappeared in the ballet, and the Gothic taste for gloomy corridors and dark tombs. What the ballet retains of Gautier's world is the sense of the fantastic which accompanies earthly passions. With an artifact from the past or a puff of opium – a familiar influence in the works and lives of contemporary artists such as De Quincey – allowed Gautier to add a brighter aura to his characters by setting them on the borderline between life and death from which all Egyptian art took nourishment.

So as not to overwhelm his readers with terror, Gautier frequently appeals to irony, which has an anticlimactic effect. Irony serves the same function in the ballet, for example in the moment when Lord Wilson, the quintessence of Englishness, impassively attempts to sketch the scene of the desert disturbed by the simoom, or when Aspicia, after rising from the sarcophagus, looks into a mirror and is pleased to find herself as pretty as she was a few millennia before.

The story called for an artist in the title role who had a special dramatic talent (as did Rosati), because of all the scenes of love, fear, and courage which culminate in Aspicia's attempt to cast herself onto a flower-basket hiding a snake, a classic gesture since Cleopatra's time. Twenty years later, Virginia Zucchi (less conventionally) portrayed an unusually humane princess, not as arrogant and voluptuous as that of her successor Mathilde Kschessinskaya who, on the other hand, made it more of a virtuoso role.

Petipa's penchant for folklore enhanced the dance of bayadères and the pageant of the rivers (from Guadalquivir to Neva), all dressed up in national costumes, but historical inaccuracy and the mixing of styles raised a few criticisms, especially in Moscow, in spite of the general taste for sets and costumes reinvented with a minimum of realism and a maximum of grandeur.

title: The Pharaoh's Daughter


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Settle Entertainment Productions

Settle Entertainment Productions was proposed for deletion. This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record. The result of the debate was delete

0 Google hits, seems like a high-school media production. TPK 07:30, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like other '/delete' pages is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion or on the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.
 * I found some Google hits, but I don't think they are a big enough company to earn a place in Wikipedia. Delete Darksun 08:41, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete - if I read the article correctly, the company started life as a school project. No notable achievements. - TB 11:30, Aug 4, 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete: They kept their hobby going for 10 years, so kudos for that. However, this is hobbyist video and community cable fare.  Insufficiently notable. Geogre 12:41, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)


text:
Talk:Flat Rock Assembly Plant

Untitled
Moved here so it won't be confused with Auto Alliance Thailand (a Ford-Mazda joint venture to build small pickups and SUVs for developing markets). -- stewacide

title: Talk:Flat Rock Assembly Plant


text:
Dave Wolverton

John David Wolverton (May 28, 1957 – January 14, 2022), better known by his pen names Dave Wolverton and David Farland, was an American author, editor, and instructor of online writing workshops and groups. He wrote in several genres but was known best for his science fiction and fantasy works. Books in his Runelords series hit the New York Times bestsellers list.

In 1987, he won the Writers of the Future contest. He has been nominated for a Nebula Award and a Hugo Award. He died in the early morning hours of January 14, 2022. He lived in St. George, Utah, with his wife at the time of his death.

Life and career
Wolverton was born May 28, 1957, in Springfield, Oregon to Jack and Lola Jean Wolverton. His family moved to a farm in Monroe when he was six years old, where he grew up and graduated from Monroe High School. Following graduation, he served a volunteer mission in Illinois for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Afterward, he attended Ricks College before transferring to Brigham Young University. He met his wife, Mary, there, and they married in the Provo Utah Temple on June 22, 1985. He and his wife had two daughters and three sons.

He began writing in 1985 during college, publishing the short story "The Sky Is an Open Highway" in the fall 1985 issue of The Leading Edge. Following that, he entered short stories into various contests, eventually winning first place in the 1987 Writers of the Future contest with the novella "On My Way to Paradise". The story was expanded into the novel of the same name, published in 1989 through Bantam Spectra. The novel was nominated for multiple awards, including the Philip K. Dick Award for "Best Novel in the English Language".

He became a judge for the Writers of the Future contest in 1991 and was the Coordinating Judge and Editor at the time of his death. After co-editing volume 8 with Algis Budrys in 1992, he took over editing of the annual anthology from volume 9 until volume 14 before passing the role back to Algis Budrys. Wolverton again took over editing the anthology from K. D. Wentworth, beginning with volume 29 and continuing through volume 37.

His historical novel, In the Company of Angels, won the 2009 Whitney Award for best novel of the year, and was a finalist in the best historical novel category. Wolverton also received an outstanding achievement award at the 2009 Whitneys. In 2012, his young adult fantasy thriller Nightingale won the International Book Award for best Young Adult Novel of the Year, the Grand Prize at the Hollywood Book Festival, and the Southern California Book Festival for Best Young Adult Novel. It was also a finalist in the Global Ebook Awards. He has been nominated for other awards, including the Nebula Award in the Best Novelette category for his short story "After a Lean Winter".

In the summer of 1998, Dave Wolverton broke the world record for the largest single author book signing which he achieved with A Very Strange Trip, a book he wrote based on a story by L. Ron Hubbard. He wrote under his own name at the beginning of his career, changing to the pseudonym David Farland in the mid-1990s with the release of the first Runelords book. Wolverton chose the pseudonym in order to have a name more fitting for a Fantasy author and so his physical books would be shelved closer to customers' eye levels in bookstores, rather than on lower shelves as the last name Wolverton had.

Wolverton worked as an English professor of creative writing at Brigham Young University from 1999 to 2002, and held writing workshops for aspiring and established writers. The creative writing class he taught at BYU was taken over by one of his former students, Brandon Sanderson. He taught other writers such as Brandon Mull, Jessica Day George, Eric Flint, Stephenie Meyer, James Dashner, as well as others.

He worked in the gaming industry and greenlit screenplays in Hollywood. In 1998, Wolverton started working part-time at Saffire Studios, helping create video games. He was responsible for the concept of "lurkers" in the well-known RTS (Real-time strategy) game Starcraft: Brood War. In 2002, he began working as a movie producer and also greenlighted movies. He was working on a film adaptation of his Runelords series.

On January 13, 2022, Wolverton suffered from a fall, resulting in a severe head injury and a hemorrhagic stroke. He was on life support until he died early the next morning at the age of 64 in St. George, Utah. He was buried in the Tonaquint Cemetery in St. George, Utah. At the time of his death he was known to be working on three books: A rewrite of 2011's Nightingale, a new Runelords installment titled A Tale of Tales, and a fourth book in his Ravenspell series titled S.W.A.R.M.

Selected awards and honors
Wolverton has been nominated for and won multiple awards for his various works.

title: Dave Wolverton


text:
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title: Template:WikiProject


text:
John Goldthorpe

John Harry Goldthorpe (born 27 May 1935) is a British sociologist. He is an emeritus Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford. His main research interests are in the fields of social stratification and mobility, and comparative macro-sociology. He also writes on methodological issues in relation to the integration of empirical, quantitative research and theory with a particular focus on issues of causation.

Early life
Goldthorpe was born in Great Houghton, a remote mining village in the then West Riding of Yorkshire. His father was a colliery clerk and his mother a dressmaker. He was educated at Wath Grammar School, and then took a first class honours degree in history at University College London, being much influenced by the teaching of Alfred Cobban and Gustaaf Renier. Afterwards, he became a graduate student in sociology at the London School of Economics.

Academic career
Goldthorpe was a Junior Research Fellow and Assistant Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of Leicester from 1957 to 1960, working on the structure of a new degree with Ilya Neustadt and Norbert Elias.

In 1960 he was elected to a Prize Fellowship in Sociology at King's College, Cambridge – the first position in sociology to be established in the University. He taught history at King's and from 1962, as University Assistant Lecturer and then Lecturer, sociology courses within the revised Economics Tripos. He formed close relationships with his colleague, David Lockwood, and also with T. H. Marshall who was living in retirement in Cambridge.

In 1969 he was elected to an Official Fellowship at Nuffield College, Oxford, and remained there until his retirement in 2002. He has had many graduate students who have become noted sociologists in Britain and abroad including Tak-Wing Chan, John Child, Colin Crouch, Gorana Djoric, Ricca Edmondson, Geoff Evans, Duncan Gallie, Anne Gauthier, Brendan Halpin, Niamh Hardiman, Anthony Heath, Geoffrey Ingham, Michelle Jackson, Yao-jun Li, Susan MacRae, John McCallum, José-Maria Maravall, Gordon Marshall, Deborah Posel, William Roche, Graeme Salaman, Sawako Shirahase and Meir Yaish.

From 1970 to 1973 Goldthorpe was Editor of Sociology. But from the mid-1970s he became disappointed and disillusioned with the state of sociology in Britain, chiefly because of what he regarded as the undue dominance of socio-political commitments and pseudo-philosophical positions and the disregard of, if not actual hostility towards, new quantitative methods. He left the British Sociological Association and, outside of Oxford, worked mainly with European colleagues, notably Robert Erikson at the Swedish Institute for Social Research, University of Stockholm, and Walter Müller at the University of Mannheim. In the late 1980s he acted as consultant on sociological research in the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He played a leading role in the creation of the European Sociological Review and in the formation of the European Consortium for Sociological Research.

He became an Emeritus Fellow of Nuffield in 2002 but continues to be research active.

Research
While at Cambridge, Goldthorpe undertook, together with David Lockwood, Frank Bechhofer and Jennifer Platt, the Affluent Worker studies, which called into question the idea of the embourgeoisement of the British working class.

After arriving at Nuffield, he co-directed the Nuffield Social Mobility study of 1972, which introduced the loglinear modelling of social class mobility tables, leading to the crucial distinction between absolute and relative mobility rates. Several prevailing views about mobility in mid-twentieth century Britain were challenged. During the 1980s he worked with Robert Erikson and Walter Müller on the CASMIN project – a cross-national comparative study of intergenerational class mobility. On the basis of further technical innovations in the analysis of mobility tables, Erikson and Goldthorpe developed the concept of a ‘core model’ of such mobility, which, they suggested, was prevalent, with national-specific variations, across all advanced industrial societies.

In the course of this work the Erikson-Goldthorpe-Portocarero (EGP) class schema was developed and has subsequently been widely used in comparative social research. A specifically British version of the schema was also developed by Goldthorpe and this provided the theoretical basis for the Office for National Statistics' Socio-Economic Classification which, in 2002, was introduced into British official statistics in replacement of the old Registrar-General's Social Classes.

In the 1990s Goldthorpe concentrated mainly on theoretical and methodological issues, in particular on the understanding of social causation and, relatedly, on the application of rational action theory in the explanation of the probabilistic empirical regularities typically established through large-scale social survey research. As an illustration, he produced, together with Richard Breen, a rational action model of class-linked differences in educational choice, which has been widely tested and discussed. He also worked with Robert Erikson and Michelle Jackson on ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ effects in the creation of educational inequalities and, with these colleagues and in collaboration with David Cox, proposed statistical methods for distinguishing between the two and determining their relative importance.

Subsequently, Goldthorpe joined forces with Tak-Wing Chan in elaborating the Weberian distinction between social class and social status and showing its importance in studies of cultural participation. Their theoretical position and research has led to much controversy with followers of Pierre Bourdieu, who reject the distinction between class and status, but whose work Goldthorpe and Chan regard as being technically weak as regards both data collection and analysis and as failing to produce arguments clear enough to be open to empirical test.

For the last ten years Goldthorpe has returned to research in educational inequalities and social mobility in the context of projects directed by Erzsébet Bukodi. A series of both British and comparative analyses are brought together in their book, Social Mobility and Education in Britain: Research, Politics and Policy. A central theme of the book is the ‘disconnect’ that exists between the findings of sociological research and the discussion of social mobility and education in political and policy circles. In particular, the idea that educational expansion and reform can play a key role in increasing social mobility is questioned, and the hypothesis is advanced that in all societies with a capitalist market economy, a nuclear family system and a liberal-democratic polity, a limit exists to the extent to which relative chances of social mobility can be equalised. Research aimed at elaborating and testing this hypothesis continues.

Goldthorpe has also set out his views on the direction in which he believes that sociology is, appropriately, developing in his book Sociology as a Population Science, and to this he has then added a ‘prequel’, Pioneers of Sociological Science: Statistical Foundations and the Theory of Action.

Goldthorpe is a Fellow of the British Academy, a Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, a Member of the Academia Europaea, an Honorary Fellow of the European Academy of Sociology, and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society.

Interests
Goldthorpe is a serious tennis player, playing semi-professionally as a student.

Major works

 * 1968 The Affluent Worker: Industrial Attitudes and Behaviour. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 * 1968 The Affluent Worker: Political Attitudes and Behaviour. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 * 1969 The Affluent Worker in the Class Structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 * 1974 The Social Grading of Occupations: A New Approach and Scale.   Oxford: Clarendon Press.
 * 1980 Social Mobility and Class Structure in Modern Britain. Oxford: Clarendon Press (2nd revised and enlarged edition, 1987).
 * 1992 The Constant Flux: A Study of Class Mobility in Industrial Societies. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
 * 2000 On Sociology: Numbers, Narratives and the Integration of Research and Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
 * 2007 On Sociology (2nd revised and enlarged, 2 volume edition). Stanford: Stanford University Press.
 * 2008 From Indifference to Enthusiasm: Patterns of Arts Attendance in England. London: Arts Council England.
 * 2016 Sociology as a Population Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 * 2018 Social Mobility and Education in Britain: Research, Politics and Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 * 2021 Pioneers of Sociological Science: Statistical Foundations and the Theory of Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Goldthorpe has also published over a hundred articles in sociological and also in economics, political science and statistical journals.

title: John Goldthorpe