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National Ocean Service

The National Ocean Service (NOS) is an office within the U.S. Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). It is the responsible for preserving and enhancing the nation's coastal resources and ecosystems along approximately 95000 mi of shoreline, that is bordering 3500000 sqmi of coastal, Great Lakes, and ocean waters. Its mission is to "provide science-based solutions through collaborative partnerships to address the evolving economic, environmental, and social pressures on our oceans and coasts." The offices works with partnered agencies to ensure that the ocean and coastal areas are safe, healthy, and productive. Its projects focus on working to ensure the safe and efficient marine transportation, promoting the protection of coastal communities, conserving marine and coastal places. NOS employs 1,700 scientists, natural resource managers, and specialists in many different fields. The National Ocean Service was previously also known as the National Ocean Survey until it was renamed in 1983.

Organization
As one of the six NOAA Line Offices, NOAA's National Ocean Service (NOS) observes, studies, and manages the nation's coastal and marine resources. The NOS measures and predicts the coastal and ocean phenomena, protects large areas of the oceans, works to ensure safe navigation, and provides tools and information to protect and restore the coastal and marine resources. NOAA's National Ocean Service is composed of seven programs and two staff offices.

Program offices

 * Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services (CO-OPS)
 * National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS)
 * Office of Coast Survey (OCS)
 * Office for Coastal Management (OCM)
 * National Geodetic Survey (NGS)
 * Office of National Marine Sanctuaries (ONMS)
 * Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R)

Staff offices

 * Integrated Ocean Observing System Program (IOOS)
 * Management and Budget Office (MBO)

Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services
The Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services (CO-OPS) is a source for water-level and current measurements that support safe and efficient maritime commerce, sound coastal management, and recreation. CO-OPS is composed of four divisions:

Field Operations Division
The Field Operations Division (FOD) operates and maintains all oceanographic and Great Lakes observing systems required to meet CO-OPS' mission objectives. The Division monitors the continuous operations of navigation and other real-time observing systems to support the protection of life and property. FOD also operates the Ocean Systems Test and Evaluation Facility (OSTEF) to support Requirements and Development Division (RDD), and Information Systems Division (ISD) development efforts. FOD operates equipment to evaluate new observing systems and software modules developed to support NOS mission objectives. The Division installs, documents, operates and maintains CO-OPS measurement systems (e.g., NWLON, PORTS); conducts field reconnaissance and geodetic operations to include the establishment, leveling, documentation, and inspection of NOS benchmarks; and provides training in the installation, operation and maintenance of CO-OPS observing equipment.

Oceanographic Division
The Oceanographic Division monitors the quality of all data collected by CO-OPS, and produces operational products from this data stream. The Division monitors the performance of all CO-OPS observing systems and reports discrepancies to appropriate Center personnel. The Division performs operational data quality control/data analysis; produces oceanographic products; manages the content of CO-OPS data/product delivery systems; develops web page services; distributes real-time data to CO-OPS customers; provides information for matters such as litigation and boundary disputes (e.g., certified water level and benchmark information); provides technical assistance to customers regarding the use of CO-OPS products and services; designs new products and services to meet user needs, and maintains customer lists, billing information and accounting procedures to ensure the accurate accounting of revenues collected through user fees.

Engineering Division
The Engineering Division establishes observation and analysis requirements for CO-OPS based on the assessment of user/customer needs. The Division also manages the Ocean Systems Test and Evaluation Program (OSTEP) and its associated test facilities. The Division develops new oceanographic measurement systems and techniques to improve the safety of marine navigation. The Division: develops and issues standard operating procedures, project instructions, and manuals, to guide the operation and maintenance of CO-OPS oceanographic and meteorological measurement systems; prepares measurement requirements (based on tidal zoning) for hydrographic or photogrammetric field surveys, and to support other NOS needs for water level and current information; prepares and monitors interagency agreements, technology transfer agreements and work plans; prepares and administers contracts; provides technical assistance and guidance to other countries, agencies, and the public in the establishment and operation of water level and current measurement stations; and develops/integrates measurement and telemetry systems needed to support CO-OPS activities.

National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science
The National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS) provides research, scientific information and tools to help balance the nation's ecological, social and economic goals. The research and tools provided are central to addressing coastal issues raised in legislation and NOAA's priorities. NCCOS were formed within the National Ocean Service (NOS) in March 1999 as the focal point for coastal ocean science. Research areas and strategy were selected in response to Federal legislation, stakeholder input, and in concert with scientific expertise and capabilities.

Office of Coast Survey
Provides navigation products and services that ensure safe and efficient maritime commerce on America's oceans and coastal waters, and in the Great Lakes. OCS consists of the following offices:
 * Marine Chart Division
 * Hydrographic Surveys Division
 * Navigation Services Division
 * Coast Survey Development Lab

Office for Coastal Management
Established in 2014 when NOAA combined two offices: the Coastal Services Center and the Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management. In addition to implementing specific initiatives, a top priority for NOAA's Office for Coastal Management is to unify efforts to make communities more resilient. Many organizations are involved, including the private sector, nonprofits, the scientific community, and all levels of government. The Office for Coastal Management works to be a unifying force in these efforts, providing unbiased NOAA data and tools and providing opportunities for the community to come together to define common goals and find ways to work smarter by working together. Issues include endangered species protection, erosion, and generating better building codes for storm-resistant buildings. The OCM has four programs:

Coastal Zone Management
The National Coastal Zone Management Program addresses the nation's coastal issues through a voluntary partnership between the federal government and coastal and Great Lakes states and territories. Authorized by the Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972, the program provides the basis for protecting, restoring, and responsibly developing coastal communities and resources. Currently 34 coastal states participate. While state partners must follow basic requirements, the program also gives states the flexibility to design unique programs that best address their coastal challenges and regulations.

Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP)
NOAA's Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP) is a cross-cutting program that brings together expertise from a wide array of NOAA programs and offices in the National Ocean Service (NOS), National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR), and the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS). The CRCP was established in 2000 to help fulfill NOAA's responsibilities under the Coral Reef Conservation Act of 2000 (CRCA) and the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force (established by Presidential Executive Order 13089 on Coral Reef Protection). The mission of the CRCP is to protect, conserve, and restore coral reef resources by maintaining healthy ecosystem function. CRCP focuses on four main pillars of work: increase resilience to climate change, reduce land-based sources of pollution, improve fisheries' sustainability, and restore viable coral populations. In strong partnership with local managers, CRCP addresses strategic coral reef management needs in a targeted, cost-effective, and efficient manner.

CRCP funds and equips reef conservation activities by NOAA and its partners in the seven U.S. states and jurisdictions containing coral reefs (American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Florida, Guam, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the United States Virgin Islands), uninhabited islands including the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands and Pacific Remote Island Areas, and the Pacific Freely Associated States (Federated States of Micronesia, Republic of the Marshall Islands, and Palau). CRCP supports multiple cross-cutting activities and associated products including the National Coral Reef Monitoring Program and Coral Reef Watch.

Digital Coast
This NOAA-sponsored website is focused on helping communities address coastal issues and has become one of the most-used resources in the coastal management community.

National Estuarine Research Reserves
The National Estuarine Research Reserve System is a network of 29 coastal sites designated to protect and study estuarine systems. Established through the Coastal Zone Management Act, the reserves represent a partnership program between NOAA and the coastal states. NOAA provides funding and national guidance, and each site is managed on a daily basis by a lead state agency or university with input from local partners.

Office of National Geodetic Survey
The Office of National Geodetic Survey (NGS) provides the framework for all positioning activities in the nation. The foundational elements - latitude, longitude, elevation, shoreline information and their changes over time - contribute to informed decision making and impact a wide range of important activities including mapping and charting, navigation, flood risk determination, transportation, land use and ecosystem management. NGS' authoritative spatial data, models, and tools are vital for the protection and management of natural and manmade resources and support the economic prosperity and environmental health of the nation. The NGS consists of six divisions:
 * Geodetic Services: provides a direct relationship between NGS and its customers through the state advisor program, geodetic equipment testing and evaluation, product evaluation, marketing, distribution, and various training programs.
 * Spatial Reference Systems: maintains the Continuously Operating Reference Station (CORS) network and plans, coordinates and provides technical guidance for geodetic field projects and products required to preserve and develop the National Spatial Reference System (NSRS).
 * Remote Sensing: involves all aspects of airport charting and shoreline mapping using traditional methods while exploring more efficient technologies to complement current practices.
 * Observations & Analysis: conducts geodetic surveys to support the National Spatial Reference System, the production of airport obstruction charts, the location of aeronautical aids to navigation, and the production of coastal maps, charts, and special products in the coastal zone. The Division also conducts field surveys required to support photogrammetric and hydrographic surveys.
 * Systems Development: administers the central processing units, disk and storage systems, telecommunications and network systems, and peripheral input and output systems for NGS. The Division also researches, designs, develops, implements, and conveys the operational use of computer-assisted systems for the acquisition, reduction, analyses, display, and transmission of geodetic, photogrammetric, and remote sensing source data.
 * Geosciences Research: coordinates the research, development and management of new geodetic data products. The Division also designs and programs scientific and geodetic software applications and procedures.

Office of National Marine Sanctuaries
The Office of National Marine Sanctuaries (ONMS) serves as the trustee for the National Marine Sanctuary system, a network of underwater parks encompassing more than 170,000 sqmi of Great Lakes and oceanic waters. As of 2023, the network includes a system of 15 national marine sanctuaries:

 * Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary
 * Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary
 * Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary
 * Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary
 * Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary
 * Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary
 * Mallows Bay-Potomac River National Marine Sanctuary
 * Monitor National Marine Sanctuary
 * Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary
 * National Marine Sanctuary of American Samoa
 * Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary
 * Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary
 * Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary
 * Wisconsin Shipwreck Coast National Marine Sanctuary

A 16th national marine sanctuary in Lake Ontario has been proposed.

The ONMS also participates in the administration of two marine national monuments, the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, which it administers jointly with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the State of Hawaii, and the Rose Atoll Marine National Monument, which it administers jointly with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Office of Response and Restoration
NOAA's Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R) is a center for preparation and response to threats to coastal environments, including oil and chemical spills, releases from hazardous waste sites, and marine debris. The Office of Response and Restoration's tasks include: OR&R has three divisions:
 * Provides scientific and technical support to prepare for and respond to oil and chemical releases.
 * Determines damage to natural resources from these releases.
 * Protects and restores marine and coastal ecosystems, including coral reefs.
 * Works with communities to address critical local and regional coastal challenges.

Emergency Response Division
The Emergency Response Division (ERD) of NOAA's Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R) provides scientific expertise to an incident response. Under the National Contingency Plan, NOAA has responsibility for providing scientific support to the Federal On-Scene Coordinator (FOSC) for oil and hazardous material spills. To support this mandate, ERD provides response to spill events at any time of day.

Assessment and Restoration Division
The Assessment and Restoration Division (ARD), formerly Coastal Protection and Restoration Division (CPRD), is responsible for evaluating and restoring coastal and estuarine habitats damaged by hazardous waste releases, oil spills, and vessel groundings. ARD joined with NOAA's General Counsel for Natural Resources and Office of Habitat Conservation to create the Damage Assessment, Remediation and Restoration Program (DARRP). This NOAA partnership focuses on the protection and restoration of marine natural resources. The Assessment and Restoration Division is composed of NOAA biologists, toxicologists, ecologists, policy analysts, attorneys, geologists, environmental engineers, and economists. It assesses ecological, environmental ,and economic risk and injury from contamination and ship groundings. In particular, ARD has developed specific expertise in aquatic risk assessment techniques, contaminated sediment issues, and data interpretation. The ARD publishes the Screening Quick Reference Tables (SQuiRT cards), for rapid evaluation of water, sediment and soil contamination.

Marine Debris Division
Since 2005, the NOAA Marine Debris Program has been a NOAA program focused on researching, reducing, and preventing debris in the marine environment nationally and globally. The program works with various partners across the U.S. to fulfill its mission.

Integrated Ocean Observing System
The Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) is a national-regional partnership working to understand and predict coastal events - such as storms, wave heights, and sea level change.

History
The National Ocean Service traces its history to 1807, when the Survey of the Coast was created as the U.S. Government's first scientific agency. The agency was renamed the United States Coast Survey in 1836 and the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey in 1878. On October 3, 1970, when the Environmental Science Services Administration (ESSA) was replaced by NOAA, the Coast and Geodetic Survey was merged with other government scientific agencies to form NOAA. The Coast and Geodetic Survey′s organizational existence lingered until October 9, 1970, when its successor agency within NOAA, the National Ocean Survey, took over its assets and responsibilities. Under the National Ocean Survey, the Office of Coast Survey took over the Coast and Geodetic Survey′s hydrographic survey duties and its geodetic responsibilities were transferred to the National Geodetic Survey. The Coast and Geodetic Survey's fleet of survey ships temporarily came under the direct control of the National Ocean Survey, although via a phased process during 1972 and 1973 they merged with ships temporarily assigned to NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service and ships formerly assigned to ESSA′s Environmental Research Laboratories to form the unified NOAA fleet operated by the National Ocean Survey's Office of Fleet Operations. As a reflection of its diversifying responsibilities, the National Ocean Survey was renamed the National Ocean Service in 1983.

title: National Ocean Service


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Faking It (British TV series)

Faking It is a television programme originating on Channel 4 which has spawned various international remakes, including a United States version which began in 2003 on the TLC network. Devised by Stephen Lambert of RDF Media, the programme's original concept was "a modern-day Pygmalion", referring to the George Bernard Shaw play in which flower girl Eliza Doolittle is trained to appear like an aristocrat.

History
The programme debuted in 2000 with a run of only two episodes, one of which featured Alex Geikie, a well-spoken gay man, being taught to "fake it" as a London club bouncer. The second episode was a straight use of the Pygmalion concept as a young working-class woman, Lisa Dickinson-Grey, was taught how to behave in high society by Tim Walker, The Daily Telegraph's Mandrake diarist. Since the show began being sold abroad, these episodes have picked up the titles "Alex The Animal" and "Lady Lisa". The series ended on Boxing Day 2006 with faker Sharon Pallister transforming from cleaner to burlesque performer and featured Wayne Sleep, Miss Immodesty Blaize and Dita von Teese.

The first two episodes were well received by critics and a further seven episodes followed in 2001, ten in 2002, five in 2003, thirteen in 2004, three T4 specials, and a final feature-length show in 2005. The programme had always fared well in the ratings, with an average audience of just over two million a strong showing for Channel 4.

Format
The programme shared much with earlier British TV shows such as In at the Deep End and Jobs For The Boys/Girls, and more recently the children's show Bring It On, all of which featured TV presenters or other celebrities learning other trades, but Faking It was the first that successfully used members of the public in the role. Its basic format was that a member of the public lived with and trained with an expert for four weeks and then took part in a contest against experienced participants in whatever activity they have learned. A panel of expert judges then gave their verdict on which participant was the "faker". Ostensibly, success meant fooling a majority of the judges, though there was no prize for success and the real point of the show was the experience that the fakers received over the course of the month's filming.

Success and controversy
Among the most acclaimed episodes were cellist Sian Evans learning to be a club DJ, burger-van proprietor Ed Devlin training with Gordon Ramsay to become a cordon bleu chef, a former naval petty officer being trained as a drag artist and city lawyer George LuBega learning the art of the garage MC.

In 2003, participant Laura-Jane Foley claimed she had been misrepresented by the show. A former choirgirl, she had taken part in an episode in which she was taught how to be the front woman for a punk rock band. The episode in question had run into trouble before it even aired, with regular sponsors Smirnoff refusing to be associated with its scenes of "irresponsible drinking", but apart from an article in the Cambridge University newspaper Varsity, Foley did not pursue the matter further. She is, however, the only participant to date not to co-operate with Channel 4 in pre- and post-publicity for the show.

The show has proven hugely successful in the UK and elsewhere, twice winning the BAFTA award for Best Factual Feature. A 2002 episode in which punk singer Chris Sweeney was trained as an orchestral conductor won the Golden Rose of Montreux in 2003 as well as the Press Prize at the same festival. The chef episode won an International Emmy Award.

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

title: Faking It (British TV series)


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John I. Cox

John Isaac Cox (November 23, 1855 – September 5, 1946) was an American politician who served as the 29th governor of Tennessee from 1905 to 1907. He was elevated to the position when Governor James B. Frazier resigned, and, as Speaker of the Tennessee Senate, he was the first in the line of succession. He failed to win his party's nomination for a second term, and returned to the state senate, where he remained until 1913. Cox also served as a county judge, city attorney, and local postmaster, and spent two terms in the Tennessee House of Representatives.

The Tennessee state flag was adopted during Cox's term as governor.

Early life
Cox was born in Sullivan County, Tennessee, the son of Henry and Martha (Smith) Cox. His father was a Confederate soldier during the Civil War, and was killed in fighting in 1863. To help his family, young John worked for several years as a farm laborer before becoming a rural mail carrier at the age of 16. Two years later, he was appointed Road Commissioner of Sullivan County. He served as a justice of the peace in the late 1870s.

Cox was educated at field schools in Sullivan County, and attended Jefferson Academy in Blountville for at least one term. He began reading law with Judge William V. Deaderick (his future father-in-law) in 1880, and was admitted to the bar shortly afterward. He practiced in Blountville for several years before being elected Judge of Sullivan County in 1886.

In 1889, Cox moved to Bristol, where he served as a district attorney. He was elected to the state House of Representatives in 1892, but served only one term. He was elected to the state senate in 1900.

Governor
In early 1905, following his reelection to a third state senate term, Cox was elevated to Speaker of that body, which in Tennessee is the governor's designated successor. On March 9, U.S. Senator William B. Bate died in office, prompting a scramble among potential candidates for his vacant senate seat. Former Governor Robert Love Taylor had for years tried unsuccessfully to get elected to the Senate, and considered himself next in line should one of the two seats become vacant. Governor James B. Frazier, however, also wanted the seat, and quickly convened a special session of the General Assembly to have himself elected before Taylor could return from a speaking tour.

On March 21, Frazier resigned and headed to Washington, D.C., to take his seat in the Senate, and Cox, as the constitutional successor, was sworn in as governor. Taylor and his supporters were furious at Frazier's actions, and accused Cox and the state's other U.S. senator, Edward W. Carmack, of conspiring with Frazier. Fearing a split in the party, state Democrats allowed Taylor to challenge Carmack in a statewide primary in 1906 (this was the first Senate primary in state history, as U.S. senators were chosen by state legislatures prior to the adoption of the 17th Amendment), which Taylor won. Bitterness toward Frazier and skepticism of Cox remained, however.

Cox continued Frazier's policies and made few administrative changes. He implemented quarantines in an effort to eradicate yellow fever, which had long plagued the swampy western part of the state, and called up the state guard to protect strikebreakers at a coal mine in Tracy City during a miners' strike in 1905. He also dealt with rampant prison rioting, and increased pensions for Confederate veterans and spouses. In April 1905, a few weeks after Cox took office, the current Flag of Tennessee, designed by Colonel LeRoy Reeves of Johnson City, was adopted.

In the gubernatorial race of 1906, Malcolm R. Patterson of Memphis challenged Cox for the Democratic Party's nomination. He quickly gained the support of a number of party leaders, including former governors Robert Love Taylor and Benton McMillin, who blamed Cox for engineering Frazier's controversial election in the General Assembly. At the party's convention in late May, Patterson and Cox engaged in a fierce battle for delegates, and though it was close, a rule change allowed Patterson to claim all delegates from Davidson County, and he was declared the nominee on June 1. Cox refused to support Patterson in the general election, and the two remained at odds in subsequent months.

In 1908, Colonel Duncan Cooper, a Patterson advisor, arranged for a meeting between Cox and Patterson that helped mend the ties between the two. Ex-Senator Carmack, a Patterson opponent, published a newspaper article in October 1908 ruthlessly mocking Cooper for arranging the meeting. On November 8, Carmack was shot and killed by Cooper's son, Robin, in downtown Nashville.

Later life
Cox remained in the state senate until 1913. He served another term as a state representative from 1913 until 1915, and was the postmaster of Bristol from 1914 to 1922. He afterward retired to his farm in the Holston Hills section of Bristol, but continued stumping for Democratic Party politicians. In the 1930s, he campaigned for President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and supported the creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Cox died on September 5, 1946, at George Ben Johnston Hospital in Abingdon, Virginia, following a long struggle with kidney illness. His was 90 years and 9 months old, becoming the longest-lived governor in Tennessee history (Tom Rye also lived to 90, but was shy by 6 months of tying Cox). In April 2018, Winfield Dunn (b. July 1927) broke Cox's longevity record and as of July 2019, has surpassed his 92nd birthday to become the longest-lived governor in Tennessee history.

Family
Cox married Laura Deaderick, daughter of his law mentor, William Deaderick, in 1882. They had one son, William, before she died in 1885. In 1889, Cox married Lorena Butler. They had two children, Matthew and Mary. Lorena Butler was a cousin of the Taylor brothers, Robert Love and Alf, who both also served as governors.

title: John I. Cox


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Celtic field

Celtic field is an old name for traces of early (prehistoric) agricultural field systems found in North-West Europe, i.e. Britain, Ireland, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, France, Sweden, Poland and the Baltic states. The fields themselves are not related to the Celtic culture.

The name was given by O. G. S. Crawford. They are sometimes preserved in areas where industrial farming has not been adopted and can date from any time from the Early Bronze Age (c. 1800 BC) until the early medieval period. They can be preserved as earthworks or soil marks.

They are characterised by their proximity to other ancient features such as enclosures, sunken lanes and farmsteads and are divided into a patchwork quilt of square plots rarely more than 2000 m2 in area although larger examples are known (e.g. Dorset and Wiltshire). Their small size (35–50 m; 40–55 yd) implies that each was cultivated by a single person or household.

Lynchets, evidence of early ploughing can often be seen at the upper and lower ends. Large scale Roman agriculture replaced them in lowland Britain and they are more common in less accessible regions such as the West Country.

title: Celtic field


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William Warfield

William Caesar Warfield (January 22, 1920 – August 25, 2002) was an American concert bass-baritone singer and actor, known for his appearances in stage productions, Hollywood films, and television programs. A prominent African American artist during the Civil Rights era, he worked with many notable artists, represented the United States during foreign tours, taught at academic institutions, and earned numerous accolades, including a Grammy Award in 1984.

Early life and career
Warfield was born in West Helena, Arkansas, the oldest of five sons of a Baptist minister. He grew up in Rochester, New York, where his father was the pastor of Mt. Vernon Church. In 1938, as a senior at Washington High School in Rochester, he won the Music Educators National Song Competition in St. Louis and expressed an interest in pursuing a career on the concert stage. Inducted into the U.S. Army in November 1942 during World War II, Warfield, a senior at the Eastman School of Music, presented his graduation recital before an overflow audience at Kilbourn Hall, Eastman Theater on November 18. He attended his graduation ceremony the following May in military uniform. After earning his bachelor's degree in 1942 and serving in the military, he returned to the Eastman School to complete a master's degree in 1946.

According to a recent exhibit about WWII, Warfield was one of less than one hundred African American members of the Ritchie Boys, thousands of soldiers who were trained at Fort Ritchie, Maryland. It was an intelligence center where hundreds of Jewish recruits who fled Nazi Germany for the United States were trained to interrogate their one-time countrymen. According to the exhibit at the Zekelman Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills, Michigan, Warfield was brought to the camp because of his strong German skills which he perfected while studying music. Because of segregation, his skills were never put to use.

According to Warfield, upon induction into the Army he was initially assigned to the ordnance department to be a truck driver, but after he objected, citing his language skills, he was assigned to Ft. Ritchie, where he was in charge of stage shows and spoke fluently with German, Italian and French soldiers in their native languages.

He was discharged from the Army, where he had served in military intelligence, in 1946. Later that year he was cast in the road show tour of Call Me Mister. According to Warfield, that road show cast included William Marshall, Carl Reiner, Buddy Hackett and Bob Fosse. Over the next three years he also appeared in "Set My People Free" and the opera Regina, while also studying with and Otto Herz of the veteran's training program of the American Theatre Wing.

He gave his recital debut in New York's Town Hall on March 19, 1950. He was quickly invited by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation to tour Australia and give 35 concerts. In 1952, Warfield performed in Porgy and Bess during a tour of Europe sponsored by the U.S. State Department (he made six separate tours for the US Department of State, more than any other American solo artist). In this production, he played opposite the opera star Leontyne Price, whom he soon married, but the demands of two separate careers left them little time together. They divorced in 1972, but were featured together in a 1963 studio recording of excerpts from Porgy and Bess.

In 1969 he participated in an oratorio in Riverside Park with youth from the New York All-City High School Chorus as a public service. His dear friend and colleague Marian Anderson invited the youth to her home in Connecticut afterwards. Warfield accompanied the youth; it was the same weekend as the Woodstock Festival that some of the youth’s friends went to instead.

In 1975 he accepted an appointment as Professor of Music at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He later became Chairman of the Voice Department. In 1994, he moved to Northwestern University's School of Music, where he stayed until his death.

He sang the premiere performances of the version for soloist and orchestra of Set I of Aaron Copland's Old American Songs in 1955, and of the version for soloist and piano of Set II of the collection in 1958. (He also recorded both sets of the songs.) His vocal talents were also featured on two recordings of Handel's "Messiah" – a classic, but heavily cut, performance by the Philadelphia Orchestra under the direction of Eugene Ormandy (released in 1959), and a lesser-known, drastically restructured recording made in 1956, also heavily cut, with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic. Bernstein combined the Christmas and Resurrection sections and ended with the arias and choruses depicting the death of Jesus. The Ormandy recording featured the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and Bernstein's the Westminster Choir.

Warfield was also accomplished in acting and poetry recitation. He played the character "The Lord" in a celebrated Hallmark Hall of Fame television production of "The Green Pastures", a role he played twice on live TV (both versions survive as kinescopes). He appeared in two Hollywood films, including a star-making performance as Joe in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's 1951 Technicolor remake of Show Boat. His other film was called Old Explorers (1990), starring James Whitmore and José Ferrer. In a nod to Show Boat, Warfield played a cameo role as a tugboat captain. Footage of Warfield in Show Boat has been included in several TV shows and/or films, notably That's Entertainment!. Warfield played his Show Boat role in two other productions of the musical – the 1966 Lincoln Center production, and a 1972 production in Vienna. He sang "Ol' Man River" in three different record albums of the show – the 1951 motion picture soundtrack album on MGM Records, a 1962 studio album featuring Barbara Cook and John Raitt on Columbia Masterworks, and the RCA Victor album made from the Lincoln Center production.

He made an appearance on The Colgate Comedy Hour and on a program called TV Recital Hall in 1951, the same year that he made his screen debut in Show Boat. He later appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1955. In 1961, he appeared as a recital soloist on an episode of the Young People's Concerts, conducted by Leonard Bernstein. In March 1984 he was the winner of a Grammy Award in the "Spoken Word" category for his outstanding narration of Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait, accompanied by the Eastman Philharmonia. And in the 1990s, he narrated a special jazz arrangement of music from Show Boat, on the PRI program Riverwalk Jazz. In 1999, Warfield joined baritones Robert Sims and Benjamin Matthews in a trio by the name of "Three Generations". Managed by Arthur White, this ensemble toured the United States giving full concerts of African-American spirituals and folk songs until Warfield's death in 2002.

Decline and death
Beginning in 1962, Warfield began to have trouble with his voice, a situation he described in his autobiography. By 1966 his voice had deepened from bass-baritone to a full-fledged bass, and he could not sing the climactic high note on Ol' Man River as easily as he had in the 1951 film version. To compensate he had to sing even more expressively than he had before.

By 1976, Warfield, although still making various stage and television appearances, was not singing as much as he had in the past. He served as narrator in various orchestral works, such as Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait, and occasionally performed sprechstimme roles in works by Arnold Schoenberg. In the summer of 1976, he reprised his role as Porgy in a Lake George Opera Festival production of Porgy and Bess. Despite his issues, he did sing on occasion during his final years, despite the fact that by then his singing voice was practically gone. In those years, when he sang "Ol' Man River", he would not perform it with the original lyrics, but with the altered ones that Paul Robeson used in his recitals beginning in 1938.

He died in Chicago in August 2002, following treatment at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, succumbing to injuries he sustained in his neck from a fall a month prior.

Membership of organizations
Warfield was active in many organizations, after appearing as the featured artist at the 50th year convention of the National Association of Negro Musicians, he became active with the organization, serving as its president for two terms. He later served on the boards of the NANM and the Schiller Institute. After joining the Schiller Institute in 1996, he began to collaborate with acclaimed vocal coach Sylvia Olden Lee in a project to save the performance tradition of the Negro spiritual. During the final years of his life, from 1999 to 2002, he performed regularly at Schiller Institute biannual conferences, often with Olden Lee as his accompanist, and the two of them traveled the country conducting singing workshops for members of the LaRouche Youth Movement. Warfield was made an honorary member of the Delta Lambda chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia at Ball State University in 1961, and awarded the Fraternity's Charles E. Lutton Man of Music Award in 1976 at its national convention in Evansville, Indiana.

Legacy
The William Warfield Scholarship Fund was formed in 1977 to support young African American classical singers at the Eastman School of Music. His nephew, Thomas Warfield, has presided over the fund. Recipients include Claron McFadden and Nicole Cabell.

title: William Warfield


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Talk:National Firearms Act

Needed Content
There may have been an article NFA34 that was removed, maybe information on it would be appropriate considering it redirects to this article. Or maybe an edit of Gun_laws_in_the_United_States_(by_state)#Virginia would be the best thing to do. Gun_laws_in_the_United_States_(by_state)#Virginia — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.66.14.122 (talk • contribs) 17:21, 27 August 2008

missing info
What is the state code reference for the bill in idaho mentioned near the end of the page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.41.35.164 (talk) 21:58, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

NPOV Background
The word "ostensible" in the first sentence seems odd and inappropriate.
 * The ostensible impetus for the National Firearms Act of 1934 was the gangland crime of the Prohibition era, such as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre of 1929, and the attempted assassination of President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933

The references given state that these were, indeed, the factors. The word "ostensible" implies that there may be other reasons, but there is nothing in the reference material to support any controversy, and I believe this is speculation by the writer and, therefore, injecting an opinion where it doesn't belong. A.T.S. in Texas (talk) 01:21, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

title: Talk:National Firearms Act


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Shere Hite

Shere Hite (November 2, 1942 – September 9, 2020) was an American-born German sex educator and feminist. Her sexological work focused primarily on female sexuality. Hite built upon biological studies of sex by Masters and Johnson and by Alfred Kinsey and was the author of The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study on Female Sexuality. She also referenced theoretical, political and psychological works associated with the feminist movement of the 1970s, such as Anne Koedt's essay "The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm". She renounced her United States citizenship in 1995 to become German.

Early life, education, and career
According to Katharine Q. Seelye, Hite was born Shirley Diana Gregory in St. Joseph, Missouri to Paul and Shirley Hurt Gregory. Shortly after the end of World War II, her parents divorced. When her mother remarried, she took the surname of her stepfather Raymond Hite. According to her friend Joanna Briscoe, Hite had never known her father, and had been abandoned twice by her mother; her grandparents raised her until they divorced, and she was sent to be raised by an aunt.

Hite graduated from Seabreeze High School in Daytona Beach, Florida. After she received a master's degree in history from the University of Florida in 1967, she moved to New York City and enrolled at Columbia University to work toward her Ph.D. in social history. Hite said that the reason for her not completing this degree was the conservative nature of Columbia at that time. She posed in the nude for Playboy magazine while studying at Columbia University.

In the 1970s, she did part of her research while at the National Organization for Women. Her most well-known work, The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study on Female Sexuality., was published in 1976.

In 1988, she made an extended appearance on the British TV discussion programme After Dark, alongside James Dearden, Mary Whitehouse, Joan Wyndham, and Naim Attallah.

In 1989, she was interviewed in London by Joanna Briscoe, who later became her friend, and whose flat she often lived in. Eighteen months later she left the United States because of "vicious media attacks, doorstepping, public humiliation and death threats, all of which contributed to the loss of her American publishers and of her ability to make a living", despite The Hite Report selling 50m copies, estimated to be the 30th bestselling book of all time. According to Briscoe she commuted between Paris, the Kensington Hilton and a mattress on the floor of a squat in north London, and perpetually swung between spending and thrift. Between 1991 and 1997, she lived largely in France and Briscoe's small flat. She tended to write all night and sleep all day. Briscoe said that Hite "had an extraordinary effect on people – possessing a strange, delicate charisma that hooked them".

Hite taught at Nihon University (Tokyo, Japan), Chongqing University in China, and Maimonides University in North Miami Beach, Florida.

Research focus
Hite focused on understanding how individuals regard sexual experience and the meaning it holds for them. Hite believed that the ease at which women orgasm during masturbation contradicted traditional stereotypes about female sexuality. Hite's work concluded that 70% of women do not have orgasms through in-out, thrusting intercourse but are able to achieve orgasm easily by masturbation or other direct clitoral stimulation.

Hite, as well as Elisabeth Lloyd, criticized Masters and Johnson for uncritically incorporating cultural attitudes on sexual behavior into their research; for example, the argument that enough clitoral stimulation to achieve orgasm should be provided by thrusting during intercourse and the inference that the failure of this is a sign of female "sexual dysfunction." While not denying that both Kinsey and Masters and Johnson have played a crucial role in sex research, Hite believed that society must understand the cultural and personal construction of sexual experience to make the research relevant to sexual behavior outside the laboratory. She offered that limiting test subjects to "normal" women who report orgasming during coitus was basing research on the faulty assumption that having an orgasm during coitus was typical, something that her own research strongly refuted.

Methodology
Hite used an individualistic research method. Thousands of responses from anonymous questionnaires were used as a framework to develop a discourse on human responses to gender and sexuality. Her conclusions were met with methodological criticism. The fact that her data are not probability samples raises concerns about whether the sample data can be generalized to relevant populations. As is common with surveys concerning sensitive subjects such as sexual behavior, the proportion of nonresponse is typically large. Thus the conclusions derived from the data may not represent the views of the population under study because of sampling bias due to nonresponse.

Hite has been praised for her theoretical fruitfulness in sociological research. The suggestion of bias in some of Hite's studies is frequently used as a talking point in university courses where sampling methods are discussed, along with The Literary Digest poll of 1936. One discussion of sampling bias is by Philip Zimbardo, who explained that women in Hite's study were given a survey about marriage satisfaction, where 98% reported dissatisfaction, and 75% reported having had extra-marital affairs, but where only 4% of women given the survey responded. Zimbardo argued that the women who had dissatisfaction may have been more motivated to respond than women who were satisfied and that her research may just have been "science-coded journalism." Some or all of her published surveys depended on wide multi-channel questionnaire distribution, opportunity for many long answers on a respondent's own schedule, enforced respondent anonymity, and response by mail rather than polling by telephone. Sharon Lohr argues that the distribution of questionnaires to women's organizations and the length of the questions and the allowance for long responses introduces a bias towards people who are not typical. She also argues that several of the questions are leading the respondent to reply in a particular way.

Personal life
In 1985, Hite married German concert pianist Friedrich Höricke, who was 19 years her junior. The couple divorced in 1999. Hite married Paul Sullivan in 2012. They moved across Europe multiple times together, settling in north London, England.

In 1995, Hite renounced her U.S. citizenship at the former Embassy of the United States in Bonn. She accepted German nationality because she regarded German society as more tolerant and open-minded about her endeavors.

In September 2020, Hite died of corticobasal degeneration at the age of 77.

Legacy
The biographical documentary film The Disappearance of Shere Hite, directed by Nicole Newnham, had its premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, and was released in the U.S. in November 2023.

Notable works

 * Sexual Honesty, by Women, for Women (1974)
 * The Hite Report on Female Sexuality (1976, 1981, republished in 2004)
 * The Hite Report on Men and Male Sexuality (1981)
 * Women and Love: A Cultural Revolution in Progress (The Hite Report on Love, Passion, and Emotional Violence) (1987)
 * Fliegen mit Jupiter (English: Flying with Jupiter) (1993)
 * The Divine Comedy of Ariadne and Jupiter (1994)
 * The Hite Report on the Family: Growing Up Under Patriarchy (1994)
 * The Hite Report on Shere Hite: Voice of a Daughter in Exile (2000, autobiography)
 * The Shere Hite Reader: New and Selected Writings on Sex, Globalization and Private Life (2006)

title: Shere Hite


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Grammatology (disambiguation)

Grammatology may refer to:

 * Grammatology, the study of writing systems
 * Of Grammatology, a work by philosopher Jacques Derrida

title: Grammatology (disambiguation)


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Jewish National Fund

The Jewish National Fund (JNF; קֶרֶן קַיֶּימֶת לְיִשְׂרָאֵל, Keren Kayemet LeYisrael; previously, Ha Fund HaLeumi) is a non-profit organization founded in 1901 to buy and develop land in Ottoman Syria (later Mandatory Palestine, subsequently Israel and the Palestinian territories) for Jewish settlement. By 2007, it owned 13% of the total land in Israel. Since its inception, the JNF has planted over 240 million trees in Israel. It has also built 180 dams and reservoirs, developed 250000 acre of land and established more than 1,000 parks.

In 2002, the JNF was awarded the Israel Prize for lifetime achievement and special contribution to society and the State of Israel.

Name
The name Keren Kayemet comes from the Mishnah. Tractate Peah (1:1) lists the types of good deeds whose rewards are enjoyed in this world, while the principal merit will be in the world to come:.

History
The idea of a national land purchasing fund was first presented at the First Zionist Congress in 1897 by Hermann Schapira, a Lithuanian-Jewish professor of mathematics. The fund, named Keren Hakayemet (later known in English as the "Jewish National Fund") was formally established at the Fifth Zionist Congress in Basel in 1901. In its early years, the organization was headed by the Jewish industrialist Johann Kremenezky. Early land purchases were completed in Judea and the Lower Galilee. In 1909, the JNF played a central role in the founding of Tel Aviv. The establishment of the "Olive Tree Fund" marked the beginning of Diaspora support of afforestation efforts. The JNF collection box or "blue box" (known in Yiddish as a pushke) has been part of the JNF since its inception, symbolizing the partnership between Israel and the Diaspora. In the period between the two world wars, about one million of these blue and white tin collection boxes could be found in Jewish homes throughout the world. From 1902 until the late 1940s, the JNF sold JNF stamps to raise money. For a brief period in May 1948, JNF stamps were used as postage stamps during the transition from Palestine to Israel.

Ottoman era
The first parcel of land, 200 dunam east of Hadera, was received as a gift from the Russian Zionist leader Isaac Leib Goldberg of Vilnius, in 1903. It became an olive grove. In 1904 and 1905, the JNF purchased land plots near the Sea of Galilee and at Ben Shemen. In 1921, JNF land holdings reached 25,000 acres (100 km²), rising to 50,000 acres (200 km²) by 1927. At the end of 1935, JNF held 89,500 acres (362 km²) of land housing 108 Jewish communities.

British Mandate
In 1939, 10% of the Jewish population of the British Mandate of Palestine lived on JNF land. By 1948, the JNF owned 54% of the land held by Jews in the region, or a bit less than 4% of the land in what was then known as the British Mandate of Palestine. By the eve of statehood, the JNF had acquired a total of 936,000 dunam of land; another 800,000 dunam had been acquired by other Jewish organizations or individuals. Most of the JNF's activities during the Mandatory period were closely associated with Yossef Weitz, the head of its settlement department.

From the beginning, JNF's policy was to lease land long-term rather than sell it. In its charter, the JNF states: "Since the first land purchase in Eretz Israel in the early 1900s for and on behalf of the Jewish People, JNF has served as the Jewish People's trustee of the land, initiating and charting development work to enable Jewish settlement from the border in the north to the edge of the desert and Arava in the south."

State of Israel
After Israel's establishment in 1948, the government began to sell absentee lands to the JNF. On January 27, 1949, 1,000 km² of land (from a total of about 3,500 km²) was sold to the JNF for the price of IL11 million. Another 1,000 km² of land was sold to the JNF in October 1950. Over the years questions about the legitimacy of these transactions have been raised but Israeli legislation has generally supported the JNF's land claims.

In 1953, the JNF was dissolved and re-organized as an Israeli company under the name Keren Kayemet LeYisrael (JNF-KKL). In 1960, administration of the land held by the JNF-KKL, apart from forested areas, was transferred to a newly formed government agency, the Israel Land Administration (ILA). The ILA was then responsible for managing some 93% of the land of Israel. All the land managed by the ILA was defined as Israel lands; it included both land owned by the government (about 80%) and land owned by the JNF-KKL (about 13%). The JNF-KKL received the right to nominate 10 of the 22 directors of the ILA, lending it significant leverage within that state body.

After concentrating on the centre and northern part of the young state, the JNF-KKL started supporting Jewish settlements around the Negev border from around 1965. After the Six-Day War in 1967, the JNF-KKL started work in the newly occupied Palestinian territories as well.

Reclamation projects
The JNF charter specifies the reclamation of land for the Jewish people as its primary purpose. During the 1980s, almost 60,000 acre were planted. Over 50,000 acre of crop-land were reclaimed, and hundreds of miles of roads built. Research into the soil and water conservation and the construction of dams and reservoirs took on added importance in the face of water shortages and drought.

The JNF's collaborative work involves participation in the International Arid Land Consortium, which explores the problems and solutions unique to arid and semiarid regions, working to develop sustainable ecological practices to improve the quality of life among people in the dry areas.

Afforestation

The early JNF was active in afforestation and reclamation of land. By 1935, JNF had planted 1.7 million trees over a total area of 1,750 acres (7.08 km²) and drained swamps, like those in the Hula Valley. Over fifty years, the JNF planted over 260 million trees largely in semi-arid, rocky, hilly terrain in which cultivation is not cost-effective and the risk of land degradation is high. While the Ministry of Agriculture is the official regulator of Israel's forests, the JNF is responsible for the implementation of forest management and afforestation. In 2006, the JNF signed a 49-year lease agreement with the State of Israel which gives it control over 30000 ha of Negev land for the development of forests. The JNF has been criticized for planting non-native pine trees which are unsuited to the climate, rather than local species such as olive trees. Others say that JNF deserves credit for this decision, and the forests would not have survived otherwise. According to JNF statistics, six out of every 10 saplings planted at a JNF site in Jerusalem do not survive, although the survival rate for planting sites outside Jerusalem is much higher – close to 95 percent. The Israeli newspaper Maariv wrote that workers remove saplings daily to allow more tourists to plant the following day, but the JNF denied this and said it would sue the paper for libel. The Union for Environmental Defense has criticized the fund's forestry practices for "overreliance on highly flammable pine trees" and overuse of toxic herbicides, in the context of minimal government and public scrutiny. Some forests have been planted for security reasons and as a means of demarcating Israeli space. Critics argue that many JNF lands outside the West Bank were illegally confiscated from Palestinian refugees, and that the JNF furthermore should not be involved with lands in the West Bank. Shaul Ephraim Cohen has said trees have been planted to restrict Bedouin herding. Susan Nathan wrote that forests were planted on the site of abandoned Arab villages after the 1948 war. Nathan also writes that olive trees were replaced by pine and cypress trees and that JNF afforestation policy erases traces of the Arab presence prior to 1948. In 2008, the JNF announced that historical information plaques erected in JNF parks and forests would cite the names of the Arab villages formerly located there.

Since 2009, the JNF has been helping the Palestinian Authority plan public parks and other civic amenities for the Palestinian city of Rawabi, north of Ramallah. The JNF provided the Palestinian Authority with 3,000 tree seedlings for a forested area being developed on the edge of the new city.

Water conservation
Israel's fresh water supply is dependent on 50 days a year of seasonal rainfall, while water consumption has doubled since 1960. Towards the end of the 1980s, the JNF undertook several large-scale water conservation projects. Dams and reservoirs were built to capture rainwater run-off which would have otherwise been lost in the Arava Valley, Reshafim in the Beit She'arim Valley and Kedma near Kiryat Gat. An artificial lake was built in Timna Park.

The JNF has built 200 reservoirs around the country, and plans to build 30 more reservoirs and water treatment plants over the next five years. Over the past decade, JNF has invested over $114.99 million in reservoir construction, increasing the country's total storage capacity by 7%, to over 130 e6m3 of water. JNF is also involved in river rehabilitation projects all over Israel, such as the Nahal Alexander Restoration Project begun in 2003.

Land development
The JNF's engagement in developing Israel for Jewish purposes has involved a range of massive land infrastructure development projects. In the 1980s, the JNF launched a project known collectively as "Operation Promised Land", to meet the challenge of the massive upsurge of Jewish immigration from the Soviet Union and Ethiopia. In recent years, the JNF has again moved towards the development of towns to accommodate new Jewish immigrants, focusing on the Galilee and Negev regions, the two areas of Israel with a tenuous Jewish demographic majority. In particular, the JNF's 600 million dollar Blueprint Negev aims to attract and build infrastructure for 250,000 new settlers in the Negev desert, which accounts for 60% of the country's land mass but remains sparsely populated. The plan has come under scrutiny as groups such as Bustan, Save the Negev, and Ohalah have expressed concern over the project's lack of transparency in light of the potential strain on ecological resources and the possible impacts on Bedouin communities nearby.

United States
The United States branch of the JNF, incorporated on January 26, 1926, is the largest contributor to JNF-KKL. In 1996, JNF-USA was accused of mismanaging funds. According to the charges, only 21% of US donations reached Israel, and money was being diverted to Latin American JNF offices. In the wake of this scandal, the North American management was forced to resign. The tax-exempt status of the JNF-USA was challenged in 2011 as violating the public policy of the United States with respect to ethnic and religious discrimination. In July 2017, in response to an investigation by the Jewish Daily Forward, the New York State attorney general's office ordered JNF-USA to rescind two illegal loans totaling more than $500,000 the organization had made to its chief executive officer, Russell Robinson, and its chief financial officer, Mitchel Rosenzweig. (New York State forbids charities from lending their officers any money.) JNF-USA argued that Robinson and Rosenzweig were not officers under the meaning of the law, but the attorney general's officer rejected that argument and the two executives agreed to repay the balance of their loans.

United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom, the JNF-UK (full name JNF Charitable Trust) was formed in 1939 and registered as a charitable organization. In October 2005, the JNF-KKL in Israel split from its British partner, accusing JNF-UK of having "misled" the public. The JNF-KKL claimed that the British group was using the KKL name to raise funds "for their own causes which are not associated with KKL." The Israeli JNF-KKL said it would launch a separate fundraising operation in the UK. JNF-UK launched a legal action to stop KKL using the names "JNF" or "Jewish National Fund" in the UK. The two organisations made peace after the Israeli-born businessman Samuel Hayek took over as JNF-UK chairman in 2008. Israeli JNF-KKL ended its dispute with the JNF-UK within weeks of ending a similar dispute with the American JNF-USA On 1 May 2020 a ruling was issued to JNF on a will writing service encouraging elderly to leave money to KKL. District Judge Geddes noted on KKL's "lack of independence from JNF UK"

The charitable status of the JNF-UK has come under increasing attack. British prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown had been Honorary Patrons of the JNF-UK, like all British prime ministers before them since its inception. David Cameron resigned as Honorary Patron to JNF-UK in 2011. According to a spokesman, Cameron said it was an organisation that was specifically focused around work in one specific country—i.e., Israel. Cameron's decision was interpreted as a snub, in spite of the spokesman's assurances that his decision had "absolutely nothing to do with any anti-Israel campaign". However, campaigners claimed that Cameron's resignation was due to political pressure. Since then, the JNF-UK's Honorary Patrons include no leader of the main British political parties. An Early Day Motion in the British parliament called for the revocation of the JNF's charitable status in the UK and was signed by 66 Members of Parliament. In 2012 the Green Party called for the JNF to be stripped of its charity status.

2021 controversy
On 2 December 2021, JNF-UK Chairman Samuel Hayek gave an interview to The Jerusalem Post where he expressed concern over rising levels of antisemitism in the UK, claiming that "in 10 years, maybe less, who knows, Jews will not be able to live in the UK". When asked by Jewish News 18 days later to clarify his reasoning, Hayek claimed the evidence lay in "the number of immigrants to England. The demographic of British society is changing". When asked to clarify if the immigrants he was referring to were Muslims, Hayek confirmed this, and went on to claim that Muslim immigrants "don't speak English [and] create their own ghettos, their own education, their own process of thinking". Hayek appeared to echo sentiments closely associated with far-right great replacement theory when he continued, "the process is the white Christian majority is shrinking. It shrinks to a degree where there is a point it cannot protect itself anymore." Leaders of the Board of Deputies (BoD), the Jewish Leadership Council and the Community Security Trust all condemned Hayek's comments, as did the Chief Rabbi, while Jewish MP Alex Sobel called for Hayek's resignation as chair of JNF UK, or the isolation of the JNF UK from communal organisations while Hayek remained in his position. On 4 January 2022 a letter signed by 46 BoD Deputies called for Hayek to resign, stating they would continue to advise synagogues not to participate, support or cooperate with JNF-UK as long as he remained chair. On the 10 January 2022 another letter signed by 105 Jewish student leaders to suspend all programmes run by the JNF UK and to suspend JNF membership from the BoD. On the 13 January 2022 the Charity Commission for England and Wales opened a regulatory case on JNF UK to assess concerns.

On 23 December 2021, then BoD senior VP and JNF-UK deputy Gary Mond condemned Hayek's remarks, stated they did not represent JNF-UK and affirmed his belief that the UK "is one of the best places in the world to be Jewish", and that British Jews "have a great future in the UK". On 12 January Jewish News published an article stating they had alerted the BoD to historic social media posts where Mond appeared to express support for Islamophobic sentiments, including "liking" two posts by Pamela Geller, an American far-right activist, currently banned from entering the UK, a post expressing his "concern" over a possible increase in the number of Muslim MPs and another suggesting that civilization was "at war" with Islam. In response, the BoD asked Mond to step down while an investigation took place. Mond resigned from the BoD the following day, claiming he had been "cancelled" and accusing the Board leadership of leaning to the political left and being unwilling to take account of different views.

Hayek refused to resign, and on 21 January wrote an op-ed in The Jewish Chronicle stating that he stood by his remark to The Jerusalem Post but he was "not against any minority or against the Muslims in the UK or Europe, but against anyone who spreads hatred that harms Jews" and that his previous remarks were "misconstrued".

On 23 January 2022, the BoD voted to censure JNF-UK over the failure of its board of trustees to condemn Hayek's remarks.

Canada
Following the Six-Day War, the Canadian branch of the JNF raised about $15 million US to fund a 1,700-acre park called "Canada Park". The park was built in 1970 on the land of three Palestinian villages which were destroyed on the orders of Yitzhak Rabin. Starting around 2013, Independent Jewish Voices has campaigned against JNF Canada's charitable status, and in 2017 it filed a formal complaint with the Canadian government seeking the revocation of JNF's charitable status on the basis of discrimination.

JNF collection boxes

JNF's blue charity boxes were distributed by the JNF almost from its inception at the initiative of Johann Kremenezky. Once found in many Jewish homes, the boxes became one of the most familiar symbols of Zionism. A children's song about the boxes, written by Dr. Yehoshua Frizman, Headmaster of the Real Gymnasium for Girls in Kovno, ran

"The box is hanging on the wall The blue box Each penny put inside Redeems the land."

A bank clerk named Haim Kleinman in Nadvorna, Galicia placed a blue box labeled "Keren Le'umit" in his office and urged others to do the same. The first mass-produced boxes were distributed in 1904. Kleinman visited Mandate Palestine in the 1930s and planned to make aliyah, but perished in the Holocaust. Menahem Ussishkin wrote that "The coin the child contributes or collects for the redemption of the land is not important in itself; it is not the child that gives to the Keren Kayemeth, but rather the Fund that gives to the child, a foothold and lofty ideal for all the days of his life."

The boxes could take a variety of shapes and sizes. Some were paper made to fold flat like envelopes and able to contain only a small number of coins, some early American boxes were cylindrical, some German boxes were made of tin stamped into the shape of bound books.

Israel issued postage stamps bearing the image of the blue box in 1983, 1991, and 1993 for the JNF's 90th anniversary.

Transparency
T'ruah has expressed concerns that the JNF is not transparent about where their funds go and that the organization may be subsidizing projects in West Bank settlements. The organization's chief executive later acknowledged that JNF does fund projects within settlements. A review of their tax filing from 2014 led Rabbi Jill Jacobs of T'ruah to estimate that about $600,000 of the $27.2 million in grants by JNF-USA went to support settlements. In 2021, JNF announced that it would change its policy and subsidize Israeli settlements in the West Bank. However, the necessary vote of the board was delayed indefinitely in April after opposition from members and supporters abroad.

Israeli lawmakers have sought, unsuccessfully, to allow the State Comptroller to examine the books of the organization to determine whether the group's funds were being spent appropriately.

Leasing policy controversy

The JNF stipulates that only Jews can buy, mortgage or lease JNF land. Article 23 of the JNF lease states that the lessee must pay compensation to the JNF if this stipulation is violated. On 13 October 2004, Adalah, an organization and legal center for Arab minority rights in Israel, submitted a petition to the Supreme Court entitled Challenging the Prohibition on Arab Citizens of Israel from Living on Jewish National Fund Land. Shortly afterwards, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and the Arab Center for Alternative Planning also filed a petition to the Supreme Court challenging the ILA policy as discriminatory. The JNF responded to the two petitions on 9 December. In its response, the JNF stated:

"The JNF is not the trustee of the general public in Israel. Its loyalty is given to the Jewish people in the Diaspora and in the state of Israel... The JNF, in relation to being an owner of land, is not a public body that works for the benefit of all citizens of the state. The loyalty of the JNF is given to the Jewish people and only to them is the JNF obligated. The JNF, as the owner of the JNF land, does not have a duty to practice equality towards all citizens of the state."

On 26 January 2005, Israel's Attorney General Menachem Mazuz ruled that lease restrictions violated Israeli anti-discrimination laws, and that the ILA could not discriminate against Arab citizens of Israel in the marketing and allocation of the lands it managed; this applied both to government lands and to lands belonging to the JNF. However, the Attorney General also decided that, whenever a non-Jewish citizen wins an ILA tender for a plot of JNF-owned land, the ILA would compensate the JNF with an equal amount of land. This would allow the JNF to maintain its current hold over 2,500,000 dunam of land, or 13% of the total land in Israel.

As a result of the Mazuz ruling, authorities found themselves facing a conundrum: on the one hand the JNF, as a "private" organization, had received donations from outside Israel which were specifically earmarked for the benefit of Jews; on the other hand, the state and the ILA (an agency of the state), which administered the land owned by the JNF, were banned from discriminating against non-Jews. In early 2005, the JNF and the Finance Ministry were reported as trying to draft a new agreement that would separate the JNF from the state, thereby allowing it to continue selling land to Jews only.

In July 2007, the Israeli Knesset approved the Jewish National Fund Bill, submitted by MK Uri Ariel (National Union/National Religious Party), in its preliminary reading; but the bill was later dropped. The bill sought to authorize the JNF practice of refusing to lease land to Arab citizens. The bill called for a new provision to the 1960 Israel Land Administration Law, entitled "Management of the Jewish National Fund's Lands"; the provision stated that regardless of other conflicting rulings, leasing JNF lands for Jewish settlement did not constitute discrimination, and: "For the purpose of every law, the association documents of the Jewish National Fund will be interpreted according to the judgment of the Jewish National Fund's founders and from a nationalist-Zionist standpoint."

In September 2007, the High Court heard a further Adalah petition seeking cancellation of an ILA policy as well as Article 27 of the Regulations of the Obligations of Tenders, which in concert prevent Arab citizens from participating in bids for JNF-controlled land. The High Court of Justice agreed to delay a ruling by at least four months, and a temporary settlement was reached (following the compromise proposed in 2005 by Menachem Mazuz) wherein, although the JNF would be prevented from discriminating on grounds of ethnicity, nevertheless every time land is sold to a non-Jew, the ILA would compensate it with an equivalent amount of land, thus ensuring the total amount of land owned by Jewish Israelis remains the same.

An alternative proposal submitted by Amnon Rubinstein, a former minister, recommended that a distinction be made between JNF lands and state lands, such that all JNF lands directly acquired via donations from abroad specifically for the benefit of Jews (some 900,000 dunam) will pass to the direct control of the JNF; while properties purchased by the JNF from the state in the 1950s and formerly belonging to Palestinian refugees (the so-called "lands of missing persons" or "absentee" lands, amounting to 2000000 dunam) would revert to state control. Rubinstein's intention was "to avoid passing racist legislation [such as the Ariel Bill] that would limit the use of these lands to the Jews". Others denied however that the Ariel Bill was racist. The Rubinstein proposal was not taken up.

In late 2007 a land swap deal was proposed that would allowing the JNF to continue leasing its lands only to Jews. Urban JNF land sold in future to non-Jews would include an automatic swap mechanism: the fund would transfer the land to the ILA, and in exchange would receive the purchase price plus a similar-sized plot in the Negev.

Legal conflicts
In December 2011, Seth Morrison resigned from the board of JNF-USA in protest at the decision by Himnuta, a subsidiary of JNF-KKL, to launch eviction proceedings against the Sumarin family, who lived in the Silwan neighborhood of East Jerusalem. In the case of the Sumarin family, the children of the original owner, Musa Sumarin, were declared absentees after his death even though there were other family members living in the home at the time. In 1991, the Israeli government took the step of transferring the property to the JNF subsidiary. A campaign against the JNF's eviction was launched by Rabbis for Human Rights, the Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Movement, and the Jewish organization Yachad. The pressures led the JNF to delay the eviction. The JNF played a similar role in evicting the Gozlan family in the 1990s.

title: Jewish National Fund


text:
Philippe Flajolet

Philippe Flajolet (1 December 1948 – 22 March 2011 ) was a French computer scientist.

Biography
A former student of École Polytechnique, Philippe Flajolet received his PhD in computer science from University Paris Diderot in 1973 and state doctorate from Paris-Sud 11 University in 1979. Most of Philippe Flajolet's research work was dedicated towards general methods for analyzing the computational complexity of algorithms, including the theory of average-case complexity. He introduced the theory of analytic combinatorics. With Robert Sedgewick of Princeton University, he wrote the first book-length treatment of the topic, the 2009 book entitled Analytic Combinatorics. In 1993, together with Rainer Kemp, Helmut Prodinger and Robert Sedgewick, Flajolet initiated the successful series of workshops and conferences which was key to the development of a research community around the analysis of algorithms, and which evolved into the AofA—International Meeting on Combinatorial, Probabilistic, and Asymptotic Methods in the Analysis of Algorithms.

A summary of his research up to 1998 can be found in the article "Philippe Flajolet's research in Combinatorics and Analysis of Algorithms" by H. Prodinger and W. Szpankowski, Algorithmica 22 (1998), 366–387.

At the time of his death from a serious illness, Philippe Flajolet was a research director (senior research scientist) at INRIA in Rocquencourt.

From 1994 to 2003 he was a corresponding member of the French Academy of Sciences, and was a full member from 2003 on. He was also a member of the Academia Europaea.

Memory
The HyperLogLog commands of Redis, released in April 2014, are prefixed with "PF" in honor of Philippe Flajolet. The Flajolet Lecture Prize, which has been awarded since 2014, was also named in honor of him.

Philippe Flajolet also received the 2019 Leroy P. Steele Prize from the American Mathematical Society for his work in Mathematical Exposition. More specifically, for his book "Analytic Combinatorics" which he co-wrote with Robert Sedgewick and Professor William O. Baker.

Selected works

 * with Robert Sedgewick: An Introduction to the Analysis of Algorithms. 2nd edition, Addison-Wesley, Boston, Mass. 1995, ISBN 0-201-40009-X
 * with Robert Sedgewick: Analytic Combinatorics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2009, ISBN 978-0-521-89806-5
 * Random tree models in the analysis of algorithms. INRIA, Rocquencourt 1987 (Rapports de recherche; Vol. 729)
 * with Andrew Odlyzko: Singularity analysis of generating functions. University Press, Stanford, Calif. 1988

title: Philippe Flajolet