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What Is This?

What Is This (known prior to 1980 as Anthym) was an American rock band that originated in Fairfax High School in Los Angeles, California. Formed by guitarist Hillel Slovak, drummer Jack Irons, vocalist Alain Johannes, and bassist Todd Strassman, the band served as the nucleus for the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Members of the band would go on to perform with Eleven, Chris Cornell, Pearl Jam, Mark Lanegan, Them Crooked Vultures, Alain Johannes Trio and Queens of the Stone Age.

History
Originally named Chain Reaction, the band would later change its name to Anthem, then later to Anthym (as there was already a band using the former moniker), and then finally to What Is This, which was a tongue-in-cheek reference to the reaction they usually received from first-time listeners.

During their tenure as Anthym, guitarist Hillel Slovak became acquainted with an audience member at one of their shows, Anthony Kiedis, who was then brought on as a roadie and "hype-man" for the band. After a while, the band began to find bassist Todd Strassman's musical abilities unsatisfactory, so they considered replacing him. Slovak decided to teach a friend of his at Fairfax, trumpet player Michael "Flea" Balzary, how to play bass. Soon he replaced Strassman as What Is This' bassist. After graduating high school, the band began to play gigs in the Los Angeles area. Flea eventually left the band to play in the punk band Fear and was replaced by Chris Hutchinson.

Around this time, Slovak and Jack Irons decided to play a show with Anthony Kiedis and Flea under the name Tony Flow and the Majestic Masters of Mayhem at the Rhythm Lounge. It consisted of the musicians improvising a punk funk jam (like Defunkt or James Chance and the Contortions) while Kiedis rapped a poem he wrote titled "Out in L.A." It was intended to be a one-time performance, but the show was received so well that they were asked to return again the following week. The group decided to change their name to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, played several more shows at various Los Angeles clubs and musical venues, and eventually recorded a demo tape, all while Slovak and Irons were still playing with What Is This. A few months later, What Is This received a record deal with MCA Records, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers received a joint deal with EMI America and Enigma Records. Hillel Slovak and Jack Irons decided to leave the Red Hot Chili Peppers and stay with What Is This as the latter was their primary musical project while the former was seen as side endeavor.

What Is This released their debut EP Squeezed in 1984. Around this time, Hillel Slovak had become uncertain of his role in the band and decided to rejoin the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He left What Is This in 1985, midway through the recording of their only full length album, called What Is This?. At this point, and for their final EP 3 Out of 5 Live, the band was a trio. After this, the band broke up.

Alain Johannes later met Natasha Shneider and the duo formed Walk The Moon, whose sole studio album featured Jack Irons and Chris Hutchinson on several tracks. Jack Irons later rejoined the Red Hot Chili Peppers in 1987, but would then leave the next year due to Hillel Slovak's death via a heroin overdose. Alain Johannes, Natasha Shneider, and Jack Irons later formed the band Eleven. Jack Irons would later leave Eleven midway through the recording of their third album to join Pearl Jam (with whom he recorded two albums) only to later rejoin Eleven in time for their fifth album. Eleven disbanded after the death of Natasha Shneider. Both Johannes and Irons were later part of Spinnerette.

What Is This is song "Mind My Have Still I" from Squeezed was also featured on the soundtrack to the movie The Wild Life. Their second album, which featured a cover of The Spinners hit "I'll Be Around", was produced by Todd Rundgren, who also played Fairlight Synthesizer on the record. "I'll Be Around" was released as a single and video; it peaked at No. 62 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Members
Original line-up
 * Alain Johannes: Lead Vocals, Guitar
 * Hillel Slovak: Guitar, Backing Vocals
 * Todd Strassman: Bass
 * Jack Irons: Drums

Later members
 * Flea: Bass, Backing Vocals (replaced Todd Strassman)
 * Chris Hutchinson: Bass, Backing Vocals (replaced Flea)
 * Michael Bocretis: Keyboards

title: What Is This?


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Robert Sledge

Robert Ewell Sledge (born March 9, 1968) is an American musician, best known for his work with Ben Folds Five.

Biography
Robert Sledge began playing bass guitar at the age of eleven. His brother was playing guitar at his house so he also learned how to play the guitar at the same time. Before playing with Ben Folds Five he was bassist for the bands Toxic Popsickle and Lexx Luthor (with Godsmack's Sully Erna).

Ben Folds Five
Robert was a founding member of the piano-rock trio Ben Folds Five. Robert was the bass player for the group as well as taking up backup vocal duties on almost every song at the time. During the Reinhold Messner tour Robert began to use synths on stage as well as playing electric & acoustic basses until the band's break up in 2000.

Robert is known for his use of a Big Muff distortion pedal and rockstar flair. Sledge played a Hamer Blitz Bass throughout the early years of Ben Folds Five. It was used on their eponymous debut album. He later switched to a Fender Jazz Bass to record Whatever and Ever Amen, while playing his Gibson and Epiphone Les Paul basses in live shows from that time to the present. Sledge had a sponsorship from Epiphone for his use of the Les Paul Bass, which can be seen in the Ben Folds Five performance on Sessions at West 54th. He also plays an upright double bass for several songs, including "Brick".

Post-Ben Folds Five
After Ben Folds Five broke up, Robert Sledge performed for one summer with the short-lived rock group Brother Seeker, a band composed of Robert and former Squirrel Nut Zippers members Tom Maxwell and Ken Mosher. According to John D. Luerssen's Rivers' Edge: The Weezer Story Sledge was heavily considered to replace Mikey Welsh as the new Weezer bassist in 2001 but instead Scott Shriner took the job.

He later joined the band International Orange, as a songwriter, bassist and vocalist. International Orange broke up in 2005.

Robert currently lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where he gives music lessons and plays in local rock bands the "Bob Sledge Band", and "Surrender Human." Ben Folds himself mentioned Robert in his song Not The Same when part of the lyrics in the song says “You took a trip and climbed a tree at Robert Sledge’s party”.

Personal life
Sledge lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina with his wife and son, Henry Sledge, who goes by Archie, and attends Carrboro High School.

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

title: Robert Sledge


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Infobot

Infobot is a Perl IRC bot, first written in 1995 by Kevin Lenzo. The bot's main goal was to remember URLs and associate them with a descriptive name, so whenever someone needed a specific URL they could ask the bot. For that reason, the first Infobot, running in #macintosh on the EFnet IRC network, had the nickname 'url'.

Although the main project is now inactive, many forks from the original program were made, some of which are still active. Most of these forks carry extra features, such as googling a phrase given through the chat and saying the results of the query as messages directly in the chat.

Operation
The Infobot works by a method of factoids. It stores information in its database by connecting a phrase with its definition, usually an informative short line. It records its information by constantly listening to the chat (which is configurable). It states its factoids when it recognizes a question in the chat. For example:
 * The Infobot at this point silently remembers the statement.

Because of its ability to store statements and re-state them with ease, many IRC channel operators use an Infobot to store information such as the channel rules so they could easily give them to newcomers to the channel.

Using its automated replies, Infobots are also often used as an entertainment bot, giving humorous replies to certain queries. For example, to prevent the Infobot from saying 'X is Y', the key word '' is used, to have this effect:

Derived bot projects
Infobots running the original Infobot code have become less popular on IRC now, mostly because of the inactivity of the original project. Newer Infobots have additional features. Most of them involve connecting to websites. For example, some bots have a 'weather' module. So someone can ask the Infobot the weather at a certain address, and the Infobot will connect to a weather site and report the up-to-date weather on the chat. Infobots are also useful as calculators, and in currency conversions, word definitions, and many other things which one would otherwise have to open a site for.

A notable fork was blootbot by Tim Riker. In 2008 it was merged back with the original infobot. The resulting code is now maintained under the original infobot name by Riker. It uses an SQL back-end such as MySQL, PGSQL, or SQLite to store factoids.

title: Infobot


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User talk:TimRiker

Leave messages for Tim Riker here.

title: User talk:TimRiker


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Ideal type

Ideal type (Idealtypus), also known as pure type, is a typological term most closely associated with the sociologist Max Weber (1864–1920). For Weber, the conduct of social science depends upon the construction of abstract, hypothetical concepts. The "ideal type" is therefore a subjective element in social theory and research, and one of the subjective elements distinguishing sociology from natural science.

Meaning
An ideal type is formed from characteristics and elements of the given phenomena, but it is not meant to correspond to all of the characteristics of any one particular case. It is not meant to refer to perfect things, moral ideals nor to statistical averages but rather to stress certain elements common to most cases of the given phenomenon. In using the word "ideal," Max Weber refers to the world of ideas (Gedankenbilder, "mental images") and not to perfection; these "ideal types" are idea-constructs that help put the seeming chaos of social reality in order.

Weber wrote: "An ideal type is formed by the one-sided accentuation of one or more points of view and by the synthesis of a great many diffuse, discrete, more or less present and occasionally absent concrete individual phenomena, which are arranged according to those onesidedly emphasized viewpoints into a unified analytical construct..." Therefore, ideal types are a form of perfect representation. It is a useful tool for comparative sociology in analyzing social or economic phenomena, having advantages over a very general, abstract idea and a specific historical example. It can be used to analyze both a general, suprahistorical phenomenon such as capitalism or historically unique occurrences such as in Weber's Protestant Ethics analysis.

To try to understand a particular phenomenon, one must not only describe the actions of its participants but "interpret" them by classifying behavior as belonging to some prior "ideal type." Weber described four "ideal types" of behavior: zweckrational (goal-rationality), wertrational (value-rationality), affektual (emotional-rationality), and traditional (custom, unconscious habit).

Weber states that an "ideal type" never seeks to claim its validity in terms of a reproduction of or correspondence with social reality. Its validity can be ascertained only in terms of adequacy, which is too conveniently ignored by the proponents of positivism. This does not mean, however, that objectivity, limited as it is, can be gained by "weighing the various evaluations against one another and making a 'statesman-like' compromise among them", which is often proposed as a solution by those propounding methodological perspectivism. Such a practice, which Weber calls "syncretism", is not only impossible but also unethical, for it avoids "the practical duty to stand up for our own ideals" [Weber 1904/1949, p. 58 ].

Scholarly reception
It is commonly argued that idealization plays a key role in the methodology of other social sciences, especially of economics.

For example, homo economicus is the result of a consistent abstraction-idealization process. One of the fundamental axioms of neoclassical economics, the law of diminishing marginal utility, followed from the highlighting of Weber-Fechner's law in psychophysics, which highlights that the growth of subjectively perceived intensity of recurrent stimuli with the same physical intensity is always decreasing. The same law emerges in the law of diminishing marginal returns. Homo economicus as presupposed by Neoclassicals is an idealized, abstract creature that can be characterized by an intention to exchange and whose only task is to take economic decisions. For homo economicus, there is no time or social and natural environment, he is ageless, he has no whims, and his decisions are not biased by occasional effects from the (social) environment. So, his behaviour only reflects the objective and consistently prevailing economic laws established by formal rationality. After all, human (and social) sciences, similarly to natural sciences, i.e. abstracting from everything subjective, constrained themselves to phrase only objective truths.

However, the conceptualizing routine of neoclassical economics differs from the genuine approach of Max Weber in that Neoclassicals focused exactly on finding and deducing economic laws (in accordance with the efforts of natural sciences), while the ideal-types of the Weberian sociology only supported the interpretative understanding of past events with no references to causal laws. Even if the method and the strategy of creating ideal-typical concepts are common, these are two opposing scientific programs eventually. Weber offers an excellent description and a user's guide to the technique of abstraction and idealization that also directly applies to the conceptualizing strategy of mainstream economics that is on a completely different track with its law-seeking efforts.

Criticism
Critics of ideal type include proponents of the normal type theory. Some sociologists argue that ideal type tends to focus on extreme phenomena and overlook the connections between them, and that it is difficult to show how the types and their elements fit into a theory of a total social system.

title: Ideal type


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Ian McFarlane

Ian McFarlane (born 1959) is an Australian music journalist, music historian and author, whose best known publication is the Encyclopedia of Australian Rock and Pop (1999), which was updated for a second edition in 2017.

As a journalist he started in 1984 with Juke, a rock music newspaper. During the early 1990s he worked for Roadrunner Records while he published a music guide, The Australian New Music Record Guide Volume 1: 1976–1980 (1992). He followed with two fanzines, Freedom Train and Prehistoric Sounds, both issued during 1994 to 1996. McFarlane's The Encyclopedia of Australian Rock and Pop is described by the Australian Music Guide as "the most exhaustive and wide-ranging encyclopedia of Australian music from the 1950s onwards". Subsequently, he was a writer for The Australian and worked for Raven Records, a reissue specialist label, preparing compilations, writing liner notes and providing research. He fulfilled a similar role at Aztec Music from 2004 to March 2012. From July 2013 he has been a contributor to Addicted to Noise, writing a column.

Biography
Ian McFarlane was born in 1959, and started as a freelance music journalist in 1984 writing for Melbourne-based newspaper, Juke, The Edge and From the Vault. During the late 1980s to early 1990s he was a writer with Sydney music magazine Hot Metal and during 1992 to 1994 worked for Roadrunner Records (Australia). In 1992 MacFarlane published his first music guide, The Australian New Music Record Guide Volume 1: 1976–1980, which provided a chronological list and brief description of all independent records released by Australian bands in Australia, together with a year-by-year summary of how local independent music developed during that time. This series however did not progress beyond Volume 1, although he did commence Volume 2 – 1981–1983, which was intended to be published at the end of 1994.

In 1994 he wrote and edited the fanzine, Freedom Train, published by Third Stone Press, which covered Australian progressive rock between the 1970s and the 1990s. Issue 1 of Freedom Train comprised a series of articles, interviews and discographies of bands, including Spectrum, Ariel, Madder Lake, The Masters Apprentices and Kahvas Jute. Issue 2 covered bands and musicians including Chain, Phil Manning, Taman Shud, Sebastian Hardie, Healing Force and Galadriel. At the same time he also wrote and edited Prehistoric Sounds, published by Dark City Press, which dealt with Australian indie rock from the 1970s and 1980s. Issue 1 contained articles on The Saints, Models, The Psycho-Surgeons, The Lipstick Killers, The Thought Criminals and Au-Go-Go Records, together with interviews with Ed Kuepper, Sean Kelly and Mark Taylor. Issue 2 included articles on The Scientists, The Birthday Party, Citadel Records and The Laughing Clowns and interviews with Kim Salmon, Rowland S. Howard and Kuepper. Issue 3 had articles on Radio Birdman, The Visitors, New Race, Deniz Tek, New Christs, Fun Things and The Hitmen, as well as interviews with Rob Younger and Brad Shepherd. Issue 4, which was also the final issue, contained articles on Beasts of Bourbon, Died Pretty, The Moodists and Greasy Pop Records, as well as interviews with Tex Perkins, Brett Myers, Ron Peno, Dave Graney and Clare Moore.

McFarlane wrote The Encyclopedia of Australian Rock and Pop in December 1999. His magnum opus is described by the Australian Music Guide as "the most exhaustive and wide-ranging encyclopedia of Australian music from the 1950s onwards". Fellow music journalist, Debbie Kruger, describes it as "brilliantly researched, unfailingly thorough, never boring. Essential".

From the late 1990s he was a writer for The Australian. He worked for Raven Records, a reissue specialist label, preparing compilations, writing liner notes and providing research. He wrote most of the liner notes for Aztec Music releases from its establishment in 2004 to its closure in March 2012. McFarlane detailed the importance of Aztec Music's reissues after decades of recovery from a mid-1970s punk-inspired backlash "those punk bands came in and said 'Anything pre-1976 is crap' ... That carried over well into the '80s and '90s' ... It took a long time for people to get over that post-'76 thing of 'No, we don't care about our heritage'".

In June 2008 The Age newspaper commemorated 50 years of Australian rock 'n' roll (the anniversary of the release of Johnny O'Keefe's "Wild One") by selecting the Top 50 Australian Albums, with McFarlane selected as one of the industry judges. From July 2013 he has been a contributor to Addicted to Noise, writing a column. McFarlane updated his encyclopaedia for a second edition in 2017. The Sydney Morning Heralds Steven Carroll observed, "It's so easy to get lost in this revised edition: one band leading to another, and so on, until you're suddenly asking yourself what happened to the last hour."

title: Ian McFarlane


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United States Senate Special Committee on Aging

The United States Senate Special Committee on Aging was initially established in 1961 as a temporary committee; it became a permanent Senate committee in 1977. As a special committee, it has no legislative authority, but it studies issues related to older Americans, particularly Medicare and Social Security.

Prior to the passage of Medicare, the committee was studying health care insurance coverage for elderly American citizens. The committee conducts oversight of the Medicare program, Social Security and the Older Americans Act. Some of the issues that have been examined by the committee include unacceptable conditions in nursing homes, protection from age discrimination, and pricing practices for prescription drugs.

Chairperson

 * Patrick V. McNamara (D-MI), 1961–1963
 * George Smathers (D-FL), 1963–1967
 * Harrison A. Williams (D-NJ), 1967–1971
 * Frank Church (D-ID), 1971–1979
 * Lawton Chiles (D-FL) 1979–1981
 * John Heinz (R-PA), 1981–1987
 * John Melcher (D-MT), 1987–1989
 * David Pryor (D-AR), 1989–1995
 * William Cohen (R-ME), 1995–1997
 * Charles Grassley (R-IA), 1997–2001
 * John Breaux (D-LA), 2001
 * Larry Craig (R-ID), 2001
 * John Breaux (D-LA), 2001–2003
 * Larry Craig (R-ID), 2003–2005
 * Gordon Smith (R-OR), 2005–2007
 * Herb Kohl (D-WI), 2007–2013
 * Bill Nelson (D-FL), 2013–2015
 * Susan Collins (R-ME), 2015–2021
 * Bob Casey Jr. (D-PA), 2021–present


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12 Arnold Grove

12 Arnold Grove is the birthplace and early childhood home of former Beatle George Harrison. Located in Wavertree, Liverpool, near Picton Clock Tower, it is a small terraced house in a cul-de-sac, with a small alley to the rear. Harrison's parents, Harold and Louise, moved to the house in 1931 following their marriage. The rent was ten shillings a week. Here their four children were born: Louise (16 August 1931 – 29 January 2023), Harry (24 June 1934 - February 1999), Peter (20 July 1940 – 1 June 2007) and George (25 February 1943 – 29 November 2001).

Harrison lived in the property for seven years, by the end of which his family had been living there for nearly 20 years. They finally moved out to 25 Upton Green in 1950. His eldest brother Harry recalled: "Our little house was just two rooms up and two rooms down, but, except for a short period when our father was away at sea, we always knew the comfort and security of a very close-knit home life."

Harrison recalled that the only heating was a single coal fire, and the house was so cold in winter that he and his brothers dreaded getting up in the morning because it was freezing cold and they had to use the outside toilet. The house had tiny rooms – only ten feet by ten (100 ft2, about 9 m2) – and a small iron cooking stove in the back room, which was used as a kitchen. Describing the back garden, Harrison wrote it had "a one-foot wide flowerbed, a toilet, a dustbin fitted to the back wall (and) a little hen house where we kept cockerels."

Harrison once said of the house, "Try and imagine the soul entering the womb of a woman living at 12 Arnold Grove, Wavertree, Liverpool 15. There were all the barrage balloons, and the Germans bombing Liverpool. All that was going on. I sat outside the house a couple of years ago, imagining 1943, nipping through the spiritual world, the astral level, getting back into a body in that house. That really is strange when you consider the whole planet, all the planets there may be on a spiritual level. How do I come into that family, in that house at that time, and who am I anyway?"

In February 2024, it was announced that the home would receive a blue plaque, one of the first located outside of London. On May 24, 2024 the blue plaque was added.

title: 12 Arnold Grove


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Pierre Puget

Pierre Paul Puget (16 October 1620 (or 31 October 1622) – 2 December 1694) was a French Baroque painter, sculptor, architect and engineer. His sculpture expressed emotion, pathos and drama, setting it apart from the more classical and academic sculpture of the Style Louis XIV.

Biography
Puget was born at the home of his father, a stone mason, in the working-class neighborhood of Panier, in Marseille. As his two older brothers were trained as stone masons, he was trained as a woodcarver. He began his career at the age of fourteen, carving the elaborate wooden ornament of the galleys built in the Marseille shipyards. He also showed talent as a painter.

Italy
In 1640, taking his tools with him, he departed Marseille by sea to Livorno, Italy and then to Florence in search of an atelier which would employ him as a carver or painter. He carved some decorative panels in Florence, and then, with a good recommendation from his employer, and samples of his paintings, he went to Rome and presented himself to the painter Pietro da Cortona, one of the early masters of the Baroque style. He assisted Da Cortona in painting of the lavish ceilings of the Palazzo Barberini in Rome and the Palazzo Pitti at Florence.

Marseille and Toulon
After three years with da Cortona in Rome, he returned to Marseille, bringing with him the decorative tastes of the Italian Baroque. In Livorno, he had made drawings of the highly-ornamented baroque decoration of Tuscan galleys and warships, as well as designs of imaginary ships painted by Cortona for his ceilings. He showed these to Jean Armand de Maillé-Brézé, Grand Admiral of the French fleet, and was given a commission to design a carved medallion for the stern of a new French warship, named for the Queen, Anne of Austria.

The death of the Grand Admiral in 1646 ended his first work in naval decoration. He began painting, mostly religious works, in the style of Annibale Carracci and Rubens. He also received a commission in 1649 to make several public fountains for new squares in Toulon. In 1652 he was commissioned to make baptismal fonts for the Marseille cathedral. From 1662 to 1665, he made a series of paintings for the Cathedral of Marseille.

He was recognized as a painter but still poorly paid; In 1653, he was commissioned by the Brotherhood of Corpus Domini to make two large paintings, The Baptism of Clovis and the Baptism of Constantine (now in the Marseille Museum of Art), for a total of one hundred forty livres, a very small amount for the time and amount of the work. He completed another religious painting, Salvator Mundi, in December 1655. Altogether he is recorded as having painted fifty-six paintings, of which nineteen were documented in 1868 as still existing. A serious illness in 1665 and advice of doctors caused him to abandon painting entirely.

In 1650, he was living in Toulon, and was married there. He turned his attention entirely to sculpture. In 1655, he received his first important commission for the sculptural decoration of the entrance of the town hall of Toulon; he produced a porch supported by muscular atlantes, still in existence on a new municipal building facing the port. He used as his models two of the muscular workers who unloaded ships along the quay in front of the building. Their faces and postures in the sculpture vividly expressed their struggle with the weight on their shoulders. The work was finished in 1657. He was paid fifteen hundred livres, to which the city authorities, pleased with the work, added a supplement of two hundred livres. His work was widely praised, and terra-cotta copies were made and circulated. Puget was converted from a modestly-talented painter to a celebrated sculptor.

Vaux-le-Vicomte and Genoa
His reputation spread beyond Provence; he was invited to Paris and received a commission from a nobleman named Girardin for two statues, one representing Hercules and the other the Earth and Janus, for a chateau in Normandy. He completed them in Paris in July 1660. He then received an even more important commission from Nicolas Fouquet, the King's Minister of Finance, to make sculpture for Fouquet's new garden at Vaux-le-Vicomte, including a statue of Hercules, the personal symbol of Fouquet. These statues were to be made of marble, which was very expensive and rarely used in Paris at the time. Fouquet sent Puget to Genoa, in Italy, to personally select and bring back the blocks of the best marble  While he was preparing his voyage, he received several proposals for sculptural projects from Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the secretary to Cardinal Mazarin, the prime minister, but he refused them, due to his obligations to Fouquet. Colbert did not forget this slight.

In 1660 Fouquet travelled to the quarries of Carrara marble, where he selected the marble he wanted, chose a Genoese sailor as the model, and in Genoa made the statue that became known as the Hercules of Gaul. However, on 5 September 1661, Fouquet was arrested and imprisoned, on the accusations of Colbert, for taking government funds for his own use. The statue commissioned for Fouquet's garden was later sent instead to the Château de Sceaux, Colbert's more modest residence. It is now in the Louvre.

Puget decided to stay for a time in Italy, making long visits to Rome and Genoa. His principal patron in Italy was an Italian nobleman, Francesco Maria Sauli. His major works during this period were two monumental statues for the pillars of the church of Santa Maria di Carignano, representing Saint Sebastian and Bishop Alexander Paoli. They were completed in 1663, and showed the influence of Bernini. He also made a notable statue, The Immaculate Conception, for the French patron Emmanuel Brignole, for the chapel of an Albergo in Genoa. The Genoese senate proposed that he paint their council chamber, but he declined, to devote all his attention to sculpture.

Toulon and Marseille - naval architecture
He returned to France in 1669 and divided his time between Toulon and Marseille. He was offered the position chief of decoration for French warships, but before accepting he sent a list of his demands to Colbert; among others, he insisted on being considered an officer, not a worker; and to have final authority for designs, over that of the King's official artists, the painter Charles Le Brun and the royal sculptor François Girardon. This was entirely unacceptable to Colbert. Colbert gave Girardon, not Puget, the commission to decorate the Royal Louis, the major new warship of the French fleet. The French fleet needed new ships, and Puget was charged with decorating, ten new men-of-war, as well as designing elegant new building for the headquarters of the fleet.

Puget continued to work on other sculptural and artistic projects in Toulon, He sculpted a large marble group of the Virgin and Child for the church of Lorgues and created a monumental wooden retable still in place, for Toulon Cathedral. In addition, he designed town houses in Aix-en-Provence and several municipal buildings in Marseille, including the fish market (still in place) and the La Vieille Charité, originally a home for beggars and the indigent, now a cultural center.

Puget's view of naval architecture soon clashed with the views of the new Commissioner of Fortifications, the Chevalier de Clairville. Clairville changed all of the Puget's plans, removed decoration he considered unnecessary, and rejected his elegant new headquarters building. Puget appealed to Colbert, but Colbert sided with Clairville. At the end of 1669, Puget took a leave of absence and departed the dockyards for his traditional sanctuary, Genoa, where he made a series of works, including The Virgin (1670), now in the oratory of the Church of Saint Philippe de Néri.

When he returned to the dockyards in June 1670, he found they were commanded by a new officer, and that the decoration of ships he had begun had been given to others. He also learned that, upon the instructions of Colbert, any work he did had to be approved at higher levels by Le Brun and the senior sculptors in Paris. He was to design only what he was told to design. Furthermore, Colbert presented a new argument; British ships had little or no sculptural decoration, and they usually won battles. Therefore French ships should also be without sculpture.

Marseille, architecture and urban design
In 1672, having no further work at the Naval Arsenal, Puget returned to his birthplace, Marseille. His first project was a new urban square and street, the Cours Saint-Louis, and rue Canabière. It took much of its inspiration from the urban planning and architecture of Genoa, and resembled on a small scale the later urban projects of Baron Haussmann and Napoleon III in Paris. He also created an ornate sculptural plaque with the coast of arms of the King to decorate the facade of the Hotel de Ville. He designed a new fish market, completed in 1672, which is still in use, and La Vieille Charité, begun in 1679, originally a home for beggars and the indigent, now a cultural center. In addition, he designed town houses in Aix-en-Provence, including the Hotel d'Aiguilles (1675), a baroque mansion.

Versailles - Milon of Croton
Puget had still not broken into the exclusive group of sculptors who were receiving royal commissions for the statuary of the new gardens of Versailles. He still possessed several blocks of fine marble from Genoa, In 1671 he sent to Colbert designs for two large-scale statues, Milon of Croton (now in the Louvre) and the bas-relief Alexander and Diogenes  (1685, now in the Louvre). Colbert disliked Puget's personality but admired his skill; on 13 May 1672, he offered Puget a commission to make the two statues. Puget was occupied with his tasks for the city of Marseille, and did not begin work until 1672. The impatient Colbert wrote to Puget, demanding a report on the statue, and observing that the marble belonged not to Puget, but to the royal government. Puget worked furiously on Milon. However, in 1681, six years after sending the designs, the statue was still not finished; it was finally completed in August, 1682.

Puget's Milon of Croton (1682) is a monumental work, nearly three meters high, is one of his most dramatic and expressive works. Illustrating a story by Ovid, it depicts the moment when Milon de Croton, a celebrated warrior but now elderly and weak, is attacked by a lion. His expression at the moment the lion claws Milon's is distorted by pain, and is full of pathos. This work was satisfactory to Colbert, was purchased by the royal government, and given a prominent place in the Gardens of Versailles. Puget, in the meantime, had begun on another monumental statue for Versailles, of Andromeda.

Colbert died the following year and was replaced by as superintendent of royal buildings by François-Michel le Tellier, Marquis de Louvois. A month after Colbert's death, Louvois wrote to Puget for a report on other works that Puget was making, and asking how old he was. Puget responded that he was sixty years old and that he was working with great enthusiasm on his monumental statue of Perseus Andromeda (completed 1684, now in the Louvre) and the bas-relief Alexander and Diogenes (completed 1685, the Louvre). "I was raised making great works..." Puget wrote to Louvois, "The marble trembles before me, no matter how large it is." The two works were completed, loaded on ships in Toulon, and were placed in the gardens of Versailles.

Marseille and the Louis XIV statue
In 1665, he proposed an even more ambitious commission, to design a new city square next to the port of Marseille, with, as the centerpiece, a monumental equestrian statue of Louis XIV, facing the harbor. Similar monuments had been constructed in Paris, in Place Vendôme and Place des Victoires. He designed both the statue and the architecture of the square, which was actually an oval, surrounded by a majestic marble colonnade, to complement the statue. The only question was money; the royal government expected the city of Marseille to finance the project.

Puget made one of his rare trips to Versailles to promote the project in person to the King, on 29 November 1687. The King expressed his admiration of the project, as did his consort, Madame de Maintenon; but the soon-to-be chief royal architect, Jules Hardouin-Mansart, pointed out that it would be more attractive and efficient to build a square, rather than an oval, and a more modest project. Mansart himself had designed both Place Vendome and Place des Victoires, and his views were accepted by the King, much to the distress and anger of Puget. Work went ahead on the project, following the new plan. The marble was delivered for the statue, and Puget's friends in Genoa sent a magnificent horse to serve as a model. Puget remained adamant and declared he would not make the statue until the city square, in an oval shape, was constructed for it. The Echevins, or city council, decided they preferred the simpler and less expensive square design, but Puget was adamant. Puget made another trip to Versailles to try to persuade the King to accept his project, but the King declined to see him. The Echevins of Marseille abandoned Puget and selected a different and little-known sculptor, Clérion, and Puget was excluded from the project. In the end, neither the square nor the statue was made; the outbreak of a war with Holland in 1688 ended for a time any new architectural projects.

The last two works of Puget were the bas-reliefs Alexander and Diogenes and The Plague of Marseille. The last work, depicting a tragic but heroic moment in the city's history, was left unfinished. After his death, it was placed in the Council Chamber of the city of Marseille, where he died in 1694.

In 1882, Adolphe-André Porée discovered a lost statue by Puget on a castle grounds at Biéville-Beuville. He sculpted a large marble group of the Virgin and Child for the church of Lorgues and created a monumental wooden retable still in place, for Toulon Cathedral. Hydra of Lerna was originally in the castle of Vaudreuil, and is now at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen.

Mont Puget, near Marseille, is named after him.

Death
Puget died in Marseille on 2 December 1694, at the age of seventy-four. He was buried in the cemetery of the church of the Convent of the Observance. The church and the cemetery have disappeared, and there is no marker to show where his remains are buried.

title: Pierre Puget


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Werner Baumbach

Werner Baumbach (27 December 1916 – 20 October 1953) was a German bomber pilot during World War II. He commanded the secret bomber wing Kampfgeschwader 200 (KG 200) of the Luftwaffe, the air force of Nazi Germany. Baumbach received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords for the destruction of over of Allied shipping.

Career
Baumbach entered the Luftwaffe in 1936 and, after initial training at the 2nd Air Warfare School (Fliegerhorst Gatow), was trained as a bomber pilot. He was one of the first pilots to fly the Junkers Ju 88 bomber and flew various bombing missions with Kampfgeschwader 30 (KG 30). On 19 April 1940, he bombed and damaged the French cruiser Émile Bertin for which he was awarded the Iron Cross 1st Class.

In 1942, Baumbach was removed from active pilot duty and started working on new bomber designs; among others, he helped design the composite bomber system, Mistel. In 1944, he was placed in command of the newly formed Kampfgeschwader 200 (KG 200) and was in charge of all Luftwaffe special missions. Baumbach was promoted to Oberstleutnant on 15 November 1944 and was the acting General der Kampfflieger for two months.

On the last stage on the war, during the days of the Flensburg Government, Baumbach was placed in charge of the government air squadron.

After the war, Baumbach spent three years as a prisoner of war before he moved to Argentina where he worked as a test pilot. He died in a plane crash on 20 October 1953 near Berazategui, while evaluating a British Lancaster bomber for the Argentine Air Force. He was interred in his hometown, Cloppenburg, Lower Saxony. The street "Werner-Baumbach-Straße" in Cloppenburg was named after him.

In 1949 he published ''Zu spät? Aufstieg und Untergang der deutschen Luftwaffe, which was translated into English as Broken Swastika: The Defeat of the Luftwaffe'' in 1960.

Awards

 * Front Flying Clasp of the Luftwaffe for Bomber Pilots in Gold with Pennant "200"
 * in Silver (22 March 1941)
 * in Gold (1942)
 * Pilot/Observer Badge in Gold with Diamonds (14 July 1941)
 * Iron Cross (1939)
 * 2nd Class (28 September 1939)
 * 1st Class (4 May 1940)
 * Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords
 * Knight's Cross on 8 May 1940 as Leutnant and pilot in the 5./Kampfgeschwader 30
 * 20th Oak Leaves on 14 July 1941 as Oberleutnant and Staffelkapitän of the 1./Kampfgeschwader 30
 * 16th Swords on 17 August 1942 as Hauptmann and Gruppenkommandeur of the I./Kampfgeschwader 30
 * The Order of Military Merit - Bulgarian

title: Werner Baumbach


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User:David Gerard/music

Writing about rock and pop music on Wikipedia is problematic. Wikipedia is not a fanzine. Gushing hagiography is not NPOV. (Hagiology is more what we're after.) Peacock terms abound.

Somehow this stuff has to be written up encyclopaedically.

I want to turn the red links to blue on List of Australian independent bands, 1976-1992. I wouldn't mind doing much of the same for List of Australian musicians.

A possible template for band articles

 * Intro in tight news style or summary style. Include why the band is significant.

 * History — formation, chronology with albums.

 * Members if their membership is so convoluted you need a separate section to make sense of it — or if the history is bogged down in membership changes. Bo-ring.

 * Trivia if there is any.

 * Discography

 * External links — always list McFarlane where appropriate.

Examples: Died Pretty; Brendan Kibble; The Scientists.

title: User:David Gerard/music


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Billy Kidman

Peter Alan Gruner Jr. (born May 11, 1974) is an American retired professional wrestler, better known by his ring name Billy Kidman. He currently works for WWE as a producer.

As a wrestler, Kidman is best known for his work with World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and World Wrestling Federation / Entertainment (WWF/E) throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s. While in WCW, Kidman gained fame as a key member of several stables. In addition to being a member of Raven's Flock, he also was a member of The Filthy Animals and later The New Blood. As a member of these stables, Kidman participated in memorable feuds with top WCW names, including Hulk Hogan, Jeff Jarrett, and Rey Mysterio Kidman also found championship success while in WCW, where he became a three time Cruiserweight Champion,  a two time World Tag Team Champion, once with Mysterio Jr. and once with Konnan, and in the Cruiserweight Tag Team Champion final with Mysterio Jr.

Upon WCW's purchase by the World Wrestling Federation, Kidman became a member of the WCW/ECW Alliance. During his time in the WWF (later renamed to World Wrestling Entertainment), Kidman once again found success upon winning the Cruiserweight Championship an additional four times   while the title was under the WCW banner and later the WWF/E banner, in addition to winning WWE's Tag Team Championship once with Paul London.

Early life and education
Gruner grew up in Allentown, Pennsylvania in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania, where he graduated from Parkland High School. Gruner was a banker before he started training to be a professional wrestler and was good friends with fellow professional wrestler Chris Kanyon, who he met at the Wild Samoan training center in Pennsylvania. He is a cousin of fellow professional wrestler Mikey Batts.

Early career (1994–1996)
Gruner was trained by Afa Anoaʻi, one half of The Wild Samoans, and wrestled his first match on September 11, 1994 in Hellertown, Pennsylvania against "Wild Thing" Dan Kallis on the independent circuit as Kid Flash. He formed a tag team with Ace Darling known as The Shooting Stars, and they would find success by winning the ECWA Tag Team Championship.

The Flock (1996–1998)
Gruner started wrestling for World Championship Wrestling on March 6, 1996 as "Kid Flash" against Chris Kanyon in a losing effort. Gruner then competed as Billy Cannon on April 10, before settling on the name Billy Kidman on May 13. He made his televised debut in WCW on the May 18 episode of Saturday Night, competing against Diamond Dallas Page in a losing effort. He mainly competed as an enhancement talent for over a year with no character. His first televised win occurred on the July 28 episode of WorldWide against Psychosis. Kidman received his first title opportunity in WCW, unsuccessfully challenging Rey Misterio Jr. for the World Cruiserweight Championship on the September 9 episode of Monday Nitro.

On the September 30 episode of Nitro, Kidman filled in for Psychosis, who could not show up due to his visa issues and competed as the masked "El Technico" by teaming with Juventud Guerrera against The Public Enemy in a losing effort. Kidman would receive two more title shots for the World Cruiserweight Championship, this time against Dean Malenko on the December 2 episode of Nitro and the December 14 episode of Saturday Night but lost both times.

On the October 13, 1997 episode of Nitro, Kidman was added to Raven's Flock. To fit in with the Flock's gimmick of being outcasts, Kidman was given the gimmick of a heroin addict, where he constantly scratched his arms and named his shooting star press, the Seven Year Itch. Kidman found little personal success with the group and competed in major matches only on a few occasions, such as participating in a battle royal to determine the #1 contender for the Cruiserweight Championship in his pay-per-view debut at Slamboree. Kidman would then lose to Juventud Guerrera at Bash at the Beach. At Fall Brawl, Kidman aided Perry Saturn in defeating Flock's leader Raven in a match, thus disbanding the group.

Cruiserweight Champion (1998–1999)
Following the Flock's disbanding, Kidman shed his grungy attire and heroin gimmick and began performing as a clean-cut fan favorite before eventually defeating Juventud Guerrera to win his first Cruiserweight Championship on the September 14 episode of Nitro. Kidman retained the title against various cruiserweights on a weekly basis, with his first pay-per-view title defense occurring against Disco Inferno at Halloween Havoc, where Kidman retained. Kidman lost the title back to Guerrera on the November 16 episode of Nitro but regained it in a rematch at World War 3 in Auburn Hills, Michigan. Shortly after, Kidman joined Rey Mysterio, Jr. in the latter's rivalry with the Latino World Order. At Starrcade, Kidman successfully defended the Cruiserweight Championship against Guerrera and Mysterio in a triangle match. LWO leader Eddie Guerrero challenged Kidman to an immediate title match afterwards, which Kidman accepted. Kidman retained the title after assistance by Mysterio.

Kidman's title reign continued into 1999 with a successful title defense against Guerrera, Psychosis and Mysterio in a four-way match at Souled Out. Kidman then retained the title against various challengers such as Chavo Guerrero Jr. at SuperBrawl IX and Mikey Whipwreck at Uncensored, before losing the title to Mysterio on the March 15 episode of Nitro. Following this, Mysterio asked Kidman to be his tag team partner in a match for the World Tag Team Championship. Kidman at first declined, as a previous attempt at a tag team between the two did not reach any level of success. The two, however, faced Chris Benoit and Dean Malenko for the titles on the March 29 episode of Nitro, and succeeded with unwanted aid from Raven and Saturn. Kidman then faced off against Mysterio in an attempt to win back the Cruiserweight Championship at Spring Stampede, however, Mysterio retained his title.

The three teams feuded for several weeks, which ended in a three-way tag team match for the World Tag Team Championship at Slamboree. Chris Kanyon's interference led to the victory for Raven and Saturn. Kidman spent the next several months in assorted feuds.

Filthy Animals (1999–2001)
In the summer of 1999, Kidman joined Filthy Animals alongside Rey Mysterio, Konnan, and Eddie Guerrero. Initially joining together to combat Dead Pool, Filthy Animals defeated the Dead Pool twice at Road Wild and Fall Brawl. Kidman would then become responsible for unmasking Psychosis by defeating him in a hair vs. mask match on the September 27 episode of Nitro. At Halloween Havoc, Kidman substituted for an injured Mysterio and teamed with Konnan to defend the World Tag Team Championship against Harlem Heat and The First Family in a triangle match, which Harlem Heat won. However, the following night on Nitro, Kidman and Konnan defeated Harlem Heat to win the titles, beginning Kidman's second tag team title win in WCW.

Kidman then participated in a tournament for the vacant WCW World Heavyweight Championship, defeating Konnan in the first round and Norman Smiley in a hardcore match in the second round before losing to eventual winner Bret Hart in the quarter-final round. Filthy Animals then lost an intergender elimination match to The Revolution at Mayhem. The following night, on Nitro, Kidman teamed with Konnan's substitute Rey Mysterio to defend the World Tag Team Championship against Creative Control. Filthy Animals went on to lose the titles. Kidman would challenge Jeff Jarrett for the United States Heavyweight Championship on the December 27 episode of Nitro. He came close to winning the title but ended up losing the match.

Filthy Animals began to crumble in 2000 when Guerrero left WCW, and Kidman left the stable when the rest of its members turned heel. At Souled Out, Kidman participated in the Triple Threat Theater, a series of three matches with different stipulations, initially scheduled between Chris Benoit and Jeff Jarrett. However, Jarrett was unable to compete duet o his injury. Kidman won the first two matches, a Catch-as-Catch Can match against Dean Malenko, and a Bunkhouse Brawl against Perry Saturn, but lost the third match, a Caged Heat match against The Wall. This resulted in Kidman feuding with Wall and Vampiro over the next few weeks, culminating with Kidman defeating Vampiro in a match at SuperBrawl 2000. Following that, Kidman joined forces with Booker to feud with Harlem Heat 2000, defeating them at Uncensored. On March 30, Kidman defeated The Artist at a house show to win his third Cruiserweight Championship, but lost the title back to Artist a day later.

In April, Kidman joined Vince Russo's New Blood stable, signalling another heel turn. At Spring Stampede, Kidman participated in a tournament for the vacant United States Heavyweight Championship, losing to Vampiro in the quarter-final round. Reflecting the gimmick of the New Blood, Kidman began acting as hotshot who refused to be held back by wrestlers beyond their prime. This led to the biggest feud of his career with Hulk Hogan, including a pinfall victory over Hogan in a handicap match. However, the rivalry concluded with back-to-back matches for Kidman against Hogan at Slamboree and The Great American Bash. The New Blood would then split up, leading Kidman to turn face as he entered a feud with Shane Douglas for the affection of his on-screen girlfriend Torrie Wilson. During the feud, Wilson turned on Kidman. Kidman was legitimately injured in a strap match at New Blood Rising, when Douglas hung Kidman from the neck using the strap. Despite winning the match, Kidman was forced to take several weeks off to recover. At Fall Brawl, Kidman and Madusa lost to Douglas and Wilson in a scaffold match.

Following the feud, Kidman began teaming with Mysterio Jr. again, thus joining Filthy Animals once again. At Halloween Havoc, Kidman and Mysterio failed to win the World Tag Team Championship from Mark Jindrak and Sean O'Haire in a triangle match, also involving The Boogie Knights. The duo then began feuding with KroniK after losing to them at Millennium Final. At Mayhem, Filthy Animals defeated Alex Wright and KroniK in a handicap match after KroniK abandoned Wright. Filthy Animals' next rivalry was against Jeff Jarrett and The Harris Brothers, losing to them in a street fight at Starrcade. They were also on the losing end against Team Canada in a penalty box match at Sin.

In the spring of 2001, Kidman and Mysterio entered the Cruiserweight Tag Team Championship tournament, defeating Jason Lee and Johnny Swinger in the quarterfinals and 3 Count in the semifinals but lost in the finals to Elix Skipper and Kid Romeo at Greed. On the final episode of Nitro, Kidman and Mysterio Jr. won the titles from Skipper and Romeo. That night, the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) purchased WCW and Kidman's contract was picked up by the WWF. As a result, Kidman and Mysterio ended up as the final Cruiserweight Tag Team Champions in WCW history.

Cruiserweight Championship pursuit (2001–2003)
When the WWF purchased WCW, the contract of Gruner (who was still wrestling as Billy Kidman) was one of twenty-five involved in the purchase. When The Invasion commenced, Gruner appeared on WWF television under his Billy Kidman ring name as a tweener for The Alliance. Kidman debuted in WWF on the July 5 episode of SmackDown!, competing in the first televised WCW match on the weekly program. Kidman defeated Gregory Helms to win the WCW Cruiserweight Championship in his WWF debut. As the WCW Cruiserweight Champion, Kidman proceeded to defeat the WWF Light Heavyweight Champion X-Pac at Invasion. On the July 30 episode of Raw is War, Kidman lost the Cruiserweight Championship to X-Pac in a title versus title match, with X-Pac's Light Heavyweight Championship also on the line. After this, Kidman was later sidelined with an injury during the Invasion angle and thus did not have as big of an impact as other WCW wrestlers.

After recovering from his injury, Kidman returned to WWF in October. On the October 11 episode of SmackDown!, Kidman defeated X-Pac to win his record-tying fifth Cruiserweight Championship. He lost the title to Tajiri on the October 22 episode of Raw is War. At Survivor Series, Kidman participated in the Immunity battle royal, where the winner would receive immunity from being fired. Kidman failed to win the match, and Alliance lost later that night, thus being forced to disband. As a result, all Alliance members were fired in storyline, and Kidman was taken off television, competing at house shows for the next four months.

Kidman returned to WWF television after being drafted to the SmackDown! brand as part of the brand extension on March 25, 2002. Kidman's return match took place on the March 30 episode of Jakked, where he teamed with The Hurricane against Funaki and Tajiri in a losing effort. On the April 4 episode of SmackDown!, Kidman defeated Tajiri to win his record-breaking sixth Cruiserweight Championship. However, Tajiri reclaimed the title at Backlash. Kidman continued to feud with Tajiri over the title, wrestling him on various occasions but failed to regain the title. After losing in a #1 contender's match to Jamie Noble on the June 20 episode of SmackDown!, Kidman began feuding with Noble over the title, unsuccessfully challenging him at Vengeance.

At Rebellion, Kidman and his real-life girlfriend Torrie Wilson defeated John Cena and Dawn Marie in an intergender tag team match. After this, he went on to win his record-breaking seventh Cruiserweight Championship after defeating Jamie Noble at Survivor Series. He later lost the title three months later to Matt Hardy at No Way Out.

Teaming and feuding with Paul London (2004–2005)
Following the title loss, Kidman proceeded to spend the next few years as a cornerstone of the cruiserweight division before forming a tag team with newcomer Paul London in early 2004. Together, they slowly worked their way up the tag team ranks before ultimately winning the WWE Tag Team Championship from the Dudley Boyz on the July 8, 2004 episode of SmackDown!. Proving the win was not an upset, they went on to defeat the Dudley Boyz in a rematch for the title.

Their championship run came to an abrupt end after Kidman turned his back on London. The heel turn played off of a legitimate injury which occurred on the August 26, 2004 episode of SmackDown!, when Kidman's shooting star press unintentionally caused Chavo Guerrero to suffer a concussion. The next week, Kidman was on the top rope ready to hit the shooting star press, but hesitated, climbed down the turnbuckles, and slowly walked backstage overwhelmed with guilt after injuring Guerrero. London was left alone to defend the title against Kenzo Suzuki and René Duprée, and was easily defeated. As a result, London and Kidman faced each other at No Mercy, where Kidman defeated London before performing the shooting star press on London while he was strapped to a stretcher. This completed Kidman's heel turn, as he proceeded to blame the fans for wanting him to be more brutal with his in-ring style. Kidman and Guerrero ended their feud upon Chavo's return, the latter being victorious in the final match. Kidman then competed against London over the Cruiserweight Championship in the coming months. At the start of 2005, Kidman suffered a broken orbital bone, which sidelined him for three months.

Gruner was released from his WWE contract on July 6, 2005. Gruner stated that the release was due to an argument with management over their decision to stop booking wrestlers on first class flights overseas.

Independent circuit (2005–2007)
Following his departure from WWE, Kidman began touring the United Kingdom. During the tour, he competed for the Frontier Wrestling Alliance in a three-way match with Jody Fleisch and Jonny Storm. He also wrestled British wrestling legend Robbie Brookside in a losing effort to determine the inaugural Real Quality Wrestling Heavyweight Champion.

In 2007, Kidman made his International Wrestling Association debut in a match for the IWA World Heavyweight Championship against Ray González, which he lost. Kidman also took part in the East Coast Australian International Assault II Tour from June 1–3, 2007, where he competed against Australian wrestlers TNT and Mark Hilton before defeating Bryan Danielson to win the WSW World Heavyweight Championship on the third night in Newcastle.

On July 8, 2007, Kidman teamed up with Sean Waltman as part of a triple threat match in McAllen, Texas to crown the new NWA World Tag Team Champions. The title was previously vacated by Team 3D after Total Nonstop Action Wrestling officially pulled out of the National Wrestling Alliance. However, Kidman and Waltman lost the match to Karl Anderson and Joey Ryan.

Return to WWE (2007–present)
Kidman returned to WWE in 2007, helping train upcoming wrestlers in its then developmental territory Florida Championship Wrestling throughout 2007 and 2008. On February 23, 2008, he wrestled his last match, losing to Afa Jr. Gruner was rehired by World Wrestling Entertainment in 2010 as a producer. On September 21, 2011, WWE ran a story on their website about Gruner and his role as a producer.

On April 9, 2012, Gruner along with former wrestlers Jamie Noble, Goldust and other officials and WWE wrestlers broke up the brawl between John Cena and Brock Lesnar. In November 2013, Gruner appeared on WWE's European tour as Paul Heyman's doctor, under the name of "Dr. Weisenburg". On August 23, 2016 episode of SmackDown Live, he appeared along with Jamie Noble to prevent Dolph Ziggler from attacking AJ Styles.

Kidman's contract was furloughed by the company on April 15, 2020, due to COVID-19 cutbacks. He returned to the company on September 25, 2020.

Personal life
Gruner is Jewish. After being together for four years, Gruner married former WWE Diva Torrie Wilson on July 11, 2003. They lived together in Tampa, Florida when not traveling. The couple separated in mid-2006 and divorced in 2008.

A book detailing Gruner's career, Billy Kidman: The Shooting Star, was released in early 2014.

In 2014, Kidman began appearing on The JBL Show, where he attempts to promote his Twitter account but is always interrupted due to technical difficulties, which has become a running gag on the show.

Championships and awards

 * East Coast Wrestling Association
 * ECWA Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Ace Darling
 * ECWA Hall of Fame (Class of 2004)
 * Pro Wrestling Illustrated
 * Ranked No. 31 of the 500 best singles wrestlers of the year in PWI 500 in 1999
 * Ranked No. 313 of the top 500 singles wrestlers in the "PWI Years" in 2003
 * Revolution Xtreme Wrestling
 * RXW World Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
 * Trans-World Wrestling Federation
 * TWWF Cruiserweight Championship (1 time)
 * World Championship Wrestling
 * WCW Cruiserweight Championship (3 times)
 * WCW Cruiserweight Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Rey Mysterio Jr.
 * WCW World Tag Team Championship (2 times) – with Rey Mysterio Jr. (1) and Konnan (1)
 * World Series Wrestling
 * WSW World Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
 * World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment
 * WCW/WWF/E Cruiserweight Championship (4 times)
 * WWE Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Paul London
 * Wrestling Observer Newsletter
 * Worst Feud of the Year (2000) vs. Hulk Hogan

title: Billy Kidman


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Edison Pettit

Edison Pettit (September 22, 1889 – May 6, 1962) was an American astronomer.

He was born in Peru, Nebraska. Pettit received his bachelor's degree from the Nebraska State Normal School in Peru. He taught astronomy at Washburn College in Topeka, Kansas from 1914 to 1918. He married Hannah Steele Pettit, who was an assistant at Yerkes Observatory, and received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1920.

Shortly after he became a staff member at Mount Wilson Observatory. He initially specialized in solar astronomy and built his own thermocouples. He also made visual observations of Mars and Jupiter. Even after his retirement he continued to make spectrographs for various observatories in the machine shop in his home. His two daughters, Marjorie Pettit Meinel and Helen Pettit Knaflich were both astronomers.

Pettit crater on the Moon and another Crater on Mars are named after him.

title: Edison Pettit


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James Brown (sportscaster)

James Talmadge Brown (born February 25, 1951) is an American sportscaster known for being the studio host of The James Brown Show and The NFL Today on CBS Sports. He is also a Special Correspondent for CBS News.

He is additionally known for serving as the former host of Fox Sports' NFL pregame show Fox NFL Sunday for eleven years.

Early life
James Brown was born on February 25, 1951, in Washington, D.C. to John and Maryann Brown. He is the nephew of famed Hollywood Actor, Clifton Powell. He attended DeMatha Catholic High School, and was named to the All-Metropolitan boys basketball teams in 1967 and 1968 with teammates Sid Catlett, Steve Garrett, Aubrey Nash, and Wayne Locket. The team topped the high school national rankings that year under Coach Morgan Wootten; seven players on that squad went to Division I college teams. Brown later attended Harvard University, living in Grays Hall during his freshman year, and graduated from Harvard University with a degree in American Government. He played for the basketball team, receiving All-Ivy League honors in his last three seasons and captaining the team as a senior. His roommate was future Harvard professor and activist Cornel West. He was drafted 62 overall by the Atlanta Hawks in 1973.

CBS (1970s–1994)
After failing to make a roster spot when he tried out for the NBA's Atlanta Hawks in the mid-1970s, Brown entered the corporate world, working for such companies as Xerox and Eastman Kodak. Brown went into sports broadcasting in 1984 when he was offered a job doing Washington Bullets television broadcasts as well as an analyst job for The NBA on CBS, paired with Frank Glieber. He later moved on to an anchor position at WDVM-TV (later WUSA) in Washington and to some work at CBS Sports. Brown was rehired by CBS Sports in 1987, where he served as play-by-play announcer for the network's NFL and college basketball coverage, as well as reporter for the NBA Finals (calling games with Tom Heinsohn during the 1990 NBA Playoffs) and the 1990 National League Championship Series. He also was host of the afternoon show from the 1992 Winter Olympics and the 1994 Winter Olympics. While at CBS he also was co-host of CBS Sports Saturday/Sunday.

Fox, and back to CBS (1994–present)
In 1994, Brown accepted the position of host of the NFL on Fox pregame show. He shared the set with former football players Terry Bradshaw and Howie Long and former coach Jimmy Johnson. Cris Collinsworth and Ronnie Lott have also appeared on the program during Brown's time there.

From 1994–1998, Brown was the lead studio host for NHL on Fox. He appeared in a similar capacity in the EA Sports video game NHL '97, which used full-motion video. His voice appeared in Madden NFL 2001. On August 23, 1997, Brown filled-in for Chip Caray as the studio host for Fox Saturday Baseball.

James Brown worked for the joint HBO/Showtime pay-per-view boxing match involving Lennox Lewis and Mike Tyson.

Following the 2005 NFL season, Brown left Fox in order to rejoin CBS Sports, citing a desire to remain closer to his home in Washington, D.C.

Brown was removed from college basketball coverage for CBS after a one-year stint in 2007. However, he still hosts the college basketball pregame, halftime and postgame in the CBS studios in New York City while Greg Gumbel, the main host, is on assignment.

Other appearances
Brown has also hosted The World's Funniest! (the Fox network's counterpart of America's Funniest Home Videos), Coast to Coast (a syndicated radio show formerly hosted by Bob Costas), and served as a correspondent for Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel. Brown appeared on an episode of Married... with Children in a November 24, 1996 episode titled "A Bundy Thanksgiving".

Aside from his Showtime and CBS duties, Brown hosted a weekday radio sports talk show that aired weekdays on Sporting News Radio for several years. Brown left the network in April 2006. He has since, returned to Sporting News Radio with Arnie Spanier.

In March 2009, Brown was named the Community Ambassador for AARP.

On August 10, 2009, Brown interviewed NFL quarterback Michael Vick for a segment that aired on 60 Minutes.

On March 24, 2013, Brown reported on Brian Banks in a segment titled "Blindsided: The Exoneration of Brian Banks" on 60 Minutes.

On May 14, 2013, Brown appeared onstage with the co-CEO of SAP, Bill McDermott, for McDermott's keynote speech at SAPPHIRE NOW from Orlando.

Since 2014, Brown is one of the network's substitute anchors for the CBS Evening News. Further, Brown has also contributed to CBS This Morning, as well as CBS Sunday Morning, over the years.

In 2023, he interviewed Henry Louis Gates Jr. for a segment on the newsmagazine America in Black.

Personal life
Brown resides outside of Washington, D.C. in Bethesda, Maryland, his town of birth, with his wife Dorothy and daughter Katrina. He formerly had a second residence in Century City, California, when working on FOX as their NFL program was based in Los Angeles. He was also named one of the 100 most influential student athletes by the NCAA. He has three granddaughters and one grandson, born to his daughter, Katrina and her husband John. Brown is a Christian.

On May 3, 2006, Brown became a minority owner of the Washington Nationals Major League Baseball team. Brown was one of a handful of investors in the group led by Washington, D.C. real estate developer Ted Lerner.

Career timeline

 * 1984–1985: NBA on CBS – Color Commentator
 * 1984–1986: College Basketball on CBS – Color commentator
 * 1987–1990: NBA on CBS – Sideline reporter
 * 1987–1993: NFL on CBS – Play-by-play
 * 1989–1990: NBA on CBS – Play-by-play
 * 1990–1993, 2007: College Basketball on CBS – Play-by-play
 * 1990: Major League Baseball on CBS – Sideline reporter
 * 1994–2005: Fox NFL Sunday – Host
 * 1994–1998: NHL on Fox – Studio host
 * 2006–present: The NFL Today – Host
 * 2008–2023: Inside the NFL – Host
 * 2014–present: CBS Evening News – Substitute anchor
 * 2017–2019: The James Brown Show - host

title: James Brown (sportscaster)


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Reavers (comics)

The Reavers are a fictional team of criminal cyborgs appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics.

In the Marvel Universe, the Reavers are characters dedicated to the destruction of the X-Men and a number of them especially wanted to take revenge on Wolverine in particular. The group are assembled under the leadership of character Donald Pierce and consist of three survivors from a group of Australian cyborgs who formed the original 'Reavers', along with other cyborgs.

The Reavers are not to be confused with the Reavers of the planet Arcturus IV, who exist in the future of the alternate reality Earth-691 and are involved in the histories of the Guardians of the Galaxy members Starhawk and Aleta.

The Reavers appeared in the 2017 film Logan with their leader Donald Pierce portrayed by Boyd Holbrook.

Publication history
The Reavers first appeared in the comic title Uncanny X-Men #229 (May 1988) and were created by Chris Claremont and Marc Silvestri.

Looters
The original group of cyborgs calling themselves the Reavers operated out of an underground complex beneath the fictional ghost town of Cooterman's Creek in North Central Australia. They acted as a commando-style team of thieves, with apparently dozens of members. Their base was inexplicably equipped with advanced computers and a sub-basement tunnel system. The Reavers coerced the mutant teleporter Gateway to teleport them from Australia to locations around the world to conduct their robberies. Informed of the Reavers' existence by Roma, the X-Men defeat the Reavers in battle and expel them from their base, which they then co-opt for their own use. The X-Men destroy some of the Reavers and force most of the rest to enter the mystical Siege Perilous to meet unrevealed fates. Only Pretty Boy, Skullbuster, and Bonebreaker escape.

Donald Pierce's Reavers
The Reavers are reassembled under the leadership of Donald Pierce, who reorganizes the team as an assassination squadron to undertake para-military style commando operations, dedicated to taking vengeance on the X-Men in particular and eliminating mutants in general. Pierce combines the three survivors of the original Reavers with Lady Deathstrike and the three former Hellfire Club mercenaries Cole, Macon, and Reese. No explanation is given for why Pretty Boy, Skullbuster, and Bonebreaker came to be involved with the group, aside from Pierce claiming to have created the original Reavers. Lady Deathstrike's reasons for joining the Reavers are even more unclear, as she professes a lack of interest in their goal of eliminating mutants.

While the X-Men are away from their Australian base, the Reavers retake the ghost town and wait for the team to come back. However, on their return, the X-Men escape the Reavers through the Siege Perilous. Only Wolverine, who is on a leave of absence in Madripoor, remains. Once he returns, they capture him, and proceed to torture and crucify him. Wolverine escapes the Reavers with the aid of Jubilee. The Reavers then attack the Muir Island Mutant Research Center, theorizing that it is Wolverine's most likely destination. They fight Freedom Force and Moira MacTaggart's alternate X-Men team, and kill Stonewall and Sunder. During the assault on Muir Island, Skullbuster is rendered inoperative by sniper fire from Forge. Donald Pierce rescues a gravely wounded pilot named Cylla Markham, who agrees to be converted into a cyborg.

Around this time, Bonebreaker, Reese, and Pretty Boy are dispatched to a New York warehouse after Microchip, an associate of the Punisher, in a self-confessed mistake, infiltrates their computer system. The temporary absence of Gateway gives Punisher and Microchip enough time to evacuate and set up resistance. The warehouse is destroyed, but the two escape through the sewer. The Reavers face off against the Punisher again. In the firefight, the Reavers kill Microchip's cousin. The Punisher sets off auto-destruct charges, which cause heavy damage to the three Reavers, particularly Bonebreaker, whose cybernetic lower body is demolished. The Reavers retreat.

The Reavers then successfully attack the White Queen's company, Frost Technotics. They capture Rogue, who has returned from inside the Siege Perilous, although Rogue is then rescued by a recreation of Ms. Marvel. Donald Pierce transforms Cylla Markham into the new Skullbuster (although she usually goes by the name Cylla). Lady Deathstrike later seeks Wolverine in Madripoor and Vancouver. Pierce creates an android named Elsie-Dee and a Wolverine android double named "Albert" to kill Wolverine. The attempt fails, however, when Elsie-Dee rebels against her programming.

Upstarts and humans
As part of the Upstarts' game, Trevor Fitzroy dispatches his own Sentinels to the Reavers' Australian hideout to kill Pierce and anyone else they find there. In the ensuing battle, only Pierce, Lady Deathstrike and Cylla escape the massacre, Pierce seemingly only making it as far as the Hellfire Club before he is "killed". Cylla later resurfaces, allying herself with Bloodscream in an attempt to murder Wolverine. However, Bloodscream betrays her and sucks the life from her, killing her.

However, most Reavers somehow survive their supposed deaths. They later return to battle the X-Treme X-Men on behalf of the Shadow King.

Donald Pierce puts together a new group of Reavers, composed of young anti-mutant humans (with the exception of Elixir, who at the time was unaware that he was a mutant). They are defeated by Karma, Elixir, and a handful of young mutants. The group later breaks Pierce out of prison, but with Elixir as bait, they are lured into an ambush and captured by the same five mutants who stopped Pierce when he first betrayed the Hellfire Club's Inner Circle.

Messiah Complex
The Reavers return to play a role in the comic book crossover storyline Messiah Complex event under the leadership of Lady Deathstrike. Judging from the design of their costumes, as well as their rhetoric in battle, these newest Reavers are simply existing members of the Purifiers upgraded with cybernetics rather than classic members of the team. Deployed as an elite commando unit designed to eliminate organized mutant resistance, the Reavers manage to track down and confront Cable in Alberta, Canada before being attacked by the new X-Force.

In the ensuing battle, Deathstrike and the Reavers are all terminated by Wolverine's strike team, but not before killing the mutant Caliban and injuring Cable. To this date only Deathstrike's fate was revealed, and it remains to be seen whether the Purifiers will be able to upgrade more of their fighters with Reaver technology to replace the ones lost in Canada.

Cable and X-Force
The Reavers play a small role in Cable and X-Force - Volume 4. Pretty Boy, Bonebreaker, Skullbuster (female), and Skullbuster (male) are quickly dispatched by Hope Summers and Cable before being able to deploy an ICBM.

Hunt for Wolverine
During the "Hunt for Wolverine" storyline, Donald Pierce later leads a new group of Reavers, composed of Star and Shine whom together go by the Starshine moniker, Pretty Boy, Skullbuster (Cylla Markham) and Bonebreaker. They were able to find the place where the X-Men had hidden Wolverine's metal-encased body until they were found by an X-Men. During the battle, Wolverine's adamantium shell was broken and to the Reavers surprise it was empty. The X-Men eventually defeated the Reavers and delivered them to Alpha Flight. Only Starshine was able to evade capture and contacted Lady Deathstrike about their findings.

Operating in Madripoor
During the "Iron Man 2020" event, Donald Pierce and the Reavers are shown to have established a company called Reavers Universal Robotics in Hightown, Madripoor. Albert shows up there to confront Donald Pierce where he is confronted by Bonebreaker and the Reavers. Pierce arrives to prevent the lobby from being wrecked. Taking Albert on a tour, Pierce states that he has been upgrading his operations with the help of a 3D Printer. When Pierce stated that Elsie-Dee is not here and that she previously appeared asking to have her self-destruct mechanism disarmed, Albert retaliates while claiming that Pierce doesn't own him or Elsie Dee. After Albert subdues the Reavers, Pierce states that he sold Elsie-Dee's head to Yakuza boss Kimura, the arms to the Jade Dragon Triad, and the legs to the Vladivostok Mafia. In light of Albert's actions towards them, the Reavers, Kimura, the Jade Dragon Triad, and the Vladivostok Mafia to take action against Albert vowing that he will never make it out of Madripoor alive.

First Team

 * Bonebreaker
 * Skullbuster
 * Pretty Boy
 * Various unnamed other members (deceased or reincarnated)

Second Team

 * Donald Pierce (leader)
 * Lady Deathstrike
 * Wade Cole (deceased)
 * Angelo Macon (deceased)
 * Murray Reese (deceased)
 * Bonebreaker (arrested)
 * Skullbuster
 * Skullbuster (Cylla)
 * Pretty Boy (arrested)

Third Team

 * Donald Pierce (leader)
 * Elixir (quit)
 * Duncan
 * Various unnamed other members

Fourth Team

 * Lady Deathstrike (leader)
 * Various unnamed other members (all presumed deceased)

Fifth Team

 * Donald Pierce (leader)
 * Starshine, a duo of Japanese young women that together function as the Reavers ship.
 * Star appears to have the ability to fuse with machinery which she can use as her own body
 * Shine appears to possess psionic powers
 * Pretty Boy
 * Skullbuster (Cylla)
 * Bonebreaker
 * Lady Deathstrike (defected)

Age of Apocalypse
In the Age of Apocalypse, Reavers were a band of human traitors serving Apocalypse. They have been enhanced with Apocalypse's techno-organic virus which allows them to merge with both organic and mechanical materials.

Ultimate Marvel
Rather than being a specific team of supervillains, the Ultimate Marvel version of the Reavers are human gladiators who have undergone surgery to become cyborgs for the specific purpose of hunting down mutants on live television for the Genoshan Government under Mojo Adams. They are led by the deranged Mutant-hunter Sgt. Wade "Wadey" Wilson aka Deadpool. Some do retain the names of the Earth-616 Reavers, such as 'Bonebreaker'. Another known one is named 'Cruise'.

Television

 * The Reavers appear in the X-Men: The Animated Series two-part episode "Out of the Past", consisting of Lady Deathstrike, Bonebreaker, Pretty Boy, Murray Reese, Skullbuster, and Wade Cole. Additionally, Donald Pierce appears in the four-part episode "The Dark Phoenix" as a member of the Inner Circle Club.
 * The Reavers appear in Wolverine and the X-Men, with vocal effects provided by Charlie Adler in the episode "X-Calibre" and Steve Blum in "Hunting Grounds". This version of the group serves Mojo and consists of Spiral, Murray Reese, Wade Cole, Angelo Macon, and series original character Ricochet, among other unidentified members.

Film
The Reavers appear in Logan, consisting of Donald Pierce, Bonebreaker, Pretty Boy, Angelo Macon, Danny Rhodes, and Mohawk. This version of the group are Alkali-Transigen's enhanced security force who serve the corporation's head, Dr. Zander Rice.

Video games

 * The Reavers appear in X-Men as Magneto's soldiers.
 * The Reavers appear in The Punisher, with Bonebreaker as a stage boss and several Pretty Boy cyborgs appearing in different stages.
 * The Reavers appear in Strider Hiryu's ending in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3.
 * The Reavers appear in Marvel Heroes, with Lady Deathstrike and Bonebreaker as prominent members and Dr. Reaversteins, Mighty Max, Reaver Berserkers, Reaver Blitzkriegs, Reaver Hellhounds, Reaver Maniacs, Reaver Psychotics, and Reaver Savages as foot soldiers.

title: Reavers (comics)


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Thomas Nevile

Thomas Nevile (died 1615) was an English clergyman and academic who was Dean of Peterborough (1591–1597) and Dean of Canterbury (1597–1615), Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge (1582–1593), and Master of Trinity College, Cambridge (1593–1615).

Origins
He was born in Canterbury, a son of Richard Neville of South Leverton, Nottinghamshire (who moved to Canterbury in his retirement), a son of Alexander Neville, Escheator of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire in 1519–20. His mother was Anne Mantell, a daughter of Sir Walter Mantell of Nether Heyford, Northamptonshire. His brother was the scholar Alexander Neville (1544–1614). He bore the same arms as the prominent and ancient Neville family, Earls of Westmorland. The origins of the Neville family of South Leverton are unclear, but an early ancestor was Thomas Neville, Recorder of Nottingham and Member of Parliament for Nottingham in 1472.

Career
He originally came to Cambridge to study at Pembroke. During a long and distinguished career he held a succession of prestigious ecclesiastical posts including the Deanery of both Peterborough and Canterbury, that allowed him to build substantial personal wealth. Within Cambridge, his popularity in the Court of Queen Elizabeth meant he found similar success there, both as Master of Magdalene College and as Vice Chancellor of the university in 1588. Then, in February 1593 Elizabeth appointed him to succeed John Still to the Mastership of Trinity, and it is for his mastership of Trinity that he is now best remembered.

The college he inherited was little more than the architectural remains of the colleges that had united to form Trinity, and he set about using both his personal wealth and influence to create a setting unrivalled in academic England. To quote Trevelyan, "If Henry VIII founded Trinity, Nevile built it".

Over the next decade he razed a number of existing buildings to clear the space for the area now known as Great Court. This included moving Great Gate, the entrance gate to the college, 20 metres east brick by brick, and resulted in one of the largest enclosed courts in Europe.

In his final years he built an additional court, Nevile's Court, paid for entirely by himself.

A monument showing two kneeling effigies representing Thomas and his brother Alexander survives in Canterbury Cathedral.

title: Thomas Nevile