text:
Talk:Senpai and kōhai

Japanese Collaboration of the Week nomination
''This article has been nominated as a possible Japanese Collaboration of the Week. To add your support, go to its listing.'' この記事は強化記事（日本関連）の候補に推薦されています。この記事を強化記事にすることに賛成の方は、この記事に投票してください。

Concerns
Some concerns:

In an early paragraph, the text appears that in Eastern society the relationship is similar to that of tutor/student. But the article referenced, and I believe the intention of the text, is to reference Western society, not Eastern society. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2607:F2C0:EEE2:AC0:6227:DD98:573:9FF7 (talk) 20:02, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

 * Is this really widely used by otakus? Any reference?
 * Is this worth keeping in Wikipedia? Shouldn't this be a wiktionary article?

 * It's certainly in my experience a term near-universally understood by otaku, if not used especially frequently (however, otaku culture in the UK may differ from the US, Australia, etc). Nevertheless, I think there's plenty that could be said and of interest to English speakers on the sempai-kohai relationship, in schools and workplaces (and other settings like sports clubs). I'm really busy at the moment, but I'll try to come back in a week or two to write something about it. --AlexChurchill 01:15, Oct 27, 2004 (UTC)

Macrons
I removed the macrons because it's unnecessary to use them in all occurances. They tend to render somewhat funky in a lot of browsers and people who know what they are don't need constant reminders just to read an article about them. It's enough to establish length in the first use of the word. And please take more care when re-adding them. The revert was with tildes (as in "ñ") rather than macrons. This also had nothing to do with stress, which was a commen to the changing of "SEM-pai" to just "sempai" in the lead.

Peter Isotalo 03:10, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
 * I can agree with some of this. The browsers on my TV set and my mobile phone don't show the macroned vowels at all. However, I think it's better to be consistent in using the macrons throughout an article. If you want to discuss this kind of thing, the place to do it is on the page Manual of Style (Japan-related articles). We should have a clear, consistent policy on what to do, which everyone cooperates with. --DannyWilde 03:21, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

 * That's not how it works, Danny. Manuals of style are recommendations, not rules, and you shouldn't refer to it as either absolute or final. Demanding consensus decisions at the top level for a matter than is not even proscribed just encourages conservatism, instruction creep and rules lawyering. The solution is obviously to start fixing the Japanese, not the MoS.
 * Peter Isotalo 11:36, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

 * On Usenet, we call people like you trolls. --DannyWilde 01:59, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Senpai and sempai
Regardless of any romanization, the word "senpai" has to be pronounced "sempai". This is because the mouth has to close to make the "p" sound. Thus, there is not really any point in saying "this is pronounced sempai" etc. Also, if we are to add that information here, then logically it should be added to any article, such as "Asahi Shinbun" etc. where the same thing happens. Thus, I suggest not including it here. One thing that surprises me is the way people keep adding "mini Japanese lessons" to Wikipedia like this. On the page pocky, people keep adding information to the page about how to pronounce the word, much of it quite incorrect. I tried just removing it, but it was added back so many times that eventually it had a subsection on the pronunciation. Even after this subsection was added, another editor added some more incorrect information about pronunciation at the top of the article. --DannyWilde 02:27, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

 * Don't underestimate the power that orthography has on people's minds. People will strain to produce that [n], which is by no means physically impossible, and I've heard people do it in my Japanese classes. Also, there are languages (like Russian where nasals arent' affected by the following consonant. Hence, [bank], not [baŋk]. I totally agree about Pocky, though, and I removed that silly pronunciation section. I encourage you to keep removing additions of this kind wherever you find them. If anyone protests, just point out that it's about as relevant as describing the pronunciation of Almond Joy in detail.
 * Peter Isotalo 12:57, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

 * So, on this page you are for adding pronunciation information, and on that page you are against adding it. That makes no sense. My feeling, as I stated above, is that your underlying goal is to draw people into arguments. --DannyWilde 15:03, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

So what is the final consensus? It's spelled "senpai" but pronounced "sempai"? --Cyde Weys talkcontribs 20:45, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

 * Is it worth mentioning that it's usually spelled "sempai" in subtitles, or will that be obvious to people who got redirected here from "sempai" anyway? After all, anyone who watches anime in the original Japanese with subtitles must have a certain degree of intelligence ^_^ Dave-ros 11:24, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

 * To remove all ambiguity, I added an IPA transcription of the pronunciation. (By the way, I'm glad I'm not the only one bothered by all the misinformation people put in the Pocky article. Check out the current version for an audio file of the pronunciation, an IPA transcription, and an all-new pronunciation paragraph which puts the pronunciation in context by comparing it with the Japanese transcriptions of English words, all of which I added) Spacecat2 05:47, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Leaving aside the question of whether pronunciation help should be given, I've added back a mention of "sempai" as an alternative romanisation since it is widely used and is accepted by IMEs etc. as valid romaji. Incidentally most of the existing refs seem inappropriate, I could only match up one of them with anything in the article, the other two are essentially computing articles more than anything. Samatarou (talk) 13:23, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

IPA pronunciation
I'm going to delete the IPA pronunciation for now, which is currently:. I don't know enough about IPA transcription to know what it should be, but I know enough to know that's not correct. Either of the following might be correct: ...or something else entirely. Either way, a pronunciation lesson is not at all necessary. It should be more than sufficient to give the wikipedia-preferred Revised Hepburn romanization of "senpai" (see WP:MOS-JP), and note that the word is also frequently transliterated as "sempai". Please discuss if you object. Bradford44 02:15, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

 * I don't see what's wrong with as a loose phonetic transcription.   is almost certainly not correct, unless you're telling people how to pronounce the word with an American accent.  There's no good reason to quibble between  and : vowel symbols are all relative anyway, so at looser levels of transcription, you generally go for the more cardinal vowel ([e], in this case).  Besides, Japanese phonology lists the vowel as [e], not [ɛ].  Likewise for [ai] vs. [aI].  I'm no expert on Japanese phonology, though, so perhaps someone more enlightened on both sides could help us out? Masily box 02:15, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Senpai and kōhai
Senpai and kōhai are inter dependable, so what about naming the article accordingly?, i. e., "Senpai and kōhai". —Leo Laursen ( T | C ) 15:27, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Senpai and kōhai are generally *not* interchangeable in a great many clubs. Senpai often denotes a black belt who is not the sensei, while kōhai refers to coloured belts (kyu level). I would recommend referencing the Shotokan article in particular. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.147.218.214 (talk) 03:52, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

 * I'm not 100% sure what "interdependable" means but I don't think it means "interchangeable". 91.105.10.214 (talk) 01:57, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Kōhai
Kōhai translates as devastation — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rishal21 (talk • contribs) 08:29, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

You are simultaneously correct and completely mistaken. Recall the fact that the Japanese language is rife with homophones, words that are pronounced identically. This is precisely why kanji is used in written communication, in order to minimize misinterpretation. The Kōhai you are referring to is 荒廃, and this does indeed translate to devastation. However, the Kōhai in this article is 後輩, which is roughly "lesser comrade". Xparasite9 (talk) 20:16, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

merge to seniority
This is not that different from the general concept of seniority, and most of the description about how special it is in Japanese culture actually applies to all of the East Asian culture. It's also called 先進, 學長, 師兄, etc.  Yel D'ohan (talk) 06:59, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

title: Talk:Senpai and kōhai


text:
Runanga, New Zealand

Runanga is a small town on the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand. It is located eight kilometres to the northeast of Greymouth, to the north of the Grey River. Barrytown is 21 km further north. and the Rapahoe Branch railway run through the town. Runanga was formerly a railway junction, with the steep Rewanui Branch diverging from the Rapahoe line until closure in 1985.

The town's origins can be traced back to European colonisation in the late 19th century, when large numbers of settlers came to work the local coal fields. The town's name is Māori for "meeting place". Coal mining is still the main employer of the town.

History
During the period 1853 to 1876, the area which became the township of Runanga was administrated as part of the Nelson Province.

Unlike many towns and settlements on the West Coast which grew up around gold mining, Runanga was established as a centre to support the local coal mining industry. In 1902 the Seddon Government established its own coal mines, proclaiming the whole area on the north side of the Grey River as a State Coal Reserve. The Point Elizabeth No. 1 mine began producing coal from 17 March 1904. In 1903 a sawmill opened and timber houses began to replace the tents which had formed housing until then. The Borough of Runanga came into effect in 1912 with an area of 1,210 acres and a population of about 1,500.

Demographics
Runanga statistical area, which includes Dunollie and Rapahoe, covers 4.51 km2. It had an estimated population of as of  with a population density of  people per km2.

Runanga had a population of 1,185 at the 2018 New Zealand census, a decrease of 63 people (−5.0%) since the 2013 census, and a decrease of 48 people (−3.9%) since the 2006 census. There were 519 households, comprising 621 males and 567 females, giving a sex ratio of 1.1 males per female. The median age was 45.2 years (compared with 37.4 years nationally), with 201 people (17.0%) aged under 15 years, 204 (17.2%) aged 15 to 29, 564 (47.6%) aged 30 to 64, and 213 (18.0%) aged 65 or older.

Ethnicities were 92.9% European/Pākehā, 11.9% Māori, 0.8% Pasifika, 1.8% Asian, and 1.3% other ethnicities. People may identify with more than one ethnicity.

The percentage of people born overseas was 6.3, compared with 27.1% nationally.

Although some people chose not to answer the census's question about religious affiliation, 59.5% had no religion, 26.3% were Christian, 0.5% had Māori religious beliefs, 0.3% were Muslim, 0.3% were Buddhist and 2.3% had other religions.

Of those at least 15 years old, 45 (4.6%) people had a bachelor's or higher degree, and 342 (34.8%) people had no formal qualifications. The median income was $24,400, compared with $31,800 nationally. 75 people (7.6%) earned over $70,000 compared to 17.2% nationally. The employment status of those at least 15 was that 423 (43.0%) people were employed full-time, 162 (16.5%) were part-time, and 54 (5.5%) were unemployed.

Community
As with most other towns, Runanga had its fair share of clubs and societies. One such organisation that no longer exists in Runanga, and which few may remember, is the Runanga Lodge No 74 of the Royal Antedilluvian Order of Buffaloe's. This Lodge was opened on May 13, 1939, by the Provincial Grand Primo Bro. James Insull K.O.M. The founders of the lodge were Bro. C Ingram C.P. and Bro. T Durkin C.P.

The Foundation members were R McMillan, H Fisher, J Musgrove, J O'Connel, W.T. Foster, F Crange, R McTaggart, Owen O'Connell, G.W. Timlin, A.W. Fisher, W Amor, J Stephens, D Butler, S H Werner, J O'Neil and R Scott.

In April 1943, The Lodge held their first meeting in their own Hall. They had been meeting in rented accommodation up until then.

Miners' Hall
The Runanga Miners' Hall is registered by Heritage New Zealand as a Category I structure, with registration number 9613. It is significant because of its place in the history of the union movement in New Zealand and because it is one of the few remaining examples of a miners' hall. A $1.1 million project to strengthen the Miner's Hall was announced in 2020.

Coal Creek Waterfall
The Coal Creek waterfall is accessed via the Coal Creek walking track which starts in Runanga. The track is a gentle 3.6 kilometres return and travels along Coal Creek through beech trees and other podocarps. The waterfalls are the width of the river and seven metres high.

Notable people

 * Moses Ayrton, New Zealand politician
 * George Duggan (1912–2012) was a New Zealand Marist priest, philosopher, seminary professor and writer (he was popularly known as Chalky Duggan – after a featherweight boxer who fought in 1919, when Duggan was 7 years old, under the name "Chalky Duggan" and who, like Duggan, came from Runanga.
 * Dave McKenzie (born 1943 in Dunollie, Grey District) is a former long-distance runner. He represented New Zealand in the men's marathon at two consecutive Summer Olympics, starting in Mexico City (1968). He won the Boston Marathon in 1967.
 * George Menzies, who in 2008 was named the greatest rugby league five-eighth New Zealand had ever produced spent his playing career at Runanga's club.
 * James O'Brien, Labour MP for Westland 1922–25 and 1928–1947 and Minister of Transport and Marine during the First Labour Government, lived and worked in Runanga from 1906 for about ten years.
 * Bob Semple, Minister of Public Works in the First Labour Government, was President of the Runanga Miner's Union in 1907.
 * Paddy Webb, Minister of Mines in the First Labour Government, worked in the Runanga mine about 1906.
 * Frank O'Flynn, Minister of Defence in the Fourth Labour Government, was born in Runanga in 1918.

Education
Runanga School is a coeducational full primary school (years 1–8), with a roll of students as of

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

title: Runanga, New Zealand


text:
User talk:Jin~enwiki

=Talk=

Welcome
Hello and welcome to Wikipedia!

Here are some tips to help you get started:

 * Try the Tutorial, and feel free to experiment in the test area.
 * If you need help, post a question at the Help Desk
 * Eventually, you might want to read the Manual of Style and Policies and Guidelines.
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 * Explore, be bold in editing pages, and, most importantly, have fun!

Good luck!

[[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]]

P.S. One last helpful hint. To sign your posts like I did above (on talk pages, for example) use the '~' symbol. To insert just your name, type ~~~ (3 tildes), or, to insert your name and timestamp, use ~~~~ (4 tildes).

Ajax and Latency
I agree with your remark about Ajax and latency on Talk:Ajax_%28programming%29, so I've rewritten that paragraph. It now says that a well-designed Ajax application can also reduce the effect of network latency, not only inflate in case of a badly designed app. Jep 06:54, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Find the rest of the SG community!
Yeap, you can find us in these pages:

 * Singapore portal
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Do leave your name at the notice board, and thanks again for making wikipedia your online abode! ;)--Huaiwei 12:51, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

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title: User talk:Jin~enwiki


text:
Bobby Van

Robert Jack Stein (December 6, 1928 – July 31, 1980), known by his legalized stage name Bobby Van, was a musical actor and dancer, best known for his career on Broadway, in films and television from the 1950s through the 1970s. He was also a game show host and panelist.

Early life
Van was born to Jewish vaudeville parents in The Bronx, New York City, and grew up backstage, witnessing many memorable Depression-era acts. Originally, Van took King as his stage name (after his father's stage name, from the trio "Gordon, Reed and King"). He finally opted for Van, after seeing a Van Johnson poster hanging in his sister's bedroom. In a 1976 interview, Van said he had legalized his name change from 'Stein'.

Career
Van began his career as a musician, playing trumpet. When his band played a venue in the Catskills, Van was asked to fill in as a song and dance man for another act. His act drew rave reviews and gave Van a thrill performing live as a solo act. He went on to appear in several Broadway musicals.

In the early 1950s, Van received a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and made several films there, including the title role in The Affairs of Dobie Gillis in 1953 and roles in the musicals Because You're Mine and Kiss Me, Kate. In 2010, reviewer Hal Erickson noted that "Van will always be remembered as the ecstatic young fellow who made like a human pogo stick during an expansive production number in Small Town Girl (1953)."

In the 1960s, Van did comedy work with Mickey Rooney in films and television. He appeared in three episodes of Rooney's Mickey sitcom on ABC in the role of a freeloading brother-in-law. He also did some choreography, as had his father years earlier.

Van frequently appeared with his second wife, Elaine Joyce, on 1970s game shows such as Tattletales and Match Game. Van also hosted the game shows Showoffs,  The Fun Factory, and Make Me Laugh.

Van starred in the 1971 Broadway revival of No, No, Nanette, for which he was nominated for a Tony Award. In 1973 he appeared in the musical remake of Lost Horizon, the last occasion on which he took his traditional song-and-dance persona to the big screen. His novelty dance number from Small Town Girl (1953) was featured in That's Entertainment, Part II (1976). In 1978, he played swindler Warren Custer in the episode "The Two-Million-Dollar Stowaway" of the NBC crime drama series The Eddie Capra Mysteries. In 1979, he appeared in the original Battlestar Galactica episode "Greetings from Earth" as the robot Hector, working alongside veteran song and dance man Ray Bolger (Vector). Van also hosted a syndicated revival of the game show Make Me Laugh during the 1979–80 season.

In June 1977, Van appeared in the musical Anything Goes as Billy Crocker at the Kenley Players in Dayton, Ohio.

In August 1979, Van appeared in the musical Damn Yankees as Young Joe with the San Jose Civic Light Opera in San Jose, California. His co-star was Van Johnson. Bobby Van and wife Elaine Joyce appeared in Love Boat S2 E16 "Gopher's Opportunity", as Phil and Melody Livingston, hoteliers who want to hire Gopher. The episode aired originally on January 20, 1979.

Personal life
A Democrat, Van supported Adlai Stevenson during the 1952 presidential election.

Van married starlet Diane Garrett in September 1952, though the marriage was kept secret until January 1953.

Van and Garrett attempted to have children for several years and, after losing a baby in 1956, they adopted a son in 1961 named Peter, nine months after taking him in as a five-day-old baby.

In 1959, both Van and Garrett were injured when their car was rear-ended, and sued the other driver, seeking $107,000. Garrett said she was unable to move for three weeks after the accident; both she and Van claimed back injury. Van was awarded $1,500 and Garrett was awarded $5,000. Judy Garland, who was a passenger in the Vans' vehicle, testified in court for them.

The couple separated in January 1964 and a divorce was final on September 27, 1966, despite rumors of an early reconsideration and a reconciliation in July 1964. Van had returned to town as his son was undergoing emergency hip surgery, not to reconcile. In November 1964, Walter Winchell wrote in his column that Van "(recently divorced after a dozen years) hopes to persuade actress Emmaline Henry to be his new spouse."

Van married Broadway actress Elaine Joyce in 1968. Their marriage reportedly ran a difficult course – an announcement was made on October 30, 1967, that they had wed, but they had not. In November, a blurb in a Hollywood column said that Van said he and Joyce planned to marry on December 2, 1967, but her brother, Frank Pinchot, had chosen that date to get married, so they would choose another date. In February 1968, it was announced they would marry in Los Angeles on March 21. Van and Joyce were finally married in Las Vegas on May 1, 1968. One week later, Van filed for an annulment citing "fraud" and non-consummation, and that the actress "told him she wanted to have children but this was only to induce him into marriage". An article states that Bobby said that Elaine felt "so unhappy and insecure, it's the only thing to do." A preliminary divorce was filed in 1968 for Elaine Joyce and Bobby Van; Joyce is listed as Elaine J Pinchot, year of birth 1945. The divorce was never finalized, and the couple remained married until Van's death in 1980. Their daughter, Taylor, was born in 1976.

Illness and death
In February 1980, Van began to get headaches that continued for two weeks. On going to the hospital, an angiogram was done and his doctors were not optimistic, finding the pressure in his head was due to a malignant brain tumor. Van chose to hide his illness and continued to work as long as possible, including as host of that year's Mrs. America Pageant. He later lost control of his left side and was in a wheelchair. After a nearly six month battle with cancer, Van died in Los Angeles on July 31, 1980. He is interred at Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery, a Jewish cemetery in Los Angeles. In a December 1981 interview, Joyce said, "Bobby and I would have been married forever. There was no question about it".

The Vans' daughter Taylor attended Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles, where she met future husband Evan Meyer. They were married in October 2003, at which time she was employed as a television executive assistant for Paramount Pictures.

Stage work

 * Alive and Kicking (1950)
 * On Your Toes (1954)
 * Oklahoma! (1959)
 * Pal Joey (1961)
 * The Tunnel of Love (1963; Westchester County Playhouse, Dobbs Ferry, NY)
 * No, No, Nanette (1971–73)
 * Doctor Jazz (1975)
 * The Music Man (1977; Marriott's Lincolnshire Theatre, Lincolnshire, IL)
 * Anything Goes (1977; Kenley Players, Ohio)
 * Damn Yankees (1979; San Jose Civic Light Opera, California)

title: Bobby Van


text:
1998 MLS supplemental draft

The 1998 Major League Soccer supplemental draft was held on February 1, 1998, at the Airport Hilton in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Format
Major League Soccer held a professional player combine in Fort Lauderdale the last week of January 1998. On Saturday, January 31, 1998, the league held the first round of the 1998 MLS College Draft. The second and third rounds of the college draft concluded Sunday morning. On Sunday afternoon, February 1, 1998, the league held its supplemental draft.

Changes from 1997

 * 1998 expansion teams Chicago Fire and Miami Fusion were awarded the first and second selections in each round.

Unresolved 1998 Supplemental Draft Trades

 * 3 February 1997: Colorado Rapids acquired defender Peter Vermes and a third-round pick in the 1998 Supplemental Draft from New York/New Jersey MetroStars in exchange for midfielder Kerry Zavagnin and future considerations.
 * 13 November 1997: San Jose Clash acquired a third-round selection in the 1998 Supplemental Draft from Miami Fusion in exchange for forward Christopher Sullivan. Sullivan retired two weeks later.

title: 1998 MLS supplemental draft


text: Category:Chilean films

title: Category:Chilean films


text:
Epping railway station, Sydney

Epping railway station is a railway station in Epping, in the northern region of Sydney. It is served by Sydney Trains T9 Northern Line, NSW TrainLink Central Coast & Newcastle Line, and Metro North West Line services.

History
The station opened as Field of Mars on 17 September 1886. It was renamed Carlingford on 5 April 1887, and again to Epping on 7 October 1899 when it moved to its current site.

After much campaigning from locals, a wooden overhead booking office was constructed along with an additional island platform in 1928, The centre track was originally a terminating road, and was served by platforms on each side. This was intended as part of John Bradfield's proposed Epping to St Leonards line. A new booking office on the footbridge was added in 1967 after the 1928 wooden structure was destroyed by fire.

In the mid 1980s, the concourse was extended with more shade provided over platforms as well as the addition of two clock towers.

In 1979, the centre terminating track was converted to a bi-directional main line with the platform face on the eastern side fenced off. As part of the 2000s upgrading works, the fencing was switched to the opposite platform.

The station received lifts in the 1990s in order to make the station wheelchair accessible.

Upgrade works began in 2004 to prepare the station for the Epping to Chatswood rail link. Works included a new concourse and pedestrian overpass, wider platforms, an underground transfer concourse and the addition of two underground platforms (5 & 6) for the new line. The new aerial concourse was constructed to the north of the 1967 concourse, which was demolished. The above ground upgrades were completed on 14 April 2007, while the underground concourse and platforms were opened on 23 February 2009 in conjunction with the new line.

To the north of the station, an additional track was laid as part of the Northern Sydney Freight Corridor project opening in June 2016. The new track opened on 14 June 2016.

In September 2018, the Epping to Chatswood rail link (ECRL), the underground concourse and platforms 5 & 6 were closed and upgraded to metro standards, including fitting the underground platforms with platform screen doors, as part of the Sydney Metro Northwest project. As a result, the Northern line reverted to operating from Hornsby to Central via Strathfield, and was later designated its own route T9 in April 2019. On 26 May 2019, the underground concourse and platforms reopened and serviced the new Metro North West Line, operating between Chatswood and Tallawong. The tunnels from the ECRL to the surface was kept, however the track for the Up line was lifted. The track for the down line was kept in case access to the Sydney Metro tunnels was required by maintenance vehicles. However, this access has never been used, with the points clipped and several stop blocks (a piece of wood bolted across the rails) and buffer stops in the way.

Signal box
Epping signal box opened on 31 October 1928 and operated the interlocking at Epping until its closure on 12 November 2006. The original miniature lever frame was replaced by an NX panel circa 1980. Control of the area was transferred to Strathfield signal box, and then to the new Homebush Control Centre in October 2008. The signal box remained derelict and unused until its demolition in 2010. In 2019, control of the area was passed to the Rail Operations Centre in Alexandria.

Services
Epping station is served by bus routes operated by Busways and CDC NSW, and one NightRide route.

title: Epping railway station, Sydney


text:
Category:Israeli films

__NOGALLERY__

title: Category:Israeli films


text:
Hijiki

Hijiki (ヒジキ, 鹿尾菜 or 羊栖菜) (Sargassum fusiforme, syn. Hizikia fusiformis), sometimes called hiziki, is a brown sea vegetable that grows wild on the rocky coastlines of East Asia.

Hijiki has been a part of the Japanese culinary sphere and diet for centuries. It is rich in dietary fiber and essential minerals such as calcium, iron, and magnesium. According to Japanese folklore, hijiki aids health and beauty, and thick, black, lustrous hair is connected to regular consumption of small amounts. Hijiki has been sold in United Kingdom natural products stores for 30 years and its culinary uses have been adopted in North America.

Recent studies have shown that hijiki contains potentially toxic quantities of inorganic arsenic, and the food safety agencies of several countries (excluding Japan), including Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States, have advised against its consumption.

In the West
In 1867 the word "hijiki" first appeared in an English-language publication: A Japanese and English Dictionary by James C. Hepburn.

Starting in the 1960s, the word "hijiki" started to be used widely in the United States, and the product (imported in dried form from Japan) became widely available at natural food stores and Asian-American grocery stores, due to the influence of the macrobiotic movement, and in the 1970s with the growing number of Japanese restaurants.

Appearance and preparation
Hijiki is green to brown in colour when found in the wild. Fishermen and professional divers harvest the hijiki with a sickle at low tide during the spring tide from May to March. After collection, the seaweed is boiled and dried before being sold as dried hijiki. Once processed, dried hijiki turns black. To prepare dried hijiki for cooking, it is first soaked in water then cooked with ingredients like soy sauce and sugar to make a dish that goes by the same name.

In Japan, hijiki is normally eaten with other foods such as vegetables or fish. It may be added to foods that have been steamed, boiled, marinated in soy sauce or fish sauce, cooked in oil, or added to soup, stir fries or quiches. Hijiki may be mixed with rice, but not used as a wrap, to prepare sushi. Konjac is typically prepared with hijiki mixed in to give the dish known by the same name its characteristic grey color and texture.

In Korea, the seaweed is called tot (톳) and eaten as namul (seasoned vegetable side dish) or cooked with bap (rice).

Nutrition
Hijiki contains dietary fiber and minerals such as iron, calcium, and magnesium. Dietary fiber is good for the intestine and iron helps to prevent anemia. The ratio of calcium to magnesium in hijiki is 2 to 1.

Arsenic health risk
Several government food safety agencies advise consumers to avoid consumption of hijiki seaweed. Testing showed that it contains significantly higher concentrations of inorganic arsenic than other types of seaweed, and these results have been independently verified. Government food safety agencies that advise against consumption include the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), the Food Standards Agency (FSA) of the United Kingdom, and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan responded with a report pointing out that while the consumption of more than 4.7 g hijiki seaweed per day could result in an intake of inorganic arsenic that exceeds the tolerable daily intake for this substance, the average daily consumption for Japanese people is estimated at 0.9 g. Several of the reports from other food safety agencies acknowledged that occasional hijiki consumption was unlikely to cause significant health risks but advised against all consumption regardless.

Although no known illnesses have been associated with consuming hijiki seaweed to date, inorganic arsenic has been identified as carcinogenic to humans. Exposure to inorganic arsenic has been linked with gastrointestinal effects, anemia, and liver damage. People who follow a macrobiotic diet that often includes large amounts of seaweed may be at greater risk.

title: Hijiki


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Conference House

Conference House (also known as Billop House ) is a stone house in the Tottenville neighborhood of Staten Island in New York City. Built by Captain Christopher Billopp some time before 1680, it is located in Conference House Park near Ward's Point, the southernmost tip of New York state, which became known as "Billop's Point" in the 18th century.

The Staten Island Peace Conference, an unsuccessful attempt to find a swift negotiated end to the American Revolutionary War, was hosted there by his heir and grandson, Colonel Christopher Billop, on September 11, 1776. The house, a National and New York City Landmark, is located at Conference House Park overlooking Raritan Bay. The house is also located within the Ward's Point Conservation Area, separately added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

Construction
Captain Christopher Billopp, after years of distinguished service in the Royal Navy, came to America in 1674. He was granted a land patent on 932 acres (3.7 km2) on the southernmost tip of Staten Island. Archaeological evidence, including shell middens and digs conducted by The American Museum of Natural History in 1895, have shown that the Raritan band of the Lenape camped in the area and used the location as a burial ground. Known as Burial Ridge, it is the largest pre-European site in New York City.

Legend holds that sovereignty of Staten Island was determined by Capt. Billopp's skill in circling it in one day, earning it for New York rather than to New Jersey. This has since been disproven and is in fact a myth.

In 1677, the fortunes of colonial service took Capt. Billopp to New Castle on the Delaware River, where he commanded the local garrison. Upon appointment of Thomas Dongan as governor of the colony of New York, he returned to Staten Island and became active in the local government. He was further rewarded by another patent, expanding his Staten Island property to 1,600 acres (6.4 km2).

It is difficult to ascertain exactly when his manor house was built, but one surviving map shows that a building existed on the site of the Conference House before 1680. The house was passed down to his great grandson Christopher Billop, who was commissioned a colonel and led Loyalist forces against the Colonials in the American Revolution.

Peace conference
On September 11, 1776, British loyalist Colonel Christopher Billop, commander of a Tory regiment in the conflict, hosted an informal diplomatic conference aimed at finding an early end to the nascent American Revolution. Lord Howe, commander in chief of British forces in America, arranged to meet with representatives of the Continental Congress in what is known today as the Staten Island Peace Conference. Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Edward Rutledge rowed over from patriot-held Perth Amboy, New Jersey. The meeting lasted for three hours and ended with the Americans politely declining the diplomatically handcuffed Howe's offer, leading to another seven years of conflict.

Billop's Point
Conference House is situated on the southernmost point of New York State, at what was originally known as "Billop's Point", today's Ward's Point. It was from this site, where the mouth of Arthur Kill juts out into Raritan Bay, that a raid on October 25, 1779, known as "Simcoe's Raid", was conducted upon patriot-held New Jersey by John Graves Simcoe, leader of the Tory unit the Queen's Rangers. In A History Of The Operations Of A Partisan Corps Called The Queen's Rangers, which he wrote after the war, he mentions:

The batteaux, and boats, which were appointed to be at Billop's-point, so as to pass the whole over by twelve o'clock at night, did not arrive till three o'clock in the morning.

Billop's point is mentioned in the journal of Major André:

Oct. 25 ''The Regiments at Amboy received Orders to strike their tents and send them with their baggage to the water's side. Those at Staten Island had orders to leave theirs standing, and repair by 8 o'clock in the evening to Billop's Point.''

Confiscation
After the cessation of hostilities and British withdrawal from the former colonies the house was confiscated by the state of New York with no recompense to the Billop family. However, many who suffered confiscation, particularly those who were regarded as most notorious by the rebels, later received some form of compensation from the British government.

Notable visitors

 * Benjamin Franklin
 * John Adams
 * Edward Rutledge
 * Lord Howe
 * Major General Charles Grey: leader of British forces at the Paoli Massacre

Encamped during the Revolution

 * John Graves Simcoe, leader of the Queen's Rangers and the founder of Toronto.
 * 844th Foot, later the Essex Regiment and now the Royal Anglian Regiment
 * Hessian
 * Prince Charles Regiment: Prince Charles William Ferdinand

Conservation
After the revolution, most of the Billops went to Canada. One hundred years after the conference the house was used as a hotel, and a rat poison factory, before subsequently being abandoned and vandalized. In 1901 Assemblyman Van Name of Richmond County, New York, introduced a bill to acquire the house and mark it for historic preservation. However, the house was not immediately recognized for preservation.

The city finally acquired the house in 1926, at which point it was in danger of being razed. Conference House Park was created the same year. A nonprofit organization, the Conference House Association, was formed; in 1929, the Municipal Assembly of the City of New York placed the house under the association's aegis. The association subsequently restored the house in a series of small projects, which included building a new roof as well as stairs from the first floor to the basement, painting the facade, and restoring the old well. The second floor was then restored, and a floor in the attic was created. The project was completed in 1937, and the house was dedicated on May 15, 1937. The house was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1966.

title: Conference House


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Amerika (miniseries)

Amerika is an American television miniseries that was broadcast in 1987 on ABC. The miniseries inspired a novelization entitled Amerika: The Triumph of the American Spirit. Amerika starred Kris Kristofferson, Mariel Hemingway, Sam Neill, Robert Urich, Christine Lahti, and a 17-year-old Lara Flynn Boyle in her first major role. Amerika was about life in the United States after a bloodless takeover engineered by the Soviet Union. Not wanting to depict the actual takeover, ABC Entertainment president, Brandon Stoddard, set the miniseries ten years after the event, focusing on the demoralized U.S. people a decade after the Soviet conquest. The intent, he later explained, was to explore the U.S. spirit under such conditions, not to portray the conflict of the Soviet coup.

Described in promotional materials as "the most ambitious American miniseries ever created", Amerika aired for $14 1/2$ hours (including commercials) over seven nights (beginning February 15, 1987), and reportedly cost $40 million to produce. The miniseries was filmed in Ontario, Canada, in the Golden Horseshoe and southwestern Ontario cities of Toronto, London, and Hamilton, as well as various locations in Nebraska – most notably the small town of Tecumseh, which served as "Milford", the fictional setting for most of the series. Donald Wrye was the executive producer, director, and writer of Amerika, while composer Basil Poledouris scored the miniseries, ultimately recording (with the Hollywood Symphony Orchestra) eight hours of music – the equivalent of four feature films.

Genesis
Amerika has an indirect connection to another notable ABC program, the 1983 television film The Day After, which some critics felt was too pacifist for portraying the doctrine of nuclear deterrence as pointless. Stoddard cited a column in the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner by Nixon speechwriter (and later, television personality) Ben Stein that appeared a few weeks before The Day After aired. Stein wrote, in part:

"since my dear friends at ABC-TV have made a TV movie very rightly describing the terror of an atomic attack on America, perhaps they might consider something else. Perhaps they might make a TV movie about why the people of the United States face such a dreadful risk. They might make a movie about what life in the United States would be like if we lived under Soviet domination.

Here is the idea: Let's have a movie called 'In Red America.' It would be about a few days or weeks in the life of several American families after the Soviet Union had taken over America."

Stoddard acknowledged that Stein's remarks provided the inspiration for the series. Stein received a quitclaim fee for the idea and otherwise was not involved in the production of Amerika. Originally envisioned as a four-hour made-for-TV movie entitled Topeka, Kansas, U.S.S.R., the project soon was expanded into a miniseries.

Plot

Major characters
The storyline of Amerika primarily follows three political leaders:
 * Devin Milford (played by Kris Kristofferson): a maverick politician before the Soviet occupation who ran for president in 1988 (in the novel, 1992), after the Soviet takeover began. Milford was placed in a prison camp for daring to speak the truth about the Soviet conquest; at the beginning of the miniseries, Devin is declared "rehabilitated" and released back into society into the custody of his father, who lives in the Nebraska county run by Peter Bradford.
 * Colonel Andrei Denisov of the KGB (played by Sam Neill): the Soviet administrator for the American Central Administrative Area. He is romantically involved with actress Kimberly Ballard (played by Mariel Hemingway). Andrei's superior and mentor is General Petya Samanov (played by Armin Mueller-Stahl), the Soviet military leader in charge of the United States.
 * Peter Bradford (played by Robert Urich): a county administrator in Nebraska who cooperates with the Soviets to create a better life for his community. He attracts the attention of the Soviet leadership because, while cooperative, he is independent and respected by his constituents. At the series' climax, the Soviets carve a new country called "Heartland" out of the Midwest, with Bradford as its "governor-general".

Major female characters, in addition to Ballard, include Peter Bradford's wife, Amanda (played by Cindy Pickett), Devin Milford's ex-wife, Marion (played by Wendy Hughes), and most notably, Devin's sister Alethea (played by Christine Lahti), who at the outset is prostituting herself to the local occupation leader. "Alethea is the center". noted Donald Wrye. "She is a metaphor for America – not just phonically – and it is she who discovers her moral core through(out) the course of the series." Lara Flynn Boyle played Bradford's teenage daughter, Jackie.

The human drama of these characters intersects with the political intrigue of the Soviet plans for the breakup of the United States. Bradford, the pragmatist, clashes with Milford, the idealist; Bradford's wife is Milford's ex-girlfriend, who finds she still has feelings for Milford upon his release from the prison camp; Denisov appoints Milford's ex-wife, a powerful magistrate (and General Samanov's mistress), to serve as Bradford's deputy and assistant in Heartland; and Kimberly's renewed sense of U.S. pride ultimately affects her relationship with Denisov.

Backstory
Towards the end of the 1980s, as the decline of the Soviet Union puts it in danger of losing the Cold War, the Soviet leadership makes a desperate gamble to rearrange the global balance of power. Four large thermonuclear weapons are detonated in the ionosphere over the United States. The resulting electromagnetic pulse (or EMP) destroys the nation's communications and computer systems, cripples the U.S. electrical grid, and affects any equipment that relies on computer technology, such as most late-model automobiles. With its ICBMs inoperative—and the National Command Authority unable to contact U.S. military forces abroad or their foreign allies in western Europe to launch a counterattack—the U.S. is forced to accept Soviet terms for surrender: unilateral disarmament, the end of the dollar as a reserve currency, and integration into the Soviet military/economic bloc. The United States quickly falls under Soviet military occupation under the command of Russian General Petya Samanov, with the President and Congress becoming mere figureheads for their Soviet overseers. Communications between the administrative areas have been cut off, and the damage to the electrical grid caused by the EMP attack has never been fully repaired.

The above events are implied in the miniseries, although never directly explained. The description is taken from the novelization of the miniseries, Amerika: The Triumph of the American Spirit by Brauna E. Pouns and Donald Wrye (Pocket Books, 1987), based on Wrye's screenplay.

Geopolitical situation
In 1997, a decade after its defeat, the contiguous United States is occupied by a United Nations peacekeeping force, the United Nations Special Service Unit (UNSSU), composed primarily of Eastern Bloc forces. The UNSSU garrison in Milford is under a command of an officer from East Germany, Major Helmut Gurtman (played by Reiner Schöne). UNSSU troops periodically engage in destructive combined arms training exercises which are deliberately intimidating to the local population.

Those Americans who engage in dissent are stripped of their privileges and sent to exile camps, where they are anathema to the Soviets and their fellow citizens. Association and communication with the exiles is forbidden, although some risk their own remaining freedoms by offering humanitarian aid. Production quotas have been imposed, and foodstuffs rationed, with the surplus being shipped to the Soviet Union.

Against this background, Bradford ascends to the leadership as governor-general of Heartland. He acts the part of a collaborator, hoping to reform the Soviet occupation from within with ideals of the old United States. Milford is released from the prison camp, hoping to be reunited with his children and fight to end the occupation and restore the United States. Denisov hopes to "salvage as much as possible" of the old U.S., while realizing that the U.S. essentially must cease to exist as a nation in order to appease the Soviet Union's leadership.

Climax and resolution
The Soviet leaders of the occupation are faced with the dual problem of keeping the U.S. pacified and convincing the Politburo that their fears of a revitalized U.S. are unfounded because the country can no longer pose a threat. The Politburo is not convinced, and considers exploding nuclear weapons over several unnamed U.S. cities as a warning to the American people and to the world. Samanov and Denisov, both of whom want Soviet control of the United States to be relatively humane, are horrified by this idea.

At great personal risk, Samanov convinces the Soviet leadership to accept a compromise plan. The United States will be divided into "client states" such as Heartland. Additionally, members of the United States Congress will be executed if they refuse to dissolve the nation's government and disperse in peace. When Samanov asks the assembled Congress to disband the legislative body and dissolve the United States government, the members angrily refuse to do so. Samanov walks out of the House of Representatives chamber and his men begin firing into the crowd of legislators. All members of Congress are killed in the attack, along with the speaker of the House of Representatives and the vice president. The United States Capitol building and the artwork in its rotunda are destroyed. After the act is carried out, Samanov surveys the damage and the dead bodies of the members of Congress. He then sits in the House of Representatives chamber and commits suicide.

In the final episode of the miniseries, Heartland has seceded from the United States, with other regions to follow within the next few weeks. Instead, Heartland soldiers and local militia attack the local UNSSU compound. There is talk of a "Second American Revolution" that could undermine the Soviet Union's plans to break up the United States. The miniseries ends on a downbeat note, Devin Milford is shown about to make a nationwide speech telling Americans to revolt against the Soviet occupation, however, Milford is shot to death. It is unclear if he managed to make a nationwide broadcast calling on Americans to resist the breakup of the United States, but based on the ending, it appears that the United States ceases to exist as a nation and is broken up into several independent countries.

The Divided States of America
In this fictional timeline, the U.S. Congress divided the United States into multiple "administrative areas" in 1988, one year after the communist takeover. These areas are intended to become polities modeled on the Soviet republics, joined together in a new North American Union. A map shown on screen reveals these administrative areas to be:

 * California Special District: California, Nevada
 * Western Semi-Autonomous: Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Wyoming
 * Northwest: Oregon, Washington
 * Southwest: Arizona, New Mexico
 * North Central: Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
 * Central: Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska (this is Peter Bradford's administrative area, and the territory which eventually becomes Heartland, with Omaha, Nebraska, as its capital)
 * South Central: Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas
 * Southern: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi
 * Mid-Atlantic: Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia
 * Appalachia: Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia
 * Ameritech: Indiana, the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania (presumably named after the phone company that serviced these areas)
 * Northeastern: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont

In addition to these areas, Washington, D.C. comprises its own National Administrative District, South Florida is described by a character as the "Space Zone", and there is a passing reference to three "International Cities", one of which is San Francisco. Michigan is separated into two administrative regions, with the Lower Peninsula belonging to Ameritech, and the Upper Peninsula belonging to the North Central region. Alaska is described as never having been pacified, requiring continued engagement by Soviet troops, and there are pockets of armed resistance in the Rocky Mountains and in West Virginia. There is no mention of what has happened to Hawaii, or to U.S. territories such as Puerto Rico, Guam, and American Samoa (even though Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands may have presumably been taken over by the "Greater Cuba", led by Fidel Castro).

The Rust Belt (presumably "Ameritech") faces its own special problems. Most of its advanced factory equipment was removed at the start of the occupation and taken to the Soviet Union. The region suffers 50% unemployment as a result, and its residents are not permitted to leave, except to volunteer for factory work in the Soviet Union, from which no one has yet returned.

Travel and communications between the various zones is heavily restricted, part of the "divide and conquer" plan of the Soviet occupation.

Communist occupation elsewhere
Both the novel and miniseries imply that the Soviet Union has conquered other countries after the U.S. coup (it can be surmised, for example, that the EMP which disabled U.S. technology also would have crippled Canada and Mexico, a minor character says that he and his wife fled East Germany for the United States and remarked that "the promised land [had] become worse than what [they] left", and Denisov says at one point that "we control most of the world").

In this new world, Fidel Castro heads what is now called "Greater Cuba", embracing most of the Caribbean and Latin America, and Taiwan has been absorbed into China. North Korea has conquered South Korea and Korea is united under communist rule. A politician named "Mbele" heads the "Socialist Republic of Southern Africa" which also includes South Africa, "Barghout" is the leader of "Iraqistan" which includes present-day Israel and all of the Arab world in both the Middle East and North Africa. Eastern Europe is in a state of unrest, echoing the turmoil in the former United States. The Soviet leader mentions being stationed in England before being posted in America, implying that Western Europe is also under Soviet control, much like America.

National symbols
The flag of the occupation is the pale blue United Nations flag, with crossed U.S. and Soviet flags superimposed on the sides. The U.S. flag is shown without its stars, and this flag is displayed during the "Lincoln Week" ceremonies. The standard U.S. flag is outlawed, although one scene shows a group of war veterans marching with the old U.S. flag upside down, this being a distress signal. The U.S. national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner", also is outlawed, but this does not stop a group of citizens from singing it (haltingly at first) after the "Lincoln Week" parade.

Abraham Lincoln is included with Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin in propaganda. One of the signature scenes in the film is a twenty-minute, dialogue-free depiction of the celebration of "Lincoln Week" (a holiday replacing the Fourth of July), with both Lincoln and Lenin displayed on red banners that were most likely intended to be striking and startling to television audiences of the time.

A new pledge of allegiance is given by "rehabilitated" political prisoners upon release from the U.S. gulags. While the prisoners are told that they are free to refuse to make this pledge, the circumstances under which it is administered suggest otherwise. The pledge states:

"I pledge my allegiance to the flag of the community of American, Soviet, and United Nations of the World, and to the principle for which it stands – a nation, indivisible with others of the Earth, joined in peace, and justice for all."

Critical reception
Amerika received mixed reviews; the series created controversy with some. Certain critics and viewers felt it was too long and unrealistic, others argued that it would be damaging to Soviet-American relations, and a spokesperson for the United Nations objected to it being portrayed as an occupying force under Soviet control. Some conservatives felt that Soviet brutality was greatly underplayed; conversely, a number of liberals dismissed the entire miniseries as right-wing paranoia. At various points, the program was scrapped, delayed, and rewritten. Prior to the show's airing, several left-wing magazines, including The Nation, The Progressive, Tikkun and Mother Jones carried articles strongly criticizing Amerika. The American Friends Service Committee also protested against Amerika. Journalist Christopher Hitchens, when encouraged by a caller on a February 1987 C-SPAN talk show to view the series, commented "I bet you you don't get through to the end of it. It's a boring idiotic piece of nonsensical propaganda. No one will see it all... It's tripe. It will be a terrific anticlimax. People are going to spend a lot of time not watching it and not talking about it." The automaker Chrysler dropped ads which were scheduled to air during the program.

For its part, the Soviet Union threatened to shut down the ABC News Moscow bureau, although this threat was not carried out and indeed seemed to strengthen ABC's resolve regarding the miniseries. "We're going to run that program come rain, blood, or horse manure", said ABC President John B. Sias, after the yet-to-be-aired Amerika had generated more controversy and viewer response than any other ABC program in history, including The Day After. The Discovery Channel countered by running 66 hours of Soviet-produced television, some of it live, including news, music videos, and films.

Amerika was preceded by an ABC special addressing the considerable controversy prior to its airing (The Storm Over Amerika), and was followed by an "ABC News Viewpoint" panel discussion moderated by Ted Koppel, with Brandon Stoddard, Donald Wrye, and others addressing the issues along with questions and comments from a live studio audience in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

After seeing the first episode and reading the shooting script, Tom Engelhardt stated that Amerika had "a plot line that makes suspension of disbelief into an act of grace." In its summary of the 1986–87 US television season, TV Guide called the miniseries "arguably the most boring miniseries in a decade", adding that "ABC's Amerika tried to hold America hostage for seven tedious nights (and a stupefyingly dull $14 1/2$ hours) by conjuring up a fuzzy vision of a Communist occupation of the U.S."

Social criticism and commentary
Although it aired only two years before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, Amerika implied that American apathy and an unwillingness to defend freedom on the part of many citizens made the Soviet takeover rather easy. This depiction was objected to by those who saw it as needlessly provoking "overt jingoism," while labeling the miniseries as "a fourteen-hour public apology to the White House from ABC executives for provoking public concern with The Day After."

The miniseries' depiction of the takeover of the USA by a communist authority mirrored occurrences in Nicaragua, helping to spur organizations such as the Freedom Federation into launching its own media campaign – along with William F. Buckley of the National Review and the Wall Street Journal – which used the film "as a pretext to persuade the public that the United States needed to continue its support of right-wing governments in Central America by aiding the Contras."

Ratings
The first two nights of Amerika garnered big ratings, but audience numbers dropped thereafter, and the overall miniseries averaged a 19 rating and a 29 share of American television households, compared to a 46 rating/62 share for The Day After. "It wasn't as big a hit as its supporters had hoped", said Ted Koppel, "but it wasn't a disaster, either." Amerika was the second-highest rated miniseries of the 1986–87 U.S. television season.

Although a 35 share reportedly had been promised to advertisers, Stoddard was happy with the performance of Amerika, claiming that all or part of the miniseries had been watched by 100 million people – a ratings bonanza for ABC, then in third place among the three major networks.

Availability
Amerika has not been shown on U.S. television since its original telecast on ABC. A VHS box set of the miniseries was released by Anchor Bay Entertainment in 1995, but no official DVD release is available. Portions of the soundtrack by Basil Poledouris were released on CD by Prometheus Records in 2004 (in a limited edition of 3,000 copies). The novelization is widely available from used-book sellers and online auction sites. The miniseries itself can be found pirated on YouTube.

Parodies
In February 1987, the miniseries was parodied on the NBC show Saturday Night Live as "Amerida", in which a debt-ridden United States is mortgaged to Canada and subsequently repossessed. It posited Wayne Gretzky as the prime minister of Amerida. The U.S. protagonist (played by Canadian actor Phil Hartman) longs for a country "where you don't have money that's all the colours of the rainbow" and "you can spell words like colour and flavour without a u." To calm him down, his wife makes the offer of a beer: "How about a Labatt's, eh?" The flag of Amerida was the U.S. flag with the stars replaced by a white maple leaf.

The satirical Canadian radio program Double Exposure parodied the series in a sketch called Kanada with a K, in which "Joe Klark with a K" rescues the nation from "Comrade Ed".

title: Amerika (miniseries)


text:
Double Negative (artwork)

Double Negative is a piece of land art located in the Moapa Valley on Mormon Mesa (or Virgin River Mesa) near Overton, Nevada. Double Negative was created in 1969 by artist Michael Heizer, and consists of a trench dug into the earth.

Description

The work consists of a long trench in the earth, 30 feet (9 m) wide, 50 ft deep, and 1500 feet (457 m) long, created by the displacement of 244,000 tons of rock, mostly rhyolite and sandstone. Two trenches straddle either side of a natural canyon (into which the excavated material was dumped). The "negative" in the title thus refers in part to both the natural and man-made negative space that constitutes the work. The work essentially consists of what is not there, what has been displaced.

Double Negative can be reached by following Mormon Mesa Road north-eastward from Overton to the top of the mesa, continuing across it for 2.7 miles, turning left at the opposite edge onto a smaller path that extends along the rim of the mesa, and then following the path north for 1.3 miles.

History
In 1969 the art dealer Virginia Dwan funded the purchase of the 60-acre site for Double Negative and in turn, the artist transferred the property deeds to Dwan. In 1971 Heizer prevented the Dwan Gallery from selling the work. Dwan then donated Double Negative to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MoCA) in 1984, with Heizer’s blessing, to coincide with “In Context: Michael Heizer, Geometric Extraction”. Among the terms of the agreement with the museum is the fact that, according to the artist's wishes, MoCA will undertake no conservation of the piece as Heizer indicated that nature should eventually reclaim the land through weather and erosion. Since then, Heizer has expressed a contrasting wish to restore the piece, perhaps in opposition to Robert Smithson's support for the principle of entropy.

For the solo exhibition "In Context: Michael Heizer, Geometric Extraction", MoCA was able to include a photographic panorama of Heizer’s work. For the large-scale, historical survey of land art “Ends of the Earth” at MoCA in 2012, Heizer did not want any representation of Double Negative to be included in the exhibition. A good aerial photograph appears in the catalogue, but Heizer reportedly worried that documentation in a museum gallery would misrepresent a sculpture that he felt could be known only through physical experience.

In 2021, plans for a solar development project near Double Negative were rejected due to resident protests against the project's impact on the artwork. The work is currently owned by MoCA and is accessible by four-wheel drive vehicle or motorcycle.

title: Double Negative (artwork)


text:
Wikipedia:WikiProject Ukraine/Subdivisions

Welcome to the Ukrainian subdivisions WikiProject!

Some Wikipedians have formed a project to better organize information in articles related to Ukrainian subdivisions. This page and its subpages contain their suggestions; it is hoped that this project will help to focus the efforts of other Wikipedians. If you would like to help, please inquire on the talk page and see the to-do list there.

[[Image:Searchtool.svg|20px|Divisions]] Scope

This WikiProject on Ukrainian subdivisions initially aims to organize and structure articles on Administrative divisions of Ukraine.

It touches on, and could expand to include other topics in modern and historic Ukrainian political geography: Ukraine and Ukrainian historical regions, oblasts, cities (list), Autonomous Republic of Crimea, raions (list), towns (list), and villages.

Parentage
The parent of this WikiProject is WikiProject Countries. See also WikiProject Cities.

Descendant WikiProjects
No descendant WikiProjects have been defined.

[[Image:Nuvola_filesystems_www.png|20px|Related WikiProjects]] Similar WikiProjects
Similar WikiProjects are:
 * WikiProject Russian federal subjects
 * WikiProject Polish Voivodships

[[Image:Nuvola apps kdmconfig.png|20px]] Participants

 * (inactive)
 * (working on cleaning up the oblasts and raions in western Ukraine (former parts of Galicia)
 * (inactive)
 * (inactive)
 * (inactive)
 * (inactive)
 * (working on fixing spelling and adding hromadas to infoboxes)
 * (contributed a political map)
 * (inactive)
 * (working on fixing spelling and adding hromadas to infoboxes)
 * (contributed a political map)

[[Image:Nuvola apps package editors.png|20px|Goals]] Goals

 * 1) Complete the article Administrative divisions of Ukraine
 * 2) Template infobox for each oblast', city and Krym
 * 3) Collect vital statistics for each

General strategy and discussion forums
Main discussion: talk page of the project

General
{|
 * Verkhovna Rada — Regions of Ukraine and their divisions
 * Ukrainian Census 2001 — Census statistics for the 2001 census
 * Verkhovna Rada — Regions of Ukraine and their divisions
 * Ukrainian Census 2001 — Census statistics for the 2001 census

Coats of arms

 * Commons:Category:Coats of arms of Ukraine
 * vector-images.com — Flags and coats of arms of Ukraine
 * heraldy.com.ua — Ukrainian heraldy
 * geraldika.ru — Ukrainian heraldy

Geographical location

 * fallinggrain.com — Geographical locations of locations in Ukraine
 * maps.vlasenko.net — Topographical maps of locations in Ukraine
 * maps.vlasenko.net — Topographical maps of locations in Ukraine

Image sources

 * Commons:Category:Ukraine and all its subcategories
 * List of image sources

Wikipedia

 * Administrative divisions of Ukraine — details about the administrative divisions
 * List of cities in Ukraine — list of all the cities and their statistics
 * Raions of Ukraine — list of all the raions, their administrative centers, and statistics
 * List of urban-type settlements in Ukraine by subdivision — list of all the urban-type settlements and their statistics
 * Naming conventions (Ukrainian places) – Describes Wikipedia conventions on naming Ukrainian places
 * Romanization of Ukrainian — the simplified Ukrainian National system is used for transliterating place names in Wikipedia articles; see also WP:UKR.
 * }

Oblasts

 * Introduction: should contain the significance, location, name of the oblast in English, and Ukrainian (with translit.), and other vital statistics.
 * Geography: overview section should give information on the following items: area, location, border information (border length, list of federal subjects with common border, list of bordered foreign countries, list of bordered seas/lakes), the highest point and lowest points, maximum N→S distance, maximum E→W distance, and the average elevation. It should also contain notable features such as mountains, rivers, natural resources, etc.
 * Climate: subsection should contain information about the climate and the temperature ranges for various times of the year.
 * Vegetation: subsection should contain information about the vegetation native to the region and other relevant information.
 * An administrative Map of the oblast should be included with at the largest settlements (i.e. cities) indicated.
 * History: should include descriptions of historical events related to the oblast, even if they occurred before the oblast's establishment.
 * Administrative subdivisions: should provide an overview of the oblast's administrative structure; further subsections should include a list of raions and a list of major settlements with their status (city, town, village, etc.).
 * Demographics: should contain information on the population (number of people, urban/rural population, male/female population, number of females per 1,000 males, average age, households statistical information, average life expectancy, etc.). Most of the information is available from the Ukrainian Census, 2001 data.
 * Economy: should be an overview of the oblast's economy.
 * Industry: subsection should contain information on the major industries of the oblast, the number of industrial enterprises, the main types of natural resources of the oblast, and other relevant information.
 * Agriculture: subsection should contain information on the agriculture of the oblast, the number of agricultural institutions, the main agricultural exports/inports of the oblast, and other relevant information.
 * Transportation subsection should contain information on the railroads and automobile road lengths, main airports, ports, etc.
 * Tourism: should contain any relevant information on tourism in the oblast; points of interest, historic monuments, etc.
 * Culture and religion: should contain any relevant cultural and religious information.
 * Education: should have educational information, a list of higher institutions and universities, etc.
 * See also: should contain relevant links to other articles, namely Administrative divisions of Ukraine . But it's preferable to provide the relevant links within the main text.
 * References:
 * External links: should contain a list of websites related to the oblast (including the official website). Each link should have a note on which language the website is in (for instance: ). Always give links to the English sites (or versions) first, then to Ukrainian/Russian sites.
 * Templates: should contain the corresponding oblast template and Administrative divisions of Ukraine template.
 * Categories and interwiki links: should contain relevant categories, and all interwiki links, escpecially Ukrainian ones.

Raions

 * Essentially similar to oblast (above).

Villages, Towns, Cities
Creating Wikipedia articles about Ukrainian villages, towns and cities presents several complexities for editors.

 * Warning: A standard naming convention has been adopted by the Ukrainian WikiProject for creating names/titles for new articles about Ukrainian geographical locations, and includes instances when there are locations that share the same name. Please adhere to this standard in creating a new article. If an article is created that is given a name that is in violation of this standard, then it will be changed, which requires a lot of extra work and time that could be used more constructively. If you have a disagreement with the application of this standard, please bring it up in the WikiProject:Ukraine talk page, but do not just go ahead and name your article by whatever name you want, since if it violates the standard accepted by the Ukraine WikiProject, it will get changed.

This is a guide to help people with this process. For additional information about creating and editing articles about Ukrainian geographical locations, refer to other sections in this page and the main WikiProject Ukraine page. If there are still questions regarding creating or editing articles, please post them to the WikiProject:Ukraine talk page, where someone will respond quickly to any queries. Remember that it is complicated to change the name of an article after it has been created, so before creating a new article, please insure that its name will conform to accepted protocol.

To create the name for a new article about a Ukrainian settlement (village, town or city), please follow these steps:

Step One: Make certain that you have the correct Ukrainian and romanized forms of the name. This is complicated, due to the fact that there are locations that have well-established romanized spellings that have become built into the general knowledge of the English-speaking world, but are not in accord with the more recent romanized transliteration guidelines that were accepted after an independent Ukraine joined the United Nations in the 1990s. For a discussion of romanization of Ukrainian place names, see Romanization of Ukrainian. For most new articles about villages, towns and cities, use the National Transliteration Table. However, to use that table, you first must find the correct Ukrainian Cyrillic spelling of the name of the place. Since it will also be necessary to include the Ukrainian Cyrillic name in the article, this needs to be done anyway, so now is as good a time as any to do this.

If you need to find the correct Ukrainian form of Cyrillic spelling of a place, there are several ways to do this:

 * a) Search in the Ukrainian language Wikipedia at uk.wikipedia.org.

 * b) Use the option of opening the text editor feature in Wikipedia, and then click the drop-down menu included below the "Save page" "Show preview" "Show changes" buttons towards the bottom of the page. One of the options in the drop-down menu includes a Cyrillic alphabet (which includes Ukrainian Cyrillic characters). Clicking on these characters will place them in the text editor box, where they may be copied and pasted elsewhere for searching.

 * c) If you don't have access to a Cyrillic font, you may go to an online Ukrainian/English translator, such as the World Star service (www.stars21.com/translator/ukrainian_to_english.html). There is a box at that site that you may click on to open a small window where you may type in Ukrainian Cyrillic. You may then copy and paste what you typed into another window, such as the Search text box located in the Ukrainian Wikipedia.

 * d) Look for the village, town or city in Google Earth (earth.google.com). This is also a great site to find the settlement's coordinates (which you'll need to add to the article). Google Earth will have the correct Ukrainian Cyrillic spelling of the location, however, it often does not have the correct romanized spelling in Latin script.

Once you have the official Ukrainian Cyrillic form of the name, then you can use the above-mentioned National Transliteration Table to romanize it into the Latin alphabet. Remember, though, that this is still not necessarily the correct name of the village, town or city, since (as mentioned earlier) there are a number of Ukrainian place-names in common usage in English that have older forms of transliteration. However, it is still necessary to have this romanized form of the name, since it will be needed to be included in the article, regardless of whether an older form of the name is given as the title or not (and as a possible redirect link).

At this point, you should now have: 1) the official Ukrainian Cyrillic spelling of the name, and 2) the romanized name, using the National Transliteration Table. Now you're ready to search with these two forms of the name.

Step Two: Search in Wikipedia for a pre-existing article. This, too can be complicated. First, use the two forms of the name you obtained in Step One to search with. If you find a pre-existing article, and if you wish, you may contribute to it; do not create a new article about the same location.

If you cannot find a pre-existing article using the two forms of the name from Step One, then you still need to do some more searching to be absolutely certain that such an article does not exist before you create a new article about an identical location. The reason why there may still be a pre-existing Wikipedia article that was not found by using the two names from Step One is due to how there are many alternate transliterations and spellings of Ukrainian place names in English. There may be an existing article in Wikipedia, but it uses an older transliteration style, and a simple search would not readily locate it. However, there are several methods to use to discover whether there are alternate spellings of Ukrainian place names for Wikipedia articles:

 * 1) Perform a search in Google or another web searching service, using both of the names from Step One (perform searches using both names separately and together).

 * 2) You may also search in Google Scholar (scholar.google.com) for published academic material that mentions the name of the location. This is a good idea to do anyway, since it is a good place to find solid references for your article.

 * 3) Along with Google Scholar, you may also search in Google Docs (docs.google.com) for government publications, Google Maps (maps.google.com) for location names, and WorldCat (www.worldcat.org) for published books using the location names.

 * 4) Search the Ukrainian language Wikipedia (using the Ukrainian Cyrillic form of the place name) to see whether there are forms of the name given in other languages.

 * 5) Use Google Earth to find possible alternate transliterations of the name of the location (search Google Earth using the Ukrainian Cyrillic form of the name).

If you still cannot find an alternate spelling of the location's name, and if there are no Wikipedia articles about that village, town or city, then you may skip the rest of these steps, and proceed to use the romanized transliteration of the name that you created with the National Transliteration Table mentioned above. However, it may be useful to read through the rest of these steps.

If, however, you did find an alternate romanized transliterated spelling of the location's name, use that form of the name to search for pre-existing articles in Wikipedia. If there were more than one alternate spellings, use each one to search with. If you find a pre-existing Wikipedia article of the location, and you're certain (see Step Three) that it is the specific location you are concerned with, then feel free to contribute to the article; do not create another article about the same location, even if it is spelled in a different way than what you came up with in using the National Transliteration Table.

If a pre-existing Wikipedia article does not already mention National Transliteration Table's variant of the name in its introductory paragraph, please add it. An example of how this is done may be seen in the article about the city of Cherkasy. Here is the first sentence of that article (note the inclusion of the "transliterated" form of the name):

 * •example:  Cherkasy (Черкаси ) is a city in central Ukraine.

In addition to including the National Transliteration Table's form of the name in the introductory paragraph, you may also create a redirect link to the existing Wikipedia article, using the National Transliteration Table's form of the name. This will insure that any user searching for this location by different variants of the name will find the correct article in Wikipedia.

Step Three: One of the difficulties in creating articles in Wikipedia for Ukrainian locations is the fact that there are many instances where different villages, towns and cities will have exactly the same name. So, after completing Step Two, if you have found a pre-existing Wikipedia article about a Ukrainian village, town or city that has the name of the one you are concerned with, do not assume that it is necessarily the same place. Use the following steps to help determine this:

 * 1) First, you need to determine the precise geographical coordinates where your village, town or city is located. If you do not already have these (or to double-check accuracy), there are two methods:
 * 1-a) Find the article for your village, town or city in the Ukrainian language Wikipedia, where the geographical coordinates will almost always be listed.
 * 1-b) Use Google Earth to locate your village, town or city; the geographical coordinates will be displayed at the bottom of the screen for wherever on the satellite imagery the mouse's cursor is held.
 * 1-c) Use the Falling Grain web site for locating places in Ukraine.
 * Make a note of the coordinates, they will be used later.

 * 2) You then need to determine which Raion and Olast your village, town or city belongs to. If you have difficulty with this, refer to the article about the Administrative divisions of Ukraine. Again, there are several methods for determining this:
 * 2-a) Search the Ukrainian language Wikipedia. If you're uncertain about the name of a raion or oblast, copy it from the Ukrainian Wikipedia and paste it into the English Wikipedia search box, which will then give you the transliterated name (note: even though not all of the Ukrainian raions have their own unique Wikipedia page yet, the name will still be listed).
 * 2-b) Use Google Earth, which usually lists the raion and oblast for every settlement.
 * 2-c) Use Falling Grain web site.

 * 3) Armed with the information for your location's geographical coordinates, raion and oblast, look at the pre-existin English Wikipedia article to determine whether it is the same village, town or city. If it is the same, then you may proceed to contribute to the existing article. If it is not the same, then you have discovered one of those instances where there are multiple Ukrainian locations with the same name. If this latter is the case, then you may feel free at this point to proceed to create a new article. However, before doing so, you need to go through Step Four first.

Step Four: If there is no pre-existing English Wikipedia article about the village, town or city that you are concerned with, AND if there is no existing English Wikipedia article about a different village, town or city that has the same name as yours, then you may skip this step.

If there is another English Wikipedia article about a village, town or city that shares the same name as the one you are concerned with, then you need to complete this step before creating the article and giving it a name/title.

Here is the standard:

· 1: If there is no pre-existing English Wikipedia article about your Ukrainian location, give it the name of the village, town or city as the title of the new article.

· 2: If there is a pre-existing English Wikipedia article about your Ukrainian location, list the name of the village, town or ciy, followed by the name of its raion in parentheses. Example: Berezivka (Troyitskyi) (referring to the village of Berezivka, in the Yemilchyne raion).

· 3: Then create (if it hasn't been done already) a Wikipedia disambiguation page for the name of the village, town or city. Add all instances of its recurrence to this list. See the link above for details about how this is done. Be sure to also include a redirect link at the top of the article to the disambiguation page, in order to quickly refer users to the other articles in Wikipedia that share the same name.

To clarify this, here is an example of a possible use of this naming standard. There are over a dozen villages and towns scattered across Ukraine with the name Berezivka. Let us suppose that you want to create a page for one of these villages, located in the Troyitskyi raion, within the Luhansk oblast. Upon investigation, you discover that there already exists an English Wikipedia article about another village named Berezivka, located somewhere in the Odessa oblast. However, there are no other villages with that name listed yet, just the one. Here's what you do:

 * First, create a new article, and name it Berezivka (Troyitskyi). Do not include the word "raion" in the name. Make sure to put the name of the raion in parentheses after the name of the village, as the title/name of the article you're creating.

 * Then, create a disambiguation page (refer to the disambiguation page on how to do this).

 * In the disambiguation page, list all of the English Wikipedia articles that might be referred to by the name Berezivka. Make a brief note after each of these for its location. Here's an example of what this might look like:
 * Berezivka may refer to:
 * Berezivka (a village in the Odessa Oblast)
 * Berezivka (a village in the Troyotskyi Raion)

Step Five: At this point, you're ready to start working on your article. Refer to other useful links and advice in the Ukraine WikiProject to assist, including lists of templates and infoboxes that will help create a nice article.

[[Image:Gtk-dialog-info.svg|20px|Infoboxes]] Infoboxes

 * See also Infobox.

Raions

 * Infobox for raions: Infobox settlement (see example at Boryspil Raion and Pechersk, Kiev)

Cities, towns, villages, etc

 * Infobox for cities: Infobox settlement (see examples at Khmelnytskyi, Sumy, and Yalta)

[[Image:Nuvola apps kcmpartitions.png|22px]] Templates

 * Administrative divisions of Ukraine - links to all the oblasti, municipalities and Krym. Placed at the end of an article.
 * Oblast - serves as a "form" to be used for all oblast navigational templates. Placed at the end of an article, but above the Administrative divisions of Ukraine template if such is presented.

Note: Insert a template by placing its name in double braces:. Link to a template normally, using double brackets:.

See also: Category:Ukrainian navigational boxes for the list of Ukrainian navigational templates.

Ukraine's subdivision template

 * Administrative divisions of Ukraine

Ukrainian oblast navigational boxes

 * Cherkasy Oblast Chernihiv Oblast Chernivtsi Oblast Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Donetsk Oblast Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast Kharkiv Oblast Kherson Oblast Khmelnytskyi Oblast Kirovohrad Oblast Luhansk Oblast Lviv Oblast Mykolaiv Oblast Odesa Oblast Poltava Oblast Rivne Oblast Sumy Oblast Sumy Oblast Vinnytsia Oblast Volyn Oblast Zakarpattia Oblast Zaporizhia Oblast Zhytomyr Oblast Subdivisions of Crimea Subdivisions of Kyiv Sevastopol
 * Example: Subdivisions of Kyiv