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Longsight

Longsight is an inner city area of Manchester, England, 3 mi south of the city centre, bounded by Ardwick and West Gorton to the north and east; Levenshulme to the south; and Chorlton-on-Medlock, Victoria Park and Fallowfield to the west. Historically in Lancashire, it had a population of 15,429 at the 2011 census.

History
As an ethnically and culturally diverse area, for many years, Longsight has been plagued by gang related violence, similar to that of nearby Moss Side. Most of the violence came from tensions between two rival gangs which fought "turf wars" with each other since the 1990s, resulting in many shootings and several deaths. The Gooch Gang, from neighbouring Moss Side, were jailed in 2009, Consequently, gun crime in Greater Manchester as a whole has fallen dramatically, from a high of 120 gang-related shootings in 2006 to just 16 in 2011.

Governance
Longsight has been in the parliamentary constituency of Manchester Gorton since boundary changes in 1983. The seat has been represented in Westminster by since June 2017 by Afzal Khan, the former Lord Mayor of Manchester.

The area is represented on Manchester City Council by three councillors, currently Abid Chohan, Shahbaz Sarwar and Suzanne Richards. Abid Chohan was initially a Lib Dem councillor but defected to Labour ahead of the local council elections in 2010.
 * Councillors

indicates seat up for re-election. indicates councillor defected.

Geography
Previously known as Grindlow Marsh, it was incorporated into the City of Manchester in 1890. The district is bordered by Ardwick to the north, Rusholme to the west, Levenshulme to the south, and Gorton to the east, defined by Hyde Road, Grey Street, Stockport Road, Plymouth Grove, Daisy Bank Road, Pine Grove, Merwood Grove, Ash Grove, Longford Pl, Ayton Grove, Laindon Rd, Curzon Ave, Richmond Grove, Hathersage Road, Anson Road, Dickenson Road, Beresford Road, Old Hall Lane, Stockport Road, East Road, Pink Bank Lane, Nutsford Vale, Buckley Road and Mount Road. The old Roman road to Buxton (the A6, Stockport Road) bisects the area.

Demography
Longsight has a very ethnically diverse population. According to the 2011 UK census, 72.9% of the population is from non-white ethnic groups, a 20% increase over the 2001 figure of 52.7%. This includes 55.3% who describe themselves as South Asian or South Asian British (including 35.7% Pakistani, 11.4% Bangladeshi); and 9.7% Black or Black British. The largest religious group is Muslim with 53.8% of the population, compared with the 2001 figure of 34.7% Muslim and 38.6% Christian. 7.0% of the population declined to state a religion, with 12.7% stating no religion. The census tended to underestimate immigrant communities, and it is likely that these groups in Longsight were underestimated and are now proportionately larger.

There are a number of places of Worship in the area, including a large Pakistani community centre, a Jain temple, the Russian Orthodox Church of the Pokrov, Saint Agnes' Church, Bethshan International Church, and the British Conference of The Church of God (Seventh Day).

Economy
The main shopping centre is near the corner of Stockport Road and Dickenson Road, and contains a library and supermarkets as well as many smaller shops. Longsight Market, one of the busiest markets in the England, is located on Dickenson Road. It can be easily spotted by its brightly coloured profiled roofs. The market hosts a general market every Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday and a second-hand market every Tuesday and Thursday. There are a large number of authentic Pakistani takeaway food shops and restaurants and a very wide variety of fresh fruit and vegetables and other supplies to cater for the interests of the various immigrant communities in the area.

Architecture and housing
The area of Longsight contains many of the notable buildings of Victoria Park. Daisy Bank Road is a particularly good example, featuring Edgar Wood's Grade I listed First Church of Christ, Scientist and the Edwardian art nouveau Chadlington House, as well as the residences of Charles Hallé and Emmeline Pankhurst. Pankhurst's family house is also situated on the edge of Longsight at Plymouth Grove.

Larger Victorian period properties are predominantly clustered around the leafy western parts of Longsight, an area informally known as Westpoint. Many grand Victorian villas can also be found overlooking Crowcroft Park in the most southern part of Longsight.

Situated on Stockport Road near the main market of Longsight is Longsight Library. Run by Manchester City Council, it provides services such as borrowing books, adult education services and a child homework centre. Great measures have been taken to make the architectural view of new Longsight Library building aesthetically pleasing.

The Apollo Theatre, Longsight Market, Noman Newsagents, Crowcroft Park and new Longsight Library are the important places in the Longsight area.

Railway
A spur of the West Coast Main Line passes through Longsight, which is located between Manchester Piccadilly and Stockport.

The area was once served by Longsight railway station, but this was closed in 1958. The nearest station is now at Levenshulme, which provides local Northern stopping services between Manchester, Stockport and locations in Cheshire. Ardwick station is also situated nearby, on the Hope Valley line, but has a threadbare service.

Longsight Electric TMD and Longsight Diesel TMD service trains for Avanti West Coast, CrossCountry, Northern and TransPennine Express. A plan to house Eurostar trains at Manchester International Depot was abandoned in the 1990s.

The earliest railway works was set up in 1842 by the Manchester and Birmingham Railway (M&BR). Little is known about its early history, except that it produced fifteen single wheeler passenger engines to a design by Sharp, Stewart and Company. In 1846, the M&BR was amalgamated with the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) under John Ramsbottom. One 0-6-0 was produced in 1858, but then the works closed down as the LNWR transferred its operations to Crewe. The Longsight steam locomotive depot provided engines for express trains to London and elsewhere, and for local passenger trains.

Buses
Bus services in the area are provided by Stagecoach Manchester. The 192, according to Stagecoach, is the busiest bus route in Great Britain, with around 9 million passengers carried annually. The service runs every 5–10 minutes daily until the late hours.

The following routes serve Longsight:
 * 53: Cheetham Hill – Gorton – Rusholme – Old Trafford – Salford Quays – Pendleton
 * 150: Gorton – Levenshulme – Chorlton-cum-Hardy – Stretford – The Trafford Centre
 * 191: Manchester (Albert Sq.)– Longsight – Levenshulme – Stockport – Stepping Hill Hospital – Hazel Grove
 * 192: Manchester (Piccadilly) – Longsight – Levenshulme – Stockport – Stepping Hill Hospital – Hazel Grove
 * 197: Manchester (Albert Sq.) - Longsight – Levenshulme – Green End – Stockport

Roads
The A6, which connects Carlisle with Luton, passes through Longsight; it connects the suburb with Stockport and Manchester city centre.

Notable residents

 * Aziz Ibrahim, former guitarist for The Stone Roses.
 * Charles Hallé lived at 3 Addison Terrace, on the north side of Daisy Bank Road in Victoria Park, in 1848; he was founder of the Hallé Orchestra.
 * Artist Ford Madox Brown lived at the same address as Hallé from 1883 to 1887.
 * Edwin Chadwick, social reformer and liberal politician, was born in Longsight. He was later partially responsible for the 1848 Public Health Act and then the succeeding 1875 Public Health Act. A Wetherspoons pub in the area was named the 'Sir Edwin Chadwick', but was closed within three years after custom failed to live up to expectations.
 * Jason Garrity, speedway rider.
 * John Thaw, the television, stage and cinema actor, was born in Longsight in 1942.
 * Ethel 'Sunny' Lowry, the first British woman to swim the English Channel, was born in Longsight in 1911.
 * Former Manchester United footballers Danny Welbeck and Wes Brown are both from the area.
 * Harry Potter star Afshan Azad was born in Longsight.
 * Keith Bennett, one of the Moors murders victims, was from Longsight. He was 12 years old when he disappeared on his way from his house to that of his grandmother on 16 June 1964. His disappearance was reported to police the following morning but, in spite of endless police searches, he was not found. 22 years later, in November 1986, Moors murderers Ian Brady (who had also lived in Longsight when he was younger) and Myra Hindley revealed that he was one of their victims, just as police had first suspected after arresting them for three other murders in October 1965. Despite numerous searches for his body on Saddleworth Moor, it has yet to be found. His mother Winnie Johnson continued to live locally until her death in August 2012; she made constant calls in the media for help to locate her son's body.
 * Faisal Islam, of BBC News, grew up in Longsight and attended the local private school.
 * Oasis members Liam and Noel Gallagher were born in Longsight, but later moved to Burnage.

Cultural references
Longsight was immortalised in song by local singer Ian Brown formerly of the Stone Roses on his album Solarized. The song was titled "Longsight M13" reflecting the postcode of the area, which begins with M13. Graffiti appeared locally saying 'Stone Roses RIP' when the band split up, and 'Free Ian Brown' when he was jailed. The song was written with Brown's former bandmate, guitarist Aziz Ibrahim, who still lives in Longsight. Brown also mentions the area in the Stone Roses song "Daybreak" which contains the line "From Atlanta, Georgia, to Longsight, Manchester".

title: Longsight


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Stapeliinae

Stapeliinae is a subtribe of flowering plants within the tribe Ceropegieae of the subfamily Asclepiadoideae of the family Apocynaceae. The subtribe comprises about 35 genera, including both the stem-succulent "stapeliads" and the horticulturally popular genera Brachystelma and Ceropegia. The largest number of genera are native to Africa, but a more limited number of genera are widespread in Arabia and Asia. Historically, a similarly circumscribed taxon was treated as a separate tribe, Stapelieae.

Description
Most of the genera of plants within the subtribe Stapeliinae are to varying degrees stem succulents, often referred to as "stapeliads". Many of these resemble cacti, though are not closely related, as an example of convergent evolution. The stems are often angular, mostly four-angled in cross-section, but in some species there are six or more, with some species of Hoodia having more than thirty angles. In size they vary from less than 2.5 cm/1" in length to over 2 m/6" tall. The leaves are in most species reduced to rudiments, sometimes hardened and thorn-like, arranged on bumps or tubercles on the angles. Some species, however, still have recognisable leaves, most notably the Indian species Boucerosia frerei (syn. Frerea indica), and some members of Tridentea. Stapeliads are most abundant in warm, dry climates. In Africa, there are two separate regions where stapeliads have most diversified: northeast Africa, and Southern Africa. Several species are endemic to the small island of Socotra off the Horn of Africa. The Arabian Peninsula, and most specifically the country of Yemen, contain another concentration of species. Several more are found in the drier parts of Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Nepal, and Myanmar. A single species, Apteranthes europaea (syn. Caralluma europaea) is found in Europe, in the very southern part of the Iberian peninsula and in the island of Lampedusa. Stapeliads are often regarded as a climax group within the family because of their often structurally complex flowers. Certain aspects of these reproductive parts mirror the pollination systems in the orchid family and represent a case of parallel evolution though both groups are quite unrelated and have developed similar, though not identical means to achieve the ultimate goal of pollination and therefore reproduction. Most stapeliads use flies as pollinators, that are attracted to odours resembling dung or rotting meat, emanating from the flowers. Many of the flowers also bear some physical resemblance to rotting animal carcasses, leading to their popular name of "carrion flowers". However, not all stapeliads smell bad, or attract flies. Some species use beetles, bees, wasps, butterflies or moths as pollinators. Stapeliad flowers range in size from mere millimetres in species of Echidnopsis and Pseudolithos to those of Stapelia gigantea that can reach 40 cm/16" in diameter, and are some the largest of flowers to be found on any species of succulent.

Flowers are actinomorphic (radially symmetrical) with 5 free or fused sepals and petals. Some petals are formed in a shape of a star while some have a tubular shaped corolla. On some species, a raised ring or annulus is present in the center of the corolla. Instead of stamens and pistils, stapeliads contain a pollinarium.

Taxonomy
The first use of the subtribe (using the name Stapelieae) was by George Don in 1838. Don's taxon included both Ceropegia and Stapelia. Later workers, such as George Bentham, used these genera as the basis of two separate tribes, Ceropegieae and Stapeliae. The two tribes were formally reunited in 1991 as the tribe Ceropegieae. In 2004, Ulrich Meve and Sigrid Liede reintroduced the subtribe as a division of the tribe Ceropegieae, supported by molecular phylogenetic studies. Subsequent studies, including one in 2017, have confirmed the division of the tribe Ceropegieae into four subtribes, of which Stapeliinae is the most derived:

Genera
In 2014, Endress, Liede-Schumann and Meve placed the following genera in subtribe Stapeliinae. , some are treated as synonyms by Plants of the World Online.

 * Anomalluma Plowes, synonym of Pseudolithos
 * Apteranthes J.C.Mikan
 * Australluma Plowes
 * Baynesia Bruyns
 * Boucerosia Wight & Arn.
 * Brachystelma Sims
 * Caralluma R.Br.
 * Caudanthera Plowes
 * Ceropegia L.
 * Desmidorchis Ehrenb.
 * Duvalia Haw.
 * Duvaliandra M.G.Gilbert
 * Echidnopsis Hook.f.
 * Edithcolea N.E.Br.
 * Hoodia Sweet ex Decne.
 * Huernia R.Br.
 * Larryleachia Plowes
 * Lavrania Plowes
 * Monolluma Plowes
 * Notechidnopsis Lavranos & Bleck
 * Ophionella Bruyns
 * Orbea Haw.
 * Orbeanthus L.C.Leach, synonym of Orbea
 * Pectinaria Haw.
 * Piaranthus R.Br.
 * Pseudolithos P.R.O.Bally
 * Quaqua N.E.Br.
 * Rhytidocaulon P.R.O.Bally
 * Richtersveldia Meve & Liede
 * Socotrella Bruyns & A.G.Miller
 * Stapelia L.
 * Stapelianthus Choux ex White & Sloane
 * Stapeliopsis Pillans
 * Tavaresia Welw.
 * Tridentea Haw.
 * Tromotriche Haw.
 * Whitesloanea Chiov.

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

title: Stapeliinae


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Islam in Ethiopia

Islam is the second largest religion in Ethiopia behind Christianity, with 31.1 to 35 percent of the total population of around 120 million people professing the religion as of 2024.

Islam in Ethiopia dates back to the founding of the religion; in 615, when a group of Muslims were counseled by Muhammad to escape persecution in Mecca and travel to Ethiopia via modern-day Eritrea, which was ruled by Najashi, a pious Christian king. It is agreed by Islamic scholars that Najashi gave shelter to the Muslim refugees around 615–616 at Axum. Bilal ibn Ribah, the first Muezzin, the person chosen to call the faithful to prayer, and one of the foremost companions of Muhammad, was born in Mecca to an Abyssinian (Ethiopian) mother.

Introduction
Islam was in 2007 the second largest religion in Ethiopia with over 33.9% of the population. The faith arrived in Tigray, north of Ethiopia, at an early date, shortly before the hijira. The Kingdom of Aksum in Ethiopia was the first foreign country to accept Islam when it was unknown in most parts of the world. The kingdom also favored its expansion and making Islam present in the country since the times of Muhammad (571–632). Islam and Christianity are the two major religions and have co-existed for hundreds of years.

History
Muslims arrived in the Axumite Empire during the Hijarat as early disciples from Mecca, persecuted by the ruling Quraysh tribe. They were received by the Christian ruler of Axum, whom Arabic tradition has named Ashama ibn Abjar (King Armah in Ge'Ez and Amharic), and he settled them in Negash. Located in the Tigray Region. On the other hand, the principal center of Islamic culture, learning, and propagation has been Wello. The Quraysh sent emissaries to bring them back to Arabia, but the King of Axum refused their demands. The Prophet himself instructed his followers who came to the Axumite empire, to respect and protect Axum as well as live in peace with the native Christians. While the city of Medina, north of Mecca, ultimately became the new home of most of the exiles from Mecca, a 7th-century cemetery excavated inside the boundaries of Negash shows the Muslim community survived their departure.

The period of Fasilides (r. 1632–1667) gave Muslims a good opportunity to expand their religion throughout the country. Emperor Yohannis (r. 1667–1682) created a council of Muslims to establish their own quarters in Addis Alem, far from the Christians in the political commercial capital, Gondar town. Muslims were able to have their own space and the population of Muslims increased because of wider urbanization.

Islam and Christianity have had their conflicts within the country, from the birth of Islam into the 16th century Christians dominated the borderlands where Islam was more prominent. This brought about the settlement of Islam to Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa. In the Dahlak islands, the first Muslims resided in the 8th century until the 10th century where Islam spread along the Red Sea and Islam was restricted to northern Ethiopia because Christianity was already more dominant in the rest of the country. The port of Zeila allowed Islam to enter through the eastern and central parts of Ethiopia where Christianity had not reached yet.

During the 19th century, Emperor Tewodros II (r. 1855–1868) demanded that his Muslim subjects convert to Christianity or leave his empire. Some Muslims converted due to coercion; non-converts moved to the western parts of the Gojjam, near Sudan, where they continued practicing Islam. Tewodros' successor, Emperor Yohannes IV (r. 1872–1889) continued to coerce Muslims into converting to achieve religious uniformity by ordering them to be baptized within three years. Islam developed more rapidly in the eastern part of the Horn region, particularly among the Somali and Harari. This was challenged by the mostly Christian northern people of Abyssinia, including Amhara, Tigray and north western Oromo. However the north and northeastern expansion of the Oromo, who practiced mainstream traditional Waaqa, affected the growth of Islam in its early days. Historian Ulrich Braukamper says, "the expansion of the non-Muslim Oromo people during subsequent centuries mostly eliminated Islam in those areas." However, following the centralization of some Oromo communities, some of them adopted Islam and today constitutes over 50% of their population.

In the 16th century, Muslims from the Adal Sultanate embarked on a Conquest of Abyssinia (Futuh al-Habash) under the command of Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi (referred to as Gragn Mohammed or "Mohammed the left-handed" in Amharic).

Under the former Emperor Haile Selassie, Muslim communities could bring matters of personal and family law and inheritance before Islamic courts; many did so and probably continued to do so under the revolutionary regime. However, many Muslims dealt with such matters in terms of customary law. For example, the Somali and other pastoralists tended not to follow the requirement that daughters inherit half as much property as sons, particularly when livestock was at issue. In parts of Eritrea, the tendency to treat land as the corporate property of a descent group (lineage or clan) precluded following the Islamic principle of division of property among one's heirs.

The First Hijrah
When Mohammed saw the persecution to which his followers were subjected to in Mecca, he told them to find safe haven in northern Ethiopia, Abyssinia, where they would "find a king there who does not wrong anyone." It was the first hijra (migration) in Islamic history.

The persecution his followers suffered was due to polytheists who harmed the weaker Muslims and blackmailed richer Muslims, causing a severe decline in business. The abuse the Muslims endured eventually led people to convert while others held their Islamic beliefs. Abdullah ibn Masud was a new convert and participated in a Muslim group where a member suggested reciting the Qur’an in Masjid al-Haram because the people of the Quraysh never heard it before. Abdullah agreed to do so and the polytheists were so amazed they pounded on him until he bled to prevent the verses from affecting them.

Subsequently, because of the threats early Muslims suffered the verses from An-Nahl were revealed. According to historians, these verses were specifically sent as instructions for the migration to Abyssinia. The threats by the polytheists were so harsh it prompted the Prophet to save his people and have them migrate to Abyssinia to escape the harassment making it the first migration in Islam.

The fourth holiest Muslim city
Ethiopia is home to Harar. According to UNESCO, it is regarded as the fourth holy city of Islam. It has 82 mosques, three of which date from the 10th century, as well as 102 shrines. The city of Harar is located in Eastern Ethiopia and got its role of being an Islamic center in the 16th century AD. Harar is contained by a djugel, a wall built of local Hashi stone bonded together by mud and wood and it was able to protect the city from the invasion of the non-Muslim Oromo in 1567. Harar began to develop the characteristics of an Islamic city with the Shafi‘i school in the 19th century as well as Harar serving as a conduit for the spreading of Islam in the Oromo population during an Islamization campaign under the reign of Amir Muhammad. The 82 mosques in Harar have served a religious and social function for society. Once a day men go and pray in the mosque while the women pray at home, though construction has begun to areas where women can pray as well. Mosques would also allow Islamic learning such as the interpretation of the Quran, the Arabic language, and the principles of Islam.

Sunni
Muslims in Ethiopia are predominantly Sunni. In Sunni Islam, there are four schools of thought and three of them are located in Ethiopia, the main one is held by the Shafi‘i school. Roughly 98% of Ethiopian Muslims are Sunni, whilst another 2% adhere to other sects.

Shia
Shia Islam is not represented in Ethiopia compared to other denominations.

Ibadism
Ibadis were allegedly seen as the most admirable Muslims to be eligible for the caliphate office and are known for being the earliest sect of Islam. There are about 500,000 Ibadis residing in North and East Africa as well as Oman and Tanzania.

Islamic Orthodox
The Orientalist notion defined Islamic Orthodoxy "as the point of departure that consequently measured other practices and beliefs as syncretistic or pre-Islamic." J. Spencer Trimingham the author of Islam in Ethiopia examined the impacts of Islam in the country and arranged his analysis by a hierarchical typology of different forms of appropriation categorized as an "orthodox system." Institutions of Islamic learning in Ethiopia were maintaining an Islamic Orthodoxy within the community.

Muslim land rights
Muslims were one of the marginalized groups that were not allowed access to land until the 1974 revolution. The revolution brought forth major changes to the socio-political and religious position of Ethiopian Muslims. In Gojjam, most Muslims did not have access to land, but had ways to get around it. They could rent, buy land, or enter in a crop sharing verbal agreement with the landowner. Muslims did not have the right to own, administer, or inherit land they simply were only allowed to live as tenants. If a verbal agreement was not an option, another way Muslims were able to acquire land was by clearing out unoccupied land and settling there, but only if they were able to offer some type of service to the balebat. Muslims were marginalised in Ethiopia, but particularly in Gojjam.

Rise of Salafism/Wahhabism
Salafism/Wahhabism is derived from al-salaf, signifying a link back to what is known as pure and authentic Islam. The main aspect of Salafism is the emphasis on the idea that there is only one God. In Ethiopia, the concept of Salafism applies to the resistance of pilgrimages to local shrines, celebration of the Prophet's birthday and other practices. Saudi Arabia is known for the rise of Salafism in Ethiopia, but the arrival of Salafism in Ethiopia is due to the Italian occupation from 1936 to 1941. Many Ethiopians were making their way to hajj when they were subsidized by the Italians and introducing Salafi teachings to the town of Harar, before spreading to other parts of the country.

The Wahhabism movement began to spread in the 1990s due to the political transition in 1991 and the arrival of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). The EPRDF promised a change within Ethiopia's religious groups through decentralizing the structure of ethnic federalism to enable Salafi's to raise their activities. During this period, a new generation of Salafi's emerged. Salafi teachings became widespread due to organizations in Ethiopia like, World Association of Muslim Youth (WAMY). the Islamic Da'wa and Knowledge Organization, and the Awolia College. Besides the organizations the Salafi movement was led by Oromo scholars who were developing the Salafi ideology in Ethiopia. The youth became involved in the movement and began to call people to align with the obligatory practices of Islam with strict Salafi teachings.

In January 2012 to August 2013, the city Addis Ababa was swarmed with protests by Muslim demonstrators because of the alleged government enforced al-Ahbash campaigns that they Muslims viewed it as an interference in religious affairs by the regime. The protests sparked concern within the regime of what looked like “extremism,” a concept that is accredited with the Salafi movement. Within the regime, local, and international observers are claiming that Wahhabism “extremists” are wanting to gain political power to turn Ethiopia into an Islamic State. Others have argued that Ethiopian Wahhabism are reluctant and opposed to getting involved in politics. Due to the expansion of the Wahhabism movement it has brought up intense debates over religious symbols and rituals, intrinsic to Ethiopian Islam.

Sharia Court
All around the world, Sharia courts are designed to question and make decisions regarding Muslim law. Sharia courts have existed in Ethiopia since the country accepted Islam and the influence of the religion in the coastal areas that is surrounding the country. The courts became officially recognized by the state in 1942 when the Proclamation for the Establishment of Khadis Courts was issued. The Proclamation defined the authority of the courts, but was repealed in 1994 by the Khadis and Naiba Councils Proclamation, providing a three set of courts: the Supreme Court of Sharia, the High Court of Sharia and the First Instance Court of Sharia each with its own judges and necessary number of Khadis. The Khadis and Naiba councils decide on any questions surrounding marriage such as divorce and guardianship of children all that must be related to Mohammedans law or all the parties are Muslim. Also, the councils decide on any questions about wills or succession given that the donor or deceased was a Muslim. Lastly, the courts decide on any questions regarding payments of the cost incurred by the aforementioned decisions. The provisions provided by the courts made the Ethiopian Muslim courts similar to ones Sudan, Nigeria and other Africa countries where Sharia courts exist to handle the personal laws of the Muslim population.

In terms of gender equality, sharia law has a different approach to tackling gender equality. Islamic law contains different ways to treat women that can be applied to courts for example, divorce, partition of property, inheritance and many more. Final decisions made by the Sharia court are treated as an exception to the constitutional standard of Article 9(1), which states “The Constitution is the supreme law of the land. All laws, customary practices, and decisions made by state organs or public officials inconsistent therewith, shall be null and void.” It raises a question about Ethiopia's commitment to human rights because personal status laws, which are under Ethiopia's jurisdiction of sharia courts are considered an area of law which discrimination on the basis of gender is established.

Muslims in contemporary Ethiopia
Much as the rest of the Muslim world, the beliefs and practices of the Muslims in Ethiopia are essentially the same: embodied in the Qur'an and the Sunnah. There are also Sufi brotherhoods present in Ethiopia such as the Qadiriyyah order in Wello. The most important Islamic religious practices, such as the daily ritual prayers (Salat) and fasting (Arabic صوم, Sawm, Ethiopic ጾም, S.om or Tsom - used by Christians during their holy days as well) during the holy month of Ramadan, are observed both in urban centers as well as in rural areas, among both settled peoples and nomads. Numerous Muslims in Ethiopia perform the pilgrimage to Mecca every year.

In Ethiopia's Muslim communities, as in neighboring Sudan and Somalia, many of the faithful are associated with, but not necessarily members of any specific Sufi order. Nevertheless, formal and informal attachment to Sufi practices is widespread. The emphasis seems less on the contemplative and disciplined mysticism, and more on the concentration of the spiritual powers possessed by certain founders of the orders and the leaders of local branches.

Muslims in contemporary Ethiopia have become actively engaged in challenging their political marginalization through the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front. They are persistent in wanting to engage with the EPRDF's basis of political legitimacy and challenging their forceful secularism that limits religion to the private domain. In the context of electoral politics, Muslims have become increasingly involved in voting blocs. Their demands include expanding into Western financial institutions, consolidation with other parts of the Islamic world and the right to religious expression freely.

title: Islam in Ethiopia


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George Gleig

George Gleig FRSE FSA LLD (12 May 1753 – 9 March 1840) was a Scottish minister who transferred to the Episcopalian faith and became Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church.

Life
He was born at Boghall Farm, near Arbuthnott in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, the son of a farmer. He was educated at Arbuthnott Parish School.

At the age of thirteen he entered King's College, University of Aberdeen, where the first prize in mathematics and physical and moral sciences fell to him. In his twenty-first year he took orders in the Scottish Episcopal Church, and was ordained to the pastoral charge of a congregation at Pittenweem, Fife, whence he removed in 1790 to Stirling. He became a frequent contributor to the Monthly Review, the Gentleman's Magazine, the Anti-Jacobin Review and the British Critic. In 1786 he declined the office of bishop of Brechin.

He also wrote several articles for the third edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, and on the death of the editor, Colin Macfarquhar, in 1793, was engaged to edit the remaining volumes. Among his principal contributions to this work were articles on Instinct, Theology and Metaphysics. The two supplementary volumes were mainly his own work.

In 1797 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were James Gregory, Sir James Hall, and Dugald Stewart.

He was twice chosen bishop of Dunkeld, but the opposition of Bishop Skinner, afterwards Primus of Scotland, rendered the election on both occasions ineffectual. In 1808 he was consecrated assistant and successor to the bishop of Brechin, in 1810 was preferred to the sole charge, and in 1816 was elected Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, in which capacity he greatly aided in the introduction of many useful reforms, in fostering a more catholic and tolerant spirit, and in cementing a firm alliance with the sister Church of England.

He died at Stirling. He is buried in the chapel of Greyfriars Church in Stirling.

Works

 * Letters containing an Apology for the Episcopal Church of Scotland (1787)
 * Some Account of the Life and Writings of the late William Robertson (1812)
 * Directions on the Study of Theology (1827)

Besides various sermons, Gleig was the author of Directions for the Study of Theology, in a series of letters from a bishop to his son on his admission to holy orders (1827); an edition of Thomas Stackhouse's History of the Bible (1817); and a life of Robertson the historian, prefixed to an edition of his works. See Life of Bishop Gleig, by the Rev. W. Walker (1879). Letters to Alexander Henderson of Edinburgh and John Douglas, bishop of Salisbury, are in the British Museum.

Family
In 1789 he married Janet Hamilton (a widow née Fullton). She died in 1824.

His third and only surviving son, George Robert, was a noted soldier and chaplain.

title: George Gleig


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Diadem

A diadem is a type of crown, specifically an ornamental headband worn by monarchs and others as a badge of royalty.

Overview
The word derives from the Greek διάδημα diádēma, "band" or "fillet", from διαδέω diadéō, "I bind round", or "I fasten". The term originally referred to the embroidered white silk ribbon, ending in a knot and two fringed strips often draped over the shoulders, that surrounded the head of the king to denote his authority. Such ribbons were also used to crown victorious athletes in important sports games in antiquity. It was later applied to a metal crown, generally in a circular or "fillet" shape. For example, the crown worn by Queen Juliana of the Netherlands was a diadem, as was that of a baron later (in some countries surmounted by three globes). The ancient Celts were believed to have used a thin, semioval gold plate called a mind (Old Irish) as a diadem. Some of the earliest examples of these types of crowns can be found in ancient Egypt, from the simple fabric type to the more elaborate metallic type, and in the Aegean world.

A diadem is also a jewelled ornament in the shape of a half crown, worn by women and placed over the forehead (in this sense, also called tiara). In some societies, it may be a wreath worn around the head. The ancient Persians wore a high and erect royal tiara encircled with a diadem. Hera, queen of the Greek gods, wore a golden crown called the diadem.

The "Priest King" statue made by the Indus Valley civilization (c. 3300) wore a headband that is possibly a diadem.

By extension, "diadem" can be used generally for an emblem of regal power or dignity. The Roman emperor's head regalia worn, from the time of Diocletian onwards, is described as a diadem in the original sources. It was this object that the Foederatus general Odoacer returned to Emperor Zeno (the emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire) after his expulsion of the usurper Romulus Augustus from Rome in 476 AD.

title: Diadem


text: User:ZakuSage

title: User:ZakuSage


text: User talk:64.108.194.166

title: User talk:64.108.194.166


text:
Alpha Comae Berenices

Alpha Comae Berenices (α Comae Berenices, abbreviated Alpha Com, α Com) is a binary star in the constellation of Coma Berenices (Berenice's Hair), 17.8 pc away. It consists of two main sequence stars, each a little hotter and more luminous than the Sun.

Alpha Comae Berenices is said to represent the crown worn by Queen Berenice. The two components are designated Alpha Comae Berenices A (officially named Diadem, the traditional name for the system) and B.

Nomenclature
α Comae Berenices (Latinised to Alpha Comae Berenices) is the system's Bayer designation. The designations of the two components as Alpha Comae Berenices A and B derive from the convention used by the Washington Multiplicity Catalog (WMC) for multiple star systems, and adopted by the International Astronomical Union (IAU).

The system bore the traditional names Diadem and Al Dafirah, the latter derived from the Arabic الضفيرة ađ̧-đ̧afīrah "the braid". In 2016, the International Astronomical Union organized a Working Group on Star Names (WGSN) to catalogue and standardize proper names for stars. The WGSN decided to attribute proper names to individual stars rather than entire multiple systems. It approved the name Diadem for the component Alpha Comae Berenices A on 1 February 2017 and it is now so included in the List of IAU-approved Star Names.

In Chinese, 太微左垣 (Tài Wēi Zuǒ Yuán), meaning Left Wall of Supreme Palace Enclosure, refers to an asterism consisting of Alpha Comae Berenices, Eta Virginis, Gamma Virginis, Delta Virginis and Epsilon Virginis. Consequently, the Chinese name for Alpha Comae Berenices itself is 太微左垣五 (Tài Wēi Zuǒ Yuán wǔ, the Fifth Star of Left Wall of Supreme Palace Enclosure.), representing 東上將 (Dōngshǎngjiāng), meaning The First Eastern General. 東上將 (Dōngshǎngjiāng), westernized into Shang Tseang, but that name was designated for "v Comae Berenices" by R.H. Allen and the meaning is "a Higher General".

Properties
Although Alpha Comae Berenices bears the title "alpha", at magnitude 4.32 it is actually fainter than Beta Comae Berenices.

It is a binary star, with almost equal components of magnitudes 5.05 m and 5.08 m orbiting each other with a period of 25.87 years. The system, estimated to be 58 light-years distant, appears so nearly "edge-on" from the Earth that the two stars appear to move back-and-forth in a straight line with a maximum separation of only 0.7 arcsec. Eclipses are predicted to occur between the two components however they have not been successfully observed due to miscalculations of the time of eclipse.

The mean separation between them is approximately 10 AU, about the distance between the Sun and Saturn.

The binary star has a visual companion, CCDM J13100+1732C, of apparent magnitude 10.2, located 89 arcseconds away along a position angle of 345°.

Alpha Comae Berenicis forms an isosceles triangle with globular star clusters Messier 53 and NGC 5053. The apparent diameter of this triangle is a little more than one degree. The location of Alpha Comae Berenicis is westward (preceding) of both globular star clusters.

title: Alpha Comae Berenices


text:
Talk:Chrétien de Troyes

Untitled
Hmmm. What about Tristan and Isolde? The article on Gottfried von Strassburg mentions Chrétien as an author in the series, but I don't see that here. Ben 23:04, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Chretien only mentions that he wrote a story about Iseult and Mark in the opening lines of his Cliges. It doesn't survive. - Cuchullain

Chrétien and Geometry
Is anyone aware of any published sources on the work of Dr Joan Helm about mathematical interpretations of the Arthurian Romances?

I recently came across this work on the ABC Science Show. Seems like it might be worth a mention in the article if some details can be found... Comtebenoit 15:46, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
 * No, I've never heard of that. If you find any more information, but it in.--Cuchullain 07:57, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

i have not only the information reguarding Dr Joan helms Work but i have every piece of her reasearch stored i can tell u now i dont understand 90%of it but if anyone is looking for information about it to contact me and i will do my best to help with what i have of hers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Bundybabe1131

Ok so still don't understand how all this works and its not letting me delete my earlier post so I'm adding another on just to say I have her work and there is currently a documentary being made about her work on this subject she is my grandmother Bundybabe1131 (talk) 16:02, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

Chretien is a pseudonym meaning Christian?
In the episode The Holy Grail of In Our Time (BBC Radio 4) the academics seem agreed that Chretian may just be a pseudonym, meaning 'Christian' for someone with an entirely different name. I seem unable to find a source for this online (though the programme is itself available to listen to for anyone interested) via the BBC's In Our Time website. The programme also specualtes that he may have been a coverted jew and that the Candleabra in his Perceval is associated with the Kabbalah. --bodnotbod 16:23, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I've heard he was a converted Jew too, but if that were the case, "Chretien" would be less of a pseudonym and more of an assurance of his conversion. --BDD (talk) 17:38, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

 * No one really knows anything about him. Chretien may be a pseudonym, but that's just speculation, as is the theory that he was a converted Jew (though I'd like to know the basis of that speculation).--Cúchullain t/ c 18:01, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
 * "Christian" is a French name (like "Wolfram" can be a German name), derived from "Chrétien" which could've been the medieval form of "Christian", simple enough. Now, stating that he actually was the jewish medieval french rabbi Rashij is not only highly speculative (without offering any serious foundation apart from the fact that both bore "From Troyes" in their names - a region where much more than one single human being was living), but also fallaciously wrong (a BIG LIE) : indeed, Rashi died in July 1105, while what we know is that Chrétien de Toryes served at the court of his patroness Marie of France, Countess of Champagne, between 1160 and 1172. Please remove that lie. --HawkFest (talk) 17:09, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Some years ago, I added the speculation that "Chretien" may have been chosen to distinguish this writer from Troyes from his predecessor, Rashi. I don't know who made the implausible speculation that they were the same person. Richard M. Waugaman, M.D. (talk) 21:48, 20 March 2018 (UTC)Richard M. Waugaman, M.D.

Romances are not Novels
I've never, in my life, heard of Chretien identified as a novelist. Nor should he be. His mode of writing is that of romance, essentially debased epic. Some later romances, maybe there's an argument. It gets fuzzy towards the end. His - not at all. These romances also, aside from the lit crit perspective, are just too short to be novels. The father of "French novels" is thus a bit of a stretch.

The same standards that establish his work as a novel could establish every epic and romance as one. The view presented at the end by Uitti is not a commonly held one. Historians are always trying to assert that X/Y/Z "really started" in their period of study. It didn't. It's facts to suit theories. The only "early novel" I'll bite on is maybe Apuleius and some late Romances. Guinness4life (talk) 14:22, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

 * I think what Uitti is saying is that in some respects Chretien's work (in particular Yvain) represent certain steps towards the novel in plotting and structure (as opposed to, for instance, the way Celtic narratives, epic poems, etc., are written). Obviously, in other ways, it's not at all like a modern novel - it's verse, not prose, and it's not very long. I think the stuff about him being the "first novelist" or "creating the novel" are not a good representation of his argument, so I've tried to amend it.--Cúchullain t/ c 14:56, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Infobox needed
Please put an infobox for this article, thx. Tuanminh01 (talk) 09:31, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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The removed huge quotes
French medievalist Karl Uitti writes that:

Like Wace and Benoît de Sainte-Maure before him, Chrétien de Troyes was a court poet, that is, a clerc attached to a noble court, in his case the court of the count and countess of Champagne (and later, after the death of Henri le Libéral de Champagne, the court of Philippe d'Alsace, count of Flanders). Wace had described himself as a cler lisant, by which he probably meant a school-trained man of letters whose principal job was to praise his patrons and their lineage in vernacular narratives, as well as to provide them with spiritually edifying stories (principally, saints' lives). By Chrétien's time (the 1160s and 1170s), such values as courtoisie (courtesy and "courtliness") and fin'amor, as well as honorable chevalerie and its counterpart, learned clergie, had come to predominate in the aristocratic ideals of, first, the French-speaking English nobility and, next, the noblesse of Continental France and, somewhat later, that of Germany. It was incumbent upon the clerc to celebrate these values and to analyse them in works of narrative (and at times even in lyric song). To this end old stories of Celtic origin--Tristan and Iseut, Arthurian tales--offered a seemingly inexhaustible reserve of material, and romance narrative, a genre well conceived to explore the possible discrepancies between what appears to be so and what actually is, fastened upon them--especially in the work of Chrétien de Troyes. These stories also surely appealed to the imagination of clercs who, like Chrétien, obviously delighted in them: they must have seemed ready-made for the display of poetic fireworks to be found in all his romances--Chrétien's sheer artfulness.

William Wistar Comfort writes that: A French narrative poet of the twelfth century had three categories of subject-matter from which to choose: legends connected with the history of France ("matiere de France"), legends connected with Arthur and other Celtic heroes ("matiere de Bretagne"), and stories culled from the history or mythology of Greece and Rome, current in Latin and French translations ("matiere de Rome la grant"). Chretien tells us in Cliges that his first essays as a poet were the translations into French of certain parts of Ovid's most popular works: the Metamorphoses, the Ars Amatoria, and perhaps the Remedia Amoris. But he appears early to have chosen as his special field the stories of Celtic origin dealing with Arthur, the Round Table, and other features of Celtic folk-lore. Not only was he alive to the literary interest of this material when rationalised to suit the taste of French readers; his is further the credit of having given to somewhat crude folk-lore that polish and elegance which is peculiarly French, and which is inseparably associated with the Arthurian legends in all modern literature. Though Beroul, and perhaps other poets, had previously based romantic poems upon individual Celtic heroes like Tristan, nevertheless to Chretien, so far as we can see, is due the considerable honour of having constituted Arthur's court as a literary centre and rallying-point for an innumerable company of knights and ladies engaged in a never-ending series of amorous adventures and dangerous quests. Rather than unqualifiedly attribute to Chretien this important literary convention, one should bear in mind that all his poems imply familiarity on the part of his readers with the heroes of the court of which he speaks. One would suppose that other stories, told before his versions, were current. Some critics would go so far as to maintain that Chretien came toward the close, rather than at the beginning, of a school of French writers of Arthurian romances. But, if so, we do not possess these earlier versions, and for lack of rivals Chretien may be hailed as an innovator in the current schools of poetry.

SNAAAAKE!! (talk) 08:26, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

title: Talk:Chrétien de Troyes


text:
Patriotic Front (Zimbabwe)

The Patriotic Front in Zimbabwe was a coalition of two African Leadership parties: the Zimbabwe African Peoples Union (ZAPU) and the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) which had worked together to fight against white minority rule in Rhodesia.

In 1980 elections ZAPU contested as Patriotic Front whereas ZANU contested as ZANU-Patriotic Front.

In 1988 the ruling ZANU absorbed ZAPU to become Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) for good.

title: Patriotic Front (Zimbabwe)


text:
José Serra

José Serra Chirico (born 19 March 1942) is a Brazilian politician who has served as a Congressman, Senator, Minister of Planning, Minister of Health, Mayor of São Paulo, Governor of São Paulo state, and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Brazil.

Early life
José Serra was born in the São Paulo neighbourhood of Mooca to Francesco Serra, an Italian immigrant from Corigliano Calabro, Calabria, and Serafina Chirico, a Brazilian born to Italian parents. Serra comes from a lower middle class family. His father was semi-illiterate and worked as a fruit vendor in a market of São Paulo, but he was able to enroll his only child in college. In the early 1960s, he was a prominent member of the socio-political movement Ação Popular which opposed the conservative political system that existed at the time.

Serra interrupted his studies in engineering at age 22 and left the country in 1964, after the coup that established the military government in Brazil. Serra came to the attention of the authorities having served as President of the União Nacional dos Estudantes (UNE), (National Student Union) which opposed the existing conservative regime while he was a 4th year engineering student at the Polytechnic School at the University of São Paulo.

José Serra was in exile from 1964 to 1978 in Bolivia, France, Chile, and the United States. In Chile, he did his master's degree in Economics and taught economics at the University of Chile (Universidad de Chile). There he also married Monica Allende (1967), then a top ballerina at the National Ballet of Chile. They had two children, Veronica (1969) and Luciano (1973). In the United States José Serra was awarded a Masters and Ph.D. in economics at Cornell University (Ithaca, NY) and later spent 2 years at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ.

On returning to Brazil after the political amnesty in 1978, Serra lectured in economics at the University of Campinas, did research for Cebrap, and wrote for the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo.

Political career
In 1982 he was appointed São Paulo's State Secretary for Economics and Planning under Franco Montoro's governorship, and became an influential secretary of Montoro's government. In 1986 and 1990 he was elected and then reelected to Congress. In 1994 he was elected Senator for the State of São Paulo with more than 6.5 million votes.

His first bid for the mayorship of the City of São Paulo came in 1988 in an election won for the Worker's Party (PT) by Luiza Erundina. He ran again in 1996, resigning as Minister of Planning to participate in the election for mayor, which was won by Celso Pitta. Pitta was the designated successor of mayor Paulo Maluf, who headed the right-wing populist Progressive Party (PP). After another stint as minister in the federal government, Serra ran for president on behalf of the PSDB party in 2002. He was beaten by four-time candidate and PT founder Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the second round.

In every elections since 1988 Serra represented the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), which he helped found in 1988 alongside former and future São Paulo State governors Franco Montoro and Mario Covas and future Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, from a split in the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB). PSDB was seen as a coalition of democrats, liberals and social democrats with more centrist outlook than the leftist Workers' Party (PT) of presidents Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff. Both parties have great support in São Paulo state, but the state has been governed by the PSDB since 1994.

Serra came to political prominence under Fernando Henrique Cardoso's presidency (1994–2002), when he was appointed minister of planning, and later minister of health. During Serra's tenure in the Health Ministry, the generic drug industry, which gave wider access to medicines to a poor population, and ANVISA, the Brazilian food and drug regulatory agency, were both created. All forms of tobacco advertising were banned, and cigarette packages were required to display images of smoking-related diseases.

Mayor of São Paulo
Serra was elected mayor of São Paulo in 2004, defeating incumbent Marta Suplicy in the second round. Serra created the Virada Cultural, a 24-hour cultural festival inspired by the French Nuit Blanche. He also established the Bilhete Único system in the São Paulo Metro subway system.

Serra sought nomination as the PSDB candidate for president in the 2006 elections, but on March 14, 2006, decided to run instead for governor of the state of São Paulo. He resigned as mayor of São Paulo, although he had signed a pledge to finish his four-year term. Gilberto Kassab, the deputy mayor, took office and remained the mayor until 2012. Serra won the governor's race and on January 1, 2007, took office as the Governor of São Paulo State.

Subway cartel
Cases of corruption and cartel formation involving José Serra are relatively old, both in Brazil and abroad. Two interlinked controversies:
 * the so-called Alstom case,
 * Collusion between companies in the construction of the São Paulo subway.

Brazilian oil fields
Serra's campaign was supported by American oil companies such as ExxonMobil and Chevron. He secretly promised to sell the rights to Brazil's newest petroleum discoveries in the pre-salt layer to those companies, reversing the model of da Silva. Serra ended state-owned oil company Petrobras' role as the chief operator of the pre-salt oil fields, which have an estimated value of three trillion dollars – twice the size of Brazil's gross domestic product (GDP). WikiLeaks released several documents showing that Serra promised protection to Chevron in order to transfer control from Petrobras in case of election victory.

Role in Brazilian politics today
Serra was the presidential candidate of the incumbent Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB) party in 2002, an election he lost to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula). In 2004, he was elected mayor of São Paulo in a run-off election with 55% of the votes after he signed a public commitment to stay in office for the full term. Nevertheless, he resigned after 15 months to run for governor of São Paulo in 2006, and was elected in the first round with almost 60% of the vote.

Serra announced another run for the Brazilian presidency as the PSDB candidate in the 2010 elections. He received support from his party, as well as the Socialist People's Party (PPS) and the Democrats (DEM). His primary opposition in the election was Workers' Party (PT) candidate Dilma Rousseff. Serra's candidacy received support from O Estado de S. Paulo and British newspaper Financial Times. In the first-round voting October 3, 2010, an unexpectedly strong showing from Green Party candidate Marina Silva forced a second round run-off election between Serra and Rousseff on October 31, 2010, which Rousseff won 56% to 44%.

In February 2012, Serra announced he would run for mayor of São Paulo, which would have resulted in his second non-consecutive term, though he had left the first one before it ended. In the second round of the 2012 municipal elections he was defeated by Fernando Haddad, the Workers' Party candidate.

In August 2021, Serra was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and went in a medical leave from the Senate, returning in February 2022. He later decided to run for a seat in the Chamber of Deputies after an invitation made by the Social Democracy Party. Serra got 88,926 votes, placing 5th in the PSDB list, not being elected for Congress.

title: José Serra


text:
Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church

The primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, styled "The Most Reverend the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church", is the presiding bishop of the Scottish Episcopal Church. The current Primus is the Most Revd. Mark Strange who became primus on 27 June 2017.

The word literally means "first" in Latin and is cognate to the related episcopal title Primate.

Roles
The Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church has the following tasks:
 * to preside at all provincial liturgical functions
 * to preside at all meetings of the General Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church
 * to preside at all meetings of the Episcopal Synod
 * to declare and carry out the resolutions of the General Synod, the Episcopal Synod and the College of Bishops
 * to represent the Scottish Episcopal Church in its relation to all other churches of the Anglican Communion and other communions
 * to perform the functions and duties of primus as specified in the canons of the Scottish Episcopal Church
 * to correspond on behalf of the Scottish Episcopal Church with primates, metropolitans and the secretary general of the Anglican Consultative Council.

History
The primus does not have any metropolitan jurisdiction. Metropolitan responsibilities are held by the diocesan bishops. The last head of the Scottish Episcopal Church to hold both primate and metropolitan titles was Arthur Rose, Archbishop of St Andrews, up to his death in 1704. The last bishop to exercise metropolitan authority was Alexander Rose, Bishop of Edinburgh, up to his death in 1720.

Bishops elected as primus
Holders of the role since the creation of the post in the early 18th century.

title: Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church


text:
User:Neo2256

Hello, Im glad you have found my wikipedia page.

My hobbies include Computer Science, History and Sociology.

I can be reached by email at neo2256@gmail.com

Well, Say hello. --Neo2256 23:06, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

title: User:Neo2256


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/International dollar

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

Suspected to be original research. Delete unless verified. [[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk, automation script)]] 23:06, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)
 * Well, even I was surprised. [[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk, automation script)]] 07:27, Dec 14, 2004 (UTC)

 * Delete unless verified. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:05, Dec 14, 2004 (UTC)
 * Per Talk:International_dollar, it is (more or less) verified, although it sure is murky. -- Jmabel | Talk 02:52, Dec 18, 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep but revert to this version, and remove the spurious later additions. The article was originally about a serious, notable subject but it appears to have been hijacked to promote someone's wacky ideas for a world currency. [[User:GeorgeStepanek|GeorgeStepanek\talk ]] 01:36, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * I have boldly done the reversion myself, and vote keep. If anybody can verify any of the information deleted during this reversion, feel free to add it. [[User:Livajo|Ливай | ☺]] 02:41, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

 * Keep, and agree with the reversion. It's a genuine concept in macroeconomics and foreign trade, but there is a great deal of speculative original research tacked on now.  Geogre 02:17, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. The economic concept is certainly verifiable.  It is, for example, the common reporting measure used by the United Nations Statistics Division (see ).  I can find no source verifying the plans for an international currency as described in the now reverted section of this article but even if those plans are verified, they are in the wrong place.  Rossami (talk) 03:35, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep it. —[[en:RaD Man|RaD Man (talk)]] 07:12, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep, the concept's been around for a long time. Wyss 13:01, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep, but an economist needs to sort out the article. — Trilobite (Talk) 14:53, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep, I would have no idea about this concept without this page CoolGuy 04:56, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep, It seems that all people are for keeping it (the current revision), so why not remove the deletion-vote-boxAlinor 13:31, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion or on the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.


text:
User talk:Saads

Welcome
Welcome!

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you have any questions, check out Where to ask a question or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! Jayjg 23:06, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Blu-ray Disc
Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the  link at the top. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to...) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome.

—Locke Cole • t • c 05:47, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

title: User talk:Saads


text: Category:Aztec

title: Category:Aztec


text:
Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient

Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient ( Schröder; 6 December 1804 – 26 January 1860), was a German operatic soprano. As a singer, she combined a rare quality of tone with dramatic intensity of expression, which was as remarkable on the concert platform as in opera.

Biography
Schröder was born in Hamburg, the daughter of the actress Sophie Schröder and the tenor Friedrich Schröder. The poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was her 2nd cousin.

Her first role was at the age of 15 as Aricia in Schiller's translation of Racine's Phèdre, and in 1821, aged 17, she was received with so much enthusiasm as Pamina in Mozart's The Magic Flute that her future career in opera was assured.

In 1823, she married Karl Devrient, becoming known as Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient, but separated from him in 1828. Meanwhile, she had maintained her popularity at Dresden and elsewhere. She made her first Paris appearance in 1830, and sang in London in 1833 and 1837.

Richard Wagner, born in 1813, claimed to have seen her as Leonore in Fidelio when he was 16, but this is almost certainly fanciful. He did hear (and conduct) her in numerous roles after 1834, however, and continued to laud her stage artistry right up until his essay "On Actors and Singers" (1872) which is dedicated to her memory. She created several roles for Wagner – Adriano in Rienzi, Senta in Der fliegende Holländer and Venus in Tannhäuser. Had Wagner's political profile not been compromised by his involvement with the Dresden uprising in May 1849, Schröder-Devrient would have created Elsa in Lohengrin which was advertised in 1849 as a forthcoming production in Dresden.

In 1847 she married David Oskar von Döring, an officer, but divorced him in 1848. She took part in the Revolution of 1848 and the Dresden uprising and was later imprisoned. In 1850 she married, a wealthy Livonian land owner, who was 14 years her junior. They settled first in Trikāta, Latvia, relocating later to von Bock's ancestral home in Loodi (Kersel) in Estonia. She left her husband in the winter of 1858, planning to move to America; but her health began to deteriorate rapidly.

She died in Coburg, Germany, on 26 January 1860.

Apocryphal memoirs
After her death, an erotic memoir in two volumes, Memoiren einer Sängerin (Memoirs of a Songstress), was wrongly attributed to her.

title: Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient


text:
St. Andrews Island

St. Andrews Island may refer to:
 * A former name of the Kunta Kinteh Island
 * A small island in St. Andrews Bay (Florida), USA
 * A small island by St. Andrews, Nova Scotia, Canada

title: St. Andrews Island


text:
Bruce Cameron (bishop)

Andrew Bruce Cameron (born 2 May 1941) is a Scottish Anglican bishop who served as the Bishop of Aberdeen and Orkney and the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church.

Cameron was born on 2 May 1941 in Glasgow, Scotland. He is the son of Andrew Macintyre Cameron and Helen Adam McKechnie. His brother, Douglas Maclean Cameron, was the Bishop of Argyll and the Isles from 1993 to 2003

Cameron was educated at Edinburgh Theological College between 1961 and 1964. After graduation, he was ordained a deacon in 1964 and a priest in 1965. He first served as curate at St Michael's and All Angels' Church, Helensburgh in Argyll and Bute, from 1964 to 1967. He was then posted to another curacy at Holy Cross Church, Edinburgh from 1967 to 1970

Cameron's quick advance in the church led him to become chaplain at St Mary's Cathedral, Edinburgh from 1971 to 1975. During this period he was the diocesan and provincial youth chaplain. Between 1975 and 1982, he was rector of St Mary's Church in Dalmahoy, followed by Team Minister in Livingston from 1982 to 1988 and then the rector of St John's Church in Perth from 1988 to 1992.

On 19 June 1992, he was consecrated Bishop of Aberdeen and Orkney at St. Andrew's Cathedral, Aberdeen. He was elected Primus on 1 November 2000.

At the meeting of the Primates of the Anglican Communion in February 2005, Cameron presented a summary of the worldwide responses to the Windsor Report on preserving the communion in the face of differences of opinion on sexuality.

Cameron stepped down as Primus in April 2006 and retired as Bishop of Aberdeen and Orkney at the end of June 2006 (as he reached the clerical retirement age of 65). He is married to Elaine (née Gingles) and they have two sons. Following his retirement, he served as an assistant bishop in the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America for several months in 2008.

title: Bruce Cameron (bishop)


text:
Earth orbit rendezvous

Earth orbit rendezvous (EOR) is a method for conducting round trip human flights to the Moon, involving the use of space rendezvous to assemble, and possibly fuel, components of a translunar vehicle in low Earth orbit. It was considered as an alternative to direct ascent but ultimately rejected in favor of lunar orbit rendezvous (LOR) for NASA's Apollo program of the 1960s and 1970s, mainly because LOR does not require a spacecraft big enough to both make the return trip from Earth orbit to splash down in the ocean, and a soft landing on the lunar surface. The two main proposed methodologies were: the in-space assembly of fueled spacecraft modules via docking techniques; and the in-space refueling of fully assembled spacecraft. This was the preferred approach adopted by the Soviet Union for achieving human lunar missions.

Three decades later, it was planned to be used for Project Constellation, until that program's cancellation in October 2010.

Gemini and Agena target vehicle
The Agena target vehicle (ATV) was used for testing Earth orbit rendezvous in the NASA Gemini Program. Gemini 6 and Gemini 7 rendezvoused in orbit in 1965, but without Agena. Next, Gemini 8 successfully docked with the Agena on March 16, 1966. The Agena-Gemini rendezvous also achieved other objectives in later Gemini launches, including docked orbital maneuvering (Gemini 10 and Gemini 11), inspection of the abandoned Gemini 8 ATV (Gemini 10) and space walks (Gemini 12).

Apollo
The EOR proposal for Apollo consisted of using a series of small rockets half the size of a Saturn V to put different components of a spacecraft to go to the Moon in orbit around the Earth, then assemble them in orbit. Experiments of Project Gemini involving docking with the Agena target vehicle were designed partly to test the feasibility of this program.

In the end, NASA employed the Lunar Orbit Rendezvous for the Apollo Program: a Saturn V would simultaneously lift both the Apollo Command and Lunar Modules into low Earth orbit, and then the Saturn V third stage would fire again (Trans-lunar injection) to send both spacecraft to the Moon.

Constellation
This mode had been revived for Project Constellation as the Earth Departure Stage (EDS) and Altair (LSAM), which would be launched into low Earth orbit on the Ares V rocket. The EDS and Altair would be met by the separately launched Orion (CEV). Once joined in low Earth orbit, the three would then travel out to the Moon and the Orion/Altair combination would fly a lunar orbit rendezvous flight pattern.

title: Earth orbit rendezvous


text:
Gavin McCann

Gavin Peter McCann (born 10 January 1978) is an English retired professional footballer who played as a midfielder in the English Premier League. He has one England cap to his name, playing against Spain at Villa Park in 2001. He is currently the First Team coach at Hyde United.

Club career
McCann played junior football for Y.M.C.A juniors in Lytham St Annes. He signed for Everton where he was a product of their academy. In 1998, he moved to Sunderland where he was a member of the side which won the Division One title and promotion to the Premiership with 105 points in 1999.

He signed for Aston Villa in 2003, where he had numerous injury setbacks. He scored one goal in the 2006–07 season in a 3–1 home loss to Manchester City. He was no longer guaranteed first team football, so decided to leave Villa Park, and in June 2007, he signed a five-year contract with Bolton Wanderers.

McCann scored his first goal for Bolton in their 1–0 UEFA Cup group win over Red Star Belgrade in December 2007 and followed this up with a goal in a 1–1 draw with Sporting Clube de Portugal at the Reebok Stadium three months later in the knockout stage of the cup. He scored his first league goal for Bolton in a 1–0 victory over Middlesbrough at the Riverside Stadium on 19 April 2008.

In November 2008 he received high acclaim from the Bolton manager Gary Megson who stated that the midfielder was playing some of the best football of his career since moving to the Reebok Stadium.

McCann's contract ran out at the end of June 2010, McCann had picked up a knee injury and Owen Coyle said that once he recovered from the injury, he would have a chance to earn a new contract.

In early 2011, teammate Kevin Davies confirmed on the social networking site Twitter that McCann had retired from the game having failed to overcome injury.

International career
McCann has played once for the England national team, in a friendly against Spain at Villa Park in 2001.

Coaching career
In February 2008, McCann launched his own football academy in Lytham St Annes, the first one on the Fylde coast. The Milligan-McCann Academy is aimed at 8- to 12-year-olds and runs at King Edward VII and Queen Mary School. McCann teamed up with former Blackpool players, Jamie Milligan, who has been at Fleetwood Town since 2004 and John Hills who also signed for Fleetwood Town in August 2008, both of whom were born in Blackpool and grew up with McCann, to create the academy. In October 2008 the academy landed a major sponsorship deal with Northern Care, with coaching sessions continuing at King Edward VII & Queen Mary School each weekend as well as week-long summer courses. The academy has also received a grant to encourage children to play "park football".

After retiring, McCann remained active at Bolton Wanderers in the backroom at youth level.

In May 2012, he was appointed as Assistant Manager and first team coach at Hyde, alongside manager Scott McNiven. He left Hyde's management team in early 2015, and studied for his professional coaching badges and also worked for Wrea Green FC on a Sunday morning whilst also playing in a soccer sixes league back where he started at Lytham YMCA.

In late 2015, he was back at Bolton, coaching their U15 team. In 2018, he was promoted to coaching Bolton's U18 team. He left Bolton on 29 January 2021.

After six years back at Bolton working with the academy sides, he returned to Hyde United as the first team coach in February 2022, reuniting once again with his former Wanderers colleague Nicky Spooner.

Personal life
McCann lives in Lytham St Annes with his wife and children.

title: Gavin McCann


text:
Skokomish River

The Skokomish River  is a river in Mason County, Washington, United States. It is the largest river flowing into Hood Canal, a western arm of Puget Sound. From its source at the confluence of the North and South Forks the main stem Skokomish River is approximately 9 mi long. The longer South Fork Skokomish River is 40 mi, making the length of the whole river via its longest tributary about 49 mi. The North Fork Skokomish River is approximately 34 mi long. A significant part of the Skokomish River's watershed is within Olympic National Forest and Olympic National Park.

Etymology and naming
The Twana-language name for the Skokomish River is, meaning "river." The North Fork Skokomish River is known as, and the South Fork Skokomish River as.

The name in English, "Skokomish," comes from the Twana name for the Indigenous inhabitants of the Skokomish watershed, the Skokomish people, (also spelled , and meaning "river people" or "people of the river"). The Skokomish were the largest of the nine different Twana communities before their amalgamation onto the reservation in the 1850s. Within these nine communities there were at least 33 settlements.

Course
The Skokomish River and its two tributary forks drain the southeast corner of the Olympic Mountains, mainly in Mason County but including a portion of Jefferson County. The main stem Skokomish River is formed by the confluence of the North Fork and South Fork near small community of Mohrweis. It flows east through the broad Skokomish Valley. After being crossed by U.S. Route 101 the river turns northeast. Washington State Route 106 crosses the river near its mouth on Hood Canal. Near the towns of Union and Skokomish the Skokomish River enters Annas Bay at the bend of Hood Canal from the south, where it creates a large estuary called Skokomish Flats. The lower portion of the river flows along the southern portion of the Skokomish Indian Reservation.

The South Fork Skokomish River originates near Sundown Pass in Olympic National Park, near the sources of the Wynoochee River and Graves Creek, a tributary of the Quinault River. The South Fork flows southeast out of the national park and between Capitol Peak, on the west, and Wonder Mountain on the east. After receiving Rule Creek from the west the South Fork turns more directly south and enters a broader valley. It receives Church Creek from the west, then turns to flow southeast and east through a widening river valley. A number of tributary streams join the South Fork, including Pine Creek and Cedar Creek, from the south, and Le Bar Creek, Brown Creek, and Harp Creek from the north. The South Fork Skokomish leaves the main Olympic Mountains and enters flatter terrain, but flows through gorges for several miles. After exiting the gorges the South Fork turns east and enters the broad Skokomish Valley where it joins with the North Fork to form the main stem Skokomish River.

The North Fork Skokomish River originates on the northern slopes of Mount Skokomish. It flows west into Olympic National Park. The valley of the North Fork Skokomish is used for one of the national park's main backcountry hiking trails. At the junction of Nine Stream, the river turns south, then turns southeast and receives a number of tributaries including Four Stream and Slate Creek. The river rushes over Staircase Rapids shortly upriver from Staircase Campground and the national park's Staircase Ranger Station. The Staircase area is the main entry into the southeast portion of Olympic National Park. The North Fork receives Elk Creek at the campground and Lincoln Creek shortly downstream. The river then meanders southeast into Lake Cushman, a reservoir created to supply Tacoma with electricity. The tributary Big Creek enters the lake near Lake Cushman State Park. The North Fork exits Lake Cushman's southern end and flows a short distance to another reservoir, Lake Kokanee, from which it flows south into the Skokomish Valley to join the South Fork, forming the main stem Skokomish River. Lake Cushman and Lake Kokanee are maintained by Cushman Dam No. 1 and Cushman Dam No. 2 respectively.

History
The Skokomish River area has been inhabited by humans for millennia. The Indigenous people of Hood Canal, the Twana, lived on and fished the watershed of the Skokomish River for generations. While all Twana did camp on the river and use its resources, it was primarily the Skokomish who lived along the river and at its mouth. The Skokomish would inhabit large winter villages during the winter months for traditional celebrations and activities; in the summer, they dispersed to various spots along the river and for hunting, gathering, and other activities. The Skokomish had four winter villages on the Skokomish River: at the confluence of the North and South Forks, called ; at McTaggert Creek on the North Fork ; slightly upriver from McTaggert Creek at a flat in the river called ; and below the falls at Lake Kokanee. There were no winter settlements on the South Fork, but there were extensive summer settlements in the upper reaches of the valleys used for elk hunting. There were at least 20 settlement areas in total along the Skokomish River and the area at its mouth.

Prior to the construction of the Cushman Hydroelectric Project, the Skokomish River was once the largest and most productive salmon-producing river in the Hood Canal region of Puget Sound. The entire flow of the North Fork was normally diverted at Cushman Dam No. 2, except for instream flow requirements and infrequent larger releases. On January 12, 2009, Tacoma Power, the Skokomish Tribe, and state and federal agencies signed settlement agreements that resolved long-standing disputes and damage claims relating to the Cushman Hydroelectric Project. As part of the settlement water will be released into the North Fork Skokomish River below the dams in order to mimic natural flow.

The South Fork's drainage was heavily logged, although logging has been significantly reduced in the Olympic National Forest since the late 1980s.

Flooding
The Skokomish is the most flood-prone river in Washington State, as it is the first river to flood during any major rain event. It set an all-time record-high flood level on December 3, 2007, when an intense tropical rainstorm moved in following several inches of snow from the day prior. Its maximum discharge of 29000 cuft per second, recorded on December 3, 2007, was more than twenty times its mean flow, and bested its previous record set on November 5, 1934, at more than 27000 cuft per second. The floods completely ripped up Highway 101 through the Skokomish Valley, resulting in two-day closure while emergency repairs were made. The 2007 flood event prompted Mason County officials and the Washington Department of Transportation in conjunction with the Skokomish Tribe, to design and construct a newer, elevated roadway structure over the area of Purdy Creek, which is the lowest point in elevation in the valley that Highway 101 crosses. After 16 months of planning and construction, a 350-foot bridge elevated 12 feet higher than the original roadway was opened in July 2009.

One notable flood in 1996 closed U.S. Route 101 and State Route 106 for four days, stranding a KOMO-TV news crew from Seattle. The Skokomish River is a popular location for television and print journalists to cover regional foods, including the joke "Why did the salmon cross the road?"

The combination of increased sediment load due to extensive clearcut logging, the reduced sediment carrying capacity due to the damming of the North Fork, and winter-weather rain patterns are suspected to be the primary reasons for the flooding that occurs almost every year on the South Fork. In late fall through early spring, storms often come from the southwest. These usually drop the most rain in the vicinity of the Skokomish River due to the topography of the Olympic Peninsula. Notably, the Skokomish Tribe, through the restoration of the Skokomish delta, (The Nallies Project), removed dikes surrounding Nallies Island, relieving some of the flooding in the valley. Recently on the second highest flood event recorded after the restoration, the flooding was only minor, compared with what it would have been before, moderate to severe flooding. Additionally, it is suspected that tectonic uplift of the land around the lower Skokomish River may be contributing to flooding by decreasing the gradient of the river channel, even prior to any major anthropogenic disturbances.

title: Skokomish River


text:
Direct ascent

Direct ascent is a method of landing a spacecraft on the Moon or another planetary surface directly, without first assembling the vehicle in Earth orbit, or carrying a separate landing vehicle into orbit around the target body. It was proposed as the first method to achieve a crewed lunar landing in the United States Apollo program, but was rejected because it would have required developing a prohibitively large launch vehicle.

Apollo program
The Apollo program was initially planned based on the assumption that direct ascent would be used. This would have required developing an enormous launch vehicle, either the Saturn C-8 or Nova rocket, to launch the three-man Apollo spacecraft, with an attached landing module, directly to the Moon, where it would land tail-first and then launch off the Moon for the return to Earth. The other two options that NASA considered required a somewhat smaller launch vehicle, either the Saturn C-4 or C-5. These were Earth Orbit Rendezvous, which would have involved at least two launches to assemble the direct-landing and return vehicle in orbit; and Lunar Orbit Rendezvous (LOR), which carried a smaller two-man lunar lander spacecraft for flight between lunar orbit and the surface. LOR was the strategy used successfully in Apollo.

The Soviet Union also considered several direct ascent strategies, though in the end they settled on an approach similar to NASA's: two men in a Soyuz spacecraft with a one-man LK lander. The Soviets attempted to launch the N1 rocket on 21 February and 3 July 1969, both of which failed, before NASA's Apollo 11 lifted off and made the first crewed lunar landing on 20 July 1969. The Soviets would make two more attempts to launch the N1, in 1972 and 1974, but neither was successful. The Soviet engineering firm OKB-52 continued to develop the UR-700 modular booster for the direct ascent LK-700 ship.

Science fiction movies such as Rocketship X-M and Destination Moon have frequently depicted direct ascent missions, although the first was a two-stage vehicle which accidentally, and successfully landed on Mars, but failed to successfully return to Earth (crashed in Nova Scotia), and the second was a single-stage vehicle which successfully landed on the Moon, and speculatively returned to Earth (return not shown).

title: Direct ascent


text:
Schwa (art)

Schwa is the underground conceptual artwork of Bill Barker (born 1957). Barker draws deceptively simple black and white stick figures and oblong alien ships. However, the artwork is not about the aliens: it is about how people react to the presence of the aliens and branding, and Barker uses them as a metaphor for foreign and unknown ideas. Schwa became an underground hit in the 1990s.

Artwork and themes
In linguistics, a schwa is an unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in any language, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel (rounded or unrounded). Such vowels are often transcribed with the symbol ə, regardless of their actual phonetic value. An example in English is the a in about.

For Barker, Schwa is alternately his pseudonym, a fictitious omnipresent corporation, a religion, or a resistance movement against corporate conspiracies and aliens. It is often a combination of all four at once.

Schwa artwork is black and white, with very precise stick-figures and ovoid alien faces and ships. The aliens themselves are rarely seen by the human stick figures, their presence is more often felt by their distant ships. The people are almost always either very frightened, or very complacent with their lot in life. Barker combines aliens, corporations, religions, media, and even the passage of time in his drawings.

The black and white drawings lead to a very hypnotic and very stark landscape. The world of Schwa is consistent throughout his work, and all the drawings and books combine to paint a single picture of a futuristic world run by large corporate and religious conglomerates who are possibly in league with omnipresent aliens. The media has become a marketing machine for these overseers, and they continually saturate the world with alien logos and messages such as "In the future, everything will work" and "Stop domesticating yourself".

History
Schwa began in 1992 when Barker, a former advertising art director, was looking for a way to express himself with a single art style when he was given a copy of The Secret Government, a conspiracy book that tells of aliens controlling the government. Barker did not like the idea of art exhibitions, which he saw as just a pretentious form of merchandising, so he decided to sell merchandise directly to consumers by mail-order. Barker started selling trinkets like necklaces and stickers, and his first book, ə, exclusively through this home-grown business. Schwa cartoons also appeared in The Sagebrush, the University of Nevada, Reno student newspaper.

Although Barker might not have been the first person to conceive of the ovoid alien face, his version quickly became the best-known. His book was an underground hit, and received praise from Terry Gilliam, Ivan Stang, and Noam Chomsky. He bundled the book along with several trinkets as the Complete Schwa Kit (ISBN 0-9635914-1-X), and put out another book with trinkets as Complete Counter-Schwa Kit (ISBN 0-9635914-2-8).

Eventually his popularity led to a book deal with Chronicle Books, and in 1997 published Schwa: World Operations Manual (ISBN 0-8118-1585-4) a reference manual for world control that included postcards, stickers, warranties, contracts, and charts.

Barker also created and ran a (now defunct) labyrinthine website early in the days of the World Wide Web. He described it as "an experiment in building an online science fiction environment in HTML." Instead of simply showcasing his printed artwork, the website became another medium for Schwa fans to explore.

Schwa Pyramid
Barker teamed up with AOL to create an online game exclusively for AOL members. He worked with the now-defunct Orbital Studios to create a game about conspiracies, corporations, and aliens. The initial instructions set the tone of the game:

"Don't follow instructions. Suspect instructions. They are something to be wary of."

The player was a stick figure right in the middle of the darkened and conspiratorial world of Schwa. The player worked his way up the pyramid by collecting power through media, corporations, government, and labor, to eventually dominate the world.

The game launched on March 9, 1998. A follow-up game called Schwa Conspiracy was announced for later that year, but was never finished.

Current status
Although a growing hit, Bill Barker disappeared from the public (and underground) eye sometime in late September 2001. His long-running website is dead and the post office box he had used for years now returns his mail unread.

In April 2008 a Schwa trademark was re-registered (assigned by Compuwatcher, Inc.) and a small series of websites were launched; this new Schwa business has no affiliation with Bill Barker or his artwork.

In March 2012 Barker created a Facebook page under the name alaVoid, which does not seem to be updated anymore.

Images

 * Alone cannot you it resist, Stanford University

General reviews

 * SCHWA the Video: Dear ‘Stick People’ – Your Alien Overlords are here
 * Stang review
 * Wired: Aliens Land on AOL

title: Schwa (art)


text:
San Jose Conservation Corps

The San Jose Conservation Corps is a youth job training and education program in San Jose, California. The program serves youth 17.5–27 years of age who desire job training and/or completion of their high school diploma.

About
Founded in 1987, the SJCC has provided more than 17,000 "at-risk" disadvantaged young men and women with academic education, hands-on learning, and development of basic skills. These skills include leadership, communication, computer literacy, and employment training which will help them to advance and excel in their future and careers. The SJCC offers secondary education courses through its on-site charter school and vocational education and job training through its Projects and Recycling Departments. The San Jose Conservation Corps & Charter School is a non-profit organization that provides youth with a quality high school education and teaches valuable work and life skills that empower them to become responsible, productive, and caring citizens.

The San Jose Conservation Corps has four divisions: the Charter School/Academy, Environmental Projects, Recycling, and Food Security.

title: San Jose Conservation Corps


text:
Jean Baptista von Schweitzer

Jean Baptista von Schweitzer (12 July 1833 – 28 July 1875) was a German politician and dramatic poet and playwright.

Life and political career
Schweitzer was born at Frankfurt am Main, of an old aristocratic Catholic family. He studied law in Berlin and Heidelberg, and afterwards practised in his native city. He was, however, generally more interested in politics and literature than law.

Schweitzer was attracted by the social democratic movement, then led in Germany by Ferdinand Lassalle. Lassalle defended him from calls for his expulsion from the movement after he was convicted of a public indency charge for pederasty in 1862. Historian Gustav Mayer in 1909 described the incident as follows:

"It was stated there that between nine and ten on the morning of August 4, 1862, the accused was arrested in the Mannheim Palace Park for having there seduced a boy under fourteen years of age into undertaking an indecent act. But since the boy ran away and his age could not therefore be ascertained, the sentence that resulted was not for a crime against morality [Verbrechen gegen die Sittlichkeit], but only for the giving of public offense through the public perpetration of an indecent act [Erregung öffentlichen Ärgernisses durch öffentliche Verübung einer unsittlichen Handlung]."

Schweitzer served two weeks in jail in Bruchsal for the offence. Lassalle argued that the "abnormality attributed to Dr. von Schweitzer has nothing whatever to do with his political character."

After Lassalle's death in 1864, Schweitzer on 20 May 1867, became president of the General German Workers' Association (Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbeiter-Verein, ADAV). The ADAV began fracturing soon thereafter, as disputes over whether to cooperate with Otto von Bismarck's government led Wilhelm Liebknecht and others to leave the ADAV in the years after 1864. Liebknecht and August Bebel founded the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany (Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands, SDAP) in 1869.

Schweitzer edited the ADAV's newspaper Der Sozialdemokrat (English: The Social Democrat), which brought him into frequent trouble with the Prussian government.

On 7 September 1867, he was elected as a deputy to the Reichstag of the North German Confederation, with the help of Lassalle.

In an article for Der Sozialdemokrat on 7 October 1868, he coined the term "democratic centralization", now known as democratic centralism, to describe the structure of the ADAV.

On his failure to secure election to the newly formed German Reichstag on 3 March 1871, he resigned the presidency of the ADAV and retired from political life. The ADAV later merged with the SDAP at the Gotha Congress in 1875 to form the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany (Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands, SAPD), the forerunner of the modern-day Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).

He died of pneumonia in Giessbach, Switzerland on 28 July 1875.

Conflict with Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
Immediately following the death of Lassalle, Schweitzer suggested to Liebknecht that Karl Marx should succeed Lassalle as president of the ADAV. In response, Liebknecht proposed to dissolve the office of the presidency and transform it into a board of directors, which would also control Der Sozialdemokrat. Schweitzer disagreed with the proposal regarding control of the paper and asked Marx, Friedrich Engels and Liebknecht to collaborate on the paper.

Marx assented to this proposal until breaking with Schweitzer, after suspecting Schweitzer knew of and supported Lassalle's contact with Otto von Bismarck, then chancellor of the North German Confederation. This split was worsened by Schweitzer's support of Bismarck published in articles in early 1865.

Marx and Engels compiled their criticism in an unpublished 6 February 1865 statement of the International Workingmen's Association (IWA), and finally made their split official with a public statement of the IWA justifying their decision, published in the papers Barmer Zeitung and Elberfelder Zeitung on 26 February 1865.

By March 1865, Marx was scathing of Schweitzer, writing in a letter to Engels on 10 March:

"The impudence of Mr Schweitzer, who knows perfectly well that all I need to do is publish his own letters, is fantastic. Though what else can the shitty cur do? [...] You must arrange for a few jokes about the fellow to reach [Carl] Siebel, for him to hawk around to the various papers."The author Hubert Kennedy identifies the latter statement as an instruction to joke about Schweitzer's alleged homosexuality.

Works
Schweitzer composed a number of dramas and comedies, of which several for a while had considerable success. Among them may be mentioned: He also wrote one political novel, Lucinde oder Kapital und Arbeit (Frankfurt, 1864).
 * ''Alcibiades (Frankfurt, 1858)
 * Friedrich Barbarossa (Frankfurt, 1858)
 * Canossa (Berlin, 1872)
 * Die Darwinianer (Frankfurt, 1875)
 * Die Eidechse (Frankfurt, 1876)
 * Epidemisch (Frankfurt, 1876)

title: Jean Baptista von Schweitzer