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Gershom Scholem

Gershom Scholem (גֵרְשׁׂם שָׁלוֹם) (5 December 1897 – 21 February 1982) was a German-born Israeli philosopher and historian. Widely regarded as the founder of modern academic study of the Kabbalah, Scholem was appointed the first professor of Jewish mysticism at Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Scholem is acknowledged as the single most significant figure in the recovery, collection, annotation, and registration into rigorous Jewish scholarship of the canonical bibliography of mysticism and scriptural commentary that runs through its primordial phase in the Sefer Yetzirah, its inauguration in the Bahir, its exegesis in the Pardes and the Zohar to its cosmogonic, apocalyptic climax in Isaac Luria's Ein Sof that is known collectively as Kabbalah.

After generations of demoralization and assimilation in the European enlightenment, the disappointment of messianic hopes, the famine of 1916 in Palestine, and the catastrophe of the Final Solution in Europe Scholem gathered and reassembled these sacred texts from many of the archives that had been disarranged, orphaned, confiscated under Nazi rule or otherwise washed up in Genizah cataloging the flood of fragments and disordered, decontextualized manuscripts into an annotated and relatively organized sequence of texts available to scholars and seekers within the reception of this tradition. Many other Jewish scholars assisted in this process of recovery once it was underway, but it is broadly recognized that Scholem initiated this process of textual and archival recovery and rebirth.

As Scholem points out in his memoirs, the canon of sacred Jewish writings from the diaspora and the Middle Ages (re: "Kabbalah") had fallen into such a state of disrepair and oblivion—fragmented and effaced by persecutions from without as well as contortions, conversions and schisms from within Judaism—that many of the "finest writings..." from the major currents of Jewish mysticism could only be found in long block quotations in antisemitic texts, where some "nincompoop who had quoted and translated the most wonderful, the most profound things," had assembled them "in order to decry them as blasphemies." (This was a strong, somewhat exaggerated statement for expressive effect that Scholem attributes to Ernst Bloch in his memoirs—but there he co-signs the sentiment and appropriates it as his own description of the state of affairs in other places.)

Due to Scholem's efforts, and those of his students and colleagues, the confused and inscrutable condition of Kabbalistic bibliography and provenance would be significantly remedied after the end of the World Wars and the foundation of the modern state of Israel where Scholem worked as head librarian of the National Library in Jerusalem.

Biography

Gerhard (Gershom) Scholem was born in Berlin to Arthur Scholem and Betty Hirsch Scholem. His father was a printer. His older brother was the German Communist leader Werner Scholem. He studied Hebrew and Talmud with an Orthodox rabbi.

Scholem met Walter Benjamin in Munich in 1915, when the former was seventeen years old and the latter was twenty-three. They began a lifelong friendship that ended when Benjamin committed suicide in 1940 in the wake of Nazi persecution. Scholem dedicated his book Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (Die jüdische Mystik in ihren Hauptströmungen), based on lectures 1938–1940, to Benjamin. In 1915 Scholem enrolled at the Frederick William University in Berlin (today, Humboldt University), where he studied mathematics, philosophy, and Hebrew. There he met Martin Buber, Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Hayim Nahman Bialik, Ahad Ha'am, and Zalman Shazar.

In Berlin, Scholem befriended Leo Strauss and corresponded with him throughout his life. He studied mathematical logic at the University of Jena under Gottlob Frege. He was in Bern in 1918 with Benjamin when he met Elsa (Escha) Burchhard, who became his first wife. Scholem returned to Germany in 1919, where he received a degree in Semitic languages at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Together with Benjamin he established a fictitious school – the University of Muri.

Scholem wrote his doctoral thesis on the oldest known kabbalistic text, Sefer ha-Bahir. The following year it appeared in book form as "Das Buch Bahir", having been published by his father's publishing house.

Drawn to Zionism and influenced by Buber, he immigrated in 1923 to the British Mandate of Palestine. It may be considered notable that though Scholem's allegiance to the Zionist cause (or the reclamation of Palestine by the Jewish diaspora) is incontrovertible, his relationship to the manifest ethics of Zionism was more ambiguous and critical than Buber's.

After his emigration from Berlin to Palestine, Scholem became a librarian, heading the Department of Hebrew and Judaica at the National Library. In 1927 he revamped the Dewey Decimal System, making it appropriate for large Judaica collections. Scholem's brother Werner was a member of the ultra-left "Fischer-Maslow Group" and the youngest ever member of the Reichstag, or Weimar Diet, representing the Communist Party of Germany. He was expelled from the party and later murdered by the Nazis during the Third Reich. Unlike his brother, Gershom was vehemently opposed to both Communism and Marxism. In 1936, he married his second wife, Fania Freud. Fania, who had been his student and could read Polish, was helpful in his later research, particularly in regard to Jacob Frank.

In 1946 Scholem was sent by the Hebrew University to search for Jewish books that had been plundered by the Nazis and help return them to their rightful owners. He spent much of the year in Germany and Central Europe as part of this project, known as "Otzrot HaGolah".

Scholem died in Jerusalem, where he is buried next to his wife in the Sanhedria Cemetery. Jürgen Habermas delivered the eulogy.

Academic career
Scholem became a lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He taught the Kabbalah and mysticism from a scientific point of view and became the first professor of Jewish mysticism at the university in 1933, working in this post until his retirement in 1965, when he became an emeritus professor. Scholem directly contrasted his historiographical approach on the study of Jewish mysticism with the approach of the 19th-century school of the Wissenschaft des Judentums ("Science of Judaism"), which sought to submit the study of Judaism to the discipline of subjects such as history, philology, and philosophy. According to Jeremy Adler, Scholem's thinking was "both recognizably Jewish and deeply German," and "changed the course of twentieth-century European thought."

At the time Scholem entered his field of study, Jewish mysticism was acknowledged as Judaism's weakest scholarly link by many of the scholars, publishers and cultural leaders of the Jewish community and gentile German scholars who sponsored Scholem's early career, including Martin Buber, Salman Schocken, Franz Rosenzweig, Robert Eisler, Philipp Bloch, Moses Marx, Clemens Baumker, Fritz Hommel and Walter Benjamin.

Scholem told the story of his early research "at the start of my path" in 1922 when he went to Berlin to visit "the only Jewish scholar scholar who had engaged in the study of Kabbalah in the previous generation." Gesturing at the rabbi's library of documents, manuscripts and autographs written by the authors of the Kabbalah, some of which had been inscribed in early modern or medieval centuries, Scholem remarked, "How wonderful it is, Herr Professor, that you have read and learned all this!" to which "...the elderly gentleman replied: 'What! And I also have to read all this nonsense?!" (Though he does not mention the name of the Rabbi in his canonical account of this visit, Scholem explains elsewhere that this scholar—once the Rabbi of Poznan—was Phillip Bloch. )

The analysis of Judaism carried out by the Wissenschaft school was flawed in two ways, according to Scholem: It studied Judaism as a dead object rather than as a living organism; and it did not consider the proper foundations of Judaism, the non-rational force that, in Scholem's view, made the religion a living thing.

In Scholem's opinion, the mythical and mystical components were at least as important as the rational ones, and he thought that they, rather than the minutiae of Halakha, were the truly living core of Judaism. In particular, he disagreed with what he considered to be Martin Buber's personalization of Kabbalistic concepts as well as what he argued was an inadequate approach to Jewish history, Hebrew language, and the land of Israel.

In the worldview of Scholem, the research of Jewish mysticism could not be separated from its historical context. Starting from something similar to the Gegengeschichte of Friedrich Nietzsche, he ended up including less normative aspects of Judaism in the public history.

Specifically, Scholem in his scholarly writing that Jewish history could be divided into three periods:

 * During the Biblical period, monotheism battles mythology without completely defeating it.
 * During the Talmudic period, some of the institutions—for example, the notion of the magical power of the accomplishment of the Sacraments—are removed in favour of the purer concept of the divine transcendence.
 * During the medieval period, the impossibility of reconciling the abstract concept of God of ancient Greek philosophy with the personal God of the Bible, led Jewish thinkers, such as Maimonides, to try to eliminate the remaining myths and to modify the figure of the living God. After this time, mysticism, as an effort to find again the essence of the God of their fathers, became more widespread.

Elsewhere, in oral presentation or informal reflection, Scholem inflected the three periods within a different frame of reference: there was the primordial inscription and enunciation of the Law in the Torah and the Talmud, the mystical reflections of the Kaballah, and the post-metaphysical phase of mystical writings represented by (for example) the writings of Franz Kafka or the critical mysticism of his friend and correspondent Walter Benjamin. Scholem often told his students that the modern reader must read Franz Kafka in order to enter into the frame of mind native to the Kaballah, and elsewhere remarked that, "among the peculiarities" Benjamin's writings was its "enormous suitability for canonization; I might almost say for quotation as a kind of Holy Writ."

The notion of the three periods, with its interactions between rational and irrational elements in Judaism, led Scholem to put forward some controversial arguments. He thought that the 17th century messianic movement, known as Sabbateanism, was developed from the Lurianic Kabbalah. In order to neutralize Sabbateanism, Hasidism had emerged as a Hegelian synthesis. Many of those who joined the Hasidic movement, because they had seen in it an Orthodox congregation, considered it scandalous that their community should be associated with a heretical movement.

In the same way, Scholem produced the hypothesis that the source of the 13th century Kabbalah was a Jewish gnosticism that preceded Christian gnosticism.

The historiographical approach of Scholem also involved a linguistic theory. In contrast to Buber, Scholem believed in the power of the language to invoke supernatural phenomena. In contrast to Walter Benjamin, he put the Hebrew language in a privileged position with respect to other languages, as the only language capable of revealing the divine truth. His special regard for the spiritual potency of the Hebrew language was expressed in his 1926 letter to Franz Rosenzweig regarding his concerns over the "secularization" of Hebrew. Scholem considered the Kabbalists as interpreters of a pre-existent linguistic revelation.

Friends, colleagues and canonical affinities
Scholem's closest peers included, most famously, Walter Benjamin and Leo Strauss.

Though his relationship with Franz Rosenzweig was of shorter duration, it was also a deeply influential one. Likewise, though Scholem was never directly introduced to Franz Kafka, he found out later in life that Kafka approved of his comments in a debate. Scholem and Benjamin's discussions of Kafka, spanning decades, played no small role in the elevation Kafka's literary and epistolary writings to canonical status in both secular and mystical literature as writing that was prophetic or premonitory of the Holocaust while also having qualities of a kind of post-metaphysical kabbalah.

It is a measure of the depth of Scholem's friendship with Benjamin that he wrote two memoirs at the end of his life: his own autobiography tends to be less read or frequently cited than his "Autobiography of a Friendship" recounting his lifelong relationship and work in partnership with Benjamin prior to the latter's death in flight from the Gestapo in 1940. In addition to his Kabbalah scholarship, a significant portion of Scholem's working life postwar was spent recovering, editing and promoting the literary estate of his dead friend.

Martin Buber was a patron, publisher and sponsor of the careers of both Scholem and his best friend Benjamin (despite Benjamin's frequent ingratitude and incorrigible blowing of deadlines and Scholem's occasionally scathing critiques of the elder figure).

Though Scholem's relationships with Hannah Arendt, Theodor Adorno, Hans Jonas, and Ernst Bloch were more characteristically turbulent than those relationship just mentioned, the frequent citation of these figures in Scholem's published writings and private correspondence demonstrates that they were among his closest and most influential colleagues. Selected letters from his correspondence with thinkers, critics and philosophers have been published.

Though appearing as a friend and protegé late in his career, Cynthia Ozick merits mention among those in Scholem's inner-circle. His late-career relationships with Allen Ginsberg, Harold Bloom, and George Steiner were also significant (though his relationship with Steiner was, characteristically, somewhat combative). Scholem was also friendly with the author Shai Agnon and the Talmudic scholar Saul Lieberman.

As a major, unofficial but widely acknowledged figurehead of mystical, historical and theological currents within both Reform and (much more controversially) Conservative Judaism after World War II and the Destruction of the European Jewry in the Holocaust, Scholem's stature within Jewish tradition is roughly comparable to the role played before the First World War and during the interwar period by Martin Buber.

Debate with Hannah Arendt
In the aftermath of the Adolf Eichmann trial in Jerusalem, Scholem sharply criticised Hannah Arendt's book, Eichmann in Jerusalem and decried her lack of solidarity with the Jewish people (אהבת ישראל "love of one's fellow Jews", ʾahəvaṯ ʾiśrāʾēl). Arendt responded that she never loved any collective group, and that she does not love the Jewish people but was only part of them. The bitter fight, which was exchanged in various articles, led to a rift between Scholem and Arendt though they remained mutually respectful thereafter and continued to work alongside one another on various projects, particularly in their work on the literary estate of Walter Benjamin. In an apparently wrathful moment, Scholem wrote to Hans Paeschke that he "knew Hannah Arendt when she was a socialist or half-communist and... when she was a Zionist. I am astounded by her ability to pronounce upon movements in which she was once so deeply engaged, in terms of a distance measured in light years and from such sovereign heights." Differing perspectives on the appropriate penalty for Adolph Eichmann further illuminate differences between the two authors. Whereas Arendt felt that Eichmann should be executed, Scholem was opposed, fearing that his execution would serve to alleviate the Germans' collective sense of guilt.

Awards and recognition

 * In 1958, Scholem was awarded the Israel Prize in Jewish studies.
 * In 1968, he was elected president of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.
 * In 1969, he received the Yakir Yerushalayim (Worthy Citizen of Jerusalem) award.
 * In 1977, he was awarded the Bialik Prize for Jewish thought.

Literary influence
Various stories and essays of the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges were inspired or influenced by Scholem's books. He has also influenced ideas of Umberto Eco, Jacques Derrida, Harold Bloom, Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben, and George Steiner. American author Michael Chabon cites Scholem's essay, The Idea of the Golem, as having assisted him in conceiving the Pulitzer-Prize winning book The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. The same essay influenced, and is cited by, Bruce Chatwin's Utz. Chaim Potok's The Book of Lights features a lightly disguised Scholem as "Jacob Keter."

Selected works in English

 * Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, 1941
 * Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and the Talmudic Tradition, 1960
 * Arendt and Scholem, "Eichmann in Jerusalem: Exchange of Letters between Gershom Scholem and Hannah Arendt", in Encounter, 22/1, 1964
 * On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism, 1965
 * The Messianic Idea in Judaism and other Essays on Jewish Spirituality, trans. 1971
 * Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah, 1973
 * Kabbalah, Meridian 1974, Plume Books 1987 reissue: ISBN 0-452-01007-1
 * On Jews and Judaism in Crisis: Selected Essays, 1976
 * From Berlin to Jerusalem: Memories of My Youth, 1977; trans. Harry Zohn, 1980.
 * Walter Benjamin: the Story of a Friendship, trans. Harry Zohn. New York: Schocken Books, 1981.
 * Origins of the Kabbalah, JPS, 1987 reissue: ISBN 0-691-02047-7
 * Zohar — The Book of Splendor: Basic Readings from the Kabbalah, ed., 1995
 * On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead: Basic Concepts in the Kabbalah, 1997
 * The Fullness of Time: Poems, trans. Richard Sieburth, 2003
 * On History and Philosophy of History, in "Naharaim: Journal for German-Jewish Literature and Cultural History", v, 1–2 (2011), pp. 1–7.
 * On Franz Rosenzweig and his Familiarity with Kabbala Literature, in "Naharaim: Journal for German-Jewish Literature and Cultural History", vi, 1 (2012), pp. 1–6.
 * On the Possibility of Jewish Mysticism in Our Time, 1994.

title: Gershom Scholem


text:
Edward Thomas (British Army soldier)

Ernest Edward Thomas, MM (16 December 1884 – February 1939) was a cavalryman in the British Army and drummer. While serving with the 4th (Royal Irish) Dragoon Guards he fired the first British shot of the First World War in Europe, at 7:00 a.m. on 22 August 1914, in an engagement outside Mons.

Early life
Although it has been reported that Thomas was born in Nenagh, County Tipperary, it has now been established that he was born in London of Irish ancestry. Thomas joined the British Army as a drummer in the Royal Horse Artillery, but transferred to the 4th (Royal Irish) Dragoon Guards before the outbreak of hostilities.

First World War
It was while serving as a corporal in the 4th (Royal Irish) Dragoon Guards that Thomas is reported to have fired the first British shot of the First World War in Europe. He was promoted to sergeant on 5 November 1915 and transferred to the Machine Gun Corps in 1916. Thomas was also mentioned in despatches for bravery. While positioned in a slit trench he advanced on his opposite number after British shelling of the enemy lines, to find all the German soldiers killed. Noting the quality of the German boots, he removed them from several soldiers, tied them together and crawled back to his own lines, where he distributed them amongst his friends. Thomas was awarded the Military Medal during his service.

Later life and death
Thomas returned to the Royal Irish Dragoons at the end of hostilities and was discharged in 1923. He then became the Commissionnaire at the Duke of Yorks Cinema. While at work in February 1939, Thomas became ill and subsequently died of pneumonia. He was buried with full military honours.

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

title: Edward Thomas (British Army soldier)


text:
User:Ellipse~enwiki

I'm Johan from Stockholm, Sweden. I have found wikipedia immensely useful both privately and proffesionaly, and I use it almost every day for various inquiries. This is the reason for me helping out to make it even better. I hope I can contribute to some areas. My very first contribution was done on 22 October 2003 on the Talk:Elliott Smith page. I became a registered user in August 2004.

Todo-list
Updates or creation of

 * Alternator
 * Rectifier
 * Vane pump, Piston pump
 * Reciprocating compressor
 * Kittelfjäll
 * Vilhelm Moberg
 * Adrian Tomine
 * Stockholm School of Economics (history and more, added logo and infobox 2004-12-07), Stockholm_Institute_of_Education.
 * Xinlisupreme, Op:l Bastards, Fennesz, Richard X, Hypo, The Aislers Set

Done-list

 * Several updates on the Bergen Wave, among them larger contributions on Annie, Erlend Øye, Kings of Convenience, Röyksopp.
 * Swedish universities. Most of the pages Linköping University, Stockholm University.
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 * Regular updates of Alpine Skiing World Cup
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title: User:Ellipse~enwiki


text:
Edward Thomas

Edward Thomas may refer to:

Sport

 * Edward Thomas (gridiron football) (born 1974), American gridiron football player
 * Edward Thomas (rower), Australian rower at the 1924 Olympics
 * Ned Thomas (rugby league) (Edward Thomas), rugby league footballer of the 1910s, and 1920s for Wales, Oldham, and Wakefield Trinity
 * Eddie Thomas (footballer, born 1933) (1933–2003), English footballer with Everton, Blackburn Rovers, Swansea Town and Derby County
 * Eddie Thomas (footballer, born 1932), English footballer with Southampton
 * Eddie Thomas (Australian footballer) (1891–1953), Australian rules footballer with Collingwood
 * Eddie Thomas (boxer) (1926–1997), Welsh boxer
 * Ed Thomas (1950–2009), American football coach
 * Edward Arthur Thomas (1950–2009), American high school football coach

Writers

 * Edward Thomas (poet) (1878–1917), Anglo-Welsh poet and journalist
 * Edward J. Thomas (1869–1958), librarian and author of several books on the history of Buddhism

Military

 * Edward Thomas (British Army officer) (1915–1999), World War II Military Cross recipient and temporary brigadier
 * Edward Lloyd Thomas (1825–1898), Confederate American Civil War general
 * Edward Thomas (British Army soldier) (1884–1939), who fired the first shot of the British Army in World War I

Others

 * Edward Thomas (planter) (179?–1853), Bajan slave owner and attorney
 * Edward A. Thomas (1838–1890), justice of the Territorial Wyoming Supreme Court
 * Edward B. Thomas (1848–1929), United States district judge
 * Edward Russell Thomas (1875–1926), American businessman, sportsman and owner of the New York Morning Telegraph
 * Edward Thomas (antiquarian) (1813–1886), English civil servant of the East India Company
 * Edward Thomas (character), character from the Disney Channel sitcom That's So Raven
 * Eddie Kaye Thomas (born 1980), American film, television, and stage actor
 * E. Donnall Thomas (1920–2012), American physician and winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
 * Edward Thomas (MP) (fl. 1625–1629), member of parliament (MP) for West Looe
 * Edward Thomas (police officer) (1919–2015), African-American member of the Houston Police Department
 * Edward Lloyd Thomas (surveyor) (1785–1852), surveyor in the U.S. state of Georgia
 * Edward Thomas (physicist), African-American professor at Auburn University
 * Edward Thomas (priest) (1700–1753), Anglican priest in Ireland
 * Edward W. Thomas, United States Air Force general
 * Ned Thomas (Edward Morley Thomas), Welsh intellectual, editor and cultural commentator

Transportation

 * Edward Thomas (locomotive), a steam locomotive on the Talyllyn Railway, Wales, named after the railway's former manager

title: Edward Thomas


text: Category:Turkish scientists

title: Category:Turkish scientists


text:
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) is an American philanthropic organization. It is the largest one focused solely on health. Based in Princeton, New Jersey, the foundation focuses on access to health care, public health, health equity, leadership and training, and changing systems to address barriers to health. RWJF has been credited with helping to develop the 911 emergency system, reducing tobacco use among Americans, lowering rates of unwanted teenage pregnancies, and improving perceptions of hospice care.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation supports the development of programs that can be used in community-led initiatives or by government bodies, funds research through surveys and polls, and makes impact investments. According to Pensions & Investments and Foundation Center, the foundation was the fifth-largest in the U.S. in investment assets, as of 2015. As of 2020, the value of its endowment was $13 billion.

History
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation was initially established as the Johnson-New Brunswick Foundation in December 1936, and focused on charitable efforts in New Brunswick, New Jersey. The original board of trustees included Robert Wood Johnson II, John Seward Johnson II, and others. It was renamed the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in 1952. Robert Wood Johnson II left a bequest of 10,204,377 shares of Johnson & Johnson stock to the foundation upon his death in 1968. The foundation became a national philanthropy in 1972. The value of the stock was more than US$1 billion, making it the second-largest private foundation at the time.

1972–1985
Initially, the foundation worked on improving access to health care, with a focus on impoverished and minority groups, infant and elder care, and mental health. It created a $15 million grant program to contribute to the development of emergency services systems in the United States. Then-president David E. Rogers established a partnership with the National Academy of Sciences to increase oversight of how the funds were used and assess project outcomes. Ultimately, the funds were distributed to 44 grantees in amounts ranging from $350,000 to $400,000. The program funded primary aspects of emergency medical services, including: technology access, such as equipping ambulances with radios; training for ambulance drivers and dispatchers; interagency coordination through a national centralized, regional-based system; and development of the 911 emergency system. In 1973, 11 percent of areas covered by the foundation's program had access to a centralized emergency services system. By 1977, when the program ended, coverage had increased to 95 percent.

In 1985, the foundation partnered with The Pew Charitable Trusts to launch a new program to improve access to health care for the American homeless population. The organizations committed $25 million over five years to 19 pilot programs as part of their Health Care for the Homeless initiative. Approaches to the issue varied by city. For example, a Philadelphia program connected hospitals with homeless shelters, so individuals experiencing homelessness had access to inpatient and outpatient care. Another program in New York City focused on providing care in soup kitchens. Congress followed the foundation's program for providing health care through shelters by passing the McKinney–Vento Homeless Assistance Act. Other early foundation efforts included: support for the Nurse-Family Partnership, which partners at-risk pregnant women with nurses; establishing the Minority Medical Faculty Development Program (renamed the Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Program in 2004); and supporting development of the "swing bed" concept in rural hospitals, which allows patients to transition from acute care to skilled-nursing without having to transfer to a nursing home.

1986–2001
Beginning in 1986, the foundation focused on funding programs for the treatment HIV/AIDS, despite the stigma surrounding the disease. It launched the AIDS Health Services Program in 11 communities around the U.S., which aimed to integrate a network of human services agencies for case management and favored community-care models for patients. By May 1989, the foundation had given $50 million to care services and prevention campaigns. The Ryan White CARE Act was partially modeled on RWJF's program.

After Steven A. Schroeder became the foundation's president in 1990, he made substance abuse a major focus of the foundation's work. Between 1991 and 2003, the foundation spent approximately $408 million on a variety of tobacco-related programs, including awareness campaigns on smoking cessation and the negative effects of tobacco use. The foundation launched Smokeless States in 1993, a program designed to educate local groups about the effects of tobacco and options for regulating tobacco usage. By 2007, 31 states and the District of Columbia had adopted the program. The foundation's Center for Tobacco-Free Kids was asked to participate as a "disinterested and trustworthy party" in state litigation leading up to the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement of 1998.

Apart from substance abuse, the foundation also funded studies on palliative care and worked with researchers to develop the chronic care model. In 1989, the organization funded a five-year, $28 million study on palliative care, publishing the results in 1995. The Study to Understand Prognoses and Preferences for Outcomes and Risks of Treatment found that most Americans die alone in hospitals while receiving high-cost care and treatment, often against the patient's desires. The study led to the formation of several groups by the foundation, including Last Acts, 900 entities that have drafted best practices for palliative care. Between 1989 and 2007, the foundation gave more than $148 million for research related to palliative care. By 2007, more than 500 hospitals throughout the U.S. had palliative care programs, most of which were created after the foundation and George Soros's Open Society Institute began research and advocacy efforts.

During this period, the foundation also contributed to efforts to enroll more uninsured U.S. children in medicare. A study published in Health Affairs noted that RWJF spent $55 million on its Covering Kids campaign, which lasted from 1997 until 2002. The study found that the overall rate of uninsured children in the U.S. decreased during the campaign.

2002–2017
In the early 2000s, under the leadership of Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, the foundation prioritized childhood obesity, and pledged of $1 billion for research and advocacy to raise awareness on the topic. Grants from this pledge, the first $500 million of which came in 2007, have been used to fund projects in cities throughout the United States. As early as 2003, the foundation was working in Louisville, Kentucky, providing more than $740,000 in grants between 2003 and 2011 to make infrastructure updates that encourage physical activity, such as widening sidewalks and adding the city's first bicycle lane.

The foundation also continued to work on eldercare topics and provided funding for the Green House Project, a non-profit that offers a long-term care alternative to nursing homes. While nursing homes tended to be regimented, the Green House model allows residents to set their own schedules, and houses fewer people in more units designed like a single family home. In 2011, the foundation established a $100 million impact capital fund to develop the Green House model. By 2014, 27 states had adopted versions of the Green House Project. A 2017 study on Green House nursing homes funded by the foundation found that while imperfect, the model had better outcomes for residents, including fewer hospitalizations and a lower occurrence of conditions such as pressure ulcers.

The foundation established the commission to Build a Healthier America in 2008. The non-partisan group included individuals from business, academia, and politics and focused on studying ways to improve health in the U.S. outside of the health care system. The commission compiled five years' worth of research into a report it released in 2014. The report focused on social determinants of health and detailed three strategies to improve health in the U.S.: early-childhood education; community-based health initiatives; and preventative care.

In 2010, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation partnered with the University of Wisconsin's Population Health Institute to launch the County Health Ranking program, which calculates and compares the health of each county, nationwide. The counties are measured and ranked on various health and social factors, which include more than 30 indicators such as obesity, tobacco use, mental health, employment and poverty rates, and access to healthy food. Over time, the foundation added coaches and competitions to the program to support communities' efforts to improve local health. This was done in response to growing evidence showing that social factors and individuals' actions could affect a population's health more than the quality of medical treatment. The foundation also partnered with Federal Reserve Banks to engage impact investors, banks, and community developers in health and wellness-based projects through the Healthy Communities Initiative.

In 2014, the foundation announced a major shift in its approach to health issues. It had previously focused on specific health issues, and would instead focus on changes that could lead to large-scale social shifts by building what it called a "culture of health." The change built on the Culture of Health Action Framework adopted by the foundation in 2013. Critics of the shift expressed concern that funding for some areas—such as leadership training for doctors, and programs for nursing and health policy—was being discontinued as part of the shift. When describing the changes at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Lavizzo-Mourey said, “We have to make a seismic shift in the way we deal with health, and it has to come from the ground up.”

A 2017 survey conducted by RWJF, NPR, and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that people in America report that their personal experience with discrimination regularly affects their lives and drives decisions that influence their health, safety, and well-being. Experiences with discrimination correlated to an increased risk for health conditions such as coronary heart disease. In 2018, the foundation co-funded a study along with the National Institutes of Health that found police killings of unarmed black Americans led to adverse mental health affects among black American respondents. Other public opinion polls RWJF worked on with NPR and Harvard University have covered issues such as the burden of stress in America (2014), education and health in schools (2013), trust in public health (2021), income inequality (2020), and experiences during the pandemic (2021).

2018–present
Under Richard Besser's leadership, the foundation prioritized health equity and removing barriers to health resulting from discrimination. In an address given at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University, Besser pointed to where people live, recreate, and work as well as access to healthy food and livable wages, and removal of cultural barriers as important factors in individual health. The foundation funded a 2021 analysis by the Urban Institute which found that black patients experience "dangerous bleeding, infections and other serious problems related to surgical procedures" more frequently than white patients who receive care in the same hospital.

In 2019, the foundation worked with the Global Reporting Initiative and others to develop the Culture of Health for Business Framework. The framework provides 16 best practices for companies to measure health policies and practices against, ranging from environmental to social and governance issues.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the foundation partnered with organizations such as NPR to research financial, educational, and health impacts of the pandemic. The foundation also has ongoing surveys with the Rand Corporation, one of which found that many Americans agree that minority communities have been more affected by the pandemic, but do not believe structural racism is a barrier to health.

The foundation's other activities in response to the COVID-19 pandemic included collaborating with Boston University to develop a database of state policies enacted in response to the pandemic, and hosting teleconferences and virtual discussions on how the pandemic unveiled the impact that systemic racism and other forms of discrimination have on health in America.

During this period, RWJF partnered with the Ford Foundation to establish the Presidents' Council on Disability Inclusion in Philanthropy. The group includes 17 grant making organizations. The council's focus is on improving inclusion of disability issues in philanthropy. The foundation also funded the Childhood Opportunity Index, which ranks neighborhoods across the U.S. on access to childhood development resources that can affect health and life expectancy, and income later in life. The index was initially published in 2014, and an updated version was released in January 2020.

Leadership
The foundation's first president was David E. Rogers, who served from 1972 until 1987. Leighton E. Cluff served as the foundation's president from 1986 until February 1990, when he was succeeded by Steven A. Schroeder. The foundation's board of trustees selected Schroeder to lead the foundation, knowing he wanted to take it "in the direction of working on substance abuse problems".

Risa Lavizzo-Mourey was the first woman and African American to be the foundation's chief executive officer, a role she held between 2002 and 2017. She was succeeded by Richard E. Besser, who was named president and CEO in April 2017. Besser previously worked as the medical editor for ABC News and acting director of the Centers for Disease Control.

title: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation


text:
Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Goanna

Goanna
Self nomination of own photo. People keep telling me its good. Maybe they're just being nice. Only problem I can see is that I still have no idea what sort of goanna it is. After reading how nasty goanna attacks can be in the creation of the article, I'm happy it thought it was invisible and did nothing. - ZayZayEM 13:35, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Nominate and support. - ZayZayEM 13:35, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Oppose - the green parts look very dull, and the image doesn't look all that crisp. Enochlau 20:23, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Oppose --ScottyBoy900Q ∞ 00:04, 06 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Oppose. [[User:Neutrality|Neutrality/talk]] 03:09, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)
 * neutral - I actually quite like this photo, but the fullsize image lacks detail or has failed to scan cleanly or something. -- Solipsist 08:31, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Oppose, I also really like this photo, but it just seems a bit out of focus for FP consideration. - [[User:Bevo|Bevo]] 15:34, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Not promoted: +1/-4 -- Solipsist 20:50, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)


text:
Alypius

Alypius may refer to:

 * Alypius of Antioch, vicarius of Roman Britain, probably in the late 350s
 * Alypius of Alexandria, music theorist, c. 360
 * Alypius of Byzantium (died 169), bishop of Byzantium
 * Alypius of Constantinople (fl. 430), Byzantine priest
 * Alypius the Stylite (died 640), ascetic saint and monastic founder
 * Alypius of Thagaste (died after 416), Catholic saint and bishop in 394

title: Alypius


text:
John Wootton

John Wootton (c.1686– 13 November 1764) was an English painter of sporting subjects, battle scenes and landscapes, and illustrator.

Life
Born in Snitterfield, Warwickshire (near Stratford-upon-Avon), he is best remembered as a pioneer in the painting of sporting subjects – together with Peter Tillemans and James Seymour – and was considered the finest practitioner of the genre in his day. As such, his paintings were very fashionable and were sought after by those among the highest strata of the British society. These included figures such as George II of Great Britain, Frederick, Prince of Wales, and the Duke of Marlborough.

It is likely that he received artistic training from Jan Wyck before 1700. Wootton may have begun life as a page to the family of the Dukes of Beaufort. His earliest surviving dated work is the equine portrait Bonny Black (1711). He remained active until his death in 1764, based in the capital of English horse racing at Newmarket, and producing large numbers of portraits of horses and also conversation pieces with a hunting or riding setting. He acquired a classicising landscape style based on that of Gaspard Dughet, which he used in some pure landscape paintings, as well as views of country houses and equine subjects. This introduced an alternative to the various Dutch and Flemish artists who had previously set the prevailing landscape style in Britain, and through intermediary artists such as George Lambert, the first British painter to base a career on landscape subjects, was to greatly influence other British artists such as Gainsborough.

He is now somewhat eclipsed in the field of animal paintings by the later George Stubbs (1724–1806), who is considered technically superior. John Wootton died in London on 13 November 1764. Examples of his animal painting can be found in the Tate Gallery, London, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, the Yale Center for British Art, in the Elizabethan Great Hall at Longleat and in The Portland Collection at the Harley Gallery and Foundation.

title: John Wootton


text:
Argo (oceanography)

Argo is an international programme for researching the ocean. It uses profiling floats to observe temperature, salinity and currents. Recently it has observed bio-optical properties in the Earth's oceans. It has been operating since the early 2000s. The real-time data it provides support climate and oceanographic research. A special research interest is to quantify the ocean heat content (OHC). The Argo fleet consists of almost 4000 drifting "Argo floats" (as profiling floats used by the Argo program are often called) deployed worldwide. Each float weighs 20–30 kg. In most cases probes drift at a depth of 1000 metres. Experts call this the parking depth. Every 10 days, by changing their buoyancy, they dive to a depth of 2000 metres and then move to the sea-surface. As they move they measure conductivity and temperature profiles as well as pressure. Scientists calculate salinity and density from these measurements. Seawater density is important in determining large-scale motions in the ocean.

Average current velocities at 1000 metres are directly measured by the distance and direction a float drifts while parked at that depth, which is determined by GPS or Argos system positions at the surface. The data is transmitted to shore via satellite, and is freely available to everyone, without restrictions.

The Argo program is named after the Greek mythical ship Argo to emphasize the complementary relationship of Argo with the Jason satellite altimeters. Both the standard Argo floats and the 4 satellites launched so far to monitor changing sea-level all operate on a 10-day duty cycle.

International collaboration
The Argo program is a collaborative partnership of more than 30 nations from all continents (most shown on the graphic map in this article) that maintains a global array and provides a dataset anyone can use to explore the ocean environment. Argo is a component of the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS), and is coordinated by the Argo Steering Team, an international body of scientists and technical experts that meets once per year. The Argo data stream is managed by the Argo Data Management Team. Argo is also supported by the Group on Earth Observations, and has been endorsed since its beginnings by the World Climate Research Programme's CLIVAR Project (Variability and predictability of the ocean-atmosphere system), and by the Global Ocean Data Assimilation Experiment (GODAE OceanView).

History
A program called Argo was first proposed at OceanObs 1999 which was a conference organised by international agencies with the aim of creating a coordinated approach to ocean observations. The original Argo prospectus was created by a small group of scientists, chaired by Dean Roemmich, who described a program that would have a global array of about 3000 floats in place by sometime in 2007. The 3000-float array was achieved in November 2007 and was global. The Argo Steering Team met for the first time in 1999 in Maryland (USA) and outlined the principles of global data sharing.

The Argo Steering Team made a 10-year report to OceanObs-2009 and received suggestions on how the array might be improved. These suggestions included enhancing the array at high latitudes, in marginal seas (such as the Gulf of Mexico and the Mediterranean) and along the equator, improved observation of strong boundary currents (such as the Gulf Stream and Kuroshio), extension of observations into deep water and the addition of sensors for monitoring biological and chemical changes in the oceans. In November 2012 an Indian float in the Argo array gathered the one-millionth profile (twice the number collected by research vessels during all of the 20th century) an event that was reported in several press releases. As can be seen in the plot opposite, by early 2018 the Bio-Argo program is expanding rapidly.

Float design and operation

The critical capability of an Argo float is its ability to rise and descend in the ocean on a programmed schedule. The floats do this by changing their effective density. The density of any object is given by its mass divided by its volume. The Argo float keeps its mass constant, but by altering its volume, it changes its density. To do this, mineral oil is forced out of the float's pressure case and expands a rubber bladder at the bottom end of the float. As the bladder expands, the float becomes less dense than seawater and rises to the surface. Upon finishing its tasks at the surface, the float withdraws the oil and descends again.

A handful of companies and organizations manufacture profiling floats used in the Argo program. APEX floats, made by Teledyne Webb Research, are the most common element of the current array. SOLO and SOLO-II floats (the latter use a reciprocating pump for buoyancy changes, unlike screw-driven pistons in other floats) were developed at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Other types include the NINJA float, made by the Tsurumi Seiki Co. of Japan, and the ARVOR, DEEP-ARVOR & PROVOR floats developed by IFREMER in France, in industrial partnership with French Company nke instrumentation. Most floats use sensors made by Sea-Bird Scientific (https://www.seabird.com/) , which also makes a profiling float called Navis. A typical Argo float is a cylinder just over 1 metre long and 14 cm across with a hemispherical cap. Thus it has a minimum volume of about 16,600 cubic centimetres (cm3). At Ocean Station Papa in the Gulf of Alaska the temperature and salinity at the surface might be about 6°C and 32.55 parts per thousand giving a density of sea-water of 1.0256 g/cm3. At a depth of 2000 metres (pressure of 2000 decibars) the temperature might be 2°C and the salinity 34.58 parts per thousand. Thus, including the effect of pressure (water is slightly compressible) the density of sea-water is about 1.0369 g/cm3. The change in density divided by the deep density is 0.0109.

The float has to match these densities if it is to reach 2000 metres depth and then rise to the surface. Since the density of the float is its mass divided by volume, it needs to change its volume by 0.0109 × 16,600 = 181 cm3 to drive that excursion; a small amount of that volume change is provided by the compressibility of the float itself, and excess buoyancy is required at the surface in order to keep the antenna above water. All Argo floats carry sensors to measure the temperature and salinity of the ocean as they vary with depth, but an increasing number of floats also carry other sensors, such as for measuring dissolved oxygen and ultimately other variables of biological and chemical interest such as chlorophyll, nutrients and pH. An extension to the Argo project called BioArgo is being developed and, when implemented, will add a biological and chemical component to this method of sampling the oceans.

The antenna for satellite data collection is mounted at the top of the float which extends clear of the sea surface after it completes its ascent. The ocean is saline, hence an electrical conductor, so that radio communications from under the sea surface are not possible. Early in the program Argo floats exclusively used slow mono-directional satellite communications but the majority of floats being deployed in mid-2013 use rapid bi-directional communications. The result of this is that Argo floats now transmit much more data than was previously possible and they spend only about 20 minutes on the sea surface rather than 8–12 hours, greatly reducing problems such as grounding and bio-fouling.

The average life span of Argo floats has increased greatly since the program began, first exceeding 4-year mean lifetime for floats deployed in 2005. Ongoing improvements should result in further extensions to 6 years and longer.

As of June 2014, new types of floats were being tested to collect measurements much deeper than can be reached by standard Argo floats. These "Deep Argo" floats are designed to reach depths of 4000 or 6000 metres, versus 2000 metres for standard floats. This will allow a much greater volume of the ocean to be sampled. Such measurements are important for developing a comprehensive understanding of the ocean, such as trends in heat content.

Array design

The original plan advertised in the Argo prospectus called for a nearest-neighbour distance between floats, on average, of 3° latitude by 3° longitude. This allowed for higher resolution (in kilometres) at high latitudes, both north and south, and was considered necessary because of the decrease in the Rossby radius of deformation which governs the scale of oceanographic features, such as eddies. By 2007 this was largely achieved, but the target resolution has never yet been completely achieved in the deep southern ocean.

Efforts are being made to complete the original plan in all parts of the world oceans but this is difficult in the deep Southern Ocean as deployment opportunities occur only very rarely.

As mentioned in the history section, enhancements are now planned in the equatorial regions of the oceans, in boundary currents and in marginal seas. This requires that the total number of floats be increased from the original plan of 3000 floats to a 4000-float array.

One consequence of the use of profiling floats to sample the ocean is that seasonal bias can be removed. The diagram opposite shows the count of all float profiles acquired each month by Argo south of 30°S (upper curve) from the start of the program to November 2012 compared with the same diagram for all other data available. The lower curve shows a strong annual bias with four times as many profiles being collected in austral summer than in austral winter. For the upper (Argo) plot, there is no bias apparent.

Data access
One of the critical features of the Argo model is that of global and unrestricted access to data in near real-time. When a float transmits a profile it is quickly converted to a format that can be inserted on the Global Telecommunications System (GTS). The GTS is operated by the World Meteorological Organisation, or WMO, specifically for the purpose of sharing data needed for weather forecasting. Thus all nations who are members of the WMO receive all Argo profiles within a few hours of the acquisition of the profile. Data are also made available through ftp and WWW access via two Argo Global Data Centres (or GDACs), one in France and one in the US. About 90% of all profiles acquired are made available to global access within 24 hours, with the remaining profiles becoming available soon thereafter.

For a researcher to use data acquired via the GTS or from the Argo Global Data Centres (GDACs) does require programming skills. The GDACs supply multi-profile files that are a native file format for Ocean DataView. For any day there are files with names like 20121106_prof.nc that are called multi-profile files. This example is a file specific to 6 November 2012 and contains all profiles in a single NetCDF file for one ocean basin. The GDACs identify three ocean basins, Atlantic, Indian and Pacific. Thus three multi-profile files will carry every Argo profile acquired on that specific day.

A user who wants to explore Argo data but lacks programming skills might like to download the Argo Global Marine Atlas which is an easy-to-use utility that allows the creation of products based on Argo data such as the salinity section shown above, but also horizontal maps of ocean properties, time series at any location etc. This Atlas also carries an "update" button that allows data to be updated periodically. The Argo Global Marine Atlas is maintained at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California. Argo data can also be displayed in Google Earth with a layer developed by the Argo Technical Coordinator.

Data results

Argo is now the dominant source of information about the climatic state of the oceans and is being widely used in many publications as seen in the diagram opposite. Topics addressed include air-sea interaction, ocean currents, interannual variability, El Niño, mesoscale eddies, water mass properties and transformation. Argo is also now permitting direct computations of the global ocean heat content.

They determine that areas of the world with high surface salinity are getting saltier and areas of the world with relatively low surface salinity are getting fresher. This has been described as 'the rich get richer and the poor get poorer'. Scientifically speaking, the distributions of salt are governed by the difference between precipitation and evaporation. Areas, such as the northern North Pacific Ocean, where precipitation dominates evaporation are fresher than average. The implication of their result is that the Earth is seeing an intensification of the global hydrological cycle. Argo data are also being used to drive computer models of the climate system leading to improvements in the ability of nations to forecast seasonal climate variations.

Argo data were critical in the drafting of Chapter 3 (Working Group 1) of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (released September 2013) and an appendix was added to that chapter to emphasize the profound change that had taken place in the quality and volume of ocean data since the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report and the resulting improvement in confidence in the description of surface salinity changes and upper-ocean heat content.

Argo data were used along with sea level change data from satellite altimetry in a new approach to analyzing global warming, reported in Eos in 2017. David Morrison reports that "[b]oth of these data sets show clear signatures of heat deposition in the ocean, from the temperature changes in the top 2 km of water and from the expansion of the ocean water due to heating. These two measures are less noisy than land and atmospheric temperatures."

Argo and CERES data collected between 2005 and 2019 have been compared as independent measures of the global change in Earth's energy imbalance. Both data sets showed similar behavior at annualized resolution, as well as a doubling of the linear trend in planet's heating rate during that 14-year span.

title: Argo (oceanography)


text:
Threedegrees

threedegrees or 3° (frequently referred to as Three Degrees) was a communication and P2P application produced by Microsoft. It allowed the user to sign in using a .NET Passport and integrated into MSN Messenger. It sorted buddies into groups, and allowed initiating group chats in MSN Messenger, and sharing of pictures, listening to a shared playlist and sending animated winks.

threedegrees is now discontinued and certain features provided by the software have been partially integrated into MSN Messenger 7. threedegrees used to only run under Windows XP Service Packs 1 and 2, with a custom IPv6 stack installed.

threedegrees had a concept of being able to stream music between multiple users like a miniature radio station. However, despite other new features being included in MSN Messenger 7, this feature was never released due to large copyright issues that would be faced by Microsoft. MSN Messenger does, however, now enable other users to see what their buddy is listening to and is linked to a website providing this music if needed, a concept spurred by this idea.

The threedegrees product was conceived and produced by an internal startup at Microsoft called the Netgen team. The team was unique in that it was an internal startup inside of Microsoft, set away from the software giant's Redmond campus in separate offices in downtown Seattle and staffed mostly with college graduates tasked to create a product "for themselves". The team was chronicled in Newsweek on February 24, 2003 by writer Steven Levy in his article "Microsoft Gets A Clue From Its Kiddie Corps ". While the threedegrees product never reached mass adoption, it represented one of Microsoft's early attempts to revitalize its MSN division through the creation of an incubator team outside of the company's main R&D structure.

title: Threedegrees


text:
Category:Turkish writers

This category is for writers who were nationals of the modern national state of Turkey. Writers who died before 1923, or emigrated from what is now Turkey before that year, should be placed in Category:Writers from the Ottoman Empire. Writers prior to 1300 may need to be given a category other than that. Writers who died in 1923 might also not belong here if they had stopped writing significantly before then. Those who wrote in the Turkish language but were not nationals of Turkey should be put in Category:Turkish-language writers.

title: Category:Turkish writers


text:
Sunny Garcia

Vincent Sennen "Sunny" Garcia (born January 14, 1970) is an American professional surfer from Waianae, Hawaii. After leaving school he debuted on the 1986 Gotcha Pro at Sandy Beach, Oahu, beating the 1984 champ Tom Carroll.

His top surfing achievement was becoming the ASP WCT World Champion in 2000. Garcia also holds the record for most WQS event wins (22 wins) and holds six Triple Crown of Surfing titles. In addition, he was the second professional surfer to win over $1 million in prize money.

He initially retired in 2005 but returned to competition. In 2008, his hopes for ASP World Tour qualification were dashed with early elimination in the O'Neill World Cup of Surfing.

He has served prison time for tax evasion and was arrested for fighting.

Career
Garcia was a dominant force in the Hawaiian Surfing Association starting as a 17-year-old on the 1986 WCT, beating former champion Tom Carroll and threatening to cause an upset to the top 16. Despite this early promise he just failed to break into this elite group in his debut season. The following year he finished in 16th position.

Garcia showed great consistency throughout the 1990s, finishing in the top ten every year and coming third four times. However, in 1995 it seemed that he might have reached the climax of his career. Failing to win the Pipeline Masters to claim the title, Sunny ended up finishing third behind Kelly Slater and Rob Machado. With a host of talented young blood set to qualify for the 1996 Dream Tour and declining fitness levels, it seemed Garcia's era was over.

Then, four years later, inspired by veteran Mark Occhilupo's shock 1999 WCT title, Garcia shed weight and moved to Kauai. There he surfed with the progressive Irons brothers, Andy and Bruce, expanding his surfing repertoire.

In 2000, 14 years after his debut, Garcia achieved the ultimate surfing accolade, emphatically dominating the ASP WCT from the start of the campaign, winning the first two events in Australia and clinching the title in Brazil, the penultimate event. On the way he also picked up a fifth Triple Crown in his native Hawaii.

After initially retiring from the professional surfing circuit in 2005, Garcia began competing on the WQS again. In 2008, he started slowly but moved into the top ten after a fifth-place finish in Scotland. Garcia was determined to win the series, and many people tipped him to do so but in the end early elimination in the O'Neill World Cup of Surfing, in his own backyard, meant he was denied a place on the 2009 Dream Tour.

In 2009 he had surgery on his knee and finished the year strongly, following a quarter-final berth in the Hawaiian pro with a runner-up spot to Triple Crown rival Joel Parkinson in the O'Neill World Cup. However, his attempt to clinch a seventh Triple Crown was denied when he lost his Pipemasters place after arriving late for his heat. Some consolation came from his standout performance at the 'Quiksilver in memory of Eddie Aikau' big wave contest ("The Eddie"), in which he finished third.

As of June 2010, he was placed 67th in the new ASP World Rankings, his best result being a quarter-final finish on the 'Sponsor me now Sunset Open' in January.

Non-surfing work
In 2002, he starred in North Shore: Boarding House, a reality TV show featuring surfers living together. However, he generally chooses to steer clear of the North Shore hype, preferring to spend his time surfing alone or riding motocross. Garcia features in the Sunny Garcia Surfing video game. He also has a clothing deal with Affliction Clothing where the tattoos he has on his body have been replicated on his own custom shirt.

Garcia has volunteered for the charity Surfers Healing, a foundation for autism, which has included beach clean-up days held in Hawaii and along California's coast. In 2011, Garcia was the host of the Surfers for Cystic Fibrosis golf tournament fundraiser that has been organized by the charitable organization The Mauli Ola Foundation. Proceeds will fund surf experience days cystic fibrosis sufferers.

Personal life
Garcia was born Vincent Sennen Garcia on January 14, 1970, in Mā'ili, on the Westside of Oahu, Hawaii. Garcia is of Puerto Rican and Hawaiian heritage from his father's side and Hawaiian, Chinese, Filipino, Irish, and Native American heritage from his mother's side. His nickname "Sunny" was given to him by his mother, due to his cheerful disposition as an infant. Following his parents' divorce, Garcia lived with his mother near Mā'ili point, close to the beach.

He has been married three times, most recently to Colleen McCullough in 2008, and has three teenage children from his first marriage.

In October 2006, Garcia was sentenced to federal prison for tax fraud after failing to pay taxes on unreported contest winnings from 1996 to 2001. Garcia failed to report over $471,000 in prize money on his tax returns for those years, resulting in a three-month sentence, beginning January 12, 2007, plus a further 7 months of house arrest and 80 hours community service with Goodwill. "I spent my money foolishly and didn't handle my affairs," he said outside the San Diego federal courtroom where he was sentenced.

On 21 February 2011, the ASP Rules and Disciplinary Committee convened to assess an alleged brawl involving Garcia, Jeremy Flores, and a local surfer, who allegedly dropped in on Garcia's teenage son while surfing on 19 February 2011 on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. In accordance with the ASP Rulebook, immediately following the incident, then-active surfer Jeremy Flores was suspended from the 4-star Breaka Burleigh Pro event at Burleigh Heads, and then-eliminated surfer Garcia was suspended from the 4-star Burton Toyota Pro in Newcastle, New South Wales. An amateur cameraman who filmed the brawl alleged he was attacked by Sunny Garcia soon after, when he approached him on land. The cameraman lodged an official assault complaint with Gold Coast Police but withdrew it on the afternoon of 21 February 2011.

Witnesses allege Garcia went after the cameraman, knocking him to the ground and inflicting deep grazes to his back and arms with one of the man's hands receiving injuries. The cameraman told police he wanted to drop his complaint after receiving threats from locals and Garcia's overseas supporters warning of retribution and sought to lie low in his native Brazil until the surf rage furor died down. The cameraman was quoted as saying, "I'm too scared to press charges...Garcia could go to jail and then people would want to get me. At the moment I just don't feel safe...I've had threats on the internet I don't know how I'd protect myself and my family if something happened". Garcia sought legal advice from high-profile Gold Coast lawyer Chris Nyst. On 3 May 2011, Queensland Police Service confirmed an arrest warrant has been issued for a 41-year-old man on a charge of common assault, the reporting newspaper linked the warrant to Garcia. On 4 May 2011, Garcia's lawyer, Chris Nyst, confirmed the arrest warrant for Garcia, that it involves the young surfer who was allegedly assaulted, advised continued co-operation from Garcia with police and is confident his client would be exonerated.

On April 30, 2019, the World Surf League announced that Garcia was in critical condition at a Portland hospital. Garcia had attempted suicide the previous day. On September 17, 2019, Garcia's daughter, Kaila, reported that Sunny had previously been in a coma, but was speaking again and doing physical, speech and occupational therapy. Since December 2014, Garcia had been open about his struggles with depression and mental health, and encouraged those who deal with mental illness to talk about their feelings with others.

Titles/records held

 * 2000 ASP WCT World Champion
 * 2004 Triple Crown of Surfing
 * 2000 Triple Crown of Surfing
 * 1999 Triple Crown of Surfing
 * 1994 Triple Crown of Surfing
 * 1993 Triple Crown of Surfing
 * 1992 Triple Crown of Surfing
 * 1987–1988 ASP's Men's Most Improved award
 * 1990 ASP's Men's Most Improved award
 * Most victories in WQS competition (22)
 * Most Triple Crown of Surfing titles (6)

History of wins
2004
 * Vans Hawaiian Pro (Alii Beach - Hale'iwa, Hawaii)

2002
 * G-Shock Hawaiian Pro (Alii Beach - Haleiwa, Hawaii)

2000
 * Billabong Pro (Kirra Point - Gold Coast, Australia)
 * Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach, (Australia)
 * Panasonic Shockwave US Open (Huntington Beach, California)
 * G-Shock Hawaiian Pro (Alii Beach - Haleiwa, Hawaii)
 * Rip Curl World Cup (Sunset Beach - Oahu, Hawaii)

1997
 * Katin Team Challenge (Huntington Beach, California)

1996
 * Rip Curl Pro (Bells Beach, Australia)
 * Town and Country (Ala Moana - Oahu, Hawaii)

1995
 * Rip Curl Pro (Bells Beach, Australia)
 * Quiksilver Surfmasters (Grande Plage - Biarritz, France)
 * Rusty Pro (Honolua Bay - Maui, Hawaii)
 * Op Pro (Huntington Beach, California)
 * T&C/Bud Surf Tour Championships (Mākaha - Oahu, Hawaii)

1994
 * Reunion Pro (Saint-Leu, Réunion)
 * Billabong Kirra Pro (Kirra Point - Gold Coast, Australia)
 * T&C/Bud Surf Tour Championships (Mākaha - Oahu, Hawaii)
 * Hapuna World Cup of Surfing (Sunset Beach - Oahu, Hawaii)

1993
 * HIC Pro (Banzai Pipeline - Oahu, Hawaii)
 * Op Pro (Huntington Beach, California)
 * Wyland Galleries Hawaiian Pro (Alii Beach - Haleiwa, Hawaii)

1992
 * Gunston 500 (Durban, Natal, South Africa)
 * T&C O'Neill Pro (Kuhio Beach - Maui, Hawaii)
 * Pukas Pro (Zarauz, Basque Country, Spain)
 * Marui/Surfin' Life Qualifying (Hebara Beach - Chiba, Japan)
 * Miyazaki Qualifying (Miyazaki, Japan)
 * Xcel Pro (Sunset Beach - Oahu, Hawaii)
 * Wyland Galleries Hawaiian Pro (Alii Beach - Haleiwa, Hawaii)

1990
 * Pukas Pro (Zarauz, Basque Country, Spain)
 * Seland Pro (Sopelana, Basque Country, Spain)

Awards
In 2010, Sunny was inducted into the Surfing Walk of Fame at Huntington Beach.

title: Sunny Garcia