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Foxy Brown (film)

Foxy Brown is a 1974 American blaxploitation action film written and directed by Jack Hill. It stars Pam Grier as the title character who takes on a gang of drug dealers who killed her boyfriend. The film was released by American International Pictures as a double feature with Truck Turner. The film uses Afrocentric references in clothing and hair. Grier starred in six blaxploitation films for American International Pictures.

While not prosecuted for obscenity, the film was seized and confiscated in the United Kingdom under section 3 of the Obscene Publications Act 1959 during the video nasty panic.

Plot
Foxy Brown seeks revenge when her government-agent boyfriend is shot down at her doorstep by members of a drug syndicate. She links her boyfriend's murderers to a "modeling agency" run by Stevie Elias and Kathryn Wall that services local judges, congressmen, and police in the area. Foxy decides to pose as a prostitute to infiltrate the company, and helps save a fellow black woman from a life of drugs and sexual exploitation, and reunites her with her husband and child.

Not long after she infiltrates the company, her relationship to her late boyfriend and her brother, Lincoln 'Link' Brown, who ratted her boyfriend out, is exposed. She is caught before she can escape. After an exchange of words and heated death threats, Kathryn decides to keep her alive in hopes of her being worth some money in the sex-slave trade. They give her a shot of heroin and then send her to a farm, which is actually a drug manufacturing plant, with two of Miss Kathryn's henchmen. After she wakes from her sleep, she tries to escape her captors, but is caught by one of the henchmen with a whip and dragged back to the bedroom, where he proceeds to tie her to the bed. Then, Kathryn's second goon comes and gives Foxy another shot of heroin. Being tied up the dealer eyes Foxy and begins to fondle her breasts before he rips off her bra and proceeds to rape her.

Using her quick thinking, Foxy uses a razor to get free and escapes her captors by setting the farm on fire. Kathryn orders Stevie to kill Foxy; he vainly attempts to scare information out of Link, and then kills him and his girlfriend. Foxy asks her Black Panther brothers for help; they kill Stevie's partners in crime, capture Stevie and castrate him. Foxy comes to Kathryn's house and shows her the jar containing Stevie's genitals. After killing Kathryn's guards and shooting her in the arm with a hidden pistol, Foxy says that death is too easy for her and wants her to suffer the way that Kathryn made her suffer.

Stereotypes
According to Yvonne D. Sims in her book Women of Blaxploitation, Foxy Brown was heavily criticized, not only for its "disturbing" portrayal of black womanhood, but also for its controversial stereotypes about violence and drug abuse in black culture. In a time when African Americans were making progress politically, socially, and culturally, Foxy Brown's heroine contradicted the image they were creating for themselves in society. Though Foxy is considered a heroine in this film, her role as vengeful black woman willing to pose as a prostitute and exposing herself throughout the film goes against some of the characteristics one would expect in a heroine. It also addresses the stereotype of the objectification of black women. Nelson George states that Pam Grier has been embraced by many feminists for her roles that not only display her beauty, but also her fearlessness and ability to exact retribution on men who challenge her.

Blaxploitation
Blaxploitation is a genre of exploitation films that usually targets the black audience in urban communities. Blaxploitation was very popular at the time this film was made after parts of the film industry saw untapped box-office potential in the black audience. The reputation of the blaxploitation film genre has shifted from low-budget black exploitation films to American classics worthy of deeper analysis. Although criticized for exploiting African-American culture, at the time, it provided one of the few ways for African-Americans to get into the film industry. Grier addressed this in an interview with Essence in 1979: "Why would people think I would ever demean the Black woman? I was tried and convicted without being asked to testify in my defense. Sure, a lot of those films were junk. But they were what was being offered. They provided work for me and jobs for hundreds of Blacks. We all needed to work. We all needed to eat."

Maternalism
In Foxy Brown and Coffy (1973), the women share a distinct characteristic; they are nurturers. In each film, the plot surrounds justice for a loved one who was a victim of drug abuse, violence, and gang activity. Foxy wants revenge for her late boyfriend, Michael, and she also wants to shut down the drug and prostitute operation so they can no longer harm her community. Director Jack Hill made an obvious reference to Angela Davis, the American activist, when she was talking to Black Caesar, and she demands they get justice for "all of the people." In Coffy, Grier was seeking revenge against the drug underworld for her younger sister getting hooked on drugs, and now has to live in a rehabilitation home. In both films, the women risk their lives carrying out vigilant missions to make the streets a better place, but also, and more importantly, to avenge their family.

Women's power movement
This movie spoke directly to the women's power movement and struggle in the 1970s. Despite criticism, Foxy was the poster child for a new type of heroine who was subsequently appropriated by the blaxploitation genre. She redefined African-American beauty, sexuality, and womanhood, which led to the diversification of African-American actresses onscreen. Grier said: "The 1970s was a time of freedom and women saying that they needed empowerment. There was more empowerment and self-discovery than any other decade I remember. All across the country, a lot of women were Foxy Brown and Coffy. They were independent, fighting to save their families not accepting rape or being victimized... This was going on all across the country. I just happened to do it on film. I don't think it took any great genius or great imagination. I just exemplified it, reflecting it to society."

Additionally, Foxy Brown and Coffy show that women can stand up for themselves and for what they believe. The image of Foxy in an evening gown, well-equipped with a gun, is a visual representation of that idea that one does not have to be masculine to have power. "Female power," according to Grier, is "very different [from] male power, and a woman should maintain it always."

Production
According to director Jack Hill, due to tension between American International Pictures (AIP) and him, he was not invited to direct the sequel for Coffy until last minute. Tensions arose at a screening of a different film on which AIP had been working, which they were eager to show to Hill. Hill walked out, unimpressed, and AIP made a vow to never hire him again. AIP founder Samuel Z. Arkoff reconciled with Hill, however, after the success of Coffy.

Foxy Brown was originally intended to be a sequel to his Coffy, also starring Pam Grier, and originally used the working title "Burn, Coffy, Burn!" However, AIP decided at the last minute it did not want to do a sequel. Therefore, it is never said exactly what kind of job Foxy Brown has – "Coffy" was a nurse, and since this was no longer to be a sequel, they could not give Foxy Brown that job and did not have time to rewrite the script to establish just what kind of job she had.

On the audio commentary on the film's DVD release, Hill mentions that he was initially against the outfits that the wardrobe department chose for Foxy Brown. Since Pam Grier had become a star in Coffy, an impetus existed to present the actress as even more stylish than she had appeared in the previous film. The 14 costumes were designed by a California couturier named Ruthie West, who was also the stylist for the Jackson 5, Thelma Houston, Bobbie Gentry, the Curtis Brothers, and Sisters Love, among others. Hill, by his own account, though, initially felt that the outfits were too trendy and specific to the time period, and within a few years would cause the film to look dated and obsolete. In the years since the film's release, however, Hill has reversed his opinion on Foxy's clothes, particularly in the wake of not only Foxy Brown's ascent into pop culture icon, but also the '70s nostalgia movement that started in the mid-1990s. Hill also mentioned that the character of Foxy Brown became something of a female empowerment symbol that seemed to transcend the time period of the film.

Reception
Foxy Brown was a financial success. Produced on a budget of $500,000, it grossed $2,460,000.

A. H. Weiler of The New York Times wrote that Grier was "in a rut" and "fast becoming a bore despite all the sex, brawls and gore in 'Foxy Brown'". Variety wrote that even by blaxploitation standards, the film is "something of a mess. Hill's screenplay has peculiar narrative gaps that are not concealed by heaps on 'right on, brother' dialog, while his direction is frenzied without being exciting." The review concluded that Grier was "reasonably competent and self-assured" and would be interesting to see in a different role. Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film one star out of four and wrote, "Some critics have found meaning in recent black films featuring large, well-endowed women as heroic figures. I find nothing ground-breaking about that. ' Foxy Brown ' is selling Pam Grier's body just like it was sold a couple years ago in a half-dozen Philippine women-in-prison pictures." Linda Gross of the Los Angeles Times stated, "For the most part, 'Foxy Brown ' is just another movie about vengeance, vigilantes, dope, call girls and violence — interspersed with sex, vulgarity and hatred." The Atlanta Daily World wrote that Grier had the star caliber to "carry a film and to have the title role." Verina Glaessner of The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote, "For all its additional heavyweight violence ... Foxy Brown is in every way a far less interesting work than writer-director Jack Hill's previous film with Pam Grier, Coffy. ... Hill's colourless script does little for an actress who unmistakeably has, regardless of her material, all the strength and resilience of a Jane Russell."

The film holds a 62% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 21 reviews.

In 2003, the character Foxy Brown was one of 400 characters nominated in AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains list.

Soundtrack
The film's songs were written and performed by Willie Hutch, and a soundtrack album was released on Motown Records in 1974.

Home media
In 2001, Foxy Brown was released on DVD with a commentary track by director Jack Hill. In 2010, the film was digitized in High Definition (1080i) and broadcast on MGM HD. In 2013, Arrow Video released a region B/2 (UK only) restored Blu-ray that featured extras including a director's audio commentary track, new interviews with the cast, and a collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film by Josiah Howard, author of Blaxploitation Cinema: The Essential Reference Guide. In 2015, Olive Films released a region A/1 (US only) Blu-ray with no special features.

Influence
Foxy Brown is considered to be one of the most influential blaxploitation films, with Pam Grier's character seen as the female archetype of the genre. The film and the character of Foxy Brown have directly influenced or were referenced in multiple films in subsequent years, including Girl 6 (1996), Urban Legend (1998), Undercover Brother (2002), and Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002). Jackie Brown, the Quentin Tarantino film starring Grier in the title role, is an homage to Foxy Brown. In the 2001 horror film Bones, Grier references her Foxy Brown character.

It is often noted by film historians as one of the first blaxploitation films to provide a portrayal of a strong and independent woman; until Grier, women often existed exclusively to support their men for a small part of the film.

Additionally, Foxy Brown and the preceding film Coffy are unique for their establishment of pushers and pimps as villains. Before these films, the blaxploitation genre often espoused empathy for the social positions of such individuals.

Pam Grier titled her memoir Foxy: My Life in Three Acts (2010), influenced by this film.

Television series
In December 2016, a television series based on the film was reported as being developed by streaming service Hulu, with DeVon Franklin and Tony Krantz executive producing, and Meagan Good starring as Foxy Brown. As of October, 2022, the TV series has yet to appear.

title: Foxy Brown (film)


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Category:Sapporo

Sapporo is the capital city of Hokkaido Prefecture, Japan.

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

title: Category:Sapporo


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John Robarts (Baháʼí)

John Aldham Robarts (November 2, 1901 – June 18, 1991) was a prominent Canadian Baháʼí. He was born in 1901 in Waterloo, Ontario, to Aldham Wilson Robarts and Rachel Mary Montgomery-Campbell. His sister was Marjorie Campbell Robarts, who survived the sinking of the Allan liner RMS Hesperian in September 1915.

In 1957, Shoghi Effendi appointed Robarts a Hand of the Cause of God, the highest office to which an individual could be appointed in the Baháʼí Faith. His travels as a Hand included Southern Rhodesia, Morocco, Liberia, Cameroon, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Hawaii, Jamaica, Iceland, Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, Fiji, Tonga, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, New Hebrides, and Western Samoa.

He died in Rawdon, Quebec, on 18 June 1991.

title: John Robarts (Baháʼí)


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Handcar

A handcar (also known as a pump trolley, pump car, rail push trolley, push-trolley, jigger, Kalamazoo, velocipede, or draisine) is a railroad car powered by its passengers, or by people pushing the car from behind. It is mostly used as a railway maintenance of way or mining car, but it was also used for passenger service in some cases. A typical design consists of an arm, called the walking beam, that pivots, seesaw-like, on a base, which the passengers alternately push down and pull up to move the car.

Use
It is a simple trolley, pushed by two or four people (called trolleymen), with hand brakes to stop the trolley. When the trolley slows down, two trolleymen jump off the trolley, and push it till it picks up speed. Then they jump into the trolley again, and the cycle continues. The trolleymen take turns in pushing the trolley so that the speed is maintained and two people do not get tired. Four people also required to safely lift the trolley off the rail tracks when a train approaches.

Rail tracks have a tendency to develop various defects including cracks, loose packing etc., which may lead to accidents. The first rail inspections were done visually. Push trolley inspections formed a very important part of these visual inspections.

Modern usage
Handcars have been normally used by railway service personnel (the latter also known as gandy dancers) for railroad inspection and maintenance. Because of their low weight and small size, they can be put on and taken off the rails at any place, allowing trains to pass. Handcars have since been replaced by self-propelled vehicles that do not require the use of manual power, instead relying on internal combustion engines or electricity to move the vehicle.

Handcars are nowadays used by handcar enthusiasts at vintage railroad events and for races between handcars driven by five person teams (one to push the car from a halt, four to pump the lever). One such race, the Handcar Regatta, was held in Santa Rosa, California from 2008 to 2011 and other races are held in Australia. See the section on racing below. Aside from handcars built for racing, new handcars are being built with modern roller bearings and milled axles and crankshafts.

Tourist usage
For some decades, especially in Europe, the handcar is also used for tourist and recreational purposes. In this case, handcar is usually called draisine or railbike. Thanks to draisine it is possible to revitalize sections of abandoned railway lines, allowing visitors to discover beautiful nature landscapes otherwise inaccessible. The practice of handcar is more and more increasing thanks to the growing attention, throughout the Western world, to sustainable tourism.

The European country in which the draisine is most diffused is probably France (with the name of vélorail), where in 2021 there were 56 active routes. Many of these have been united, since 2004, in the Federation of Vélorail of France.

The practice of draisine, in Europe, is also diffused in many Northern countries, such as Sweden and Finland, but also in Belgium, in Luxembourg, in Germany. Even in Italy, the practice is starting to spread, with a few projects under consideration.

United States
It is not clear who invented the handcar, also written as hand car or hand-car. It is likely that machinists in individual railroad shops began to build them to their own design. Many of the earliest ones operated by turning large cranks. It is likely that the pump handcar, with a reciprocating walking beam, came later. While there are hundreds of US patents pertaining to details of handcars, probably the primary designs of mechanisms for powering handcars were in such common use that they were not patentable when companies started to manufacture handcars for sale to the railroads.

Handcars were absolutely essential to the operation of railroads during a time when railroads were the primary form of public transportation for people and goods in America, from about 1850 to 1910. There may have been handcars as early as the late 1840s but they were quite common during the American Civil War. They were a very important tool in the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad. There were many thousands of them built. They were commonly assigned to a "section" of track, the section being between about 6 to 10 miles long, depending upon the traffic weight and locomotive speed experienced on the section. Each section would have a section crew that would maintain that piece of track. Each section usually had a section house which was used to store tools and the section's handcar. Roughly 130,000 miles of track had been constructed in America by 1900. Thus, considering there was a handcar assigned to at least every ten miles of that track, there would have been a minimum of 13,000 handcars operating in the United States. This number is obviously a gross underestimate because many sections were shorter than 10 miles and railroads also had spare handcars for use in unusual circumstances. Telegraph company Western Union and other rail-users had their own handcars, adding to the overall handcar population.

The first handcars, built in the railroad shops, were probably made of whatever parts the shops had around or could easily make. These cars were probably quite heavy. Heavy handcars need more people to propel them. More people will add more power but at some point the benefits are offset by the weight of the people: their own weight would not be compensated by any extra power they can produce. Many companies made handcars in the years following the American Civil War as evidenced by the number of advertisements in contemporary publications such as The Car Builder's Dictionary. By the mid 1880s The Sheffield Velocipede Car Company, The Kalamazoo Velocipede Company and the Buda Foundry and Manufacturing Company were the three large companies who were the primary builders of handcars. Sheffield was almost immediately acquired by industrial giant Fairbanks Morse. All three companies changed their names over the years but for most of the years that they produced handcars, they were still identified as Sheffield, Kalamazoo and Buda. Hand cars continued to be available through the first half of the 20th century. Fairbanks Morse was still offering a handcar from their catalog as late as 1950 and Kalamazoo sold them until at least 1955.

While depictions on TV and in movies might suggest that being a member of a handcar crew is a joyride, in fact pumping a traditional handcar with bronze bearings rather than modern roller bearings can be very hard work. The disagreeable nature of this experience must have been heightened by the dead weight of typical section crew supplies such as railroad spikes, track nuts and bolts, shovels, pry bars of various sorts and other iron and steel equipment.

Motor section cars began to appear in the very early 1900s, or a few years earlier. They quickly replaced most of the handcars. Those handcars whose uses continued even during World War I, were probably scrapped during World War II. The number of handcars that survived is unclear. They can be found in railroad museums and some are in private hands.

Australia
In Australia, hand cars or pump carts are commonly referred to as Kalamazoos after the Kalamazoo Manufacturing Company, which provided many examples to the Australian railway market. Many Kalamazoos are preserved in Australia, some even being used for races.

Guatemala
There is a push car service along the railroad tracks between Anguiatú in Guatemala and rural towns across the Salvadoran border. Sometimes it is pulled by a horse.

Indian Railways
Although many railways in the world have switched to other methods of inspection, it is still widely used over Indian Railways   in addition to other techniques, especially for inspecting railway track and assets like bridges which are situated between stations. The push trolley carries one or more officials inspecting the track and the railside equipment. The official carries instruments to measure and check the condition of the tracks and monitor the work being done by the trackmen, keymen, gatemen etc. who maintain, patrol, man the track and installations. The push trolley is also used by officials inspecting signalling installations in some parts of India. On routes carrying high volumes of traffic, such as the suburban section in Mumbai, push trolleys cannot be used and foot inspections are being resorted to.

Japan
In Japan, dozens of commercially operated handcar railway lines, called human car tramway (人車軌道) or human car railway (人車鉄道) existed in early 20th century. Those lines were purely built for its passenger/freight service, and "drivers" pushed small train cars all the way. The first line, Fujieda-Yaizu Tramway, opened in 1891, and most of the others opened before 1910. Most lines were very short with less than 10 km lengths, and the rail gauges used were either or. As the human-powered system was fairly inefficient, many handcar tramways soon changed their power resources to either horse or gasoline. The system was not strong against a competition with other modes of transport, such as trucks, horses, buses, or other railways. Taishaku Handcar Tramway ceased its operation as early as 1912, and almost all the lines were already closed before 1945.

List of handcar tramways in Japan

 * Hokkaidō
 * Ebetsu Town Handcar Tramway 江別町営人車軌道
 * Akita
 * Nakanishi Tokugorō Operated Tramway 中西徳五郎経営軌道
 * Yamagata
 * Akayu Handcar Tramway 赤湯人車軌道
 * Iwate
 * Waga Light Tramway 和賀軽便軌道
 * Miyagi
 * Matsuyama Handcar Tramway 松山人車軌道
 * Tochigi
 * Iwafune Handcar Tramway 岩舟人車鉄道
 * Kitsuregawa Handcar Tramway 喜連川人車鉄道
 * Nabeyama Handcar Tramway 鍋山人車軌道
 * Nasu Handcar Tramway 那須人車軌道
 * Otome Handcar Tramway 乙女人車軌道
 * Utsunomiya Stone Tramway 宇都宮石材軌道
 * Ibaraki
 * Haguro Tramway 羽黒軌道
 * Inada Tramway 稲田軌道
 * Iwama Tramway 岩間軌道
 * Kabaho Kōgyō Tramway 樺穂興業軌道
 * Kasama Handcar Tramway 笠間人車軌道
 * Chiba
 * Mobara-Chōnan Handcar Tramway 茂原・長南間人車軌道
 * Noda Handcar Tramway 野田人車鉄道 (linemap)
 * Ōhara-Ōtaki Handcar Tramway 大原・大多喜間人車軌道
 * Tōkatsu Handcar Tramway 東葛人車鉄道
 * Tokyo
 * Taishaku Handcar Tramway 帝釈人車軌道
 * The current Keisei Kanamachi Line.
 * Gunma
 * Satomi Tramway 里見軌道
 * Yabuzuka Stone Tramway 藪塚石材軌道
 * The part of the current Tōbu Kiryū Line.
 * Kanagawa
 * Zusō Handcar Tramway 豆相人車鉄道
 * Also in Shizuoka.
 * Shizuoka
 * Fujieda-Yaizu Tramway 藤枝焼津間軌道
 * Nakaizumi Tramway 中泉軌道
 * Shimada Tramway 島田軌道
 * Fukui
 * Hongō Tramway 本郷軌道
 * Okinawa
 * Okinawa Handcar Tramway 沖縄人車軌道

Philippines
Hand built Trolleys are illegally used on suburban railway tracks as an unauthorised commuter service in Manila, Philippines.

Taiwan

In Taiwan, commercially operated handcars were called either light railway line (Traditional Chinese: 輕便線; Hanyu Pinyin: qīngbiàn-xiàn), hand-pushed light railway line (手押輕便線; shǒuyā qīngbiàn-xiàn), hand-pushed tramway (手押軌道; shǒuyā guǐdào), or most commonly, hand-pushed wagon (手押臺車; shǒuyā táichē). The first line was built in the 1870s. The network developed later under Japanese rule. In 1933, its peak, there were more than 50 lines in the island with 1,292 km network, transporting local passengers, coal, factory products, sugar, salt, bananas, tea leaves, and others. Most lines, excluding those in mines and isolated islands, have disappeared following the end of Japanese rule. However, a few lines survived well until the 1970s. Currently, only the sightseeing line in Wūlái still exists, although its line is not human-powered anymore.

In popular culture
Handcars are a recurring railway-themed plot device of twentieth and twenty-first century film, such as comedy, drama and animation.
 * The opening scene of Blazing Saddles, set at a railroad construction site, features a handcar.
 * In the movie Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, the culminating chase scene takes place along a railway, with one of the pursuers chasing the heroes down the tracks on a handcar.
 * In the Dad's Army episode "The Royal Train", the Walmington-on-Sea Home Guard platoon find themselves stuck on a runaway train. Warden Hodges, the vicar, the verger and the town mayor chase them using a handcar.
 * In the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the three main characters encounter an old blind man on a handcar after escaping from prison and in the conclusion of the movie.
 * In the film Gallowwalkers there is a handcar used in the opening scenes.
 * In the movie The Great St Trinian's Train Robbery two St Trinian's schoolgirls use one to move between distant points levers.
 * In the Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner episode "Rushing Roulette" (1965) Wile E. Coyote attempts to catch the Road Runner using a handcar.
 * In 1998, Sega manufactured the handcar-themed arcade game Magical Truck Adventure which the player controls by pumping a large handle.
 * Buster Keaton uses a handcar during a chase scene in the film The General; he also uses a powered draisine in The Railrodder.
 * In the Simpsons episode "500 Keys", Marge chases a toy handcar called the "Pooter Toot Express". The two figures pumping the car pass gas every time they pump.
 * In Reds (1981), John Reed, played by Warren Beatty, attempts to leave Russia via a velocipede but is detained by Finnish troops at the border.
 * In Thomas and Friends, Old Bailey uses a handcar in the episode "Haunted Henry" (Series 5, Episode 11). This handcar can also be seen in Series 6, 14, 15, 16, 22 and 23. A real-life handcar can also be seen in the "10 Years of Thomas and Friends" VHS on the Strasburg Railroad during a Day Out with Thomas event.
 * In Postman Pat, Pat, Jess and Ted use a handcar in the Special Delivery Service episode "A Wobbly Piano" so they could get to Greendale and deliver Lizzy's piano.
 * In a Dr. Seuss movie, Green Eggs and Ham, the Grumpy Guy escapes on the handcar in the rain.
 * In the Help! It's the Hair Bear Bunch episode Raffle Ruckus, the animals and keepers of the Wonderland Zoo use handcars when leaving the train they were on.
 * In the TV show Petticoat Junction, a handcar is shown in many episodes, whenever the Cannonball is not available to take the Hooterville Valley residents where they need to be.
 * In the Mr. Men Show episode "Trains and Planes", Mr. Bump and Miss Helpful use a handcar to deliver sleepers for the railway. Later at the end, Mr. Grumpy jumps on board their handcar, but it gets destroyed by Miss Whoops.
 * In the Lego Loco game intro, two minifigs are riding on a handcar, before becoming chased by a speeding train.
 * In The Good Place episode "Tinker, Tailor, Demon, Spy", the characters Michael and Jason begin a journey from The Good Place to The Bad Place on a handcar. In the following episode "Employee of the Bearimy" they complete the journey and later return to The Good Place on the handcar with Janet.
 * In Hell on Wheels episode Range War, the main character Cullen is approached on the railroad tracks by a man operating a handcar who brings with him a scalped head.
 * In Last of the Dogmen a handcar is used in a scene where a young, Native American boy is captured.
 * Handcars are featured in the western adventure game Red Dead Redemption 2. In one mission, protagonists Arthur Morgan and John Marston use a handcar to carry some dynamite onto a railway bridge they need to blow up. After planting the dynamite, they use the handcar again to escape an approaching train.

Racing
The Canadian Championship Handcar Races are held annually at the Palmerston Railway Heritage Museum (formerly the old Palmerston CNR station) in Palmerston, Ontario, Canada each June. These races began in 1992 and have been running since.

An annual handcar race, Dr. E. P. Kitty's Wunderkammer, featuring the Great Sonoma County Handcar Races (formerly known as The Hand-car Regatta), is held in the rail-yard in old downtown Santa Rosa, California.

A multi-faceted festival, it was centered in races of numerous widely varying human-powered vehicles operating on railroad tracks. These included traditional hand-powered carts and others powered by pedals or pushing.

A similar race is happening in the nearby Northern California town of Willits, California, on Sept. 8 and 9, 2012. Other races are held in Australia, some using preserved old handcars. See the reference above discussing Kalamazoos in Australia.

Advantages
Push trolleys have a major advantage over motorised trolleys as they do not require any traffic block and the inspecting officials can carry out inspections at their leisure.

Disadvantages
The push trolleys are a potential safety hazard as they occupy track (albeit temporarily) and, if the trolley is not removed from track in time, it can collide with a train and cause an accident. Therefore, on sections having gradients or poor visibility, the push trolleys are not allowed without traffic blocks. '

title: Handcar


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O Independente

O Independente (Portuguese for The Independent) was a Portuguese weekly newspaper published in Lisbon, Portugal, between 1988 and 2006.

History and profile
O Independente was first published in May 1988 by Miguel Esteves Cardoso, who became its first editor, and Paulo Portas, who succeeded him in 1990 and served until 1995 when he left to run for office as a conservative politician.

O Independente was published by Recoletos weekly on Fridays. Its headquarters was in Lisbon. The paper had a rightwing, conservative stance and a Eurosceptic discourse.

The last edition of O Independente was published on 1 September 2006.

title: O Independente


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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Genetic Pokémon

 This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. 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 delete. -- AllyUnion (talk) 16:55, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Genetic Pokémon
Pokénonsense. Android79 04:55, Feb 25, 2005 (UTC)

 * Inarticulate pokenonsense at that! 9:58, Feb 24, 05
 * Note: Comment by user 70.176.170.245. --InShaneee 05:07, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Can we get a Speedy Delete for Patent Nonesense? I've played the game, so I can assure you, this is gibberish (pokecruft at best). --InShaneee 05:06, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete, trivial, pokemon fancruft. Megan1967 06:33, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. Gibberish.  ComCat 09:10, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * For its horrendous grammar, it's almost BJAODN. Anyway, delete. Radiant! 11:13, Feb 25, 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. I have never played Pokémon so I can't comment on the accuracy or factualness, but it seems like poorly written fancruft.   — J I P | Talk 11:23, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. 'Nuff said. -R. fiend 01:30, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete, I'm familiar with Pokémon and this looks like some made-up nonsense. DopefishJustin (・∀・) 08:34, Feb 26, 2005 (UTC)
 * Speedy - any patent nonsense is wirth it to me... kelvSYC 17:57, 26 Feb 2005 (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 the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.


text:
Alfred C. Richmond

Alfred Carroll Richmond (18 January 1902 – 15 March 1984) was an admiral of the United States Coast Guard who served as the 11th Commandant of the United States Coast Guard from 1954 to 1962, the second longest tenure of any U.S. Coast Guard Commandant following Russell R. Waesche who served from 1936 to 1946.

Early life
Richmond was born 18 January 1902 in Waterloo, Iowa, and moved to Cherrydale neighborhood of Arlington, Virginia, with his family at the age of ten. After receiving a high school certificate from Massanutten Military Academy in Woodstock, Virginia, he entered the College of Engineering at George Washington University at the age of 16. While a student at George Washington University, he was employed at the United States Naval Observatory. He graduated from GWU in 1922, the same year he was appointed as a cadet at the United States Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut.

Early career
Upon graduating from the Academy in 1924, with senior man honors, Richmond was commissioned as an ensign on 1 October 1924 and assigned as an aide to Commandant Frederick C. Billard until September 1926 when he was appointed to the Coast Guard Academy staff. On 1 October 1926 he was promoted to lieutenant (junior grade). While at the Academy he participated in cadet summer practice cruises in 1927 aboard USCGC Mojave (WPG-47) and in 1928 aboard USS Shaw (DD-68). On 1 October 1928 Richmond was promoted to lieutenant and assigned as a student at Sperry Gyro Compass School at Brooklyn, New York. Upon graduation he was assigned a navigator aboard USCGC Pontchartrain, a newly delivered Lake-class cutter built at the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation yards at Quincy, Massachusetts. In July 1930 he was transferred to USCGC Wainwright as the executive officer but was assigned in November to be the Coast Guard Representative at the Philadelphia Navy Yard while the USCGC Herndon was being readied for Rum Patrol duty. In May 1932, Richmond was reassigned to Coast Guard Headquarters with the assignment of assembling a Coast Guard marksmanship team at Camp Curtis Guild, Massachusetts that would compete at National Rifle Association matches held at Fort Sheridan, Illinois. After returning to Headquarters in August he was assigned as executive officer of USCGC Haida (WPG-45) patrolling the waters of the Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean. The newly reporting executive officer was promoted to lieutenant commander on 16 October 1932 and he continued to serve in that billet until being reassigned once again to Coast Guard Headquarters in September 1935. While working at headquarters, he enrolled at his alma mater, George Washington University as a law student. He graduated "with distinction" on 8 June 1938 with a Juris Doctor degree. The Coast Guard put Richmond's legal education to immediate use by assigning him duties in preparing law enforcement educational materials and assisting the Coast Guard Engineer-in-Chief with land records for property used by the Coast Guard. As the Coast Guard's first legal specialist he assisted in writing regulations for the recently formed Coast Guard Auxiliary, which at the time was known as the Coast Guard Reserve. During July 1939 he served as a representative of the Department of the Treasury and a delegate of the United States at the International Whaling Conference held at London, England.

World War II service
In May 1941, Richmond was transferred to the Bethlehem Shipbuilding yard at Baltimore, Maryland, to supervise the outfitting of the new Coast Guard training vessel American Sailor, which was to be used for the training of U.S. Maritime Service personnel. He became the commanding officer when American Sailor was commissioned on 22 July 1941 and sailed her to the Maritime Service Training Station at Port Hueneme, California, where he also assumed command of the school in February 1942. Richmond was promoted to commander on 17 July 1942 while stationed at Port Hueneme. With the termination of Coast Guard control of Maritime Service ships on 1 September 1942, he received orders to report aboard the Haida once again as the commanding officer where he was responsible for convoy escort duty for ships taking troops and cargo to Alaska. In February 1943 he was directed to report to the Merchant Marine Inspection Office in New York where his duties included those of examining officer and hearing officer. Richmond was promoted to captain 1 June 1943 and in July was transferred to London, England. He was the Senior Coast Guard Officer in charge of the Merchant Marine Hearing Unit where he was responsible for administering and enforcing laws relating to the functions of Coast Guard vessels and personnel. He was also the hearing officer for accidents and casualties involving U.S. naval forces vessels and personnel in Europe. As the senior Coast Guard officer on the staff of the commander, U.S. Naval Forces in Europe he assisted in the organizing of Coast Guard assets used during Operation Overlord. For his part in planning the invasion, he received the Bronze Star Medal for meritorious service. The French government awarded him the Croix de Guerre "for exceptional services rendered in the liberation of France".

Post-World War II assignments
In May 1945, Richmond was assigned to Coast Guard Headquarters serving as Supply Division Chief, Program Planning Division Chief, Planning and Budgets Division Chief, and Assistant Chief of the Planning and Control Division. During 1948 he undertook the additional assignment of chairing a committee that was charged with considering the recommendations of a study ordered by Congress on how the improve the operation of the Coast Guard and eliminate waste and extravagance. As Chief of the Planning and Control Division in 1949, Richmond was responsible for the response to the recommendations of the Hoover Commission to transfer control of the Coast Guard from the Department of the Treasury to the Department of Commerce. He successfully demonstrated to the commission that there were no gains in economy or efficiency by such an action. On 9 March 1950, President Harry S. Truman appointed Richmond as Assistant Commandant of the Coast Guard with rank of rear admiral. The following year, he was given addition duties as Coast Guard Chief of Staff.

Commandant
Richmond was appointed as Commandant of the Coast Guard by President Dwight D. Eisenhower 13 May 1954 as a vice admiral and took office 1 June, succeeding Vice Admiral Merlin O'Neill. One of his first concerns upon taking office was a proposal by Eisenhower to merge the Coast Guard Academy with the Department of Commerce Merchant Marine Academy. Again, Richmond was able to convince proponents of the move that there were no gains in economy and several impractical features to proposal by citing the differences in the military and commercial aspects of the academies. In 1956 Richmond's staff helped in the formation of the National Search and Rescue Plan which defined the Coast Guard's role and justified further developments in search and rescue (SAR) techniques by used by cutters and aircraft. Other developments during his first term as commandant included the coordinated use of non Coast Guard resources in oceanic SAR cases and the adoption of Loran-C used for navigation. Because of Richmond's rapport with members of Congress and a desire of the Eisenhower administration to continue improving SAR programs, he was appointed to a second term as Commandant and took office 1 June 1958. Richmond was particularly active with international maritime conferences, representing the United States at the first assembly of the Intergovernmental Maritime Consultative Organization (IMCO) in January 1959 and four other occasions as head of the Maritime Safety Committee of IMCO. In 1960 he was head of the delegation to the Safety of Life at Sea Convention in London, for which services he was awarded the newly inaugurated Coast Guard Distinguished Service Medal. On 1 June 1960, he was promoted to admiral under the authority of Public Law 86-474, which required the commandant to hold the rank of admiral. In 1960 he was chosen to preside at the sixth International Lighthouse Conference and as president of the executive committee of the International Association of Lighthouse Authorities. In 1961, Richmond was again a delegate to the second assembly of IMCO as well as chairman of the National Committee for Prevention of Pollution of Seas by Oil.

Retirement and personal life
Admiral Richmond was relieved by Admiral Edwin J. Roland in formal change-of-command ceremonies held aboard the USCGC Campbell on the Potomac River at Washington, DC, 31 May 1962 and officially retired from the Coast Guard on 1 June receiving a gold star in lieu of a second award of the Distinguished Service Medal for his "exceptionally meritorious service" as commandant from 1 June 1954 to 31 May 1962. He moved with his wife, Gretchen Campbell Richmond, to Claremont, California, where he served as a civil defense official for many years. He died of cancer 15 March 1984 at the age of 82 in Claremont and is buried alongside her at Arlington National Cemetery. Richmond was installed in the George Washington University Letterman Hall of Fame in November 1959 honoring his college letter in football. Richmond and his wife Gretchen were parents of two sons, John Mason Richmond and Alfred Carroll Richmond Jr.

title: Alfred C. Richmond


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Deathtalika

 This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. 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 delete -- AllyUnion (talk) 09:25, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Deathtalika
No Google hits. Albums not listed on Amazon. Seems non-notable, or possible a joke/hoax. Delete. —Brim 04:58, Feb 25, 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete, not notable, band vanity. Megan1967 05:58, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. No allmusic.com entry. Gamaliel 06:02, 25 Feb 2005 (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 the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.


text:
Hellenic Journal

The Hellenic Journal is a monthly news magazine aimed at the Greek-American community of the western United States.

History and profile
Hellenic Journal was founded by Frank Peter Agnost and the first issue appeared in April 1975. The magazine was first based in Mississippi and is headquartered in San Francisco. It delivers news each month about Greece, local communities, features, organizations, cuisine, sports, dancing and much more to an audience of savvy readers embracing Greek life.

title: Hellenic Journal


text:
Electoral Commission (United States)

The Electoral Commission, sometimes referred to as the Hayes-Tilden or Tilden-Hayes Electoral Commission, was a temporary body created by the United States Congress on January 29, 1877, to resolve the disputed United States presidential election of 1876. Democrat Samuel J. Tilden and Republican Rutherford B. Hayes were the main contenders in the election. Tilden won 184 undisputed electoral votes, one vote shy of the 185 needed to win, to Hayes' 165, with 20 electoral votes from four states (Florida, Louisiana, Oregon, and South Carolina) unresolved. Both Tilden and Hayes electors submitted votes from these states, and each claimed victory.

Facing an unparalleled constitutional crisis and intense public pressure, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives and the Republican-controlled Senate agreed to formation of the bipartisan Electoral Commission to settle the election. It consisted of fifteen members: five each from the House and the Senate, plus five Supreme Court justices. Eight members were Republicans; seven were Democrats. The commission ultimately voted along party lines to award all twenty disputed votes to Hayes, thus assuring his electoral victory by a margin of 185–184. Congress, meeting in a joint session on March 2, 1877, affirmed that decision, officially declaring Hayes the winner by one vote.

Election of 1876
The presidential election was held on November 7, 1876, and Tilden won the electors of his home state of New York and most of the South, while Hayes' strength lay in New England, the Midwest, and the West. Tilden had won the popular vote by just over a quarter of a million votes, but he did not have a clear Electoral College majority. He received 184 uncontested electoral votes, while Hayes received 165. Both campaigns claimed the remaining twenty (four from Florida, eight from Louisiana, seven from South Carolina, and one from Oregon) votes. As 185 votes constituted a majority, Tilden needed only one of the disputed votes, while Hayes needed all twenty. The returns in several states, including the disputed states of Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina, were tainted by allegations of electoral fraud, with each side claiming ballot boxes had been stuffed, ballots altered, and voters intimidated.

Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina
Early returns suggested that Tilden had won the election, and on election night Republican Party chair Zachariah Chandler believed Hayes had lost. However, Chandler gave permission early the next morning to William E. Chandler and John C. Reid, managing editor of The New York Times (which had run the headline "The Results Still Uncertain"), to wire Republican officials in Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina to hold their states for Hayes. In each state, Republicans controlled the partisan returning boards, tasked with certifying the popular results of the election. In response to Chandler's directive, Democratic Party chair Abram S. Hewitt organized committees of prominent Democrats to travel South and oversee the vote counting. President Grant, in turn, sent Republican delegations to follow the Democratic observers.

In each of the three disputed Southern states, the pattern that followed was largely the same: the returning board invalidated numerous ballots on the grounds of fraud or voter intimidation, delivering a popular majority to Hayes and the Republican candidate for Governor. A dissident Democratic government claimed victory and the legitimate authority to govern and certify the electoral vote of the state. The Republican claimant certified an electoral slate for Hayes, and the Democratic claimant certified a slate of electors for Tilden.

In Florida, the initial count showed Hayes ahead by 43 votes, but after corrections were made, Tilden took the lead by 94 votes. Subsequently, the returning board rejected numerous ballots, delivering the election to Hayes by nearly a thousand votes. The board also declared that the incumbent Republican governor, Marcellus Stearns, had won the gubernatorial election; however, the Florida Supreme Court overruled them, instead awarding the victory to Democrat George Franklin Drew, who announced that Tilden had carried Florida. In Louisiana, early unofficial tallies indicated that Tilden had carried the state by over 6,000 votes, but the Republican-controlled returning board rejected over 15,000 votes (13,000 for Tilden and 2,000 for Hayes) for reasons of fraud and voter intimidation. As a result, Hayes won Louisiana's eight electoral votes, while Republican candidate Stephen B. Packard was considered to lead the vote count in the simultaneous election for Governor of Louisiana. In response, the Democratic Party instituted a rival state government under Francis T. Nicholls, and this rival administration, in turn, certified that Tilden had won. The Louisiana Returning Board was composed of James Madison Wells, Thomas C. Anderson, Gardene Casanave, and Louis M. Kenner.

A nearly identical scenario played out in South Carolina, where initial returns suggested that Hayes had won the presidential election, while the Democratic candidate Wade Hampton III had won the gubernatorial contest. As in Louisiana, the Republican-controlled returning board rejected several thousand votes, ensuring the election of a Republican governor, Daniel Henry Chamberlain, and legislature. The Democratic Party promptly organized a rival state government, led by Hampton, and this body declared Tilden the victor in the presidential election.

Oregon elector
In addition to sending Democrats to observe the vote count in the South, Hewitt also responded to Chandler by directing Governor La Fayette Grover of Oregon to reject the election of a Republican elector. Though the popular vote in Oregon had clearly favored Hayes, the elector, John W. Watts, was a United States postmaster, calling into question his constitutional eligibility to serve. Article II, section 1, clause 2 of the Constitution reads "no … person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States shall be appointed an elector." Watts resigned his office a week after the election, long before the Electoral College was scheduled to meet. Thus, the question hinged on whether Watts was "appointed" at the time of his election in November or at the meeting of the electoral college in December.

Governor Grover certified a Tilden elector who had the next-most votes, C.A. Cronin, in his place. Thus, the Governor had certified two Republican electors and one Democratic elector. Historian C. Vann Woodward suggests this was done to provide a legal pretext to look behind the official state certification in the disputed states; if Republicans questioned Cronin's credentials as an elector (which they would have to do in order to win), they would be forced to permit questions against the apparently certified slates in Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina.

Electoral College vote
On December 6, 1876, the electors met in the state capitals to cast their ballots. In Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina, both the Democratic and the Republican slates of electors assembled, and cast conflicting votes, while in Oregon Watts and Cronin both cast ballots. Thus, from each of these four states, two sets of returns were transmitted to Washington, D.C.

Constitutional crisis
The election dispute gave rise to a constitutional crisis, as no clear constitutional directive was given for recognizing or resolving disputed electoral counts. The Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution reads in part, "The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;" but gives no indication by whom "the votes shall then be counted" or where the authority rested to decide between competing slates of electors.

Some Hayes supporters argued that the President of the Senate had the authority to determine which certificates to count, because he was responsible under the Twelfth Amendment for presiding over the congressional session at which the electoral votes were tallied. Since the office was occupied by a Republican, this method would have favored Hayes. Many Democrats argued that Congress, in joint session, should determine which certificates to count; because they controlled the much larger House, this would ensure Tilden's victory. Other Democrats posited that because neither candidate had a clear majority of the electoral vote, the election should be thrown to the House of Representatives, per the explicit terms of the Twelfth Amendment. Still others proposed that the matter should be settled by the Supreme Court.

As members of the political class returned to Washington D.C. in advance of the December congressional session, Democratic cries of "fraud" and "Tilden-or-fight" were met with Republican recriminations that Democratic victories in the South were attributable to fraud and intimidation. Democratic opinion was united in favor of Tilden, while some Republicans (including President Ulysses S. Grant and Senator Roscoe Conkling) privately expressed their belief that Tilden had won, and some Republican newspapers were ambivalent about Hayes's case. In a reversal of Civil War ideology, many Republicans argued that the right to certify electors lay solely with the states and could not be reviewed by Congress; Democrats argued that state returns were subject to federal scrutiny. However, the sole Democratic elector certified by the Governor of Oregon rendered the Republican argument for states' rights mostly moot, since pure deference to state returns would result in a vote of 185–184 in favor of Tilden.

In the background of the legal and political arguments lay the threat of armed violence, which did not clearly favor either side in the dispute. The United States was just over a decade removed from the American Civil War and sectional, racial, and ideological tensions had remained fraught during the Reconstruction Era. Republicans controlled the regular United States Army, but it was small and widely dispersed; Democratic governors throughout the country controlled their state chapters of the National Guard. Congressman Henry Watterson of Kentucky declared that an army of 100,000 men was prepared to march on Washington unless Tilden was declared President.

Electoral Commission Act
The 44th United States Congress met in a lame-duck session beginning December 7, the day after the disputed electoral votes were submitted. The House was controlled by the Democratic Party, while the Senate was controlled by the Republican Party. Based on the results of the 1876 election, party control promised to remain the same in each chamber for the 45th Congress.

On December 21 and 22, respectively, the Senate and House established special committees charged with establishing a process to resolve the dispute, with membership as follows:

The two committees ultimately settled upon creating a commission that would count the electoral votes and resolve questions arising during the count. Many Republicans objected to the idea, insisting that the President pro tempore should resolve the disputes himself. Rutherford Hayes charged that the bill was unconstitutional. However, enough Republicans joined the Democrats to ensure its passage. On January 25, 1877, the Senate voted in favor of the bill 47–17; the House did likewise the next day, 191–86. The Electoral Commission Act was signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on January 29, 1877.

The Act provided that the Electoral Commission was to consist of fifteen members: five representatives selected by the House, five senators selected by the Senate, four Supreme Court justices named in the law, and a fifth Supreme Court justice selected by the other four. The most senior justice was to serve as president of the commission. Whenever two different electoral vote certificates arrived from any state, the commission was empowered to determine which return was correct. The commission's decisions could be overturned only by both houses of Congress.

Membership of the commission
Originally, it was planned that the commission would consist of seven Democrats and seven Republicans, with an independent (Justice David Davis) as the fifteenth member of the commission. According to one historian, "no one, perhaps not even Davis himself, knew which presidential candidate he preferred." Just as the Electoral Commission Bill was passing Congress, the Legislature of Illinois elected Davis to the Senate, with Democrats in the Illinois legislature believing that they had purchased Davis' support for Tilden, but this was a miscalculation: Davis promptly excused himself from the commission and resigned as a Justice in order to take his Senate seat.

With no other independents on the Supreme Court, the final seat on the Electoral Commission was given instead to Justice Joseph P. Bradley, a Republican, giving the GOP a one-seat majority on the commission. In each case, Bradley would vote with his fellow Republicans to give the disputed electoral votes to Hayes.

The membership of the commission was as follows:

Proceedings of the commission and the Compromise of 1877
The Electoral Commission held its meetings in the Supreme Court chamber. It sat in the same manner as a court, hearing arguments from both Democratic and Republican lawyers. Tilden was represented by Jeremiah S. Black, Montgomery Blair, John Archibald Campbell, Matthew H. Carpenter, Ashbel Green, George Hoadly, Richard T. Merrick, Charles O'Conor, Lyman Trumbull, and William C. Whitney. Hayes was represented by William M. Evarts, Stanley Matthews, Samuel Shellabarger, and E. W. Stoughton.

The tribunal began hearing arguments on February 1, 1877. Tilden's lawyers argued that the commission should investigate the actions of the state returning boards, and reverse those actions if necessary. Conversely, Hayes' counsel suggested that the commission should merely accept the official returns certified by the state governor without inquiring into their validity. To do otherwise, it was argued, would have violated the sovereignty of the states. The commission voted 8–7, along party lines, in favor of the Republican position.

Subsequently, in a series of party-line votes, the commission awarded all twenty disputed electoral votes to Hayes. Under the Electoral Commission Act, the commission's findings were final unless overruled by both houses of Congress. Although the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives repeatedly voted to reject the commission's decisions, the Republican-controlled Senate voted to uphold them. Thus, Hayes' victory was assured.

Unable to overturn the commission's decisions, many Democrats instead tried to obstruct them. Congressman Abram Hewitt, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, made a spurious challenge to the electoral votes from Vermont, even though Hayes had clearly carried the state. The two houses then separated to consider the objection. The Senate quickly voted to overrule the objection, but the Democrats conducted a filibuster in the House of Representatives. In a stormy session that began on March 1, 1877, the House debated the objection for about twelve hours before overruling it. Immediately, another spurious objection was raised, this time to the electoral votes from Wisconsin. Again, the Senate voted to overrule the objection, while a filibuster was conducted in the House. However, the Speaker of the House, Democrat Samuel J. Randall, refused to entertain dilatory motions. Eventually, the filibusterers gave up, allowing the House to reject the objection in the early hours of March 2. The House and Senate then reassembled to complete the count of the electoral votes. At 4:10 am on March 2, Senator Ferry announced that Hayes and William A. Wheeler had been elected to the presidency and vice presidency, by an electoral margin of 185–184.

The Compromise of 1877
Some historians believe that Democrats and Republicans reached an unwritten agreement (known as the Compromise of 1877) under which the filibuster would be dropped in return for a promise to end Reconstruction, but there is no contemporary evidence of it and little evidence at all. The name was coined by C. Vann Woodward in his 1951 book, Reunion and Reaction.

Aftermath
Many of Tilden's supporters believed that he had been cheated out of victory, and Hayes was variously dubbed "Rutherfraud", "His Fraudulency", and "His Accidency." On March 3, the House of Representatives went so far as to pass a resolution declaring its opinion that Tilden had been "duly elected President of the United States." Nevertheless, Hayes was peacefully sworn in as president on March 5.

Many historians have complained that, after entering office, Hayes rewarded those who helped him win the election dispute with federal offices. Most notably, one of the lawyers who argued Hayes' case before the Electoral Commission, William M. Evarts, was appointed Secretary of State, while another, Stanley Matthews, was appointed to the Supreme Court, and a third, Edwin W. Stoughton, was appointed Minister to Russia.

In May 1878, the House of Representatives created a special committee charged with investigating the allegations of fraud in the 1876 election. The eleven-member committee was chaired by Clarkson Nott Potter, a Democratic congressman from New York. The committee, however, could not uncover any evidence of wrongdoing by the President. At approximately the same time, the New York Tribune published a series of coded telegrams that Democratic Party operatives had sent during the weeks following the 1876 election. These telegrams revealed attempts to bribe election officials in states with disputed results. Despite attempts to implicate him in the scandal, Samuel Tilden was declared innocent by the Potter Committee.

To prevent a repetition of the farce of 1876, the 49th Congress passed the Electoral Count Act in 1887. Under this law, now codified in, a state's determination of electoral disputes is conclusive in most circumstances: the President of the Senate opens the electoral certificates in the presence of both houses, and hands them to the tellers, two from each house, who are to read them aloud and record the votes. In the event of a state sending multiple returns to Congress, then whichever return has been certified by the executive of the state is counted, unless both houses of Congress decide otherwise.

The end of Reconstruction
One major outcome of the electoral commission and the Compromise of 1877 was the return of the South to "home rule" via the removal of federal troops, effectively ending the Reconstruction era.

With the end of federal government's enforcement of post-bellum equality, takeovers of the Southern legislatures by the Southern wing of the Democratic Party were quick to occur, often involving fraud and/or violence.

These new "Redeemer" governments implemented Jim Crow laws which imposed a system of racial discrimination, reversing the gains of Reconstruction and disenfranchising black people in the South until 1965.

title: Electoral Commission (United States)


text:
Methanopyrus

Methanopyrus is a genus of methanogen, with a single described species, Methanopyrus kandleri. It is a rod-shaped hyperthermophile, discovered on the wall of a black smoker from the Gulf of California at a depth of 2,000 m, at temperatures of 84–110 °C. Strain 116 was discovered in black smoker fluid of the Kairei hydrothermal field; it can survive and reproduce at 122 °C. M. kandleri also requires a high ionic concentration (>1 M) in order for growth and cellular activity. Due to the species' high resilience and extreme environment, M. kandleri is also classified as an extremophile. It lives in a hydrogen–carbon dioxide rich environment, and like other methanogens reduces the latter to methane. It is placed among the Euryarchaeota, in its own class.

Morphology
Methanopyrus kandleri is a rod-shaped methanogen with an approximate length of 2–14 μm and diameter of 0.5 μm. The cellular membrane of M. kandleri is unique as it consists of terpenoid lipids, believed to be one of the most primitive lipids and a predecessor to phytanyl di-ethers found in later archaea. Terpenoid lipids are a group of lipids containing cholesterol, hopanoids, carotenoid, phytane, and bisphytane. Although terpenoids are the main component of the membrane in M. kandleri, they are more of a supporting structure in eukaryote and bacteria. M. kandleri is motile via polar flagella tufts.

Methanopyrus kandleri has a high concentration of cyclic 2,3-diphosphoglycerate. This compound is often found in hyperthermophile, helping to prevent protein denaturation in high temperatures. The increased concentration of cyclic 2,3-diphosphoglycerate protects the methanogen, helping it survive in an environment that many other organisms could not. Beyond this compound to help protect the proteins, M. kandleri also has a high salt concentration inside its membrane. This increased concentration of salt helps with enzyme stability and promotes activity of the enzymes at higher temperatures.

Metabolism
As a methanogen, M. kandleri utilizes hydrogen as an electron source and reduces carbon dioxide from the environment into methane, a process known as methanogenesis. M. kandleri is a chemolithoautotrophic, obligate anaerobe and does not use oxygen as a final electron acceptor.

Habitat
Cultures of M. kandleri have been isolated from various submarine hydrothermal vents from locations in the Gulf of California, Central Indian Ridge, Mid-Atlantic Ridge, and Iceland. The species was first discovered on the wall of a black smoker from the Gulf of California at a depth of 2,000 m, at temperatures of 84–110 °C. M. kandleri can survive up to temperatures of 122 °C, although optimal growth has been determined to be at 98 °C. High internal ionic cell concentrations (>1 M) are required for cell growth and activity. Due to the extremity of environment that M. kandleri resides in, it is hypothesized that further phylogenetic isolation has occurred due to the exclusivity of the species niche.

Genomic properties
The complete genome of Methanopyrus kandleri was sequenced by researchers at Fidelity Systems. It was determined to be a GC-rich genome containing 1,694,969 nucleotides of which about 62.1% is guanine or cytosine. The single circular chromosome possesses 1,691 protein-coding genes and 39 RNA genes. The species also possesses a large number of orphan genes, possibly through viral gene transfer.

Future research
Methanopyrus kandleri is also the only species known to have topoisomerase V. Topoisomerase V allows for M. kandleri to survive in such high temperatures and helps to relax both positively and negatively supercoiled DNA. Topoisomerase V is a unique enzyme because it possesses both topoisomerase and DNA repair activities, specifically multiple DNA repair sites that can act independently of each other even if there is damage to one of the sites on the DNA. Although topoisomerase V is useful in this case, finding other hyperthermophiles that have topoisomerase V has proven difficult. This lack of topoisomerase V in other archaeon has led researchers to believe that the origin of the enzyme in M. kandleri is a result of viral gene transfer and the unusual amount of orphan genes in the species provides evidence for this theory. Additionally, the evolved cellular responses in M. kandleri due to its extreme environment has been another subject of research, as scientists look to apply the resilient enzymatic processes for industrial purposes.

title: Methanopyrus


text:
Counter-battery radar

A counter-battery radar or weapon tracking radar is a radar system that detects artillery projectiles fired by one or more guns, howitzers, mortars or rocket launchers and, from their trajectories, locates the position on the ground of the weapon that fired it. Such radars are a subclass of the wider class of target acquisition radars.

Early counter-battery radars were generally used against mortars, whose lofted trajectories were highly symmetrical and allowed easy calculation of the launcher's location. Starting in the 1970s, digital computers with improved calculation capabilities allowed more complex trajectories of long-range artillery to also be determined. Normally, these radars would be attached to friendly artillery units or their support units, allowing them to quickly arrange counter-battery fire.

With the aid of modern communications systems, the information from a single radar can be rapidly disseminated over long distances. This allows the radar to notify multiple batteries as well as provide early warning to the friendly targets. Modern counter-battery radar can locate hostile batteries up to about 50 km away depending on the radar's capabilities and the terrain and weather. Some counter-battery radars can also be used to track the fire of friendly artillery and calculate corrections to adjust its fire onto a particular place, but this is usually a secondary mission objective.

Radar is the most recently developed means of locating hostile artillery. The emergence of indirect fire in World War I saw the development of sound ranging, flash spotting and aerial reconnaissance, both visual and photographic. Radars, like sound ranging and flash spotting, require hostile guns, etc., to fire before they can be located.

History
The first radars were developed for anti-aircraft purposes just before World War II. These were soon followed by fire control radars for ships and coastal artillery batteries. The latter could observe the splashes of water from missing shots, enabling corrections to be plotted. Generally, the shells could not be seen directly by the radar, as they were too small and rounded to make a strong return, and travelled too quickly for the mechanical antennas of the era to follow.

Radar operators in light anti-aircraft batteries close to the front line found they were able to track mortar bombs. This was likely helped by the fins of the bomb producing a partial corner cube that strongly reflected the signal. These accidental intercepts led to their dedicated use in this role, with special secondary instruments if necessary, and development of radars designed for mortar locating. Dedicated mortar-locating radars were common starting in the 1960s and were used until around 2000.

Locating mortars was relatively easy because of their high, arcing, trajectory. At times, just after firing and just before impact, the trajectory is almost linear. If a radar observes the shell at two points in time just after launch, the line between those points can be extended to the ground and provides a highly accurate position of the mortar, more than enough for counter-battery artillery to hit it with ease. Better radars were also able to detect howitzers when firing at high angles, elevations greater than 45°, although such use was quite rare.

Low angle trajectories normally used by guns, howitzers and rockets were more difficult. Purely ballistic low-angle trajectories are lopsided, being relatively parabolic for the start of the flight but becoming much more curved near the end. This is further modified by otherwise minor effects like wind, air pressure differences and aerodynamic effects, which have time to add up to a noticeable effect on long-range fire but can be ignored for short-range systems like mortars. These effects are minimized immediately after launch, but the low angle makes it difficult to see the rounds during this time, in contrast to a mortar which climbs above the horizon almost immediately. Adding to the problem is the fact that traditional artillery shells make for difficult radar targets.

By the early 1970s, radar systems capable of locating guns appeared possible, and many European members of NATO embarked on the joint Project Zenda. This was short-lived for unclear reasons, but the US embarked on its Firefinder program and Hughes Aircraft Company developed the necessary algorithms, although it took two or three years of difficult work.

The next step forward was European when in 1986 France, West Germany and UK agreed the 'List of Military Requirements' for a new counter-battery radar. The distinguishing feature was that instead of just locating individual guns, etc., the radar would be able to locate many simultaneously and group them into batteries with a centre point, dimensions and attitude of the long axis of the battery. This radar eventually reached service as Euro-ART's COBRA (COunter Battery RAdar) AESA system. 29 COBRA systems were produced and delivered in a roll-out which was completed in Aug. 2007 (12 to Germany – out of which two were re-sold to Turkey, 10 to France and 7 to the UK).

Three additional systems were ordered in Feb. 2009 by the United Arab Emirates Armed Forces. Simultaneous with the development of COBRA, Norway and Sweden developed a smaller, more mobile counter-battery radar known as ARTHUR. It was taken into service in 1999 and is today used by 7 NATO countries and The Republic Of South Korea. New versions of ARTHUR have twice the accuracy of the original.

Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan led to a new need for a small counter-mortar radar for use in forward operating bases, providing 360° coverage and requiring a minimal crew. In another back to the future step it has also proved possible to add counter-battery software to battlefield airspace surveillance radars.

Description
The basic technique is to track a projectile for sufficient time to record a segment of the trajectory. This is usually done automatically, but some early and not so early radars required the operator to manually track the projectile. Once a trajectory segment is captured it can then be processed to determine its point of origin on the ground. Before digital terrain databases this involved manual iteration with a paper map to check the altitude at the coordinates, change the location altitude and recompute the coordinates until a satisfactory location was found.

An additional problem was detecting the projectile in flight in the first place. The conical shaped beam of a traditional radar had to be pointing in the right direction, but in order to have sufficient power and accuracy for this the beam's angle was limited, typically to about 25°, which made finding a projectile quite difficult. One technique was to deploy listening posts that told the radar operator roughly where to point the beam; in some cases the radar was not switched on until this point to make it less vulnerable to electronic counter-measures (ECM). However, conventional radar beams were not notably effective.

Since a parabola is defined by just three points, tracking a long segment of the trajectory was not notably efficient. The Royal Radar Establishment in the UK developed a different approach for their Green Archer system. Instead of a conical beam, the radar signal was produced in the form of a fan, about 40° wide and 1° high. A Foster scanner modified the signal to cause it to focus on a horizontal location that rapidly scanned back and forth. This allowed it to comprehensively scan a small slice of the sky.

The operator would watch for mortar bombs to pass through the slice, locating its range with pulse timing, its horizontal location by the location of the Foster scanner at that instant, and its vertical location from the known angle of the thin beam. The operator would then flick the antenna to a second angle facing higher into the air, and wait for the signal to appear there. This produced the necessary two points that could be processed by an analogue computer. A similar system was the US AN/MPQ-4, although this was a somewhat later design and somewhat more automated as a result.

Once phased array radars compact enough for field use and with reasonable digital computing power appeared, they offered a better solution. A phased array radar has many transmitter/receiver modules which use differential tuning to rapidly scan up to a 90° arc without moving the antenna. They can detect and track anything in their field of view, providing they have sufficient computing power. They can filter out the targets of no interest (e.g., aircraft) and depending on their capability track a useful proportion of the rest.

Counter-battery radars used to be mostly X band because this offers the greatest accuracy for the small radar targets. However, in the radars produced today, C band and S band are common. The Ku band has also been used. Projectile detection ranges are governed by the radar cross section (RCS) of the projectiles. Typical RCS are:

The best modern radars can detect howitzer shells at around 30 km, and rockets/mortars at 50 km. The trajectory has to be high enough to be seen by the radar at these ranges, and since the best locating results for guns and rockets are achieved with a reasonable length of trajectory segment close to the gun, long range detection does not guarantee good locating results. The accuracy of location is typically given by a circular error probable (CEP), the circle around the target in which 50% of locations will fall, expressed as a percentage of range. Modern radars typically give CEPs around 0.3–0.4% of range. However, with these figures, long range accuracy may be insufficient to satisfy the rules of engagement for counter-battery fire in counter insurgency operations.

Radars typically have a crew of 4–8 soldiers. Only one is needed to actually operate the radar. Older types were mostly trailer-mounted with a separate generator, so it took 15–30 minutes to bring into action and needed a larger crew. Self-propelled ones have been used since the 1960s. To produce accurate locations, radars have to know their own precise coordinates and be precisely oriented. Until about 1980 this relied upon conventional artillery survey, although gyroscopic orientation from the mid-1960s helped. Modern radars have an integral inertial navigation system, often aided by GPS.

Radars can detect projectiles at considerable distances. Larger projectiles give stronger reflected signals (RCS). Detection ranges depend upon capturing at least several seconds of a trajectory and can be limited by the radar horizon and the height of the trajectory. For non-parabolic trajectories, it is important to capture a trajectory as close as possible to its source in order to obtain the necessary accuracy.

Action on locating hostile artillery depends on policy and circumstances. In some armies, radars may have the authority to send target details to counter-battery fire units and order them to fire. In others they may merely report data to an HQ that then takes action. Modern radars usually record the target as well as the firing position of hostile artillery. This is usually for intelligence purposes because it is seldom possible to give the target sufficient warning time in a battlefield environment, even with data communications.

There are exceptions. The new lightweight counter-mortar radar (LCMR – AN/TPQ 48) is crewed by two soldiers and designed to be deployed inside forward positions. In these circumstances it can immediately alert adjacent troops as well as pass target data to mortars close by for counter-fire. Similarly the new GA10 (Ground Alerter 10) radar was qualified and successfully deployed by the French land forces in 2020 in several different FOBs worldwide.

Threats
Radars are vulnerable and high-value targets. They are easy to detect and locate if the enemy has the necessary ELINT/ESM capability. The consequences of this detection are likely to be attack by artillery fire or aircraft, including anti-radiation missiles, or electronic countermeasures. The usual measures against detection are using a radar horizon to screen from ground-based detection, minimising transmission time and using alerting arrangements to tell the radar when hostile artillery is active. Deploying radars singly and moving frequently reduces exposure to attack.

In low-threat environments, such as the Balkans in the 1990s, they may transmit continuously and deploy in clusters to provide all-around surveillance.

In other circumstances, particularly counter-insurgency, where ground attack with direct fire or short range indirect fire is the main threat, radars deploy in defended localities but do not need to move, unless they need to cover a different area.

Safety
Counter-battery radars operate at microwave frequencies with relatively high average energy consumption, up to the tens of kilowatts. The area immediately forward of the radar array for high energy radars is dangerous to human health. The intense radar waves of systems like the AN/TPQ-36 can detonate electrically fused ammunition at short ranges.

Counter-battery radar systems

 * 🇺🇸 AN/MPQ-10 (mortar locating), Echo Band, before 1945. Modified in 1980's to AN/MPQ-10S (Saunders Modification) provided Echo Band tracking and C-Band surface-to-air missile guidance simulations for ECM training.
 * 🇺🇸 AN/KPQ-1 (mortar locating), before 1954
 * 🇺🇸 AN/MPQ-4 (mortar locating), 1958
 * 🇺🇸 AN/TPQ-36 Firefinder radar, 1982
 * 🇺🇸 AN/TPQ-37 Firefinder radar, 1980
 * 🇺🇸 AN/MPQ-64F1 Improved Sentinel (in Multi Mode Sentinel), 1997 initial Sentinel, ~2020 improved
 * 🇺🇸 AN/TPQ-48 Lightweight Counter Mortar Radar (LCMR)
 * 🇺🇸 AN/TPQ-49 LCMR Counterfire Radar
 * 🇺🇸 AN/TPQ-50 LCMR Counterfire Radar, 2011
 * 🇺🇸 AN/TPQ-53 Quick Reaction Capability Radar, 2009
 * 1L219 Zoopark-1, 1989
 * 🇺🇦 1L220 Zoopark-2
 * ARSOM 2P (NATO reporting name: Small Yawn)
 * 🇳🇴 🇸🇪 ARTHUR counter-battery radar
 * Also used by the British Army, under the names mobile artillery monitoring battlefield radar or mobile artillery monitoring battlefield asset (MAMBA)
 * 🇪🇺 Euro-Art COBRA (radar) Active electronically scanned array
 * Radar FA No 15 (Cymbeline) (mortar locating)
 * 🇮🇱 EL/M-2084 combined air surveillance and counter-battery radar
 * 🇸🇪 Giraffe AMB combined air surveillance and counter-battery radar
 * Radar FA No 8 (Green Archer) (mortar locating)
 * 🇵🇱 RZRA Liwiec Artillery Reconnaissance Radar System
 * 🇮🇱 Red Color
 * 🇷🇺 SNAR 1, SNAR 2 (NATO reporting name: Pork Trough) mortar-projectile tracking radar
 * 🇮🇳 Swathi Weapon Locating Radar
 * 🇨🇳 SLC-2 Radar
 * 🇨🇳 Type 373 Radar
 * 🇨🇳 Type 704 Radar
 * 🇨🇳 BL904 radar
 * 🇷🇺 Aistyonok, 2008
 * 🇷🇺 Zoopark-1
 * 🇷🇺 1B75 Penicillin acoustic-thermal artillery-reconnaissance system
 * 🇷🇺 1RL126 (NATO reporting name: Small Fred) counter-battery/surveillance radar, mounted onto a PRP-3 Val
 * 🇹🇷 ASELSAN STR
 * 🇺🇸 AN/TPS-80 combined air surveillance and counter-battery radar, 2016

title: Counter-battery radar


text:
Jules Bernard Luys

Jules Bernard Luys (17 August 1828 – 21 August 1897) was a French neurologist who made important contributions to the fields of neuroanatomy and neuropsychiatry.

Born in Paris on 17 August 1828 he became a doctor of medicine in 1857 and conducted extensive research on the anatomy, pathology and functions of the central nervous system. In 1865 he published a treatise entitled Studies on the Structure, Functions and Diseases of the Cerebro-spinal System, this book was accompanied by a hand-drawn three-dimensional atlas of the brain. It was within this book that Luys provided the first description of the structure that is today called the subthalamic nucleus. Luys termed this nucleus the bandelette accessoire des olives supérieures (accessory band of the superior olives) and concluded that it was a centre for the dispersion of cerebellar influence upon the striatum. Luys also traced the projection from the subthalamic nucleus to the globus pallidus and the projection to the subthalamic nucleus from the cerebral cortex. Today these pathways and structures are thought to be central to the pathophysiology of Parkinson's disease, the subthalamic nucleus being one of the major targets for deep brain stimulation.

In recognition of Luys discovery Auguste Forel (1848–1931) gave the subthalamic nucleus the name corpus Luysii (Luys' body), a name still sometimes used today.

In 1873, Luys published the first photographic atlas on the brain and nervous system: Iconographie Photographique des Centres Nerveux. The atlas contained seventy albumen prints of frontal, sagittal, and horizontal sections of the brain. Some of them were enlarged with a microscope, but the majority represented gross neuroanatomy. Despite the popularity of photography as a new visualization tool, the publication of the Iconographie did not lead to a proliferation of neuroanatomical photographic atlases in the subsequent decades. However, Edward Flatau published such an atlas in 1894.

In collaboration with his friend Benjamin Ball, he founded in 1881 the journal L'Encéphale.

title: Jules Bernard Luys


text:
Merlin O'Neill

Merlin O'Neill (30 October 1898 – 1 March 1981) served as the tenth Commandant of the United States Coast Guard from 1 January 1950 to 1 June 1954.

Born in North Kenova, Ohio, in 1898, O'Neill was commissioned in the United States Coast Guard in 1921. He served on a number of vessels, including his first command, the USS Ericsson (DD-56). In 1927, he began a three-year period as an instructor at the United States Coast Guard Academy before returning to sea in command of the USCGC Monaghan, in 1930. From 1935, he held a number of positions at Coast Guard Headquarters. During World War II he participated in Allied amphibious landings in Morocco and Sicily. He served as Assistant Commandant from 1946 until his appointment as Commandant of the Coast Guard in 1950 and retired in 1954 with the rank of admiral.

Early life and education
O'Neill was born in North Kenova, Ohio, on 30 October 1898. He graduated from Morgan City High School in Morgan City, Louisiana, and then attended Western Kentucky State Normal School in 1916 and 1917. While preparing for the United States Coast Guard Academy entrance examinations O'Neill attended the Marion Military Institute in Marion, Alabama. He was appointed a cadet at the Academy in July 1918 and in March 1921, he graduated and was commissioned as a Coast Guard ensign.

Career
Newly commissioned as an ensign, O'Neill reported aboard the USCGC Gresham (WPG-85), homeported at New York City for his first assignment in April 1921. While assigned to the Gresham he was promoted to lieutenant junior grade on 14 November 1921. In April 1922 he transferred to Seattle, Washington, to serve aboard the USCGC Haida (WPG-45) whose primary area of operation was in the Bering Sea. O'Neill participated in two long Bering Sea patrols while assigned to the Haida before transferring to the USCGC Algonquin in 1924. Algonquin also patrolled the Bering Sea and O'Neill served one long patrol before returning to the Atlantic coast. He served a short time aboard the USCGC Mojave (WPG-47) before being detailed to the Philadelphia Navy Yard to help with the conversion of the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Ericsson (DD-56) to Coast Guard duty for the suppression of smuggling. After Ericsson was commissioned in May 1925, O'Neill was assigned as the executive officer. He was promoted to lieutenant on 10 September 1925 while continuing to serve as the cutter's executive officer. O'Neill assumed command of Ericsson for a short time before he was assigned to the Coast Guard Academy staff as an instructor in September 1927. He was promoted to lieutenant commander on 7 March 1929.

In November 1929, O'Neill assumed the responsibilities of commandant of cadets at the academy and included three summer practice cruises with the cadets in his schedule. After leaving the academy in October 1930, he became commanding officer of three cutters in quick succession in three years; USCGC Monaghan, USCGC Herndon, and USCGC Cassin were assigned to the Rum Patrol for anti-smuggling operations. In June 1933 he was assigned to the command of the USCGC Apache which patrolled Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac River. O'Neill's next assignment in October 1935, took him to Coast Guard Headquarters in Washington, D.C., where he worked in the Office of Operations. As a part of his headquarters assignment in June 1937 he attended the International Whaling Conference in London, England, as a technical advisor to the United States delegation. Additionally in 1939, he was appointed as the first chief director of the newly formed civilian Coast Guard Auxiliary, which was at the time known as the Coast Guard Reserve. While serving as chief director of the auxiliary he was promoted to commander on 25 May 1940. O'Neill continued to serve as auxiliary chief until October 1942.

World War II
In October 1942, O'Neill assumed command of the Coast Guard manned Harris-class attack transport USS Leonard Wood (APA-12) which was practicing landings at Hampton Roads, Virginia, for the invasion of North Africa. Leonard Wood departed Hampton Roads on 24 October and participated in the landings at Fedhala, French Morocco, on 7 November. In late November, Leonard Wood returned to the United States for repairs and training. While at Norfolk Naval Shipyard, O'Neill was promoted to captain on 10 December 1942. As skipper of Leonard Wood O'Neill also particated in the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943, where he was awarded the Legion of Merit for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services during the landings. After Leonard Wood was transferred to the Pacific theater, O'Neill participated in the landings in the Gilbert Islands in November 1943 and Marshall Islands in February 1944. He was transferred in July 1944 to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, as the commanding officer of the Coast Guard Amphibious Training Unit, but a month later he received orders assigning him to head the Baltimore Section of the Fifth Coast Guard District. Early in 1945, he was assigned to Coast Guard Headquarters as the Assistant Chief of the Finance and Supply Division. On 1 June 1945, O'Neill was promoted to commodore and assigned as Commander, Fifth Coast Guard District.

Commandant
On 1 February 1946, O'Neill was appointed Assistant Commandant with the accompanying rank of rear admiral by President Truman and served in that position until the Commandant, Admiral Joseph F. Farley retired on 31 December 1949. He had been nominated by Truman for the post of Commandant on 12 October 1948 and the Senate confirmed the nomination two days later. O'Neill assumed the office of Commandant on 1 January 1950 with the rank of vice-admiral.

With the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 and the passage of the Magnuson Act, the Coast Guard became responsible for the security of all of the nation's ports and harbors. Because the U.S. Coast Guard Reserve had been allowed to lapse after World War II, O'Neill called for the reformation of the reserve program to help with the port security mission and Congress granted the funds for training an effective reserve component. Under his direction, 35 Organized Reserve Training Units, Port Security (ORTUPS) were established at larger seaports for security assignments and two Organized Reserve Training Units, Vessel Augmentation were formed at Boston and Washington, D.C., to train officers for assignment to cutters should it become necessary. While O'Neill was commandant, the active duty strength of the Coast Guard increased by 6,000 personnel to 29,000 and the reserve strength numbered 8,300. Under O'Neill's stewardship, the reorganization of the Coast Guard started by Commandant Farley was completed; this put into effect a system of comptroller functions that oversaw the financial affairs, centralized record-keeping, and standardized reports and forms. The positions of chief of staff and deputy chief of staff were also established to assist the commandant with the management of the organization.

Later life and death
O'Neill retired from the U.S. Coast Guard on 1 June 1954 with the rank of admiral. His decorations included the Legion of Merit, awarded for exceptionanally meritorious conduct during the invasion of Sicily. After retiring from active duty Admiral O'Neill resided in Lusby, Maryland. O'Neill died of cardiac arrest 1 March 1981 at the Naval Hospital at Patuxent River Naval Air Station. He was survived by his wife, Esther, and two daughters. The Admiral Merlin O’Neill Award was established by the Military Officers Association of America Southern Maryland Chapter at the behest of O'Neill's widow, Mrs. Esther O’Neill. O’Neill, who was recognized for his interest in the development and recognition of junior officers, moved to southern Maryland after his retirement and lived in the area until his death in 1981.

title: Merlin O'Neill


text:
Obbe Philips

Obbe Philips (ca. 1500–1568) (also spelled Philipsz and Filips) was one of the early founders of Dutch Anabaptism. He was the illegitimate son of a Roman Catholic priest from Leeuwarden. Philips studied medicine, and became a barber and a surgeon. He married in 1530 and set up his business in Leeuwarden.

Obbe Philips became interested in the Reformation, and converted to Anabaptism late in 1533. He was probably baptized by Bartholomeus Boekbinder or Willem de Kuyper, emissaries of Jan Matthys. Menno Simons was ordained around 1537 by Obbe Philips, and was probably baptized earlier by Philips also. Obbe also ordained his brother, Dirk Philips, and baptized David Joris. Obbe and Dirk were among the peaceful disciples of Melchior Hoffman (the more radical having set up the kingdom in Münster), and as early as 1534 were preaching against establishing God's kingdom by force. Hoffman introduced the first self-sustaining Anabaptism to the Netherlands, when he taught and practiced believers' baptism in Emden in East Frisia.

Obbe led the Dutch Anabaptists until around 1540, but lost faith in the Anabaptist way and withdrew from the church. Around 1560, Philips wrote his Confession: Recollections of the Years 1533–1536, which was published after his death by Cornelius Claesz. In it he wrote, "I am still miserable of heart today, that I...was so shamefully and miserably deceived...I did not stop forthwith but permitted myself to bring poor souls to this—that I through the importuning of the brethren, commissioned to the office: Dietrich Philips in Amsterdam; David Joris in Delft; and Menno Simons in Groningen...It is this which is utter grief to my heart, and which I will lament before my God as long as I live..." He was dubbed a Demas by Menno (after the disciple Demas, who forsook the Apostle Paul). In his Confession he spoke harshly against revolutionaries and false prophets, but not against the peaceful Anabaptists such as followed Menno. His last years remain a mystery, but probably held as an individual a "spiritualist" belief similar to Anabaptism. He died in 1568.

The Anabaptists who would become known as Mennonites were originally called Obbenites or Obbenists. W. J. Kühler, in Geschiedenis I (1932), concluded that "in Obbe the brotherhood certainly lost its most appealing leader."

title: Obbe Philips