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Dead or Alive (1999 film)

Dead or Alive (DEAD OR ALIVE: 犯罪者), abbreviated as DOA (Dii ō ei), is a 1999 Japanese yakuza action film directed by Takashi Miike. It stars Riki Takeuchi as the gang boss and former yakuza Ryūichi and Show Aikawa as the Japanese cop Detective Jojima and focuses on their meeting and conflict. It is the first in a loosely-connected three-part series, followed by Dead or Alive 2: Birds in 2000 and Dead or Alive: Final in 2002.

Synopsis
Ryūichi is the leader of a small group of nikkei gangsters operating in the Shinjuku ward of Tokyo, made up of his childhood friends Satake, Mariko, Hoshiyama and Hitoshi. They rob a truck carrying money out of a business run by Aoki, a local yakuza boss who is in the middle of negotiating a territory deal with a triad gang led by Mr. Chen. Humiliated by the public loss of money at the hands of petty crooks, Aoki turns to Detective Jojima of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police, instructing him to find the culprits of the robbery and turn them over to him. Jojima is heavily indebted to Aoki, since he and his wife borrowed money to pay for a surgery that his daughter required to save her life.

Ryūichi picks up his younger brother, Toji, from the airport. Toji had been studying in the United States and has returned home while on spring break. Ryūichi and his gang party to celebrate Toji's return, but the mood is soured when Toji learns that Ryūichi has been paying for his studies by committing robberies. The mood is further soured when Ryūichi discovers that gang member Hitoshi has betrayed them and stolen a large part of the money from the heist. The gang tracks down Hitoshi to his mother's house and, despite Toji's pleas, Hitoshi is executed. After the murder, Toji does not want to see Ryūichi ever again.

Detective Jojima and his partner, Detective Inoue, start investigating the robbery and discover leads that point to Ryūichi and his crew. They travel to Ryūichi's hometown and find information on each of the gang's members. They also discover Hitoshi's death. They bring Ryūichi in for questioning and try to talk him into confessing, since otherwise he will have to go up against the yakuza. Despite the threat, Ryūichi refuses to confess. In turn, Jojima tells Aoki that Ryūichi was behind the robbery.

In order to find out what Aoki is planning, Mariko spies on him while he visits the brothel where she works as her day job. However, Aoki realizes who she is, drugs her, rapes her and then drowns her in a pool filled with feces. In retaliation, Ryūichi turns to the leader of one of Aoki's rival yakuza clans and offers to assassinate Aoki in exchange for the guns to do so.

During a celebration of the new partnership between Aoki's yakuza and Chen's triad, Ryūichi, Satake and Hoshiyama make their move and attack all those gathered. Ryūichi is almost killed by Chen, but he is saved by Toji, who had followed him to try to stop him from going forward with the hit. Detective Inoue arrives during the massacre after getting a tip from an informant, and tries to arrest the nikkei gang. Inoue is shot and killed by Ryūichi, but not before he accidentally kills Toji. Distraught over his brother's death, Ryūichi flees in anguish, not realizing that Aoki has survived. Detective Jojima is the first officer on the scene after the battle is over, where he finds a dead Inoue and a cowering but still alive Aoki. After Aoki brags about how much money he will make now that he does not have to share territory with the triads, Jojima kills him.

Jojima delivers the bad news to Inoue's wife and child, who decide to leave Tokyo in fear of further violence. Jojima decides to send his own wife and daughter away as well, giving them his car so they can go stay with his mother in the countryside. Unfortunately, Ryūichi had set up a bomb in the car to try to kill Jojima, but it accidentally kills his family instead.

After burying his wife and daughter, Jojima tracks down what remains of the nikkei gang as they prepare to leave the country for Taiwan. He runs their car off the road as they head towards the Tokyo docks and attacks them. Hoshiyama blows himself up with a grenade while trying to kill Jojima, but the detective survives and guns down Satake. Ryūichi and Jojima have a final stand-off where they both shoot each other repeatedly in the chest, but inexplicably neither one dies. Jojima draws a rocket launcher and Ryūichi produces a fireball from his hands and both attack each other with their new, supernatural weapons. The resulting explosion destroys the entirety of Japan.

Cast

 * Riki Takeuchi - Ryūichi
 * Show Aikawa - Detective Jojima
 * Renji Ishibashi - Aoki
 * Susumu Terajima - Detective Inoue
 * Hitoshi Ozawa - Satake
 * Ryuushi Mizukami - Hoshiyama
 * Shingo Tsurumi - Chen
 * Michisuke Kashiwaya - Toji
 * Mizuho Koga - Mariko
 * Kyosuke Yabe - Hitoshi
 * Kaoru Sugita - Mrs. Jojima
 * Dankan - Tanaka
 * Ren Osugi - Yan
 * Hirotarō Honda - Detective Okuyama
 * Tomorowo Taguchi - Afro Thug
 * Hua Rong Weng - Immortal Chef
 * Tokitoshi Shiota - Sakurai

Release
Dead or Alive was shown at the Tokyo International Film Festival in 1999. The film received a theatrical release in Japan on November 27 the same year.

Reception
A review in Sight & Sound found that the film "demonstrates enough flair and grotesque wit to make for very enjoyable viewing", with an ending that "demolishes any vestiges of genre credibility".

Aftermath and influence
The Dead or Alive films are not connected in any apparent way except by director Takashi Miike and stars Riki Takeuchi and Show Aikawa. In the first film, they play yakuza and cop, respectively. Dead or Alive is notable for Takashi Miike's characteristic scenes of ultra-violence and perversity, which come casually littered throughout.

title: Dead or Alive (1999 film)


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Come Ye Blessed

"Come Ye Blessed" is a territorial song of the British overseas territory of the Pitcairn Islands, and is the official territorial song of the Australian territory of Norfolk Island and is sung at most island events.

The lyrics are taken from the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 25, verses 34–36 and 40. The music was composed by John Prindle Scott (1877–1932) and published in 1917.

It is also known as the "Pitcairn Anthem" in Norfolk Island, suggesting it may have been already in use and brought by Pitcairn Islanders upon their arrival in 1856.

"God Save the King" remains the official national and royal anthem of the Pitcairn Islands and the official royal anthem of Norfolk Island.

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

title: Come Ye Blessed


text: User talk:213.130.65.212

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Talk:Al-Mutaffifin

Cleanup added
This needs more work - couldn't follow what's there now InTheFullnessOfTime 08:21, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Copied and pasted without any acknowledgement
Most of the text in this article appears to be copied without any acknowledgement from. AstroLynx (talk) 10:00, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

title: Talk:Al-Mutaffifin


text: User talk:69.244.45.192

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User:KamuiShirou

Hello there.

title: User:KamuiShirou


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5th Dalai Lama

Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso (1617–1682) was the 5th Dalai Lama and the first Dalai Lama to wield effective temporal and spiritual power over all Tibet. He is often referred to simply as the Great Fifth, being a key religious and temporal leader of Tibetan Buddhism and Tibet. Gyatso is credited with unifying all Tibet under the Ganden Phodrang after a Mongol military intervention which ended a protracted era of civil wars. As an independent head of state, he established relations with the Qing empire and other regional countries and also met early European explorers. Gyatso also wrote 24 volumes' worth of scholarly and religious works on a wide range of subjects.

Early life
To understand the context within which the Dalai Lama institution came to hold temporal power in Tibet during the lifetime of the 5th, it may be helpful to review not just the early life of Lobsang Gyatso but also the world into which he was born, as Künga Migyur.

Künga Migyur's family
The child who would become the 5th Dalai Lama was born in the Chonggye Valley in Ü, south of the Yarlung Tsangpo River and about two days' journey south-east of Lhasa, to a prominent family of nobles with traditional ties to both Nyingma and Kagyu lineages. The aristocratic Zahor family into which he was born had held their seat since the 14th century at Taktsé Castle, south of Lhasa – a legendary stronghold of Tibetan kings in the days of the early empire, before Songtsen Gampo (604–650 CE) had moved his capital from there to Lhasa.

Parents and naming
The 5th Dalai Lama's father was called Dudul Rabten, the local ruler of the Chonggye valley, also known as Hor Dudül Dorjé; his mother was called Tricham, Kunga Lhadze or Kunga Lhanzi. His father had friendly relations with the Drugpa Kagyu and his mother had connections with the Jonangpa Kagyu through her family at Nakartse Dzong. Thus, after his birth on the 22nd day of the 9th month of the Fire-snake year (late 1617), Taranatha, the most remarkable scholar and exponent of the Jonang school (a.k.a. Tagten Tulku, a.k.a. Kunga Nyingpo), named the child 'Kün-ga Migyur Tobgyal Wanggi Gyalpo'. His family called him 'Künga Migyur'.

Künga Migyur's childhood

The child's father, Dudul Rabten, was arrested in 1618 for his involvement in a plot to overthrow Karma Phuntsok Namgyal, leader of the Tsang hegemony. Karma Phuntsok's grandfather Zhingshak Tseten Dorje (also known as Karma Tseten) had originally been appointed Governor of Tsang by the Rinpung Prime Minister Ngawang Namgyel in 1548. Tseten Dorje had rebelled against the heirs of Ngawang Namgyel starting in 1557, eventually overthrowing the Rinpung and establishing the Tsang hegemony in 1565 by declaring himself King of Tsang. Tseten Dorje established his residence at Samdruptse castle, also called Shigatse, near the Gelug monastery of Tashilhunpo, and together with his nine sons, eventually extended the reach of his power over both of Tibet's central provinces of Ü and Tsang.

The secular government of King Tseten Dorje and his descendants enjoyed general support from the Sakya, Jonang, and Kagyu schools, while maintaining somewhat tense but cordial relations with his Gelug neighbours at Tashilhunpo. Then Altan Khan, King of the Tumed Mongols, invited Drepung Monastery's abbot Sonam Gyatso to Mongolia. In 1577–78 Sonam Gyatso accepted, went there and converted him and his subjects to Buddhism, receiving the Mongolian name "Dalai" in the process by which action his lineage became known as the "Dalai Lamas" and he became the 3rd Dalai Lama. His two predecessors became known as the 1st and 2nd Dalai Lamas posthumously. The Samdruptse government saw this development as a politico-religious alliance between the Gelugpa and a foreign power. When Sonam Gyatso died, the Gelugpa recognised a Mongolian prince as his incarnation and so a Mongolian 4th Dalai Lama, Yonten Gyatso (1589–1617), was installed as the abbot of Drepung. This increased Mongolian involvement with the Gelugpa even further and enabled more Mongolian intervention in Tibetan affairs. As a result, King Tseten Dorje's suspicions about Gelugpa ambitions rose and when in 1616 the 4th Dalai Lama died young, at the age of 28, in an attempt to defeat the process the King prohibited the Gelugpa monks from searching for his incarnation.

Dudul Rabten's arrest occurred at roughly the same time that his infant son had been recognized, in secret, by lamas of the Gelug order as the reincarnation of the 4th Dalai Lama, while Tashilhunpo's abbot Lobsang Chökyi Gyaltsen used diplomacy to persuade King Karma Phuntsok Namgyal to lift the ban he'd put in place on seeking out the 5th Dalai Lama. Dudul Rabten escaped his captors and tried to reach eastern Tibet, but was rearrested. Dudul Rabten died in captivity in 1626 at Samdruptse – Karma Phuntsok Namgyal's castle also known as Shigatse – and thus, he never lived to see his son again. The young 5th Dalai Lama's family were ordered by Karma Phuntsok Namgyal to live at court in Samdruptse, but his mother, Kunga Lhanzi, fearing retribution from the king, returned with her son to her family's home, Narkatse castle, in Yardrog.

Künga Migyur's recognition
The infant Künga Migyur's name had been drawn, by lot, from among the names of three children considered likely candidates in a series of divination rituals including a doughball divination which was held in secret (on account of King Dorje's prohibition against seeking the 4th Dalai Lama's reincarnation) at Radeng monastery. The former 4th Dalai Lama's chief attendant, Sonam Choephel (1595–1658), is credited with having discovered the incarnation.

While the Karma, Drugpa and Jonangpa Kagyu orders, (beside the Gelug group from Drepung monastery) had all independently sought to claim Künga Migyur as a reincarnation of one or another of their own lamas who'd also died in 1616, young Künga Migyur's parents reportedly resisted their demands.

Ordination
Lobsang Gyatso was the name which Künga Migyur received from Lobsang Chökyi Gyaltsen upon taking novice monastic ordination from him at Drepung. In 1638 when he took full ordination, also in the presence of Lobsang Chökyi Gyaltsen at the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa, Ngawang was added to his name, Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso. At this time his interest in the Nyingmapa teachings began to deepen and his devotion to the Nyingma master Zur Choying Rangdrol became somewhat conspicuous.

Relations with the Panchen Lama
Lobsang Chökyi Gyaltsen (1570–1662), the Panchen Lama and the first to be accorded this title during his lifetime, was the tutor and a close ally of the 5th Dalai Lama, who, according to Thubten Jigme Norbu and Hugh E. Richardson, declared or pronounced the Panchen to be 'an incarnation of Dhayani Buddha Amitābha' – although other sources all appear to indicate that he was considered as such from the start. After the 5th Dalai Lama returned from China, on a teaching tour of Tsang he visited his senior tutor and close friend the elderly Panchen Lama at Tashilhunpo to receive lineage transmissions which he still lacked and at this point he requested the Panchen to accept Tashilhunpo Monastery, built by the 1st Dalai Lama, as his multi-lifetime seat for future incarnations. Since then, every incarnation of the Panchen Lama has been the master of Tashilhunpo Monastery and it is there that they have all received their education and their mummified bodies were enshrined.

When Panchen Gyaltsen died in 1662 at 93, the 5th Dalai Lama immediately commenced the tradition of searching for his next incarnation. He composed a special prayer asking his master "to return" and directed the monks of Tibet's great monasteries to recite it. He also reserved the traditional title of Panchen (short for Pandita chen po "Great Scholar") – which had previously been a courtesy title for all exceptionally learned lamas – exclusively for the Panchen Lama and his successors (and, for those who consider him the 4th Panchen, for his three predecessors as well). He had also predicted that Gyaltsen would continue to be reincarnated in future as the 'Panchen Lama'.

The two had a teacher/disciple relationship going back to the 1st Dalai Lama Gendun Drup and his teacher Khedrup Je, considered by some in retrospect as the 1st Panchen Lama. From the time of the 5th the two offices were known as Yab Sey Gonpo or "Father/Son Protectors" characterising their spiritual provenance as emanations of Amitābha and Avalokitesvara as well as their interchangeable guru/disciple relationship. This continued, lifetime after lifetime well into the 20th century with whichever was elder becoming the teacher of the younger, giving both monastic ordination and passing on tantric lineage transmissions.

Education and practice

Although the 5th Dalai Lama, Lobsang Gyatso, completed all his formal monastic training as a Gelugpa, proving to be an exceptional scholar, he also studied Nyingmapa doctrines, and took Nyingma tantric empowerments. The great Geluk scholar Sumpa Khenpo acknowledged that Lobsang Gyatso took a special interest in Nyingma tantric doctrines. In fact, the Fifth Dalai Lama states in his autobiography that rather than the Panchen Lama or any other Geluk masters, the great Nyingma lama Zur Choying Rangdrol ‘the omniscient’ (kun mkhyen zur chos dbyings rang grol, 1604–1657) was his 'root guru', 'spiritual master' and his 'root master'.

Ruler of Tibet
Fifth Dalai Lama Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso's rule over central Tibet may be characterized, in very broad terms,
 * politically –
 * by the Mongol military intervention which ended decades of clan-wars in Dbus and Gtsang provinces, c.q. the Tibetan civil war of 1639–1642, whereafter he was invested with temporal power over Tibet;
 * domestically –
 * Reestablishing Lhasa as capital;
 * Establishing Nechung as state oracle, and disposing of "perfidious spirit" Dolgyal, which later came to be identified with Dorje Shugden;
 * Resolving sectarian divides;
 * Establishing a pluralist theocracy.
 * In terms of foreign policy –
 * by the formal establishment of friendly diplomatic relations with China's imperial court during the formative years of the Qing dynasty, and
 * by his meeting with European missionaries, early European explorers of Tibet, and
 * his military expeditions against Bhutan and the war against Ladakh. The Moghuls withdrew after being paid off by the 5th Dalai Lama.

Dzungar military intervention
Although the Fifth Dalai Lama would ultimately come to be known for unifying Tibet, it was his first regent Sonam Choephel (1595-1657 CE, also known as Sonam Rabten, treasurer of Ganden) who was, in fact, "the prime architect of the Gelug's rise to power". The 5th Dalai Lama would eventually assume complete power – including that of appointing his regents.

Sonam Choephel, the regent during the 5th Dalai Lama Lobsang Gyatso's youth, requested the aid of Güshi Khan, a powerful Dzungar military leader in carrying out a military strategy in the Dalai Lama's name, though apparently with neither Lobsang Gyatso's prior knowledge nor consent.

Güshi Khan (who was head of the Khoshut tribe ) conquered Kham in 1640 bringing the Sakyas and the lords of Kham and Amdo under their control. His victory over Karma Tenkyong, the prince of Tsang in Shigatse, in 1642, completed the military conquest of the country and the establishment of the Khoshut Khanate. By this feat the Phagmodrupa dynasty, which was associated with a variant of the Kagyu school, was technically replaced; in fact it had been powerless for many years. By subsequently formally recognizing the Fifth Dalai Lama's authority in 1642, Güshi Khan effectively made Gyatso the temporal ruler of all Tibet.

Güshi Khan maintained friendly and respectful relations with Lobsang Gyatso, but died in 1655, leaving ten sons. Eight of them (along with their tribes) settled in the strategically important Koko Nur region of Amdo, where they frequently fought over territory. The 5th Dalai Lama sent several governors to the region between 1656 and 1659 to restore order. Although Güshi Khan's descendants (who would come to be known as the Upper Mongols) showed little interest in the administration of Tibet, they did appoint a regent for a while to act on their behalf in Lhasa, and gradually assimilated certain aspects of Tibetan culture into their own. They would also come to play a crucial rôle in extending the influence of the Gelug school within Amdo.

Dzungar conquest of Altishahr
The 5th Dalai Lama tutored Galdan Boshugtu Khan who later became leader of the Dzungar Khanate and granted him the titles of Hongtaiji and Boshoghtu (or Boshughtu) Khan. The Dalai Lama also sanctioned Galdan Boshugtu Khan's invasion of the last remaining remnants of the Chagatai Khanate in the Dzungar conquest of Altishahr after Afaq Khoja requested help from the Dalai Lama over the power struggle between the Afaqi and Ishaqi Khojas.

Tibet–Ladakh–Mughal War
In 1679, the 5th Dalai Lama overruled the advice of his Prime Minister and launched an expedition resulting in the Tibet–Ladakh–Mughal War that did not conclude until two years after his death with the 1684 Treaty of Tingmosgang.

Reestablishing Lhasa as capital
In a move distinctly evocative of Songtsen Gampo, Lobsang Gyatso once again proclaimed Lhasa to be the capital of Tibet. Assembling his government there, he "appointed governors to the districts, chose ministers for his government, and promulgated a set of laws". The young Dalai Lama also transformed his regent into a prime minister – or, as the Tibetans call him, the Desi. Administrative authority was vested in the person of the Desi, while military power remained the special domain of Güshi Khan, whom the 5th Dalai Lama acknowledged as king of the Dzungar Upper Mongols in Kokonor.

Building the Potala

The Fifth Dalai Lama began construction of the Potala Palace in 1645 after one of his spiritual advisors, Konchog Chophel (d. 1646), pointed out that the site would be an ideal seat of government, situated as it is between Drepung and Sera monasteries, and overlooking Songtsen Gampo's old capital city of Lhasa. The 5th Dalai Lama and his government moved into the Potrang Karpo – the White Palace – in 1649.

The initial phase of construction continued until 1694, some twelve years after the 5th Dalai Lama's death, which was kept secret from the general public for that length of time. The Potrang Marpo – or Red Palace – was added between 1690 and 1694.

Establishing Nechung as state oracle
The Fifth Dalai Lama formally institutionalized the Tibetan state oracle of Nechung. Lobsang Gyatso established Nechung Monastery as the seat of Tibet's state oracle by instituting Gyalpo Pehar as the protector of Tibet's newly consolidated Ganden Phodrang government. Nechung – which, translated literally, means "small place" – was a shrine dedicated to Pehar, located about ten minutes east on foot from Drepung monastery near Tibet's newly declared capital city of Lhasa.

The rôle of the three-headed, six-armed Pehar as protector of Tibet can be traced back to at least the 8th century, when Pehar was oath-bound by Padmasambhava to act as chief among Tibet's protector's, with Dorje Drakden named his chief emissary. The 5th Dalai Lama also composed a generation stage practice and invocation of the protector entitled simply Dra-Yang-Ma (Melodic Chant), which was incorporated into the ritual cycles of Nechung Monastery, where it continues to be practiced, up to the present day.

Disposing of "perfidious spirit" Dolgyal
Nechung's role in warding off one interfering spirit in particular is quite extensively detailed in the 5th Dalai Lama's autobiography. Some contemporary scholars and the current 14th Dalai Lama would appear to agree: Lobsang Gyatso specifically states that a gyalpo (: a particular type of "very powerful, perfidious spirit") in the area of Dol Chumig Karmo had "...been harming the teaching of the Buddha and sentient beings in general and in particular" since at least the fire-bird year of 1657 (CE). The version of events which the 5th Dalai Lama relates is substantially corroborated by the account laid out in 1749 (CE) by Gelug historian Sumpa Khenpo ( 1702–1788 CE). At any rate: confronted with the death of both people and cattle combined with harsh, unpredictable weather in an atmosphere of political intrigue and diplomatic insecurity, Gyatso undertook a specific course of action which might be considered somewhat unconventional, even for a religiously affiliated head of state.

At the end of the earth-bird year of 1669 (CE), a special crypt was constructed, and offerings placed within it in hopes that it might serve as a home in which the disturbed spirit of Drakpa Gyaltsen – an iconoclastic tulku and rival scholar who had died under mysterious circumstances at a time of considerable political turmoil – might finally settle. Reportedly, though, the evil spirit's harmful activities only intensified, manifesting (in part) as atmospheric disturbances including hailstorms, but also causing both people and cattle to fall prey to disease. The deaths of some monks were attributed to the spirit as well – which was named "Dolgyal" by combining gyalpo with the ghost's place of residence. It was only later that Dolgyal would come to be identified with Dorje Shugden through conflation with a much older Sakya protector of the same name associated with the remote Nepali village of Tsap.

Modest but extensive offerings to monks of wheat and tea along with small amounts of gold reportedly resulted in sutra recitations numbering in the tens of thousands. Combined with the performance of many far more complex tantric rituals, the coordinated efforts reached eleven separate district capitals, and spread through no fewer than seventy monasteries including Dorje Drag, Sera, and Drepung. The entire cycle was concluded with an elaborate fire puja offering in which the "perfidious spirit" was ritually burnt by seven different groups of practitioners, led by the Dalai Lamas' personal monastery (already known as Namgyal by that time). Thus invoking all of Tibet's dharma protectors – including Nechung – the 5th Dalai Lama charged them to "not support, protect, or give ... shelter" to Drakpa Gyaltsen in a formal promulgation which the current 14th Dalai Lama characterizes as "quite strongly worded".
 * Pema Trinley of Dorje Drag,
 * Choegyal Terdag Lingpa (1646–1714, of Mindroling )
 * Choeje Vugja Lungpa,
 * Ngari Ngagchang Konchok Lhundup,
 * Palri Tulku, and
 * two separate groups of monks from Phende Lekshe Ling,

Recalling the events of that time later, the 5th Dalai Lama wrote that "...indirectly these creatures..." – means, roughly, "creature" or "evil spirit" – "...were delivered to the peaceful state of being, released from having to experience the intolerable suffering of bad states of rebirth due to their increasingly negative actions." But the unification of Tibet having occurred at least in part on account of scapegoating the departed spirit of a controversial but popular rival lama was not to be without eventual historic consequence.

Later opposition on Shugden
The growth of the 19th-century nonsectarian Rime movement served in part to expose and exacerbate political tensions within the Gelug hierarchy as it had come to organize itself in the centuries following the 5th Dalai Lama's death. Some of his acts were subsequently misconstrued by certain conservative factions within the Gelug order as an "elevation" by Lobsang Gyatso of the dangerously volatile Dolgyal (by now, quite thoroughly conflated with the original Sakya protector named Shugden) to the status of Dharmapala – in other words: a particularly forceful emanation of a blissfully awakened Buddha's enlightened activity and therefore basically an enlightened being, himself.

The 13th Dalai Lama therefore sought to clarify his view about Dorje Shugden's status in his letter to Pabongkhapa Déchen Nyingpo, in which he identified Dorje Shugden as a "wrathful worldly spirit", the propitiation of which "contradicts the precepts of taking refuge". In reply, Phabongka (who is better remembered for his teachings on the graded stages of the path and reputation of conferring Kalachakra empowerments to large crowds of laypeople regardless of his having enthusiastically propitiated Shugden) acknowledged his "error". In the same letter, Phabongka said "...I have propitiated Shugden until now because my old mother told me that Shugden is the deity of my maternal lineage", thereby acknowledging Shugden practice's provincial and even familial (as well as Sakya) origins.

The current 14th Dalai Lama, for his part, continues to maintain it was the Fifth's intent to appease the interfering spirit of the Gyalpo class from Dol Chumig Karmo – hence his insistence on using the name "Dolgyal" to disambiguate a practice he disrecommends from one of a protector of the Sakya school to which he's tied through prior incarnations.

Resolving sectarian divides
Due largely to the determined cunning of his first regent Sonam Chöphel and the military support of his Mongolian disciple Güsri Khan, in 1642 the 25-year-old 5th Dalai Lama Lobsang Gyatso inherited military and political control of a nation that had been torn by over a century of power struggles and civil war characterized by factionalism and sectarian allegiances. The general form of government he instituted would remain largely in place until Tibet's military occupation by the People's Republic of China in the 1950s. Nevertheless, Lobsang Gyatso's rule over Tibet included various incidents which, 350 years later, certain keen observers – namely, the heirs of those Kagyupa followers whose patrons lost power during unification or during the quelling of their subsequent rebellions – still consider to have been the abuse of government power.

Of the Kagyü and Bön traditions
In 1648, Tibetans loyal to the Gelug school reportedly joined Mongol forces in coercing monks of certain Kagyu and Bön institutions to embrace specifically Gelug doctrines. Modern Tibetans still differentiate between Bön and Buddhism in common parlance, calling members of the Nyingma, Sakya, Kagyu and Gelug schools nangpa (meaning "insider"), while referring to practitioners of Bön as bönpo.

Of the Jonang tradition
The Jonangpa order belongs to the Kagyupa group of schools, the 7th one to emerge. According to Snellgrove and Richardson, it was a difference in philosophy that caused a bitter schism to arise with the Gelugpa, however Samten Karmay maintains that the 5th Dalai Lama's negative attitude towards the Jonangpa was determined by political rather than philosophical or religious considerations. He records elsewhere that the Fifth Dalai Lama's personal biographer and Sanskrit teacher the renowned Jonang scholar Jamyang Wangyal Dorje Mondrowa was a master of the Jonang tradition and belonged to a well-known Jonang family from Lato in Tsang with whom the Dalai Lama had good relations. In any case, it was during Lobsang Gyatso's rule after the civil wars and rebellions of 1640-1643 that Jonangpa institutions, teachings and followers were banished and moved out of central Tibet to be re-established in Amdo for allying with the Tsangpa and fighting against the Ganden Phodrang. In 1650 the Jonangpa printing presses were officially sealed and teaching of their zhentong philosophical views was forbidden within central Tibet, indicating that the basis of the schism was more philosophical in nature. Then in 1658 the main Jonang monastery Takten Damchö Ling in Lhatse – which had been the monastic seat of the great Jonangpa exponent Taranatha (1575–1634) – was converted to a Gelug institution and renamed Phuntsok Choling.

Redress and reconciliation
The Fifth Dalai Lama's Regent or Desi, Sonam Rapten was, in fact, a fanatical Gelugpa supremacist as well as a shrewd and canny political operator with an eye for the main chance. Being 22 years the Dalai Lama's senior he dominated him as he raised him from the age of 5. In his autobiography The Dukula the lama repeatedly remarks how he had to defer to the Desi, or had to do as he said, and even as an adult he rarely got his way if he disagreed with Sonam Rapten's wishes.

That the infamous sectarian policies implemented in the decade after the 1642 civil war were the work of the Desi can be inferred from the decree that the Fifth Dalai Lama issued to him and his administration just as he departed to Beijing in the summer of 1652 to see the Emperor, leaving the Desi behind in Tibet. The issuance of such a decree, at the age of 35, indicates his growing maturity and his firm intention to start imposing his will over that of his Regent concerning such important policies which the Dalai Lama disapproved of. He presents this decree as his instructions to his regent in the form of a testament to be implemented while he was absent in China, and, perhaps, in case he did not return from the long and perilous journey for any reason. In The Dukula, he explains how, before departing, he handed to Sonam Rapten "for his memory, with explanations, a scroll of the following list concerning what was to be done (in my absence)". He then specifies what (amongst other things) this decree placed a ban on, and he thus ordered the reversal of specified sectarian policies being implemented, evidently without his approval, by the Desi's government: "'Around this time, the adepts of the Sakya, Kagyu and Nyingma schools were not allowed to wear hats in their own way, and it was intended that their religious affinities would gradually be converted to the Gelug. Many of our major and minor figures had given their approval for this and even made pleas (for this policy). If this was going to serve the interests of our [Gelugpa] school, it would most likely be good to have a unified school. However, to have a unified school would be beneficial neither to our own school nor to the others. In the long run it would come to: 'Whatever one does, the results of that action will ripen'. Therefore this was a gross policy that needed to be renounced, because there was little purpose in it: no conversion of the schools should be undertaken and no hat style to be changed; the bad example of the big schools preventing the small ones from recruiting new monks was to be discouraged.'"

With the Kagyü and Bön
In 1674, the 5th Dalai Lama met with 10th Karmapa (i.e., the specific tulku, or incarnate lama who heads the Karma Kagyu school) Chöying Dorje (1604–1674) at the Potala. This mutual gesture of "reconciliation" was reportedly "welcomed by both parties after the many conflicts and misunderstandings between 1612 and 1642".

When the 5th Dalai Lama issued the edict to appoint Sangye Gyatso as his Desi in 1679, in the same edict he also recognised the Yungdrung Bön as Tibet's native religion and describes it as being the "holder of secret mantras ".

With the Jonang

There are some fairly subtle philosophical differences between the Jonang and Gelug schools' respective zhentong and rangtong views on voidness. After moving to Amdo the school's distinct transmission lineages of both zhentong philosophy and Dro Kalachakra completion stage practices could be preserved and survived intact to this day. In late 2001, the current 14th Dalai Lama reportedly composed an "Aspiration Prayer for the Flourishing of the Jonang Teachings" entitled in (which might be called quite strongly worded).

Establishing pluralist theocracy
The 5th Dalai Lama Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso established a centralized dual system of government under the Gyalwa Rinpoche (i.e., the institution of the Dalai Lama) which was divided equally between laymen and monks (both Gelugpa and Nyingmapa). This form of government, with few changes, survived up to modern times. He also revitalized the Lhasa Mönlam, the capital city's New Year Festival, which had originally been created by the reformer Je Tsongkhapa in 1409 (CE).

It was under Gyatso's rule that the "rule of religion" was finally firmly established "even to the layman, to the nomad, or to the farmer in his fields". This was not the supremacy of the Gelug school over Bön, or over the other Buddhist schools, but "the dedication of an entire nation to a religious principle".

Foreign relations

 * Fifth Dalai Lama Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso was the first Dalai Lama to accept an invitation from an emperor of China to visit the Chinese capital city of Beijing.
 * Three separate expeditions known from European sources to have visited Tibet did so during the 5th Dalai Lama's lifetime; and he met with members of the third of these.

Establishing relations with China
The 5th Dalai Lama's official visit, as an independent head of state, to Beijing in 1653 should be understood in the context of the prior relationship which existed between China and Tibet.

History of mutual independence
Earlier invitations to visit the Manchu court in Beijing had been turned down by both 3rd Dalai Lama Sonam Gyatso and 4th Dalai Lama Yonten Gyatso. Analyzing the Ming emperors' repeated invitations of Tibetan lamas from various schools, contemporary Buddhist scholar Alexander Berzin says that "requests by the Ming emperors for Tibetan lamas to visit China and the freedom the lamas exercised in responding to these requests, characterize the Sino Tibetan relationship at this time as one of mutual independence."

Diplomatic envoy to Beijing
Fifth Dalai Lama Lobsang Gyatso established diplomatic relations with the second emperor of the Qing dynasty, accepting the Shunzhi Emperor's 1649 invitation. The Shunzhi Emperor invited him to Beijing instead of Mongolia, following the advice of his Han advisors over the suggestion by his Manchu advisors. The 5th Dalai Lama set out from Lhasa in 1652 accompanied by 3,000 men. The journey to Beijing took nine months. Lobsang Gyatso and his entourage spent two months in the yellow palace which had been especially constructed by the emperor in order to house him.

The Shunzhi Emperor, who was only 14 years old (13 by Western reckoning) at the time, first met the Dalai Lama in January 1653, honouring him with two grand imperial receptions. Some historians claim that the emperor treated the Dalai Lama as an equal while others dispute this claim. The emperor gave Gyatso a parting gift of an elaborate gold seal reading "Dalai Lama, Overseer of the Buddhist Faith on Earth Under the Great Benevolent Self-subsisting Buddha of the Western Paradise". However the Fifth Dalai Lama did not accept it. He wrote that after he left Beijing on his way back to Tibet, "the emperor made his men bring a golden seal for me" but "The Tibetan version of the inscription of the seal was translated by a Mongolian translator but was not a good translation." Furthermore, when he arrived back in Tibet, he discarded the emperor's famous golden seal and made a new one for important Tibetan state usage, writing in his autobiography: "Leaving out the Chinese characters that were on the seal given by the emperor, a new seal was carved for stamping documents that dealt with territorial issues. The first imprint of the seal was offered with prayers to the image of Lokeshvara ...".

The event is described in Samten Karmay's account as follows: "'Just a few days before his departure for Tibet, a gold seal with a gold plaque engraved with a decree were hastily sent to him from Peking. The imperial functionaries had not dared present the seal in front of the Emperor to the Dalai Lama while he was officially visiting Peking as head of state of a foreign country. Since the seal was offered to the Dalai Lama with no particular form of protocol, he attached little importance to it. He simply remarks in his autobiography that the Tibetan translation of the title engraved on the seal was very poor. The seal, however, is currently exploited by the Chinese authorities for propaganda purposes to justify their policy towards Tibet.'"

The White Dagoba at Beihai Park was constructed to honour his visit.

European missionaries in Tibet
The first documented Europeans to arrive in Tibet may have been the Portuguese Jesuit missionaries, António de Andrade and Manuel Marques who did so in either July or August 1624, when the 5th Dalai Lama would have been about seven or eight years old.

Jesuit missions in Tibet
While the first two Jesuit mission churches to be established in Tibet followed in direct result of Andrade and Marques' 1624 visit, neither would remain to see the 1642 enthronement of 5th Dalai Lama Lobsang Gyatso at Samdruptse castle in Shigatse as the temporal ruler of Tibet.

First Jesuit mission at Tsaparang
Andrade and Marques were reportedly welcomed warmly by the King and Queen of Guge, becoming the first documented Europeans to enter Tibet. Staying in Tibet for only a month, Andrade and Marques would return to Agra, India by November 1624 to organize a mission trip for the following year. In 1625, with the full support of the King and Queen of Guge, Andrade and Marques established a permanent mission at Tsaparang, in the Garuda Valley of western Tibet's Ngari region.

Second Jesuit mission at Shigatse
On Andrade's advice, a second Jesuit mission was dispatched to southern Tibet from India in 1627. The Portuguese missionaries João Cabral and Estêvão Cacella were reportedly welcomed at Shigatse by the King of Ü-Tsang, and Cabral and Cacella established their mission there in 1628. Cabral and Cacella provided the first information to reach the West about the mystical country of Shambhala (which they transcribed as "Xembala") in their reports back to India.

Evacuation of Jesuit missions
Both of the Portuguese missions were evacuated in 1635 after becoming embroiled in the power struggles for control of Tibet at that time. It would be twenty-five years before the next documented Europeans visited Tibet.

Third Jesuit expedition
The first Europeans to meet a Dalai Lama were probably the two Jesuits, Johannes Grueber of Austria and Albert Dorville (D’Orville). In 1661, Grueber and D'Orville travelled through Lhasa on their way from Beijing to Agra, India on an Imperial Passport. It is this expedition from which another jesuit priest Athanasius Kircher's 1667 engraving in China Illustrata (purported to depict 5th Dalai Lama Lobsang Gyatso) is derived, based on expedition journals and charts left to him by Grueber.

Death and succession
The death of the Fifth Dalai Lama in 1682 at the age of 65 was kept hidden until 1696 by Desi Sangye Gyatso, his Prime Minister, and, according to persistent rumours, his son, whom he had appointed in 1679. This was done so that the Potala Palace could be finished and to prevent Tibet's neighbors taking advantage of an interregnum in the succession of the Dalai Lamas. Desi Sangay Gyatso also served as regent until the assumption of power by the Sixth Dalai Lama.

 * "In order to complete the Potala Palace, Desi Sangye Gyatso carried out the wishes of the Fifth Dalai Lama and kept his death a secret for fifteen years. People were told that the Great Fifth was continuing his long retreat. Meals were taken to his chamber and on important occasions the Dalai Lama's ceremonial gown was placed on the throne. However, when Mongol princes insisted on having an audience, an old monk called Depa Deyab of Namgyal monastery, who resembled the Dalai Lama, was hired to pose in his place. He wore a hat and an eye shade to conceal the fact that he lacked the Dalai Lama's piercing eyes. The Desi managed to maintain this charade till he heard that a boy in Mon exhibited remarkable abilities. He sent his trusted attendants to the area and, in 1688, the boy [the future 6th Dalai Lama] was brought to Nankartse near lake Yardog Yutsho in the south. There he was educated by teachers appointed by the Desi until 1697...."

Reception
In 17th-century Tibet, after centuries of bitter rivalry the Gelug superseded the older sects as the country's pre-eminent religious-political power. Bitterness and controversial accusations from heirs of older sects, who lost power and prestige, still persist today.

Elliot Sperling notes that the "standard image" of the Dalai Lamas as "Nobel Peace Prize laureate[s]" is a contemporary perception, referring to the 5th Dalai Lama's involvement in military action to establish and maintain the worldly power of the Dalai Lamas.

His writings
Lobsang Gyatso was a prolific writer and respected scholar, who wrote in a free style which allowed him to frankly – and sometimes, ironically – express his own deepest feelings and independent interpretations. His canonical works total 24 volumes, in all.

Autobiography
Lobsang Gyatso left an autobiography – entitled in – but far more commonly referred to simply as Dukulai Gosang – in which, according to Samten Gyaltsen Karmay, he wrote: "The official Tsawa Kachu of the Ganden Palace showed me statues and rosaries (that belonged to the Fourth Dalai Lama and other lamas), but I was unable to distinguish between them! When he left the room I heard him tell the people outside that I had successfully passed the tests. Later, when he became my tutor, he would often admonish me and say: 'You must work hard, since you were unable to recognize the objects!'"

Despite what he wrote above himself later in life, three different English-language histories attest that he was subjected to an earlier object-recognition test, in 1619, when Sonam Rapten, the Chandzeu, went to his family home at Chonggye in great secrecy (since the king had banned the search for the Trulku) to confirm information he had received about the boy. He took with him a number of the late Yonten Gyatsho's personal belongings (specifically, the Fourth Dalai Lama's personal samta boards, vajra, bell and porcelain bowls all mixed with identical items belonging to others) to submit the less-than two year old candidate to a private recognition test, presumably in front of his family, which the boy passed without any difficulty. It is supposed that everyone present was sworn to secrecy, and that the Dalai Lama did not refer to this test in his autobiography because it occurred when he was not more than two years old and he would have forgotten about it.

This autobiography has been a rich source of information for research on this period of Tibetan history by scholars and writers. ‘Dukula’ affords a detailed and objective account of daily events in the author's life which permits the reader to envision a panoramic view of Lhasan and Tibetan society through most of the 17th century. By 1681 Lobsang Gyatso personally wrote three volumes and his last Regent Desi Sangye Gyatso added another two after his master's death in 1682. These 5 volumes "represent the most important – in both size and content – document of Tibetan autobiographical literature in existence, since they include the memories of two of the greatest statesmen of Tibet".

He also wrote in his autobiography that "When I finished the Oral teachings of Manjushri [in 1658], I had to leave the ranks of the Gelug. Today [in 1674], having completed the Oral teachings of the Knowledge-holders, I will probably have to withdraw from the Nyingma ranks as well!"

Religious texts
The Thukdrup Yang Nying Kundü or "Union of All Innermost Essences" sadhana of Padmasambhava's Eight Manifestations comes from a "pure vision"   terma of the 5th Dalai Lama. It is contained in his Sangwa Gyachen. (Both the sadhana and its related empowerment texts were arranged by Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo.)

Historical texts
The 5th Dalai Lama "enthusiastically" wrote a detailed history of Tibet at the request of Güshi Khan in 1643.

title: 5th Dalai Lama


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Mei Lanfang

Mei Lan (22 October 1894 – 8 August 1961), better known by his stage name Mei Lanfang, was a notable Chinese Peking opera artist in modern Chinese theater. Mei was known as the "Queen of Peking Opera". Mei was exclusively known for his female lead roles (dan) and particularly his "verdant-robed girls" (qingyi), young or middle-aged women of grace and refinement. He was considered one of the "Four Great Dan", along with Shang Xiaoyun, Cheng Yanqiu, and Xun Huisheng.

Early life
Mei Lanfang was born in Beijing in 1894 into a family of Peking opera and Kunqu performers (performers of a traditional Chinese theatre composed of drama, ballet, opera, poetry, and music) of Taizhou, Jiangsu ancestry.

Career
At age 8, Mei Lanfang started training in Chinese opera skills such as acting, singing and acrobatics. Mei Lanfang made his stage debut at the Guanghe Theatre in 1904 when he was 11 years old playing a weaving girl. In his 50-year stage career, he maintained strong continuity while always working on new techniques. His most famous roles were those of female characters; the skillful portrayal of women won him international acclaim, and his smooth, perfectly timed, poised style has come to be known in opera circles as the "Mei School." He also played an important part in continuing the performance tradition of Kunqu, noted particularly for his interpretations of Du Liniang (杜丽娘; in The Peony Pavilion) and Bái Sùzhēn (白素贞; in Legend of the White Snake). Mei's famous portrayal of Beauty Yu was so historically moving that Wenting Song said he was one of the greatest vocal artists in modern China.

Mei was the first artist to spread Beijing Opera to foreign countries, participating in cultural exchanges with Japan, the United States, and other regions. He toured the world, forming friendships with the western contemporaries of his day, including Charlie Chaplin. In 1930 he toured North America, visiting Hollywood, where he was welcomed by Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. In 1935, Mei toured Europe, playing to appreciative audiences in Berlin and Moscow. Seeing Mei perform especially impressed the German playwright Bertolt Brecht and influenced his concept of the alienation effect. He served as one of the mentors and guardians of the actress Li Yuru as she began her career.

In July 1937, the Marco Polo Bridge Incident occurred, and the Imperial Japanese Army soon occupied Beijing. The commander of the Japanese Army ordered Mei to perform for them and appointed Mei to a high rank official position. But Mei refused to sing throughout the war and endured an impoverished lifestyle until the war ended in 1945.

After 1949 he served as director of China Beijing Opera Theater, director of the Chinese Opera Research Institute, and vice-chairman of China Federation of Literary and Art Circles. Mei joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1959. Besides his autobiography, Forty Years of Life on the Stage, several of his articles and essays have been published in The Collected Works of Mei Lanfang. Recordings of his best-known performances have been published in A Selection of Beijing Operas Performed by Mei Lanfang. In 2000, the story of his life was filmed in a documentary entitled The Worlds of Mei Lanfang. Acclaimed director Chen Kaige directed Forever Enthralled, a film biography of Mei's life, released in December 2008.

Philanthropy
In 1924, Mei went to Japan after learning about the Great Kantō earthquake that had caused destruction. During his stay, he not only performed to earn money, but he also raised funds from the Japanese to help the cause.

Personal life
In the year 1910, Mei married Wang Minghua, and they eventually had one son and one daughter together. While still married to Wang, he married his second wife in 1921, who was also an opera actress. Her name was Fu Zhifang and together, they had nine children. In 1925, he began seeing a third woman, who was also an actress. They lived together unmarried for five years before they broke up. Mei's daughter Mei Baoyue was a Chinese opera performer. Mei's son Mei Baojiu (1934–2016) was a Chinese opera dan performer.

In popular culture
Chen Kaige's 2008 film Forever Enthralled is a biographical account of Mei Lanfang.

In 2009, the Chinese Google homepage displayed a logo commemorating his 115th birthday on October 22.

title: Mei Lanfang


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Metro Vancouver Electoral Area A

Metro Vancouver Electoral Area A is a part of Metro Vancouver in British Columbia. It includes several unincorporated areas: the University Endowment Lands and the University of British Columbia, west of the City of Vancouver; Bowyer, Passage, and Barnston Islands; the west side of Pitt Lake; the northern portion of Indian Arm; and a large area to the north of the North Shore that is mostly mountainous and sparsely populated except for certain subdivisions between Horseshoe Bay and the Village of Lions Bay.

The Electoral Area is represented by a director on the board of the regional district. This is an elected position, with a four-year term. The current director is Jen McCutcheon.

Communities

 * Barnston Island
 * Buntzen Bay
 * Gambier Island Trust Area (part)
 * Bowyer Island
 * Passage Island
 * Granite Falls
 * Strachan Creek
 * University Endowment Lands

Demographics
In the 2021 Census, Statistics Canada reported that Metro Vancouver A had a population of 18,612 living in 7,682 of its 9.201 total dwellings, a 15.4% change from its 2016 population of 16,133. With a land area of 815.21 km2, it had a population density of in 2011.

title: Metro Vancouver Electoral Area A


text:
Annie Lowe

Annie Lowe (1834–1910) was a suffragist in Victoria, Australia. She and Henrietta Dugdale founded the Victorian Women's Suffrage Society (the suffragettes) in 1884, the first organisation of this kind to be established in Australia.

Biography
Lowe née Hopkins was born in 1834. Her father was involved with establishing universal suffrage for men in New South Wales. She moved to Victoria with her husband Josiah Alexander Lowe. In 1884 she helped found the Victorian Women's Suffrage Society. She was known for her public speaking. She lived to see the women of Victoria given the right to vote in 1908, but died before being able to vote in the 1911 state election.

Upon her death The Herald newspaper reported that in Lowe 'will be written in our history as the mother of our suffrage movement'.

title: Annie Lowe


text:
Intensive Care (album)

Intensive Care is the sixth studio album by English singer-songwriter Robbie Williams, released on 24 October 2005 in the United Kingdom. It was produced by Stephen Duffy and Williams and was the first of Williams' albums to not be produced by longtime songwriting partner Guy Chambers. The album was supported by four singles: "Tripping", "Make Me Pure", "Advertising Space" and "Sin Sin Sin".

Like most of the singer's previous albums, Intensive Care topped the charts in many countries. The album was promoted with the Close Encounters Tour which started on 10 April 2006 in Durban, South Africa and ended on 18 December 2006 in Melbourne, Australia.

Background
After touring Latin America in late 2004 for the promotion of his Greatest Hits album, Williams started working on what would become his sixth studio album. Recorded in his bedroom in the Hollywood Hills, the album was co-written by Stephen Duffy over the course of 24 months. The album was launched in Berlin, Germany on 9 October 2005. It was not shown on television, but broadcast to various locations around the world in cinemas and theatres, in a high-definition "cine-cast". It was shown on Saturday 22 October 2005 on Channel 4.

The album's artwork was designed by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely, in response to Williams' request that they "turn [Williams] into a superhero" for the tour. The "talismanic images" and "witchy hieroglyphs" include a "sigil" that, in Morrison's words, "can be activated by finding the CD in the shops or pulling the cover up on-screen and pressing Rob's finger. If enough of us do this the world will most certainly enter a new Golden Age of peace, creativity, and prosperity!"

Production
Williams started recording demos for what would become Intensive Care on 12 June 2003 at Air Studios alongside record producer Stephen Duffy. On that particular day, Duffy played Williams a backing track and he started making up the melody and lyrics of what would later become the song "Sin Sin Sin".

Recording continued throughout the summer of 2003 and by March 2004, the songwriting duo had already recorded several demos including "Sin Sin Sin", "Radio" (which would be released on the Greatest Hits compilation in late 2004), "Ghosts", "Tripping Underwater" (which would later become "Tripping"), "The Trouble With Me" and "Misunderstood" (which would also be released on the Greatest Hits compilation in late 2004).

Release and promotion

When Intensive Care was released in October 2005, it became a smash hit around the world, hitting number-one in the United Kingdom, selling 373,832 copies in its first week, as well as topping charts in twenty other counties including Argentina, Australia, Austria, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, New Zealand and many other countries. Following the success of the album, Williams won the MTV Europe Music Award for 'Best Male', and also entered The Guinness Book of World Records for selling 1.6 million tickets in a single day for his 2006 world tour.

The album became the best selling album in Europe by the end of 2005, with sales of over four million copies. However, it only managed to become the third best selling album in the United Kingdom that year. Williams launched the album live in Berlin. He performed 8 of the 12 songs from the album at the live concert.

In January 2007, it was revealed Intensive Care had sold over 5 million copies in Europe, and as such, was certified 5× Platinum by the IFPI. It was also certified 5× Platinum in the United Kingdom around the same time. In Mexico, the album was certified platinum shortly after its release, and later Platinum+Gold in 2006, for shipping 150,000 copies of the physical album. In December 2008 the album was certified 2× diamond for pre-loaded sales of 1,000,000 copies. By shipping 1,100,000 copies and reaching 11× gold, Intensive Care became the eighth best-selling album of the decade in Germany. It also became Williams' fifth album to reach a position in the top twenty of the best-selling album of the decade, with Swing When You're Winning, Escapology, Live at Knebworth and Greatest Hits also earning places. According to EMI, the album has sold 6.2 million copies worldwide.

Williams kicked off his Close Encounters Tour in South Africa in April 2006 in promotion of the album. More than 2.5 million attended the early stages of the tour, with nearly three million having been reported to have seen one or more shows.

Critical reception
Intensive Care received a varied response from music critics. Alexis Petridis from The Guardian gave the album four out of five stars, writing: "The lovely, lambent melodies of 'Advertising Space' and 'The King of Bloke and Bird' may well be Duffy, the Smiths-like guitar of 'Spread Your Wings' and the autoharp on 'Please Don't Die' definitely is, but their epic qualities seem to stem entirely from Williams."

Lucy Davies from BBC Music gave the album a positive rating stating that: "Williams is putting more self reflection and understanding in his music than ever before, and he's a rich seam of material. Gloriously imperfect, the personality makes the album, and it's his best yet."

John Bush from AllMusic gave the album two and a half stars out of five. He praised songs like "Ghosts", "Tripping" and "Spread Your Wings", but felt that "Duffy's arrangement is a pale shadow of a Smiths song from 20 years earlier." He concluded that the album is "much more interesting than the creatively bankrupt Escapology."

Singles

 * "Tripping" was released as the album's lead single on 3 October 2005, becoming an international success, topping the charts in Germany, The Netherlands, Taiwan, Argentina and Mexico. In the United Kingdom, it was released as a double A-side with "Make Me Pure". However, "Make Me Pure" was also released separately in Australia, New Zealand and Mexico.
 * "Advertising Space" was released as the album's second single in December 2005, becoming another international hit, reaching the top ten in Europe, Australasia and Latin America.
 * "Sin Sin Sin" was released as the album's third and final single in the summer of 2006. It was the first song Williams and Stephen Duffy co-wrote together. The video was shot in Cape Town, South Africa just days before the start of Williams' tour there. It became Williams' first single to miss the UK Top 20, charting at number twenty-two, however, it performed much better internationally, hitting the top ten in Europe and Latin America.

Musicians

 * Robbie Williams: lead vocals, backing vocals, guitar, bass guitar, Epiphone Casino, synthesizer
 * Stephen Duffy: guitar, keyboards, Nord Lead, wine glass, sitar, harp, sequencers, shakers, dilruba, harmonica
 * Claire Worrall: backing vocals, (track 11) piano, mellotron, Hammond B3, helicopter
 * Melvin Duffy: pedal steel guitar (track 11)
 * Neil Taylor: guitar (track 11)
 * Greg Leisz: guitar
 * Justin Duarte: acoustic guitar
 * Jerry Meehan: bass guitar, fender precision (track 11)
 * Matt Chamberlain: drums, percussion (track 11)
 * Kate Kissoon: backing vocals
 * Tessa Niles: backing vocals
 * Jeff Babko: trombone (track 11)
 * Cleto Escobedo: baritone saxophone (track 11)
 * Waddy Wachtel: guitar (track 11)
 * Jebin Bruni: synthesizer
 * Davey Faragher: bass guitar, Fender Precision
 * John Paterno: guitar
 * Buddy Judge: guitar
 * Max Beesley: percussion, vibes
 * Gary Nuttall: backing vocals (track 11)
 * Carlton E. Anderson: choir (tracks 3 and 11)
 * Maxi Anderson: choir (tracks 3 and 11)
 * Randy Crenshaw: choir (tracks 3 and 11)
 * Judith Hill: choir (tracks 3 and 11)
 * Julia Tillman: choir (tracks 3 and 11)
 * Carmen Twillie: choir (tracks 3 and 11)
 * Oren Waters: choir (tracks 3 and 11)
 * Maxine Waters Willard: choir (tracks 3 and 11)
 * Will Wheaton Jnr: choir (tracks 3 and 11)
 * Terry Wood: choir (tracks 3 and 11)
 * Charlie Bisharat: violins (tracks 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10 and 12)
 * Mario De Leon: violins (tracks 1, 3, 5, 6 and 8)
 * Armen Garabedian: violins (tracks 1, 2, 3, 5, 10 and 12)
 * Berj Garabedian: violins (tracks 1, 3, 5, 6 and 8)
 * Alan Grunfeld: violins (tracks 1, 3 and 5)
 * Sara Pakins: violins (tracks 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10 and 12)
 * Michelle Richards: violins (tracks 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10 and 12)
 * Sarah thornblade: violins (tracks 1, 3, 5, 6 and 8)
 * Josefina Vergara: violins (tracks 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10 and 12)
 * John Wittenburg: violins (tracks 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10 and 12)
 * Denyse Buffum violins (tracks 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10 and 12)
 * Matt Funes: cello
 * Roland Kato: cello
 * Evan Wilson: cello
 * Larry Corbett: cello
 * Suzie Katayama: cello
 * Dan Smith: cello

Credits

 * Album produced by Stephen Duffy and Robbie Williams
 * Original production by Andy Strange
 * Mixed by Bob Clearmountain at Mix This
 * Engineered by John Paterno, Andy Strange, Stephen Duffy Pablo Munguia, Tony Phillips, Adam Noble and Dan Porter
 * Strings arranged and conducted by David Campbell
 * Strings engineered by Alan Sides at NRG
 * Mastering by Tony Cousins at Metropolis Studios, London
 * A&R: Chris Briggs
 * Photography: Hamish Brown
 * Design and artwork: Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely
 * Art co-ordination by Tom Hingston Studio

title: Intensive Care (album)


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User talk:JRBliss

Hm

 * Check out the article on Thich Quang Duc. --Andy M. 08:29, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Chris Tucker "vandalism"
Good eye catching the out of place comment on the Chris Tucker article. For the future, it's good practice to move comments like that to the article's talk page with a note saying who it was left by. --Andy M. 07:21, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Take a look at
Student overall -- weird! --Andy M. 21:26, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Ancient Greek Wikisource
I understand from your userboxes you're interested in Ancient Greek. I've submitted a proposal to add an Ancient Greek Wikisource on Meta, and I'd be very grateful if you could assist me by either voting in Support of the proposal, or even adding your name as one of the contributors in the template. (NB: I'm posting this to a lot of people, so please reply to my talkpage or to Meta) --Nema Fakei 20:27, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

title: User talk:JRBliss


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Metanephrops challengeri

Metanephrops challengeri (commonly known as the New Zealand lobster or New Zealand scampi ) is a species of slim, pink lobster that lives around the coast of New Zealand. It is typically 13 - 18 cm long and weighs around 100 g. The carapace and abdomen are smooth, and adults are white with pink and brown markings and a conspicuous pair of long, slim claws. M. challengeri lives in burrows at depths of 140 - 640 m in a variety of sediments. Although individuals can live for up to 15 years, the species shows low fecundity, where small numbers of larvae hatch at an advanced stage.

M. challengeri is a significant prey item for ling, as well as being an important fishery species for human consumption; trawlers catch around 1000 t per year under the limitations of New Zealand's Quota Management System. The species was first collected by the Challenger expedition of 1872–1876, but only described as separate from related species by Heinrich Balss in 1914. Although originally classified in the genus Nephrops, it was moved in 1972 to a new genus, Metanephrops, along with most other species then classified in Nephrops.

Description
Metanephrops challengeri is a slender lobster, typically 13 - 18 cm long, but exceptionally up to 25 cm, and weighing up to 100 g each. Its chelipeds (legs bearing the main chelae, or claws) are long, narrow, and slightly unequal. The second and third pairs of pereiopods also end in small claws, but the fourth and fifth pairs do not. The carapace is smooth, and extends forwards into a long, narrow rostrum, only slightly shorter than the carapace.

Adults are mostly white, but the front half of the rostrum, and the sides of the abdomen, are pink. Bright red bands extend across the base of the rostrum, the posterior edge of the carapace, the chelipeds, and each of the abdominal segments. The dorsal parts of the abdomen are brown, and there are two brown saddles on the dorsal carapace.

M. challengeri is considered to have the most primitive morphology of any species of Metanephrops, having even fewer novelties than the oldest known fossil species, M. rossensis. Its rostrum is longer than that of other species in the thomsoni species group, and the ridge along the midline of the carapace only has two small spines. Unlike some other species of Metanephrops, the carapace is smooth, as are the abdominal tergae, and the chelipeds are covered in fine granules.

Life cycle
Metanephrops challengeri reaches sexual maturity at the age of 3–4 years, and may live up to 15 years in total. Females produce very large eggs in small numbers; they are typically around 2.5 mm in diameter, and are blue in colour. The larvae hatch at the zoea stage (equivalent to the third zoea of the Northern Hemisphere species Nephrops norvegicus). The zoea larvae are 10.0 - 11.5 mm long, and possess all the appendages of the cephalothorax, including the pereiopods, which are used for swimming, but no pleopods (appendages of the abdomen). This larval stage lasts less than four days, before the young moult into the post-larval stage. The post-larva swims using its pleopods. The post-larva later moults into the adult form. Larvae are rarely seen in the wild, confirming that the development to the bottom-dwelling post-larva is rapid.

Distribution and ecology
Metanephrops challengeri lives around the coasts of New Zealand, including the Chatham Islands, at depths of 140 - 640 m. It lives in burrows in a variety of "suitable cohesive" sediments, and is a significant prey item for ling (Genypterus blacodes). Lobsters have few parasites, the most important for M. challengeri being the microsporidian Myospora metanephrops. This can cause "destruction of the skeletal and heart muscles of infected lobsters", but its significance for the animals and for the fishing industry remains unclear. When it was described in 2010, M. metanephrops was the first microsporidian to be isolated from a true lobster.

Fisheries
Metanephrops challengeri has been harvested commercially since the 1980s. Between the season of 1988/89 and 1990/91, the amount of scampi caught around New Zealand increased from only 55000 kg to around 500000 kg. Catch limits were introduced in 1990/91, and now 1000000 kg is caught annually by trawlers. The fishery is centred on four areas of continental shelf of the submerged continent Zealandia: the Campbell Plateau around the Auckland Islands, Chatham Rise, along the Wairarapa coast, and in the Bay of Plenty.

Most of the fishing vessels used to capture M. challengeri are 20 - 40 m long, with "double or triple trawl rigs of low headline height". There is considerable variation in the catch per unit effort between different depths, between different geographical areas and between different years. M. challengeri is considered a luxury foodstuff. Most of the catch is exported and as a result, it is rarely seen in restaurants in New Zealand.

Metanephrops challengeri was the subject of a 2003 select committee inquiry in the New Zealand parliament, after allegations of corruption arose against officers of the Ministry of Fisheries. Although the allegations were quashed, the inquiry ruled that preferential treatment had been given to the large fishing company Simunovich Fisheries. In response, the government introduced M. challengeri into their Quota Management System and paid compensation to some fishermen who had a justified grievance. Under QMS, an overall limit of 1291000 kg was put in place for M. challengeri in 2011.

Conservation
Metanephrops challengeri is currently listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List, due in part to the Quota Management System put in place by the New Zealand government. The species does appear to be declining, however, based both on burrow counts and analyses of catch per unit effort. Estimates of the total population size of M. challengeri vary depending on the methods used. Based on indirect measures, such as burrow counts, there may be as many as 28 million individuals, and the annual catch might represent only 2%–4% of the total population. Using more reliable figures based on those animals seen during surveys, there may be only 2–11 million individuals available to trawlers, and the annual catch may remove 12%–28% of that population. Bycatch from the New Zealand scampi fishery has included the New Zealand sea lion, Phocarctos hookeri, which is considered a vulnerable species by the IUCN.

Taxonomy
Metanephrops challengeri was first described by Heinrich Balss in 1914, under the name Nephrops challengeri. Two specimens had been collected on the Challenger expedition from benthic Globigerina ooze at a depth of 275 fathom, on the Challenger Plateau in the Tasman Sea (-38.84167°N, 169.33333°W). They had been included by Charles Spence Bate in his report on the crustaceans collected by the Challenger expedition, but were not separated from "Nephrops thomsoni" (now Metanephrops thomsoni), which was described by Spence Bate as a new species. Balss recognised that Spence Bate's N. thomsoni covered two species and, restricting the name M. thomsoni to the species containing the type specimens designated by Spence Bate (from the Philippines), created a new species for the species from New Zealand. Balss chose the two specimens seen by Spence Bate to be the type specimens of his new species, Nephrops challengeri. Both were females, and they have been deposited at the Natural History Museum in London.

The species was transferred to a new genus, Metanephrops (along with every other extant species then in Nephrops, except its type species, Nephrops norvegicus) by Richard Jenkins of the University of Adelaide in 1972. Jenkins placed M. challengeri among the "thomsoni group" within the genus Metanephrops, alongside M. thomsoni, M. sibogae, M. boschmai and M. sinensis. Jenkins inferred that this group of species had originated off northern Australia or in Indonesia, and that M. challengeri had reached New Zealand in the late Tertiary and displaced M. motunauensis, which formerly lived there. More recently, findings from molecular phylogenetics suggest that M. challengeri has a basal position in the genus, possibly linked to M. neptunus, and that the genus may have originated at high latitudes in the South Atlantic.

title: Metanephrops challengeri


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Neptune Pool

The Neptune Pool is an outdoor swimming pool ensemble at Hearst Castle, in San Simeon, California. As well as a large swimming pool, the terrace also includes fountains, ornamental pools, sculptures, marble pavilions, alabaster lanterns, dressing rooms, and a mainly reconstructed ancient temple facade.

The Neptune Terrace, including its huge pool shell, are raised up behind massive retaining walls on the Hearst Castle ridge-line in the Santa Lucia Mountains. It is to the north and lower than the main Casa Grande and the guest house terrace, with vistas of the ranch, Point San Simeon coastline, and Pacific Ocean.

In 2014, the pool was drained due to severe drought conditions in Southern California. The pool had been leaking and evaporating 5000 USgal of water per day. Extensive renovations began in 2017 to completely replace the pool's tile base and fix the leaks which had plagued it since its construction. The pool was temporarily filled for the first time since 2014 that August to make sure the leaks had been repaired before the water was subsequently returned to the local watershed. In August, 2018 the pool restoration was completed and the pool was refilled. In 2019, the pool was opened to the public by purchasing tickets with donations which helps fund the castle's art conservation and education programs. The castle was closed to visitors in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

History
Designed by architect Julia Morgan, the Neptune Pool with terrace elements was started in 1924. Albert Solon and Frank Schemmel of Solon and Schemmel Tile Company came to Hearst Castle to perform the tile work. The Neptune Pool was built and rebuilt three times, each version a larger size. After the 1926 and 1934 redesigns and re-buildings, it was finally deemed completed by William Randolph Hearst in 1936.

Scale
The Neptune Pool is 58 ft wide except for the 95 ft width at the primary axis fountain—alcove section, and the secondary axis pool length is 104 ft. The depth varies from 3.5 ft at the west 'shallow' end, to 10 ft at pools' main drains.

The fountains and pool are fed by spring water piped from the Santa Lucia Mountains, and the pool alone holds 345000 USgal of water.

Architectural and landscape elements
Light-veined Vermont marble decorates the flooring and side walls of the swimming and ornamental pools, and the colonnades.

The swimming pool is surrounded by Ancient Roman Revival and Greek Revival style pavilions and colonnades. The pool's main axis centerpiece and north terminus is elaborated from parts of the façade of an Ancient Roman temple that William Randolph Hearst had purchased in Europe and imported to San Simeon. It is symmetrically framed by the colonnaded pavilions as the secondary axis' west and east terminus elements.

17th-century Italian Neoclassical bas-reliefs are upon the sides of the colonnades. The 'Neptune' and 'Nereid' statues, first atop the cascade, were moved to present positions in the Roman temple's pediment. New classical sculptures were commissioned by sculptor Charles Cassou. His 'Neptune statuary group,' planned from the late 1920s for a small cascade pool, was never installed. His ‘Venus’ was.

In films and on television

 * The Neptune pool was used as the set for the entrance of Crassus' villa in Kubrick's Spartacus.
 * The Lady Gaga video "G.U.Y." was shot at various locations at Hearst Castle, including the pool. Due to drought conditions and leaks in the pool, the Neptune Pool was drained in 2014. However, the pool was filled for the music video.
 * Featured by Huell Howser in California's Gold Episode 702

title: Neptune Pool


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Braunite

Braunite is a silicate mineral containing both di- and tri-valent manganese with the chemical formula: Mn2+Mn3+6[O8|SiO4]. Common impurities include iron, calcium, boron, barium, titanium, aluminium, and magnesium.

Braunite forms grey/black tetragonal crystals and has a Mohs hardness of 6 – 6.5.

It was named after the Wilhelm von Braun (1790–1872) of Gotha, Thuringia, Germany.

A calcium iron bearing variant, named braunite II (formula: Ca(Mn3+,Fe3+)14SiO24), was discovered and described in 1967 from Kalahari, Cape Province, South Africa.

title: Braunite