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The Story of the Night

The Story of the Night is a bildungsroman by Irish novelist Colm Tóibín. The novel interweaves the personal story of Richard Garay, a gay Argentinian man with an English mother, and the political history of Argentina through the late 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s.

Told entirely in the first person, the novel presents a wholly convincing picture of a character who could almost be described as an anti-hero, and who distills not just the Argentinian but the global late 20th century mix of sexual and economic "freedoms" in a single life: a "story of the night" lights otherwise shadowy places.

Toibín's third novel, it was his first to feature a gay character.

Plot
The novel is split into three parts across various settings in Argentina and in Barcelona, and takes place in both domestic and public spaces.

 * Part One

The Story of the Night opens with a discussion of Richard's mother – her patriotism towards England before her death, and how Richard imagines she would have responded to the Falklands War. Richard experienced a lack of political awareness before the war when the generals were in power, but he recalls one time he was having sex with a dark-haired man and heard a revving sound outside. When Richard asked his partner what the noise was, he responded that the police station opposite were using a car to power cattle rods for torture.

Richard attends university during the Dirty War. He befriends Jorge Canetto, the (straight) son of a wealthy family; he teaches Jorge English and develops a crush on him. He eventually confesses to Jorge that he is gay, to Jorge's disapproval. One evening his mother asks him if Jorge is gay and Richard, surprised, reveals his homosexuality to his mother.

The novel then flashes back to Richard's childhood. His mother's family immigrated from England to Argentina when she was a child and, as a result, Richard himself felt he was English growing up. After his father's death, he and his mother were left without funds. Richard's aunts and uncles on his father's side were stingy, and provided little money. His mother decided they would stay with her sister (Aunt Matilda) in Molino, but they soon discover that Matilda and her family are very poor. They are put up in a shed by Matilda's tiny cottage. In the following days, Richard's cousin takes him to play with other boys who live on the estate. Three of these boys take Richard to a barn where they all disrobe and masturbate together. Richard develops a crush on one of the boys (Juan), but discovers that there are rules to this "game" after Juan calls him "queer" for trying to kiss him. Eventually his Uncle and mother fall out, and so Richard and his mother move back to Buenos Aires. Back at home his mother finds a job working in a "very refined" hotel, and is given some money by the English community in Buenos Aires to tide her over.

Back in the present-day, Richard attends university and his mother works in the hotel. Jorge invites Richard on a three-week visit to Barcelona, a friend of Jorge's had pulled out at the last minute. Whilst there, the two meet up with a group of young Chilean refugees from the Pinochet regime. Elena, one of the two Chilean girls, attaches herself to Jorge, but Jorge prefers the other girl, Maria Jose. Nonetheless, Jorge has sex with Elena every night. As Jorge and Richard are sharing a room, Jorge makes Richard pretend to be asleep whilst they are in the bed next to him.

It is revealed that two or three of the Chileans had been arrested and Raul, who had not been very political, had been tortured. Jorge sleeps with Maria Jose and then leaves Barcelona with her for a while. Richard continues to spend time with the Chileans and develops a crush on Raul. Elena gives Richard details about Raul's torture. She says that soon their group will be dispersed and they will have to settle in different places. Jorge and Maria Jose return and spend time alone away from the rest of the group. When it is time for Jorge and Richard to leave, Jorge gives the Chileans a fake address, in case they are arrested again. Jorge is afraid of what might happen if his address was found on them. Richard gives them his real address. They say goodbye and Richard and Jorge return to Argentina.

Richard's mother seems much older and frailer than she did before he left for Spain. She begins to hate Argentina and wishes her father had stayed in England. She eventually becomes too incapacitated to work and so Richard gets a job teaching English. She has a stroke and loses her ability to speak. After a while she dies.

Richard is emotionally numb for months after her death, but eventually begins to feel sexual desire again. He brings a man he met in the street back to his apartment. He starts to go to a sauna twice a week to meet other gay men.

Argentina takes hold of the Malvinas. People treat Richard with a little suspicion due to his being half English, but Richard wholeheartedly supports Argentina.

Jorge's father, Senor Canetto, invites Richard to their house for dinner. There are a number of middle-aged army men in attendance, all of whom are Peronists. As negotiations fail and the Falkland war breaks out, Richard often goes to the Canetto's for dinner and to discuss politics and the war. The men at these dinners are certain that Argentina will win but Richard is sceptical. Richard feels a great sense of shame for his country when Britain wins the war. Richard is at these dinners when important political changes happen; when Alfonsin is elected president, when the generals are put on trial etc. Richard discovers that Canetto has political ambitions, and hopes for American funding. Canetto invites Richard to meet some American diplomats. These Americans are hosting receptions and need someone who can talk to them about democratic possibilities, and who can speak both Spanish and English.

 * Part 2

He goes to a party where he meets these American diplomats; Susan and Donal Ford. Initially he represents Canetto's interests, Canetto plans to run for president and needs someone who speaks English to convince the diplomats to fund him. Richard finds that he changes into someone new, someone more confident and assured when he talks to them. After this party he meets with Susan privately where they talk intimately; Richard tells her about his parents deaths and his relationship with his father. He goes to dinner with Susan and Donald where they talk politics. Richard says he thinks Argentinians are more concerned with issues like economics, employment and welfare than they are about people disappearing. The three of them begin having drinks and dinner often. They talk about informal things and relax together.

Richard begins to hate his teaching job. One day he goes to the sauna and seduces a young man, but this seduction takes a long time so Richard decides not to go to work that day. He and the man have sex, and then Richard goes to a movie alone during his evening classes. He tells the Ford's how he despises his job and Susan offers him a new job looking after a group of American economists. The economists are coming to Argentina to suggest ways the country can reduce spending so that they can pay debts. Richard doesn't go back to his teaching job, after two weeks he is given a cheque and a letter of dismissal. He stays in a hotel with the economists and works with them well.

Donald talks to Richard about a potential job working towards the privatisation of the oil industry. Whilst at a dinner with the economists, Richard talks to a friend from university who had also been working with the economists. Richard had been discussing with the Americans how he didn't know anyone who had disappeared and that the disappearances weren't important to his life. His friend from university talks about his girlfriend who he is certain was murdered when she disappeared.

Richard returns to his apartment and finds letters from Jorge. Senor Canetto is exasperated and impatient to know whether the Americans will fund him. He meets with Susan and shows her these letters. She suggests that Canetto have a fund-raising party which they will attend to get to know him. She tells him more about the work he will do in the Oil industry. Richard goes to the Canetto's house to tell them Susan's suggestion and he meets Jorge's brother Pablo for the first time Jorge sets up a tennis game – he and Pablo play against Richard and Donald.

Donald and Richard begin playing tennis privately. After one game Donald puts his arms around Richard whilst they are both naked and tries to lift him up. When Donald sees that Richard has an erection his suspicion that Richard is gay is confirmed.

The Canettos throw their party, but Donald and Susan are unimpressed.

Richard decides to go to a new sauna – it is Sunday and his usual one is closed. The new sauna is dingy, with a smell of rot and gay porn playing on a TV. In the changing rooms he runs into Pablo. Richard is desperate to talk to him, but cannot find him after Pablo disappears into the Sauna.

Donald and Susan convince Richard to rent an office and become an independent consultant and translator. An oil tycoon, Frederico Arenas, offers Richard a job involving the "transport" of some goods, saying that no-one would question if these goods were called "oil" and transported as oil. Richard refuses his contract.

Susan invites Richard for dinner while Donald is away. After dinner she brings him to her room. They both get naked and begin kissing but Richard cannot get an erection. Susan finds out he is gay. They cuddle in bed and Susan tells him that she was complicit in the overthrow in Chile. This upsets Richard as he remembers how Raul was tortured.

Frederico Arenas calls Richard again, and Richard refuses his offer again.

Susan finds out about a man running for president from La Rioja, his name is Menem. She asks Richard if he thinks Menem has a chance of winning the presidency. Richard flies out to meet her in La Rioja to check him out, and finds her there with Jorge. Jorge is unsubtle about his relationship with Susan, and the way he flaunts their affair echoes back to his actions in Barcelona.

When Richard arrives home he agrees to Frederico Arenas's offer and becomes friends with him.

Richard also becomes friends with Senor Canetto, who he tells about the oil industry. Canetto introduces Richard to an investment banker who will lend him large sums at a good rate of interest. They both invest in oil. Richard becomes incredibly rich through his investments, and his contract with Arenas.

Richard attends dinner with the Canettos and runs into Pablo again. When Jorge and Pablo drive him to the train station after dinner, Pablo unties Richard's shoelaces in a flirty manner.

 * Part 3

Part three is shaped around Richard's relationship with Pablo. As this section opens, Richard's infatuation with Pablo grows, but he is still unsure as to whether Pablo reciprocates his feelings. Susan sets Richard up on a date with an American, and he is surprised when Charles (the American) asks him to use a condom during sex due to his fear about aids. He phones Pablo shortly after this encounter and they start dating. Pablo tells Richard the real reason he moved to America to study; the family maid walked in on Pablo having sex with his friend, and shortly afterwards his father pushed for him to go to America. Pablo never asked his father if the maid told him what had happened, but decided he would rather move than ask him.

Richard and Pablo fall in love. When Richard takes Pablo to visit his parents grave he thinks that after years of missing them and being alone he is finally content. They spend a weekend in Motevideo together. Whilst there they go to a gay club where they can kiss and slow dance in public without fear of judgement.

Richard sublets an upscale marina house from a US diplomat and invites Pablo to share it with him. They move in together, pretending to Pablo's family that he is only moving into the spare room so Richard can save on rent.

Pablo has two of his friends from California to stay, Mart and Jack who have been together for twelve years. When Pablo and Richard go to pick them up from the airport they learn that Mart has been treated badly by the airport security after they saw his AIDS medication. The four of them spend time together and Jack tells Richard that Pablo's ex-boyfriend died of aids, something which affected Pablo deeply. They think that Mart might have an infected line and take him to a doctor called Doctor Cawley. Before his friends leave, Pablo takes them and Richard to a restaurant and then to a bath-house where they scout for people to sleep with. Richard is initially reluctant to go to the bathhouse, but ends up enjoying sex with a stranger whilst there.

Donald and Susan reveal that they will be leaving Argentina soon. At a tense dinner Donald asks Richard how long Susan and Jorge have been sleeping together, and Richard reveals to Susan that he has been dating Pablo.

Susan and Donald have a farewell party. The next day Susan comes to say goodbye to Richard and they part. During this, it becomes clear that Mart is going to die and so Pablo decides to visit San Francisco where he and Jack live.

Richard goes to Miami for work, and hooks up with Tom Shaw, a blonde American he'd met a few times during previous trips. Pablo phones Richard once, but then doesn't phone back or respond to any of Richard's calls. When Richard arrives home he sees that Pablo has moved out of their house, and left a note breaking up with him.

Richard, devastated by the break-up, arranges to go to Tom Shaw's for the weekend and flies to New York. They do a lot of cocaine and have a lot of sex, but Tom is cold, only interested in physical gratification. Richard falls ill and decides he has to return to Argentina as soon as possible. On the flight home he cannot stop coughing, and is in agonising pain.

Richard goes to the Hospital who tell him he has pneumonia. Whilst in the hospital he realises he doesn't have anyone to put as his emergency contact, and gives his dead mother's phone number and information. Doctor Cawley visits him and tells him he has Aids. Upon release from the hospital, he calls Susan and breaks down crying as he tells her of his illness. He moves back into his old apartment, goes back to work, and slowly becomes used to the fact that he is going to die.

After his second meeting with Dr Cawley Richard runs into Pablo in the Doctor's waiting room. Pablo reveals that he was diagnosed with Aids during the weekend that Mart died. The pair lean on each other. Pablo has to stay in hospital to treat CMV, an eye disease that can cause blindness, and to have a line put in his chest. Richard visits him every day and when Pablo is released he takes him back to their house. The book ends as with Pablo deciding to live with Richard for a while, in their house by the Marina.

Characters

 * Richard Garay– an initially closeted young gay man living in Buenos Aires who first finds work as an English teacher. His friendship with the Canetto family (see below) provides a pathway to a more remunerative and exciting life as a go-between for American interests in Argentina after the fall of the military regime. The novel is seen through Richard's eyes. Toibin portrays Richard as individual who struggles with intimacy and, perhaps as a result, is susceptible to venal and calculating approaches by other individuals.
 * Richard's father – An Argentinian who died when Richard was young. His family, the Garays, owned a small shipping business, which was slowly declining, and he was the third son. Richard recalls that his father paid little attention to him, but how special it felt when he did.
 * Richard's mother – An English woman whose father brought her and her sister to Argentina after his wife died, in the 1920s. In the aftermath of Richard's own father's premature death, and their consequential impoverishment, Richard and his mother have a close but not intimate relationship which at times becomes a suffocating constraint upon his life. She takes refuge in a cultivated and intense Englishness, while Richard himself, fully identified with Argentina, disappoints her career-wise and conceals his homosexuality until shortly before her death. After her death, her legacy survives and appears to manifest in various ways through his actions and mentalities.
 * Jorge Canetto – The Argentinian son of a potential Presidential candidate – Señor Canetto. Richard becomes friends with Jorge at university and tutors him in English. Richard claims to have fallen in love with Jorge but it proves to be more lust than love. They travel together to Barcelona where they meet a group of young Chilean refugees. When they return to Argentina Richard becomes more closely acquainted with the Canetto family; Jorge remains a minor figure through the rest of the novel, his sexual activity being a counterpoint to Richard's own.
 * Señor Canetto – Jorge and Pablo's father. A Peronist with unfulfilled ambitions to be president.
 * Pablo Canetto – The second son of the potential Presidential candidate. Richard's first real love; the relationship dominates the third part of the book.
 * Susan & Donald Ford – Two Americans who dominate the middle section of the book. They enlist Richard's help as a translator and consultant, mainly to ensure a peaceful and smooth Argentine transition to a new political order, with an economy adhering to the norms of international business and open to foreign investment. Donald rather undiplomatically reveals Richard's sexuality by testing his response to a sexual advancement towards him in the shower room. Susan, on the other hand, is actually attracted to Richard, and only discovers his sexual orientation when in bed with him. Her later affair with Jorge is initially seen as an attempt to avenge Richard's lack of receptivity towards her, but she accepts his being homosexual and offers to help Richard find a partner, later setting up a date for him with an acquaintance from Europe. The couple become an essential part of Richard's development in the novel; their trust in him and vice versa builds his confidence and allows him to extend his engagement with the world. He is soon able to settle into the identity that they believed him to already retain, and they are the first people to know, beyond his mother and lovers, that he is gay.
 * Mart and Jack – Pablo's friends from America. They have been in a relationship for 12 years when we first meet them. Mart is dying from aids.
 * The Chileans – Refugees who live in Barcelona. Richard and Jorge meet them in the communal room of the pensión in which they are staying. They are experienced in political resistance and demonstration, and are willing to put their lives in danger for a greater cause. It appears to readers that they belong to another world, full of political tension, social reformation and a sense of unending possibility, danger, and excitement. His interactions with the Chileans reveal much more to him about himself than he could have initially imagined, and he returns to Argentina with an increased desire to get involved and recognize that which is going on around him.

Themes
Tóibín's work regularly explores the themes of living abroad, creativity and personal identity, focusing especially on homosexual identity, and on identity when confronted with loss.

Identity
Garay's identity is complex and layered. His homosexuality is for the most part hidden; he has mixed origins (an English mother); his class status is fragile (he and his mother are middle class but impoverished); he is affected, like all Argentinians, by the atmosphere of fear marking the years of military dictatorship; the neoliberal turn in Argentina provides him with the opportunity to adopt new identities but they come across as just that – adopted.

Other figures in the novel have an impact on Richard's expression of his own identity. He is son, brother, colleague, friend, and lover throughout the novel and at different stages, but his sexuality remains a certainty.

The relationship with his mother, her alienation, deterioration, and ultimately her death can be seen as the rejection of his British identity for an acceptance of his homosexuality and identity as an Argentinian (and not half British) man. His mother embodied binary heteronormative behaviour, embracing Britishness and heterosexuality, and was dismissive of any sense of the "other". The alienation from the mother figure in favour of proximity with his partner Pablo, and other lovers, reinforces a negative portrayal of the constraints within a mother-son relationship.

Masculinity within the novel
Richard describes how in his youth he flirted with cross-dressing and a female persona. As an adult he is attracted to distinctly masculine men. He enjoys working with the American businessmen and ‘mimicking their masculinity’ as it gives him a sense of control. With his lover Pablo however, he finds himself able to be gentle and protective and to elicit the same responses from Pablo. His sexual responses to male figures in the novel are noticeably aesthetic, in that the attraction is primarily physical before anything else. The portrayals are realistic and allow the reader to fully appreciate the development of the romantic relationship between Pablo and Richard when it happens.

Overriding the novel is the polarised political situation of Argentina which is dominated by the masculine. The portrayal of the family is strictly nuclear, and all those who have the potential to be considered as powerful in Argentina are men with subordinate wives. Susan, although in a position of equality with her husband, is portrayed as conforming to a typically patriarchal view of women by attempting to seduce Richard, and later Jorge. She becomes a seductress with a strong sexual appetite and cannot just remain a diplomat in her own right.

Argentina and England
Richard's mother's preoccupation with Englishness is a mirror of her failure to flourish in Argentina, particularly once her Argentinian husband has died leaving her reliant on the limited charity of in-laws and the local Anglican church, in particular its vicar. Mother and son live together in a shabby apartment, but Richard distances himself from his mother's outlook. This may be in part because of his concealed homosexuality, which she only becomes aware of shortly before she dies. The Falkland War follows soon after. Richard's responds as a patriotic Argentinian, even though his acquaintances at times are concerned for him, given his part-English origins. Richard's bilingualism opens the way to many opportunities but they draw him into the orbit of the United States, not England, about which he exhibits neither interest nor a desire to visit.

Argentina as an Allegorical Substitution for Ireland
Costello-Sullivan argues that, as with other Toibin novels, Argentina as the setting with its  "social and political exclusions" and the "representation of Argentina's oppressive, silencing polity invariably resonates with the Irish context" (97-98).

Complacency, ignorance and moral choices
In an important discussion, the Chilean refugees acquaint Richard with their experiences when the Allende government was overthrown. In particular Raul's torture at the hands of the incoming Pinochet regime is detailed. Richard realizes he has always averted his gaze from evidence of police and official brutality in then military-ruled Argentina, the era of the Dirty War. At other points of the book two instances are detailed. The first occurs when Richard is having sex against a backdrop of noise from car engines revving and then being told by his pickup that the cars were powering cattle prods used to torture suspects at the police station opposite: "I still do not know if what he said was true . . . I did not pay much attention [then], I remember the pleasure of standing at the window with him, my hands running down his back, more than anything else." (p. 8). Years later an acquaintance from his university days, Francisco, challenges Richard over his seeming indifference to the disappearance and likely death of one of their fellow students at the hands of the authorities – Richard claims ignorance (pp 118–20). Later again, Susan Ford confesses to Richard that she was working for US intelligence in Santiago at the time of the overthrow of Allende (albeit in a subordinate role). Only years on did she fully realize her complicity in what happened at that time (pp 157–58). The theme is never fully worked out – that is, Richard does not become more morally aware in the course of the novel, unless his loyalty to Pablo could be so construed. The theme seems to be used to signal how morally numbed an individual can become living in a police state, or perhaps in almost any circumstances.

Neoliberalism
The two Americans, Susan and Donald Ford, are exemplary of the US wish to incorporate post-military Argentina into the US-led liberal world order. This includes shoring up a democratic political system but one which would not allow the return of Peronism, Argentina's mid-century experiment in radical (but more or less democratic) economic nationalism, to which the US had always been hostile. Lacking any strong political attachment Richard goes along with this, in part because he is made to see (a telling episode comes when he assists some visiting IMF officials: "did I know, they asked me that the train system of Buenos Aires lost five time its annual revenue?", p 115) that the existing political economy of Argentina was deeply corrupt. On another occasion he himself becomes complicit in a corrupt transaction. Rueful after the event, he is told some time later by Federico, his accomplice, that "things were different now . . . every move you make is watched, everything is countersigned" (p 245). At one point during the lobbying over the privatization of the country's oil industry, Richard becomes convinced that the privatization would be bad for Argentina (p 260), but the insight is not further developed nor does it lead to any change of course on Richard's part.

HIV/AIDS
The novel was published in 1996, at a time when new drugs, in particular AZT and protease inhibitors, were holding out the possibility of living rather than dying with HIV/AIDS. The novel captures a time – from the mid 1980s to the mid-1990s – when AIDS was not only deadly and fearsome but played havoc with many for whom neither their sexuality, nor the cause or character of their ill-health, could be disclosed to their families. No explicit parallel is drawn between this phase of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the advent of economic liberalism in Argentina, but it could be argued that Richard's ignorance to the devastation wrought by the Dirty War and his ignorance to the HIV/AIDS epidemic operate in conjunction with one another.

Silence and space
The use of space in the novel is important in highlighting the sexual repression in Argentinian society. Richard initially seeks comfort from the space provided by the saunas during the novel, as a place where he can express his sexuality and seek refuge from the external stress of his daily life. His apartment after the death of his mother acts as a place for Richard to return to the reality of his life before his social and economic advancements; but soon becomes a place of stagnancy and deterioration from which he longs to escape. Likewise, the saunas become another setting for the expression of the silence, isolation, and uncertainty that was congruent with being homosexual at the time. As Tóibín notes, "…while I was there, I kept meeting gay people who had never told a single person that they were gay…" (O'Toole, ‘Interview’, p 97). Communication through spoken word is rare in the saunas too, and so the importance of silence is established because it manifests the sense of fear of the individuals in being discovered as homosexual in a largely homophobic society. Richard comes to realise, when discussing a gay bar with friends, that "everyone [there] is frightened. They stare straight ahead as though someone is going to tell everyone their big secret" (p 249).

Context of Argentina's political climate
The novel opens when the National Reorganization Process were in Power. The National Reorganization Process was a military dictatorship that controlled Argentina from 1976 to 1983. The Dirty War was also happening during this time, where the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (AAA) killed thousands of left-wing activists. It is estimated that 30,000 people disappeared. When Richard's friend from university says that his girlfriend disappeared during this time, he says that the AAA 'drugged their victims and hauled them into aircraft and threw them into the sea' – a reference to the Death flights that happened during this era.

In 1982 the Falklands War broke out after Argentina invaded the British-owned Falkland Islands. The National Reorganization Process hoped that by taking back the islands they could increase patriotism and support for their regime. Richard celebrates the invasion on p67 of the novel, and discusses the progress of the war with Senor Canetto in the following pages. Argentina lost the war, and Britain took back control of the islands.

The Generals who had held power during the military dictatorship were put on trial, and democracy was restored to Argentina. Alfonsín was elected president. In the novel we can see Senor Canetto's response to this change as he attempts to run for president. Susan and Donald's involvement in getting Menem elected is also a result of the Foreign policy of the Ronald Reagan administration after the war.

Argentina LGBT Rights: 1970s–1980s
In order to understand the social context in which this novel takes place, from the late 1970s to the 1980s, it is important to look at the development of the LGBT rights in Argentina that were taking place alongside the political restructuring of the country. Prior to and during the earlier period of the 60s, political attitudes were vague and somewhat contradictory. Yet, like a lot of the western world, Argentina's LGBT movements gained momentum during the 1970s, with the establishment of the first LGBT organisation in 1967 called ‘Nuestro Mondo’.

Unlike western groups, however, Nuestro Mondo and other LGBT groups did not seek political activism or change, but sought to bring awareness to the movement. Groups that developed from and alongside Nuestro Mondo took a different approach to their activism in that they sought equality and political acknowledgement via the upheaval of imperialism, and so aligned with left wing groups that did not necessarily promote LGBT rights.

After the right-wing 1976 coup d’état, Argentina faced an unsettling reversal of the progress made by LGBT groups, and groups as well as individuals faced governmental attacks and violence.

Argentina's democratization in 1983 saw the beginning of the politicisation of the movements and constitutional recognition as well as a greater general acceptance for members of the LGBT community.

Style and genre
Tóibín writes in a direct and unembellished language. He's a master of using this apparent simplicity to convey powerful atmospheres that remain with the reader long after the experience of reading the novel is finished. Reading his work a second time is strongly recommended, as there are layers of nuance to be discovered and explored (Sette, Jorge).

The tone is cool and discreet; Tóibín's fondness for understatement when describing emotional turbulence is admirable and quite effective.

The genre is ambiguous as the novel can fit into a plethora of categories not limited to and including: a political novel, gay romance, historical fiction, a thriller, a mystery, etc.

Tóibín seems to be fascinated with the ways that suppressed feelings can shape and deform character, and the often destructive and always disruptive manner in which long repressed emotions can emerge (Kirkus Reviews).

Reception
"A brave and remarkable novel, the impact of which no reader will shed" Dermot Bolger, Sunday Independent

"The Story of the Night is a love story of the most serious and difficult kind. Tóibín has told it with profound artistry and truth" Tobias Wolff

"Nobody before Tóibín has made such honesty stand so clearly for political and personal integrity…In each of his first three novels he has invented a strong central character but Garay is by far his most memorable" Edmund White, Sunday Times

"He writes sentences of classical elegance with staccato insistence… Tóibín is not a writer who lets reders go once he has them in his grasp. There is always, you feel, the potential for surprise, that silences will be exploded, that a revelation is coming" Alan Taylor, Scotsman

However, some reviewers have also argued that Tóibín's political views often overshadow the more personal themes in his works, citing Homage to Barcelona and The Story of the Night as examples (eNotes).

Awards and nominations
It won the Ferro-Grumley Award for the "Best Gay Novel of 1997".

title: The Story of the Night


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Željko Malnar

Željko Malnar (12 April 1944 – 9 July 2013) was a Croatian maverick traveller, writer and a fringe television celebrity, best known for his own weekly show Nightmare Stage and his satirical micronation the Republic of Peščenica.

Biography
His first expedition was in 1964 in the area of Perućica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the last remaining primeval forest in Europe.

Between 1965 and 1995 he traveled the Middle East, Africa, South America, Oceania, Pakistan and India in numerous expeditions. He co-wrote the book U potrazi za staklenim gradom (In pursuit of the glass city).

In the period between 1970 and 1974 he studied philosophy and mass media in India and the Indian philosopher Swami Ashram Shama, which allowed him to gain more insight into Indian society. He ended studies as the best foreign student. He received diploma personally from Indian president V. V. Giri. In India, he worked for the producers Don Charnon, Canadian film ltd, Indian film division, and for the government of the state Rajasthan. In 1977 he led an expedition for Zagreb television entitled "Journey to the East", which had great success.

In 1982 he became the leader of professional expeditions, and worked for the Institute of Ecotechnics which has its headquarters in London. For the U.S. company Tropic Ventures he operated one of the largest expedition the world called "Around the Tropic World" (1982–1986). He is the author of the documentary series with the expedition entitled "Journey to other worlds." Speleological participating in expeditions that achieved the world accepted the results in the scientific world (the discovery of the longest olm).

Malnar authored over 100 documentary films and reports from Turkey, Jordan, Ethiopia, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Tibet, Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Panama, Ecuador, Samoa, the South Pacific, New Hebrides, Solomon Islands, etc. He received many awards throughout the world – Chicago International Film Festival, Barcelona Film Festival, etc. In 1986 he got the city keys to Fort Worth, Dallas in the U.S. state of Texas from mayor Bob Bolan as a reward for bringing cultures and peoples. He is the only holder of foreign titles SEIU (chiefs speaking) Polynesian states Samoa.

In 1992, Malnar started producing Nightmare Stage, a show that hosted many picturesque characters from the streets of Zagreb (Cro Rom, Stankec, Tarzan, Jaran, Laki, Ševa etc.). Malnar proclaimed himself the president of the so-called Republic of Peščenica (Zagreb suburb) in the beginning of the 1990s, a satirical-parodical project, a parody on contemporary Croatian political scene.

In 2004, the City Council of Zagreb nominated Željko Malnar for the city award (plaketa) for his work on Nightmare Stage, for the show's "authenticity, brave opposition to an artificial virtual world, false greatness and hypocrisy in the society".

In 2005, Malnar's TV show included shots from a local pornographic movie, which caused the Croatian agency for electronic media regulation to censure his then-station OTV and force it off the air for a period of 24 hours.

The Nighmare Stage was later broadcast on the TV station Z1.

Željko Malnar died at age 69 in Zagreb. He was cremated and his ashes were scattered in the Adriatic Sea.

Alexander III of Macedon journey
Malnar has always been fascinated by Alexander III of Macedon (Alexander the Great) and his travels by horse. He decided to repeat Alexander's trip to Afghanistan by horse. As he later said, it was for him the highest and most difficult expedition that he did not finish. After two years of preparation on 30 May 1991. Malnar with his four friends, four horses and a jeep took off to the East. They began in Karlovac, Croatia and traveled through Macedonia and Bulgaria to Turkey. In Turkey, Malnar found out that the war broke out in Croatia so he decided to travel under Croatian flag instead of Yugoslav, resulting in cancellation of sponsorship which lead to financial problems. At the entrance to Syria Bassel al-Assad heard about their expedition and provided all the supplies, because he felt they were conducting a worldwide venture. In Lebanon, Malnar was a guest of Sheik Abbas al-Musawi, who died ten days later in an Israeli attack. They were also received by Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah. The journey was interrupted in 1992 in Jordan, near the border with Saudi Arabia, due to a personal loss in Malnar's family.

Films

 * Over 70 independent documentary films from all over world (1975–1995)
 * Journey To Other Worlds, documentary series (1982–1986)
 * Peščenopolis (2004)
 * Hrvatska mora ("Croatian nightmare") (2005)

Books

 * U potrazi za staklenim gradom ("In search of the glass city", 1986)
 * Filozofija Republike Peščenice ("Philosophy of Republic of Peščenica", 2004)
 * Željko Malnar – Put Aleksandra Velikog ("Željko Malnar – the path of Alexander the Great", 2013)

TV shows

 * Little Secrets of Great Chefs, Yugoslav cooking show on TV Zagreb, 1 episode, Indian curry (1987)
 * Proleterac, kids TV show on TV Belgrade (1988)
 * Nightmare Stage (3 October 1992 – 26 June 2010)
 * Mali Noćni Razgovori (9 October 2010 – 28 May 2011)
 * U Predsjedničkoj Rezidenciji (24 February 2013 – 12 May 2013)

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

title: Željko Malnar


text:
Steponas Kairys

Steponas Kairys ( 1879 in Užnevėžiai near Ukmergė – 16 December 1964 in Brooklyn) was a Lithuanian engineer, nationalist, and social democrat. He was among the 20 men to sign the Act of Independence of Lithuania on 16 February 1918.

Engineering career
Born in the Anykščiai district, then in Imperial Russia, Kairys graduated from the Institute of Technology in Saint Petersburg. Due to conflicts with the academic administration concerning his participation in student clubs and dissident demonstrations, his studies were intermittently interrupted. Following graduation he worked for several years in railroad construction in the Samara and Kursk regions of Russia. He returned to Lithuania in 1912 and worked on city sanitation and water supply systems in Vilnius, and following the Polish occupation of the city left to the temporary capital of Lithuania, Kaunas. After 1923, he taught at the University of Lithuania in Kaunas, where in 1940, he received an honorary doctorate in engineering.

Political career
Kairys joined the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party in 1900. The party had already separated itself from the Russian Social Democrats and sought independence for Lithuania. Kairys was elected to the Central Committee of the party next year and remained in the leadership roles until the party ceased its activities in 1944. During the Russian Revolution of 1905, he participated in the Great Seimas of Vilnius as a member of presidium. The Great Seimas clearly expressed Lithuania's intentions to become an independent state, or at least to gain considerable autonomy from the Russian Empire.

In 1906, he published the first publications about Japan in Lithuanian, in which, based on the sources, he briefly described the social system and the Constitution of the then Japan, which is why he is often called the first Lithuanian japonologist.

In 1907, Kairys helped the five Lithuanian social democrats elected to the second Duma write speeches and letters. Before World War I, Kairys worked to promote his party and social democracy.

After the German occupation during the war, Kairys became actively involved with people seeking independence for Lithuania. In 1917, he attended the Vilnius Conference, where he was elected to the 20-member Council of Lithuania. The council was formed by the conference to declare and establish independence of Lithuania. The task, however, was extremely tough because of the German Wehrmacht presence in the state. The Germans promised to recognize the state if the council agreed to form a firm and permanent federation with Germany. The council issued a declaration to that effect on 11 December 1917. However, Germany did not keep its word and did not recognize the state. The council was torn apart and Kairys with the three others socialists withdrew on 26 January 1918. However, on 16 February 1918 they returned to sign the Act of Independence of Lithuania. The act did not mention anything in specific about relations to Germany.

The council proceeded to negotiate with Germany, which now demanded to void the 16 February decision and recognized the state based on the 11 December declaration. On 13 July 1918, the council, in hopes to avoid being incorporated into a personal union with the Hohenzollern dynasty, elected Mindaugas II as King of Lithuania. This was unacceptable for Kairys and he left the council, this time permanently. However, he remained active in the politics: he was elected to the Constituent Assembly and all three Seimas before the coup d'état of 1926. The authoritarian regime of Antanas Smetona placed Kairys in an opposition.

In exile
After the 1940 Soviet invasion of Lithuania, the Supreme Committee for the Liberation of Lithuania (Vyriausiasis Lietuvos išlaisvinimo komitetas or VLIK) was formed and Kairys became its chairman in 1943. The organization united people of different political views. In April 1944 majority of the members were arrested by the Gestapo. Kairys changed his name to Juozas Kaminskas and tried to escape to Sweden. Before moving to the United States in 1951, he lived in Germany, where VLIK was revived. Kairys attempted to gain political support for a democratic socialist opposition among other exiles and expatriates. For the last decade of his life, he battled illness and could not fully participate in various political organizations. Two volumes of his memoirs were published. He died in 1964 in New York. Kairys was reinterred in Petrašiūnai Cemetery of Kaunas.

In 1942, together with his wife, Ona Kairiene, Kairys sheltered 11-year-old Anusė Keilsonaitė, a Jewish girl from the Vilna Ghetto. For this, both of them were later deemed Righteous Among the Nations.

title: Steponas Kairys


text:
Fouad Ibrahim

Fouad N. Ibrahim (born 1938 in Damanhur, Egypt) is professor emeritus at the Institute of Geography at the University of Bayreuth in Bavaria, Germany.

Ibrahim has introduced the term desertification from French & English African geography into German-language geography. He is considered as one of the few German experts on Darfur, a region on which he wrote his Habilitation-Thesis "Desertification in Nord-Darfur" - and which is considered to this day as one of the milestone works of the geography of northern Sudan. Ibrahim was also engaged in calling worldwide attention to the humanitarian crisis in Darfur.

Books

 * Ägypten: [Geographie, Geschichte, Wirtschaft, Politik] zusammen mit Barbara Ibrahim, Darmstadt: Wiss. Buchges., 2006. - XIV, 224 S.: Ill., Kt., graph. Darst.; 270 mm x 210 mm; (deutsch), ISBN 3-534-17420-8
 * Desertification in Nord-Darfur: Untersuchung zur Gefährdung des Naturpotentials durch nicht angepasste Landnutzungsmethoden in der Sahelzone der Republik Sudan / von Fouad N. Ibrahim. In Verbindung mit d. Inst. für Geographie u. Wirtschaftsgeographie d. Univ. Hamburg. Hamburg: Hirt, 1980. - XIII, 175 S.: 16 Ill., 42 graph. Darst. u. Kt. & Kt.-Beil (6 Bl.); (deutsch) (Hamburger geographische Studien; 35)

title: Fouad Ibrahim


text:
User:Despentes

d

title: User:Despentes


text:
The Future of Culture in Egypt

The Future of Culture in Egypt (مستقبل الثقافه في مصر) is a 1938 book by the Egyptian writer Taha Hussein.

The book is a work of Egyptian nationalism advocating both independence and the adoption of various European modes of behaviour and institutions such as a strong military. The book was written some time after the granting of Egyptian independence by the British in 1922 but while there remained considerable British influence. Independence was furthered by the nationalisation of the Suez Canal by Egypt in 1956, a move recommended by Hussein in the book.

Hussein stressed the shared heritage of the Mediterranean civilization and Egypt's connections with European culture over its relationship with the Middle East. It opposed the Arab nationalist view of unity among all Arabic-speaking nations. The question is still debated.

He also talked of the need to improve Egyptian education.

 * ... I see Egypt responding to my plea for ever greater efforts to banish ignorance from her midst and provide everyone—rich and poor, strong and weak, keen and dull, young and old—with his portion of knowledge. The delights of learning will permeate their soul and its light will illuminate every dwelling from castle to hovel. A new life and a new energy will infuse Egypt and will turn her into a veritable paradise on earth.

title: The Future of Culture in Egypt


text:
User:CDA

I have had an account at Wikipedia since 25 July 2005.

I was gone for quite a while in protest but I came back in 2021.

ETC.
Have joined in 2020 Wikipedia Women in Red Project

I grew up in the Pacific Northwest. I am interested in local history and especially biographies. I am a photographer and I enjoy preserving and archiving historical photographs. I currently live in Idaho/Washington.

I am a descendant of Longhunter s.

Some pages I have created

Cascadia pages
 * Jaco Finlay
 * Kootanae House, Kullyspell House, Saleesh House, Spokane House, Fort Colvile
 * Albert Horsley
 * William T. Phillips
 * Anaconda Road Massacre
 * Coeur d'Alene miners' dispute
 * The Davenport Hotel (Spokane, Washington)
 * Patsy Clark Mansion
 * Maggie Hall you may know her as Molly B'Damn
 * May Arkwright no one compares to you, May.
 * F. Lewis Clark
 * Kirtland Cutter
 * Idaho Building (Chicago World's Fair)
 * Spokane University
 * Washington Medal of Merit
 * David P. Jenkins
 * Red River Academy (Manitoba) (school of Ranald MacDonald) - this page needs work
 * Jack Nisbet writes about the Northwest
 * Nagao Sakurai
 * William Morris (glass artist)

Women's pages
 * Jeannine Parvati Baker I wrote to her about some theory I had and she wrote back encouraging my search for knowledge. I miss her presence in this world.
 * Margie Profet important outsider scientist, I had to fight for this, which is wrong (although my outsider scientist category was deleted!)
 * Louise Dahl-Wolfe
 * Grace Drayton
 * Mothering (magazine)
 * Nan Koehler this page for an important American midwife in Delivery after previous caesarean section was deleted, which filled me with rage. still working on getting it back up again

Other (End of pages I created.)
 * American Fancy - decorative style
 * Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum
 * Bart the Bear my favorite actor
 * List of most expensive photographs
 * I saw a documentary on the Z Channel so I created a page for it. I had never seen the channel but I thought it was pretty interesting - all those great movies. I didn't really see many movies until I bought a VCR in the 1980s. Reading about Z Channel led me to create the Jerry Harvey (screenwriter) page (he chose the movies for Z Channel). I was sad to read about the despair that made him murder his girlfriend and then commit suicide. I was thinking about Phil Hartman, too, at the time. And how I missed his comedy. And so I created Category:Murder-suicides as a kind of memorial to people we have lost this way. I see it has branches now like Category: Murder-suicides in the United States. But the original category I created.
 * Lynn Harrell
 * Maurice Mességué
 * Vernacular photography
 * Mechanical bank
 * Devil Anse Hatfield
 * Native American Music Awards
 * Mexican divorce I'm surprised this one is still on Wikipedia. But I hope it stays because I want this to be my legacy - the person who added Mexican divorce to Wikipedia.
 * Category:Jewel thieves

Photography

Timeline of photography technology / Stock photography

Photographers

Pioneers of Photography / List of Notable Photographers

Photographs

List of most expensive photographs / Category:Memorable photographs

A gallery of images I have uploaded to the Commons

sandbox I am also interested in Sustainable_living
 * Userboxes
 * User pages

title: User:CDA


text:
German order of precedence

The German order of precedence is a symbolic hierarchy of the five highest federal offices in Germany used to direct protocol. It has no official status, but has been established in practical use.

 * 1) The President of Germany, the head of state of Germany.
 * 2) The President of the Bundestag, the speaker of the German parliament, the Bundestag.
 * 3) The Chancellor of Germany, the head of the government of Germany.
 * 4) (1.) The President of the Bundesrat, the speaker of the Bundesrat, a federal legislative chamber, in which the governments of the sixteen German states are represented. The president of the Bundesrat is ex officio also deputy to the President of Germany (Basic Law, Article 57), thus becomes first in the order, while acting on behalf of the President or while acting as head of state during a vacancy of the presidency.
 * 5) The President of the Federal Constitutional Court, the supreme court of Germany.

Living former office-holders
The order of precedence is also observed with respect to former office-holders in some cases, for example if they participate in official ceremonies as honoured guests.

 * Horst Köhler, President of Germany (2004–2010)
 * Christian Wulff, President of Germany (2010–2012)
 * Joachim Gauck, President of Germany (2012–2017)
 * Rita Süssmuth, President of the Bundestag (1988–1998)
 * Wolfgang Thierse, President of the Bundestag (1998–2005)
 * Norbert Lammert, President of the Bundestag (2005–2017)
 * Gerhard Schröder, Chancellor of Germany (1998–2005), President of the Bundesrat (1997–1998)
 * Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany (2005–2021)
 * Bernhard Vogel, President of the Bundesrat (1976–1977 and 1987–1988)
 * Björn Engholm, President of the Bundesrat (1988–1989)
 * Walter Momper, President of the Bundesrat (1989–1990)
 * Berndt Seite, President of the Bundesrat (1992)
 * Oskar Lafontaine, President of the Bundesrat (1992–1993)
 * Klaus Wedemeier, President of the Bundesrat (1993–1994)
 * Edmund Stoiber, President of the Bundesrat (1995–1996)
 * Erwin Teufel, President of the Bundesrat (1996–1997)
 * Hans Eichel, President of the Bundesrat (1998–1999)
 * Roland Koch, President of the Bundesrat (1999)
 * Kurt Beck, President of the Bundesrat (2000–2001)
 * Klaus Wowereit, President of the Bundesrat (2001–2002)
 * Wolfgang Böhmer, President of the Bundesrat (2002–2003)
 * Dieter Althaus, President of the Bundesrat (2003–2004)
 * Matthias Platzeck, President of the Bundesrat (2004–2005)
 * Peter Harry Carstensen, President of the Bundesrat (2005–2006)
 * Ole von Beust, President of the Bundesrat (2007–2008)
 * Peter Müller, President of the Bundesrat (2008–2009)
 * Jens Böhrnsen, President of the Bundesrat (2009–2010)
 * Hannelore Kraft, President of the Bundesrat (2010–2011)
 * Horst Seehofer, President of the Bundesrat (2011–2012)
 * Winfried Kretschmann, President of the Bundesrat (2012–2013)
 * Stephan Weil, President of the Bundesrat (2013–2014)
 * Volker Bouffier, President of the Bundesrat (2014–2015)
 * Stanislaw Tillich, President of the Bundesrat (2015–2016)
 * Malu Dreyer, President of the Bundesrat (2016–2017)
 * Michael Müller, President of the Bundesrat (2017–2018)
 * Daniel Günther, President of the Bundesrat (2018–2019)
 * Dietmar Woidke, President of the Bundesrat (2019–2020)
 * Reiner Haseloff, President of the Bundesrat (2020–2021)
 * Bodo Ramelow, President of the Bundesrat (2021–2022)
 * Peter Tschentscher, President of the Bundesrat (2022–2023)
 * Hans-Jürgen Papier, President of the Federal Constitutional Court (2002–2010)
 * Andreas Voßkuhle, President of the Federal Constitutional Court (2010–2020)

Trivia
As of November 2023, 111 persons have held at least one of the five highest German federal offices. Eight of them were female:

 * Annemarie Renger, President of the Bundestag (1972–1976)
 * Rita Süssmuth, President of the Bundestag (1988–1998)
 * Jutta Limbach, President of the Federal Constitutional Court (1994–2002)
 * Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany (2005–2021)
 * Hannelore Kraft, President of the Bundesrat (2010–2011)
 * Malu Dreyer, President of the Bundesrat (2016–2017)
 * Bärbel Bas, President of the Bundestag (incumbent since 2021)
 * Manuela Schwesig, President of the Bundesrat (incumbent since 2023)

The following people have held two different of these offices:

 * Kai-Uwe von Hassel, President of the Bundesrat (1955–1956), President of the Bundestag (1969–1972)
 * Willy Brandt, President of the Bundesrat (1957–1958), Chancellor of Germany (1969–1974)
 * Kurt-Georg Kiesinger, President of the Bundesrat (1962–1963), Chancellor of Germany (1966–1969)
 * Karl Carstens, President of the Bundestag (1976–1979), President of Germany (1979–1984)
 * Johannes Rau, President of the Bundesrat (1982–1983 and 1994–1995), President of Germany (1999–2004)
 * Roman Herzog, President of the Federal Constitutional Court (1987–1994), President of Germany (1994–1999)
 * Gerhard Schröder, President of the Bundesrat (1997–1998), Chancellor of Germany (1998–2005)

title: German order of precedence


text: File:The Story of the Night.jpg

title: File:The Story of the Night.jpg


text:
Quaker State 400 (Atlanta)

The Quaker State 400 presented by Walmart is a NASCAR Cup Series stock car race that was run annually each March at Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton, Georgia from 1960 to 2010 and as a July race since 2021. The race is one of two races currently held at the Atlanta track every season, with the Ambetter Health 400 being the other and run at various times (originally November, later October and currently the second race of the season as of 2024).

The race was originally 500.5 mi on the 1.54-mile quad-oval (325 laps). In August 2010, Atlanta Motor Speedway announced that they would no longer run this spring race, instead choosing to focus on the Labor Day weekend race at the track beginning in 2011. The end of the Atlanta 500 was followed by the addition of a race at Kentucky Speedway starting in 2011, primarily due to litigation by Kentucky's former owners and a settlement of that trial.

On September 30, 2020, Speedway Motorsports announced Kentucky would lose its Cup race and the event be moved back to Atlanta, to be held July 11, 2021. The race will only be 260 laps (400.4 miles), owing to Shell's prior sponsorship agreements and the first since 1966 to be held at the track at 400.4 mi. The event was held under the lights in 2023, and will be the opening race of the playoffs race in 2024, and in 2025, it will play host to the opening round of the NASCAR in-season tournament.

Notable races

 * 1960: The first race at Atlanta International Raceway (now Atlanta Motor Speedway) was won by Bobby Johns in a 1960 Pontiac.
 * 1961: Bob Burdick led 44 laps to his only career Grand National win. Pole sitter Marvin Panch led 127 laps but faded to sixth, while Fred Lorenzen led 87 laps but fell out with engine failure. Rookie Bobby Allison finished 37th.
 * 1964: Fred Lorenzen led the last 168 laps and 206 in all, en route to a two-lap win amid an epidemic of tire failures and resultant crashes; Paul Goldsmith led the first 54 laps but blew a tire, smashed the guardrail, and flipped over.
 * 1966: Jim Hurtubise led the final 58 laps in his only career Grand National win.
 * 1971: A. J. Foyt outdueled Richard Petty for his fifth career win.
 * 1972: Bobby Allison posted the first win for Chevrolet on a superspeedway since the 1960s, as he held off a strong challenge from A. J. Foyt and Bobby Isaac.
 * 1974: Cale Yarborough grabbed the lead when David Pearson pitted under green and was trapped by an ill-timed yellow; the race was shortened to 450 mi due to the energy crisis.
 * 1975: After winning the Dixie 500 four times, Richard Petty edged Buddy Baker for his first Atlanta 500 win.
 * 1976: David Pearson lost a lap early and spent 225 laps getting it back before winning. Cale Yarborough lost four laps on a green-flag stop and got three of them back to finish third.
 * 1977: Richard Petty, David Pearson, and Cale Yarborough finished 1–2–3 as they combined to lead all 328 laps. Yarborough finished third after his brakes wore out and at times he had to be stopped by Richard Childress' car on pit road. Only two yellows flew.
 * 1979: Buddy Baker caught a late yellow, got four tires, and won in a late sprint, his first win since 1976.
 * 1980: Sophomore Dale Earnhardt took the lead with 30 to go after Cale Yarborough broke while chasing down Bobby Allison. USAC stock car racer Rusty Wallace finished second. Donnie Allison crashed out of the lead with sophomore Terry Labonte in what became his final race for car owner Hoss Ellington.
 * 1981: Cale Yarborough posted his first win for car owner M.C. Anderson, but the story of the race was a loud protest by Bobby Allison over a NASCAR-mandated reduction of the spoiler of his 1981 Pontiac Lemans to reduce the car's aerodynamic efficiency. Car owner Harry Ranier threatened to boycott the race but got no support in the garage area and relented to the rule change.
 * 1982: After Dale Earnhardt fell out, rain hit the race and Darrell Waltrip edged Richard Petty to the race-ending yellow.
 * 1983: Cale Yarborough drove a backup car to victory for the second time in 1983. He'd wrecked his primary Ranier Chevy a week earlier in Rockingham and used a car that had been a show car. It was also the second time he won on his birthday.
 * 1984: Benny Parsons posted his final career win.
 * 1986: Morgan Shepherd outran Dale Earnhardt for his first win in five years and the first of three wins at Atlanta.
 * 1987: Dale Earnhardt fell out late and Ricky Rudd edged Benny Parsons and Rusty Wallace for his first win on an oval longer than a mile.
 * 1989: Darrell Waltrip came back from nearly a lap down to win. During a mid-race caution, Waltrip was slowed by the pace car picking up the wrong leader during pitstops and was trapped barely on the lead lap. The mishap led to the implementation of the rule closing pit road when the yellow comes out; the rule was designed to stop cars from pitting before taking the yellow, which was blamed for scoring mistakes in the days of manual lap scoring. Also, during this race, Richard Petty's car caught fire during a pit stop, injuring his gasman and leaving Jerry Punch some singed hairs (after this, pit reporters are required to wear fire suits).
 * 1992: Bill Elliott won in unlikely fashion as a caution trapped the entire field behind him a lap down during green flag stops in the final 30 laps.
 * 1993: A major snowstorm, Superstorm 93, caused the race (scheduled for March 14) to be rescheduled for March 20, with Morgan Shepard taking the win.
 * 1995: Jeff Gordon posted his second win of 1995 on his way to his first championship title.
 * 1996: Dale Earnhardt scored his 70th career NASCAR Cup Series win in this race. Earnhardt collected his 8th Atlanta win, passing Cale Yarborough as the all-time winningest driver at Atlanta Motor Speedway. This would be Earnhardt's last points victory until the 1998 Daytona 500.
 * 1997: Dale Jarrett dominated in a race where Steve Grissom tore open a concrete wall and flipped over. His fuel cell hit the wall and erupted in flame.
 * 1998: Bobby Labonte took the win in a race delayed to Monday by rain and in a weekend that saw numerous driver injuries, notably Mike Skinner and Derrike Cope.
 * 2000: Dale Earnhardt won in a thrilling side-by-side finish, edging out Bobby Labonte by inches. Earnhardt scored his 75th career NASCAR Cup Series win, extending his record at the time as the 6th winningest driver in NASCAR History (currently 8th All-Time). This would be Dale Earnhardt's 9th and final victory at Atlanta Motor Speedway, extending his record as the all-time winningest driver of the racetrack. His record of 9 wins still stands today. This would also be Earnhardt's only win on the 1.54 mile quad-oval configuration. Mike Skinner, Dale Earnhardt's teammate of Richard Childress Racing, had dominated the race by leading 191 of the 325 laps. His engine however blew up with 19 laps to go, allowing Earnhardt to win this race.
 * 2001: Kevin Harvick edged Gordon by inches in his first win for RCR after Earnhardt's death. Although the car had been assigned a new number, Harvick used the same car and team Earnhardt won with the previous year. Prior to Earnhardt's death, this race had already been intended to be Harvick's Cup series debut. He was originally scheduled to run 7 races in 2001, and move to full-time in 2002; but he would go on to race the remainder of the season for the team.
 * 2002: Tony Stewart posted his first 500 mi win.
 * 2005: Carl Edwards slithered past Jimmie Johnson on the final lap to score his first career win, completing a sweep of the weekend at Atlanta.
 * 2006: Bill Lester becomes the first African-American driver to race in a Cup series event since Willy T. Ribbs in 1986. Kasey Kahne would win this race, which became the first of his six wins that year.
 * 2007: It was the last race that the fourth generation car was run consecutively. The fifth generation Car of Tomorrow would debut the following week at Bristol. Additionally, Mark Martin would close a 621-race Cup series consecutive start streak, reaching back to 1988.
 * 2008: Kyle Busch won, giving Toyota their first win in the Cup series. It was the first for a foreign automaker since Jaguar in 1954. It was also Busch's first win under the Joe Gibbs Racing banner.
 * 2009: Kurt Busch dominated the race after a pit crew mistake by one of Marcos Ambrose's crewman trapped most of the cars that could challenge him a lap down.
 * 2010: A scary flight by Brad Keselowski was a top story; he was spun out by the lapped car of Carl Edwards and nearly struck the fencing past the start-finish line in the final laps. This was also the last spring race at Atlanta until the track's surviving summer-autumn race was moved to March in 2015.

Past winners

 * 1962, 1982, & 2023: Race shortened due to rain.
 * 1974: Race shortened due to energy crisis.
 * 1983: Yarborough won on his birthday for the second time.
 * 1991: Race started on Sunday but was finished on Monday due to rain.
 * 1993: Race postponed one week due to snow from Blizzard of '93.
 * 1997: Last race on Atlanta's original configuration.
 * 1998 & 2006: Race postponed from Sunday to Monday due to rain.
 * 2009 & 2010: Race extended due to a green–white–checker finish. 2010 race took 2 attempts.

Track length notes

 * 1960–1969: 1.5 mile course
 * 1970–1997: 1.522 mile course
 * 1998–2010, 2021–: 1.54 mile course

title: Quaker State 400 (Atlanta)


text:
List of GASB Statements

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board Statements (GASB Statements or GASBS) are issued by GASB to set generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) for state and local governments in the United States of America. These statements are the most authoritative source for governmental GAAP. Other business entities follow statements issued by Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB).

title: List of GASB Statements


text:
User:Exmachina~enwiki

In running a Wikipedia search of my chosen username, I found only one site related to a theatre troupe with the same name, though the explanation of why they chose this particular moniker is sadly lacking. Their logo/icon is intriguing, however, with a vague tie-in to mathematical symbolism...

A google search yielded instead a few of the more expected links to Deus Ex Machina, of course, but also one intriguing self-hosted blog regarding a charming little miracle of the human neonatal development brand, whose aptly and similarly named blog details his days since the NICU. I must say a name like Snowdeal does indeed raise an eyebrow or two - makes me think of Stephenson's Snowcrash. I am sure there are a few witty things I could say about the inherent irony there but I digress...

I am currently exploring once again in a way similar to that when I first became involved in the internet in a definitive fashion back in 1992/3...back in the days of those huge dot-matrix printers that thrummed noisily and happily away printing out page after page of how-to instructions for me on programming in different MUDs, MUSHes and other MU*s. Thems were the days. Since then I seem to have become lost in a Quixotic quest for advanced degree-age which has since slip slided into certain unaccounted for realities...and now I am once again exploring a more creative left-brained side of myself in the sometimes fairly right-brained world of computers and web technologies.

For now this will suffice, as I decide what more I wish to say and how best to say it. Thank you for your kind attention to this self-centered ramble.

title: User:Exmachina~enwiki


text:
Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Germen

Removal of dispute tags
The reason I removed the tag was that there was no reason anymore to maintain this tag: all explicit points were addressed. So this was not vandalism, rather cleaning up. --Germen 09:39, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

 * You should not remove dispute tags so shortly after they are added and unless there is a rough consensus to do so. Axon 09:44, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * If there are no reasons stated in the talk page or the reasons stated in the talk page have been addressed, the disputed tag can be removed. See Accuracy_dispute. There is no talk about consensus. May be you misunderstand Wikipedia policy. It would not be the first time. --Germen 10:23, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Again, you must give other editors the opportunity to actually explain why they feel a dispute tag is warranted and you should not make a decision to remove so soon after a dispute tag is added. As we can see from a recent example, other editors find removal of dispute tags to be hostile and it can lead to further revert wars. Axon 10:29, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Some users consider the removing of tags hostile, other users consider the addition of tags more hostile, because adding a tag means: you are ignorant of the facts or you are biased, your work was of low quality. Wikipedia rules do not refer to hostility, but to the procedure which should be followed, summarized as:
 * Check the Talk Page for motivation of the tag.
 * Verify the sources, remove biased wording.
 * When all sources are verified and all problems mentioned in the Talk Page are addressed, remove the tag.
 * I followed this procedure, so I acted according to Wikipedia policy. Tags make an article less readible, therefore Wikipedia guidelines regard adding tags as a last resort. Please note that unmotivated mass reverts are considered hostile by some users as well. --Germen 11:33, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

3RR
In editing conflicts, the party which opposed my view is in the majority, so they could easily overwhelm my edits. Note however that Wikipedia 3RR policy has a provision for this: when multiple parties are involved, all parties shoudl be treated equally. This regulation was ignored by the admins who blocked me. --Germen 10:17, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

 * That does not mean multiple parties should be treated as one group for the purposes of collecting votes, but that multiple parties should treated as equally without favor to one side or the other. Otherwise, if that were true, we would all have been blocked: only you were. Those blocks were carried out legitimately by administrators and you should be aware of this if you decide to break the 3RR in future. Axon 10:27, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * The administrators which blocked me did not follow Wikipedia policy in this. The wording is clear. Different sides should be treated equally. Wikipedia is not about a tug of war in which the biggest party wins, the latter system is called democracy. --Germen 10:34, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * In that case please reference the policy that expicitly states this above because I can't find it. The part you are referring to is when "multiple parties violate the rule"... I certainly did not violate the 3RR in the above case and neither, I think, did any other users. Perhaps an admin would like to clarify the issue here for arguments sake? Axon 10:43, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I will quote the applicable section of the 3RR rule below. If you violate the three-revert rule, after your fourth revert in 24 hours, sysops may block you for up to 24 hours. In the cases where multiple parties violate the rule, administrators should treat all sides equally.  Obviously I am one party, you, Yuber, Mustafaa etc. are another party. So according to Wikipedia policy, I was unfairly exempted for disciplinary action. --Germen 11:38, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 'Parties' in that policy is to be read as 'individual users'. David | Talk 11:56, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * This alternative interpretation is inconsistent with the dictionary definitions of 'party' and 'side', thus amounts to original research. --Germen 12:46, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Party One concerned or interested in an affair; one who takes part with others; a participator; as, he was a party to the plot; a party to the contract. [1913 Webster] Axon 14:52, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * The 2003 Webster edition talks about one or more persons with common interests which are engaged in e.g. a conflict or juridical situation. So your point is not correct. --Germen 02:09, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
 * The 3RR policy is clear. At the top of the WP:3RR page it says "This policy applies to each person. Use of sockpuppets (multiple accounts) is not a legitimate way to avoid this limit, and the 3RR specifically does not apply to groups." -- BMIComp  (talk) 07:14, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Blocking policy
I have told SlimVirgin by email that I was not the user who sent her that message. As we weere in an email discussion and she already stated why she blocked me, there was no reason why I should ask this question. I did not use a Pennsylvania University proxy. --Germen 10:25, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

 * Since I have no way of proving or disproving if the anonymous IP was yours, I cannot say and I make my amiguity clear above. I submit the evidence here and ask people to make what they will of it. I would argue that, if it looks like a duck, sounds like a duck and smells like a duck, it's a duck. If you have any evidence that refutes the claim I suggest you submit it in the Response section. Axon 10:38, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I have provided sufficient evidence above which prove that I had no motive to send this message to SlimVirgin. Sending such a message would give her another reason to ban me for a longer time and as I said, I already had a working communication channel with her, so it was not necessary, even counterproductive to evade the block. It may be some enemy of me which did not know I had an email conversation with SlimVirgin sent this message in order to discredit me. War is deceit, as a wise man of the past which is highly revered by 1.2 billion people has said. Proxies can be used by anyone. --Germen 11:10, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Please supply the evidence in the Response section, with diffs/links, then. Nothing further needs to be said. Axon 11:18, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * In the Response section I have referred to this Discussion section. I have proven that I was not the person that sent a message to SlimVirgin. Nothing further needs to be said. --Germen 12:55, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I see no proof here other than your say-so. Axon 13:04, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Then look better. --Germen 13:06, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Without the links to the documents supporting your position, it's really hard for anyone to know where to look, let alone agree that the proof exists. I agree your argument makes sense, but you could easily clear things up by justing posting the darn links. --Habap 21:30, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Don't disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point
Creating articles does not disturb Wikipedia. There is no Wikipedia rule which forbids articles to be created. --Germen 10:29, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * It does if you are doing so to make a point: for example, seemingly creating Prejudice (islam) for content you can't put into Islamophobia. Axon 10:32, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I did not make a point, key to solve the dispute on islamophobia is defining what is islamophobia. When we take the dictionary definition as a reference (I think all agree on that one), we read "islamophobia is defined as "any [negative] prejudice about Islam or Muslims". So in order to say anything meaningful about islamophobia,. it is necessary to identify this prejudices. A prejudice which is true is not a prejudice. For this reason, i.e. improving the qiality of the islamophobia page and resolving the editing dispute bymeans of arguments I started a page "Prejudices about Islam and Muslims", so we could answer that question. Reasonable enough, I think. --Germen 10:44, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * As I recall, the page was hopelessly POV, with content lifted from the talk page of Islamophobia, containing parts that discuss whether or not "Muslims are homosexuals" and so forth. Again, I submit that these articles were not created for legitimate reasons, as Germen claims above, but because he could not find an outlet for his POV elsewhere and refused to compromise and mediate on the Islamophobia talk page. Again, I leave it to those regarding this RfC to decide properly on the matter. Axon 10:53, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Prejudices are POV by definition and I positively identified them as prejudices. I do not believe that all Muslims are homosexuals or have sex with animals, for instance, as many people seem to do but identify this nonsense as a prejudice. Exactly for that reason I listed them as prejudices. May be I should have enclosed them in brackets to make it more clear. This is not the first case, by the way, you get confused by meta levels. --Germen 11:01, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I've known some pretty ignorant and prejudiced people in my life, but none of them thought that Muslims were homosexuals or practiced bestiality. To add those in really limits what can be considered prejudice against Muslims to the rantings of lunatics. --Habap 21:27, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

I had legitimate reasons to press for undeletion of Islamophilia, because during deletion Wikipedia policy was violated, there was no qualified 2/3 majority, there was no consensus, even no rough consensus and there were and are valid reasons to maintain islamophilia as an encyclopedic entry, because: This is just one example of the twisted way some editors seem to prefer to press their POV. --Germen 13:01, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * the word has been used in several English-language printed mass publications
 * it is used in hundreds of English-language websites
 * as is the case in several other languages, i.e. Dutch, French, German
 * it describes a real phenomenon.

Wikipedia:Vandalism
Removing a tag does not constitute vandalism as by Wikipedia definition. Moving a tag is not vandalistic. Removing several hours of work by collective reverts can be qualified as vandalism. --Germen 10:29, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Admin David, who endorses our summary, considers this to be vandalism and he blocked you for 24 hours for it. Axon 10:35, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Argumentum ad meritatem. Administrators are humans, not gods. Note that Dbiv is party in this conflict hence non-neutral. Please address my point: removal of tags is not considered vandalism as per Wikipedia policy.--Germen 10:39, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I am staying neutral on the issue of the merits of your edits and accusations of them being POV. Moving VfD tags to the bottom of articles, or removing them entirely, is and always has been considered vandalism. David | Talk 10:47, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Can you back up your claim with a reference from vandalism? --Germen 10:53, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Please see Guide to Votes for deletion which says: "You must not modify or remove the VFD notice." (emphasis in original). David | Talk 11:01, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Does moving something consider a modification? I don;t think so. I left the label intact. --Germen 11:50, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Yes, the location is always at the top so that people see it before reading the article. Imagine if you moved the "Exit" sign from above a fire exit door down to the floor. People wouldn't expect to see it there, so might not see it at all. Moving it is modifying it. --Habap 21:21, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Just noticed the time Germen vandalized my signature by adding a link to my talk page. If it's in someone's signature block, one assumes that the author intends it to be there, so I am at least a bit perturbed. Germen, if you wish to point out that Axon informed me of this RfC, why don't you do it here? Discussion belongs on discussion pages, not in the editing of someone else's comments. (I also note that you even edit your own comments instead of creating a new comment explaining and expanding the original. I suppose it is your right to do so, even if it confuses the discussion.) Please don't vandalize my comments any more. --Habap 13:47, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Assume good faith
About 90% of the people who complained were Muslim. Coincidence? --Germen 10:17, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * It is irrelevant and a demonstration of bad faith on your part. Axon 10:22, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * It is relevant, because Islam requires muslims to have a subjective POV on this matter. Democracy, my dear Axon, is a lousy way to do research. --Germen 10:37, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Not, it isn't relevant on Wikipedia and that is besides the point: by assuming the muslisms are out to get you and publish their "propoganda", as you like to put it, you are demonstrating bad faith.
 * Reverting all of my changes without discussion certainly did not help restoring my faith. I know opinions about what is islamophobia and what is not differ widely, e.g. islamologists who worked before 1980 are widely regarded as islamophobes by the modern generation of islamologists (e.g. Edward Said) of mostly Middle-Eastern origin. --Germen 10:52, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Again, as I recall, your first few edits on Islamophobia were uncommented marked as minor and you made no attempt to explain them on the talk page. For this reason, I and others legitmately reverted and I certainly took care to explain this in my own edit comments and on the talk page. This is no excuse for your bad faith remarks Axon 10:55, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I added a few words or one sentence. This can be considered as minor. --Germen 10:58, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * You are referring to but one of your many edits: as I have demonstrated above, you also frequently mark non-minor edits as minor without comments. Axon 11:00, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * OK, many minor edits can be considered as one major edit. If that is true, I was at fault. Note, however, that this was in the past, e.g. one month ago. --Germen 11:03, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * That is simply not true: I have demosntrated above that you have marked several major edits as minor and without comment. You certainly did so when you first started editing Islamophobia, despite my initial warning, which jump started all of this. Axon 11:10, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * You are now referring to events more than a month ago. Since then I have tried to be more careful with minor and major.
 * And, to be fair, my dear Germen, I've never seen you actually carry out encyclopaedic research in Wikipedia to demonstrate your strong claims. Axon 10:40, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * How come, my dear Axon, that I have several strong references which illustrate my points, while you and your friends have to resort to the opinions of some Saudi-Arabia financed university teachers? --Germen 10:46, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * If you are referring to your original researcg on the Islamophobia talk page, I would prefer to leave discussion of this for the RfC. I think we both know how we feel on the matter. Axon 10:48, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I did not add original research to the Islamophobia page itself, I just used primary and secondary sources to validify the reliability of information, which is encyclopaedic. See the section on Original Research. --Germen 11:05, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Ad hominem attack. Your attack demonstrates bad faith (and may also indicate Islamophobia). Argue against the arguments, not the people who present them. BTW, I am not Muslim. --Habap 21:36, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

 * Germen, it is easy to increase the perecentage of "Muslims complaining about you" when you start assuming users like myself are Muslim. gren 20:21, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:No original research
Note the difference in abstraction level. I am not discussing the Runnymede Definition in the Islamophobia article itself but in its talk page. The discussion is about whether the Runnymede Definition should be used as a authoritative definition of islamophobia or not. Of course validating an information source is a legitimate encyclopaedic endeavour and not original research. --Germen 10:56, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

 * The point here is that, by focussing on original research to demonstrate your thesis on the talk page, rather than actually working according to Wikipedia policy you are prologing the dispute and making resolution difficult if not impossible. The discussion in the above case, isn't about whether the RD is authorative or not as you claim (you have yet to provide evidence that the RD is actually disputed or supply contradictory definitinos as I have asked you multiple times) but just a solipstic monologue where you are, through original research, attempting to "prove" that the RD is wrong.

 * Furthermore, I am not going to discuss any of the above with you any longer: I feel further discussion both here and on the Islamophobia page is a waste of my time as you do not actually seem to listen and even basic principals must be debated at length. I have explained my case and ask the RfC people to consider the above case. I suggest you spend your time drafting your own Response. Axon 11:07, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

 * In order to solve a dispute there must be a common ground for understanding, according to Habermas. In which I agree. The most logical way therefore is to refer to more or less objective, primary and secondary sources, in this case:
 * islamic sacred texts, i.e. Qur'an and hadith
 * fatwa's from reputed islamic scholars
 * opinion polls and research from reputed sources.
 * I have proven that the Runnymede Definition calls the orthodox interpretation of islamic texts, as agreed upon by reputable islamic scholars from e.g. Al-Azhar University as "islamophobic".
 * This means the definition has some basis flaws and cannot be considered universally agreed upon.
 * Your refusal to discuss using sources is, I think, symptomatic. --Germen 11:21, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

 * I will say nothing except highlight the use of the word "proven"... you do not "prove" things on Wikipedia (i.e generate new knowledge), you summarise existing knowledge. Axon 11:26, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * You do not prove things in the article itself, but you can prove whether a piece of information is valid and hence its status. As proven, the Runnymede Trust Definition does not qualify as an universal definition of islamophilia, because it considers mainstream Islamic opinions about islam as islamophobic. --Germen 12:53, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

 * So, what you are saying is that, since there are no primary or secondary sources to support you thesis that the RD is invalid, you are attempting to create your own on the talk page through "logical deduction" (i.e. your own reasoning). This is clearly against Wikipedia policy and any "evidence" you uncover in this way is inadmissable. The evidence you should be looking for are reputable sources that dispute or contradict the Runnymede Definition. NPOV is about representing all significant views not about promoting your own, original ideas. Axon 09:00, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Your axiom that there are no primary or secondary sources to support my thesis is wrong: there are several primary and secondary reputable sources which contradict the RD, e.g. Qur'anic and Sunnah source texts, fatwa's, mainstream Islam theological opera etc. Therefore, so is your deduction. --Germen 11:37, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I said directly contradict the RD, not contradict the RD if you also use the following additional logic (i.e. the secondary source you are seeking to generate). A primary or secondary source should stand on its own and make clear what it seeks to support in the article. However, additional reasoning with your sources is required to actually demonstrate your thesis, hence WP:NOR. Nowhere does the Koran, for example, state "And hence the Runnymede Definition is incorrect" and the suggestion it does is ludicrous. And, once again, you are certainly not working in the spirit of policy here: I think NOR is pretty clear on this score. Also, NOR does not apply when explaining Wikipedia policy and you reference to it above is sheer pedantry. Axon 11:58, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute
In order to "solve the dispute", Axon pushed his POV version of islamophobia. I, alongside with other users, have participated in several discussions regarding the introductory paragraph about the definition of islamophilia. I have proposed to remove the disputed content to a separate section, this proposal has not been accepted. There have been attempts by my side, to discuss the exact meaning of islamophobia by means of evaluating the universality of the Runnymede Definition. I have accepted the proposal of user:BrandonYusufToropov to resolve the dispute and rewrite the article together. This acceptance has been rejected for unclear reasons. Note also that this page is under dispute for a long time and has been nominated for a deletion. --Germen 11:49, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

 * Hey there -- a query about your use of the passive voice. I don't know where your assessment that the offer to work together on the article "has been rejected for unclear reasons" is coming from, but I certainly haven't rejected anything, and I hope we can work together on talk pages to develop a draft that works for everyone. BrandonYusufToropov 14:21, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I think, exchanging this kind of personal accusations as in this RfC is a terrible waste of time which is better spent by improving the quality of Wikipedia articles. The time Axon and others spent in collecting all the references equals to writing a 40kb+ article, not to mention my responses. So I welcome your proposal and agree to continue editing the Islamophobia article in collaboration.
 * By the way, with "logic" I meant Boolean logic, not my own personal logic.--Germen 02:18, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Interesting Note
It strikes me as odd that the four outside parties who seem to favor Germen's side in this dispute are all fighting the same anti-Islamist POV wars in other threads. I think that's what I saw in their contribs: Babajobu, Klonimus, Karl Meier (the Wikipedian formerly known as Stereotek), and Existentializer. When only folks who share your POV agree with you in these things, I think it tends to point out a problem. I think of myself as a disinterested parties in regards to Islam (Islamic fundamentalists and terrorists rightly scare me, of course) and some of the others who found Germen's actions out of line seem to be similarly neutral. --Habap 22:14, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Depends: how many Islamic Fundamentalists do we have dealing in entirely bad faith on those articles? I'd be happy to include their POV on matters, but they outright refuse to allow any POV (meaning, anything that doesn't butt-kiss Islam) but their own to appear. Existentializer 22:41, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

 * I have to admit, Habap, I find it somewhat dubious that the people signing under the "outside view" section, given their islamophobic personal attacks on other editors and endorsers, can really be considered to be taking an objective "outside" view of a dispute that is clearly part of a wider dispute on Islam ongoing throughout Wikipedia. They should really be signing under the "Response" section to correctly attribute their views where they belong. That they do not just seems indicative of the uncompromising tactics the anti-Islam lobby regularly indulge in, such as the anonymous IP vandalism this page recently experienced. Axon (talk|contribs) 11:09, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Anti-Islamic Bias
I note that Germen is now creating a problem by repeatedly inserting his anti-Islamic bias into the article Neofascism and religion. This article is very carefully crafted to allow harsh criticism, while attempting to be respectful of various religions. I think this is further evidence of a POV problem with this user.--Cberlet 13:38, 26 August 2005 (UTC)


text:
ISJ

ISJ may refer to:

 * The International Committee in Search of Justice, a Brussels-based lobby led by Spanish politician Alejo Vidal-Quadras in support of the National Council of Resistance of Iran.
 * The Investor Services Journal, a magazine for financial professionals; users and practitioners of investor services.
 * The International Socialism, a quarterly magazine published by the British Socialist Workers Party.

title: ISJ


text:
User:ProgMania/monobook.css

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text:
Talk:Pseudomyxoma peritonei

Link
UK PATIENT SUPPORT GROUP AND REGISTERED CHARITY 1143642 http://www.pseudomyxomasurvivor.co.uk

 * Personal accounts are poor sources of information. Not everyone may have the same experience. It is also not a personal story but a blog. If you have information about PMP, with good references, please be so good as to work it into the article. Just linking to the blog is not the same as imparting information. JFW | T@lk  15:21, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

 * I agree that the information should be incorporated into the Wikipedia entry -- it has an extraodinary amount of detailed information not available elsewhere. This is the link, for those who are interested in taking on the task:  http://appendixcancer.blogspot.com/ Bollar 16:56, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I disagree that personal accounts are poor sources of information. When I was diagnosed with PMP in 2006 and had to undergo extensive major surgery I had no idea - and my surgeons were not forthcoming either - about the nature of PMP. The surgeons did not even use the term PMP; I was told that I had a mucinous urachal adenocarcinoma, which my oncologist told me later was a rare sub-variety of PMP. My wife and I trawled the Web and found many useful sources of information, most of which were people's personal accounts. I subsequently set up my own survivor's page at http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/pmpsurvivor.htm. This page, which is in the form of a diary, receives around 500 visits per month, and I get around a dozen emails each month from PMP patients and carers. I list several blogs and other resources at the end of the above page. I would go so far as to say that personal blogs and PMP discussion lists are now my main sources of information. The best single source that I have found is written by Carolyn Langlie-Lesnik, a qualified nurse who is also a PMP patient: http://www.appendix-cancer.com/ GroovyGuzi (talk) 12:13, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

I have to agree with the user above. In the case of Pseudomyxoma Peritonei (PMP) being such a rare cancer valuable information is often hard to come by and difficult to understand. As a PMP sufferer myself (diagnosed May 2009) I too have written a blog that details my experience from diagnosis through to current day to give a real life account of life with PMP. I also include factual articles that explain in laymans terms particulars regarding both the disease and its treatment.Factual data always is backed up by its source. The blog has proved very successful with 500-1000 hits per month and many positive feedbacks from sufferers throughout the world. My blog can be found at http://cavecrawlerstory.blogspot.com/ (Cavecrawler101 (talk) 13:22, 25 January 2012 (UTC))

I also feel that given the distinct rarity and nature of this disease it is invaluable to be able to network with fellow patients, thus alleviating the feeling of isolation, and creating a sense of empowerment.When diagnosed with Pseudomyxoma Peritonei (PMP) in January 2008 and subsequently being told I had less than 3 months to live due to the lack of local medical knowledge of the disease and its clinical presentation, I found myself in a situation where I had to rely on internet resources to find my own treatment options. Having recognised the distinct lack of awareness, emotional and practical support, I founded a UK registered charity, its main aims and objectives being to provide a support network for fellow survivors and caregivers worldwide, to raise awarenss amoungst both patients and medical proffesionals and to raise funds towards much needed research. Since its first appearance on the web in August 2010 the website has evolved and grown hugely in popularity, has established links on both Macmillan and Cancer Research UK's Pseudomyxoma Peritonei (PMP) information pages and enjoys an average of over 5,000 visits per month with a staggering 31,017 in the past year alone.(April 2011 to March 2012) Through my work with the charity I have established links with the Department of Health, NHS cancer networks,have been invited to be consulted on draft papers as a registered stakeholder with the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) and currently working on a project to develop the content of patient information pathways currently being drafted by the National Cancer Action Team (NCAT).I think it is important to stress that the main success of the charity and the site is due to the invaluable help and support I receive from fellow patients and caregivers all over the world, without such support and collaborations I doubt the charity and its concrete roots would have been established in such a timely and spectacular manner. More information about the charity and how you can get involved, including advice, support and fundraising opportunities can be found by visiting http://www.pseudomyxomasurvivor.co.uk Oneinamillionpmp (talk) 19:55, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

In addition a UK based (but not UK limited) patient led discussion forum has been set in in conjunction with The Christie Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. The forum can be found at

http://www.pseudomyxoma.co.uk —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 62.136.67.203 (talk) 16:04, 22 April 2007 (UTC).

The stories of many UK survivors can be found on our website http://www.pseudomyxomasurvivor.co.uk Oneinamillionpmp (talk) 18:51, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

UK REGISTERED CHARITY - PSEUDOMYXOMA SURVIVOR
In August 2010 UK patient and survivor of Pseudomyxoma Peritonei Dawn Green established a UK registered charity Pseudomyxoma Survivor. The charities main aims and objectives are To provide a support network for fellow survivors worldwide. To raise awareness of the disease amoungst both patients and medical professionals. To raise funds to donate to research into pseudomyxoma peritonei. For further information and to contact Dawn and other survivors please visit

http://www.pseudomyxomasurvivor.co.uk Oneinamillionpmp (talk) 20:04, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

 * Please do not remove the DMOZ link, much less replace with WP:SPAM.Novangelis (talk) 22:42, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

For the Rare Diseases Day editathon 2016, I was going to add the National Organization for Rare Disorders PMP site to the external links http://rarediseases.org/rare-diseases/pseudomyxoma-peritonei/ but I see the note that no one should add more links without posting on the talk page. So please add it if you think it's helpful. I also added the ORPHA number to the infobox (ORPHA26790) but it doesn't link to the right page when I click on it http://www.orpha.net/consor/cgi-bin/Disease_Search.php?lng=EN&data_id=8765&Disease_Disease_Search_diseaseGroup=Pseudomyxoma&Disease_Disease_Search_diseaseType=Pat&Disease(s)/group%20of%20diseases=Pseudomyxoma-peritonei&title=Pseudomyxoma-peritonei&search=Disease_Search_Simple so please fix that (or delete it if it isn't helpful). Uncommon fritillary (talk) 00:00, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

MRI
A family member was just diagnosed by MRI so the statement about MRI not being used seems outdated. 2.27.52.146 (talk) 18:57, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Although some might be diagnosed during an MRI, the standard of care for PMP is to use a CT scan as a primary modality, so I think it is fair to leave this "as is" for now. I hope your family member is able to experience a durable cure. Good luck! Anfornum (talk) 12:27, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

title: Talk:Pseudomyxoma peritonei