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Talk:Pope Benedict XVI/Archive 11

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This archive covers May 31-June 17, 2005.

Papal Coat of Arms
I was under the impression that the coat of arms for Pope Benedict XVI replaced the tiara with a mitre. One image correctly reflects this, at the top of the article. The other image shows the papal tiara, not a mitre, ironically right next to the paragraph discussing the removal of the tiara. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Benedictcoatofarms.jpg I don't really know all that much about this system, so could someone fix it, or tell me why it is the way it is?

Is there any way that a link can be provided for the new information regarding the coat of arms? [unsigned]

 * I have long been suspicious of the supposed new papal coat of arms. It has all the hallmarks of a botched job. Anyone who has worked in the media or politics knows how these things happen. The artist who did the original sketches had a 'big idea' - drop the tiara. No-one says 'no', not surprisingly, as they were up to their necks with other distractions at the start of a new papacy. He jumps the gun and tells the Vatican's unofficial newspaper, itself famed for getting things wrong. A big story erupts, others designing Vatican websites etc all join in, presuming it to be the case and so the Vatican decides to play along, or doesn't feel it has a choice but to, as it actually has no real coat of arms to use right now. Then when the attention has dropped, what was only meant to have been an unofficial coat of arms never officially approved is quitely dropped, the junior staff get a verbal telling off with a 'don't ever do that again', and a revamped version including the traditional symbols is re-issued, initially on official papal documents.

 * The supposed new arms broke too many of the golden rules of papal heraldic design. For a start Pope Paul VI explicitly banned the use of mitres on clerical coats of arms as far back as 1969. In addition, mitred shields is in fact the format of many Anglican bishops' coats of arms. Given Benedict's views on protestantism, he was hardly likely to adopt a protestant bishop's style of arms. Every heraldist I spoke to in the last few weeks said that the "new" Benedict arms were proposterous and would be quietly ditched when the moment was right. They universally made the point that the Vatican doesn't abandon one thousand years of heraldic tradition in a few days. In their view it had all the hallmarks of someone jumping the gun and announcing something before a decision had been taken.

 * The Vatican website still carries the tiara-less coat of arms. That could mean either

 * 1) they haven't gotten around to changing them yet - and its website does have a habit of being behind times. (It still had John Paul II on it as the "living" pope not merely after he had died, but even after Benedict had been elected, for a while);
 * 2) There is a battle going on between the senior staff responsible for papal documents, and the junior rankers who do the website, etc. That would mean that no official decision has yet been taken, but as the people designing official documents would have direct access to the Pope or his closest aides, and those doing the websites would be lucky to get into the same room as him, the official document designers are much more likely to sway the Pope on the final choice.
 * 3) To sort out the confusion, two personal coats of arms will co-exist - one with no tiara as the personal arms of Pope Benedict XVI, and one with a tiara as the official arms of Pope Benedict XVI.

 * To try to clarify what exactly is going on, I have contacted the Vatican Press Office for information. Fear ÉIREANN[[Image:Flag of Ireland.svg|25px]] (talk) 01:00, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

 * I think there is just this poppoli guy who wanted a little publicity and highjacked wikipedia to put his creation on-line (which, by the way, looks amateurish and hand-drawn)... some kind of fan-fiction I would say. On another line, I got the new www.vatican.va/vatican_city_state/services/stamps_coins/documents/emissioni_filateliche_2005/italiano/sf200505_it.htm Vatican stamps and they ve got the mitre... My advice: delete the tiara. The joke is over.82.120.14.147 19:02, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Show me the source
How did this get started? I can find no documentation on this so-called battle over the papal coat of arms. As of May 31, 2005, the Papal Website still carries the coat of arms sans tiara, see, www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/elezione/stemma-benedict-xvi_en.html  Papal Stemma. Until then, I think it best that the coat of arms with the tiara be removed from the page. Aloysius Patacsil 19:47, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

 * Following that argument, we should have kept Pope John Paul II as alive until two weeks after his funeral, given that the Papal Website still had him as the current living pope even after Benedict had been elected! lol. I'm sorry to disappoint people who love the net, but websites are usually some of the most unreliable sources of information on the planet, and, given how easy they should be to update, notorious for being out of date. The key issue is hardcopy printed documents. As to the battle over the papal coat of arms, it is real alright. It led to a screaming match between two senior Vatican figures some weeks ago in earshot of a friend of mine, a journalist there. One was praising the 'new' Tiaraless arms. The other said they were a disgrace and would be binned by the end of the summer. It all got very very heated, with one storming off. This is actually a very big issue right now, with professional heraldists queuing up to ridicule the 'new' arms as flawed. Curiously, while they have been used, and written about, they still haven't been formally announced in the standard manner. Normally the formal announcement comes first! Fear ÉIREANN[[Image:Flag of Ireland.svg|25px]] (talk) 20:08, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

 * Following the death of John Paul II, the Holy See embargoed communications simply because it had to devote its resources towards the papal obsequies and conclave. With the election and installation of Benedict, that is no longer the case and the website is very reliable.  Aloysius Patacsil 20:35, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

BTW the 'source' you mention doesn't contain a statement on meaning from the Vatican. It replicates comments by the man who drew them, based on what he said in the Vatican's unofficial newspaper. That sounds very much like someone designing the website deciding to cut and paste information into the page. If they were official, a formal statement by a senior official (probably of cardinal level), not a retired nuncio and parttime heraldist, would be there. Fear ÉIREANN (talk)

 * The L'Osservatore Romano is the official newspaper of the Holy See. The official journal of the Holy See is the Acta Apostolica Sedes.  I'm not sure what you refer to when you state "unofficial newspaper."  Aloysius Patacsil 20:35, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

ÉIREANN - Until your journalist friend documents his findings in writing, I would consider your reportage of what happened within his earshot as unreliable. I would be most grateful if you could document where in L'Osservatore Romano or the Bolletino there is discussion on this alleged change in coat-of-arms.

In response to Gerald Farinas, I believe that the tiara-less herald serves as the personal arms of Pope Benedict. Official correspondence from the Holy See still uses the Stemma papale. For example, the diocese of Honolulu's arms on the dexter shield consists of two pulo'ulo'u sticks with a cross on a field of red, with a miter. Correspondence from the diocese still uses this. When Bishop Silva sends correspondence from himself to others, he would probably use his personal arms instead of the diocesan arms. In like manner, Benedict XVI would do likewise. Aloysius Patacsil 20:25, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm... my comment disappeared and I have no means of retrieving what I said. Anyhoo, what I said was that I do have documents bearing the papal tiara coming through my office from the nunciature. --Gerald Farinas 20:30, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

 * I'd urge people to stop chasing the headlines on this one. When it's official and final, it will be official and final.  Heraldry and the rest of the Vatican pomp is thankfully not very high on the priority list.  patsw 21:01, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

 * Yes, Patsw, I agree. I am just concerned that inaccurate information is being placed on the page.  The information at the link I provided indicates that the placement of an alternate image is misleading.  Status quo is best in this situation.   Aloysius Patacsil 21:27, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

People slow down, I have a foto with Benedict XVI tapestry when it was shown, do you want to see it again?-PioM EN DE PL 21:27, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * So helios.et.put.poznan.pl/~pjawor/wiki/reuterBenXVI.jpg here (on Sunday, week after inauguration) is foto with pope Benedict XVI with his tapestry, and helios.et.put.poznan.pl/~pjawor/wiki/vatican_pope_pl102BXVI.jpg here (on Sunday, week after inauguration) is closer look at pope's tapestry.-PioM EN DE PL 21:36, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * I also still have source of made by me image (in vector graphic), so it is no problem to replace mitra by tiara and overwrite commons, I have plenty of tiaras to place because i drawn more eclesial coats. This "strange" image is placed without license notice.-PioM EN DE PL 22:00, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think it would be fair to keep both images in the article but move the mitred image back to the top where it originally was and move the papal tiara image back to the bottom of the article where it originally was, too. The language used in the image captions have already been changed so as to not declare either one "official." --Gerald Farinas 22:02, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * I won't change article, because someone will tell that I made it because the first made (no-tiara) image is mine.-PioM EN DE PL 22:11, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Okay, I changed it. By the way, I don't know if people have told you this already but we all appreciate the hard work you did in making the papal herald image.  --Gerald Farinas 22:13, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Oh yes, thanks (see the archive). -PioM EN DE PL 23:20, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Mitre and Tiara Versions
PioM... would it be possible for you to create a matching papal herald with the tiara to replace the one authored by Mark Poppoli? The fact that the Poppoli image doesn't have license citation worries me. Also, if we're going to have both versions (mitred image taking the lead in the article), we might as well make them matching pairs. The article would look a bit cleaner. (Plus, you didn't hear it from me but I think a lot of us like your artwork better; the other one looks like the bear is licking an ice cream cone at certain angles.) --Gerald Farinas 19:13, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Oh, that bear in Foppoli image is heraldicaly perfect (but it looks funny, worst is that on orginal pope's coat of arms, that looks like Pittbull dog)!, the image is beautifull, it take much time to make such image, I think it was drawn on paper and than scanned. Ok Gerald, I will place version with tiara, I must look for proper file with that pope's coat of arms (I have plenty of them).-PioM EN DE PL

Succession boxes
With the addition of a streamlined Pope infobox on all the papal articles, is there really a need for those in-the-way looking succession boxes at the very end of the article. That same information is more prominently displayed already in the Pope infobox. --Gerald Farinas 19:38, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

To Emperor Palpatine vandals
I have crated the article Oh my God! You Deleted Bad Jokes and Other Nonsense! You bastard!/Pope Benedict XVI. All vandals can go and play there. Salleman 02:20, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

But you have to admit, it's hilarious :)

Featured status
Should we go for a new feature process soon? What do you think? --83
 * I would say no, since we should try to get more photos of the Holy Father and need to figure out how to make the article stable. Plus, it fails one part of the FAC: Be an uncontroversial subject. The pope is a figure people will fight over his role during WW2 and also some of his policies before and after his election to the papcy. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 19:43, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

 * I haven't noticed edit wars over the WW2 time in the last months. But I agree more photos would be fine. --83
 * Ok, we have more photos, I will remove my RFP notice. The page is more static than it was first nominated, so that issue is clear. But I think some want to chop some sections up, since the page is 50 kb big, too much for some folks to handle. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 02:42, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Anonymous Source; Moot; Not in context
I believe the following is not verifiable, in 2005 moot, and the quote doesn't give you enough context to evaluate the intent of the speaker.

 * According to Catholic News Service, "One bishop who is well informed on the issue and asked not to be named said the secrecy demanded by the new norms gives the appearance of a 'cover-up' by the church." www.americamagazine.org/catholicnews.cfm?articleTypeID=29&textID=1352&issueID=355

The complete paragraph

 * One bishop who is well informed on the issue and asked not to be named said the secrecy demanded by the new norms gives the appearance of a "cover-up" by the church. He said the norms were too legalistic and ignored the pastoral needs raised by pedophilia cases. He questioned whether victims would find an all-priest tribunal an acceptable forum. Those close to the Vatican in Rome, however, said the new norms do not rule out pastoral initiatives by bishops, and they defended secrecy in such cases, saying it was needed to protect the accuser and the accused.

First of all, the Vatican did not "cover-up" nor give the appearance of a "cover-up" in the promulgation and implementation of the  Sacramentorum Sanctitatis. Rather as other articles on this point out, rather than a cover-up, this clarified that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is responsible for offenses against the Eucharist (such as sacrilege, flagrant liturgical abuse, or unauthorized concelebration); offenses against the sacrament of Penance (such as absolving a partner in adultery soliciting sexual favors from penitents, or violating the confessional seal); and abuse of children. In all such cases, bishops are expected to report accusations directly to Rome for adjudication.

We can't verify who had the opinion this was a "cover-up" and I think the quote doesn't add anything that the rest of the text doesn't already include. In 2005, we know that the 2001 procedures mentioned here have worked effectively to deal with the laicization of priests when their cases get referred to Rome. There's been no cover-up in Rome when a bishop has presented a case to the CDF.

I present two choices: replace the "cover-up" sentence with the complete paragraph from the Catholic News Service, or delete it as being unverifiable and redundant to the rest of this section. patsw 20:40, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

qui ex Patre Filioque procedit
I'm very busy at the moment, and would rather not do any editing until Wednesday. However, I have noticed a bit of reverting (very civil and good faith, etc.) going on in the "Dialogue with Other Faiths" section, and I believe there may be some misunderstanding.

The Nicene Creed, in the official (and appalling) English translation, says, "We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, Who proceeds from the Father and the Son." "We" is, of course, a mistranlation for "I". The official Latin text says "Et in Spiritum Sanctum, Dominum et vivificantem, qui ex Patre Filioque procedit". That's the same as the English version, except that the sentence just begins with "And in", rather than "I [or we] believe in". The word "Credo" ("I believe") is at the very beginning of the Profession, and is not repeated for each sentence in the Latin version.

My understanding is that the Eastern Orthodox Churches have a problem with the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Son. I think they believe He proceeds from the Father through the Son, but I'm not sure. Since the word Filioque ("and the Son") was not in the original version of the Creed, it could be omitted (though not denied) as a gesture towards ecumenism. That seems to have been the case in the wording of Dominus Iesus www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000806_dominus-iesus_lt.html.

Some of the reverting seems to have been over whether it should be upper or lower case letters, and some over whether it should be "Patre" or "Patre Filioque". The Vatican document uses upper case ("Patre", not "patre"). As it currently stands, the Wikipedia article says the following:
 * The changed Latin sentence is "Credo in Spiritum Sanctum qui ex Patre procedit" ("I believe in the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son").

That's incorrect because:
 * The Latin sentence begins with "Et in" (and in), not with "Credo in" (I believe in).
 * The Latin sentence has "Dominum et vivificantem". If those words are omitted, for the sake of space, there should be dots ( . . . ).  Otherwise, it looks like a direct and complete quotation.
 * The English translation should either begin with "And in", or else use square brackets for [I believe in].
 * The English translation of the changed Latin version (from Dominus Iesus) should not have "and the Son". (The omission of "and the Son" is the entire point of that paragraph.

By the way, I'm not very keen on "quietly left out without notice" in that paragraph. You can't very well leave out something noisily. I'd go for something like "omitted without comment".

Would anyone like to have a shot at re-editing that section while I go back to my work? Ann Heneghan 14:15, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Dear Ann,

I had a shot.

I rephrased this into

 * ...in which the famous "filioque" clause ("and the Son") is quietly ommitted. The changed Latin sentence reads "Et in Spiritum Sanctum (...), qui ex Patre procedit" ("and in the Holy Spirit (...), who proceeds from the Father") instead of "qui ex Patre Filioque procedit" ("who proceeds from the Father and the Son"). ...

This addresses all your four points, only the implied "I believe" is not explained in the text, though I'm not sure whether this is needed.

My former edits on this where only looking at the upper/lower case thing. And if it is "Spiritum Sanctum" it must be "Patre" and "Filio(que)".

I share your ill-feeling towards the mistranslation.

Your understanding of the issue is quite right. The original Nicean creed had only "proceeds from the Father" - the inclusion of the Son however is used by some Church Fathers (don't know which ones) and was later gradually adopted by the Western Churches (first the Spanish Churches, than the Frankish Churches (under Charlemagne) and than the Roman Church (under the influence of Emperor Henry II)), probably to combat a subordinationist mis-interpretation of the creed. However, the Eastern Churches have rejected this unilateral act as conflicting with provisions of the Council of Ephesus. So the opposition was mainly on the formal level until the Patriarch Photius of Constantinople claimed a difference in substance, in order to paint his Roman adversaries as heretics. I think, it was also him who came up with the wording "from the Father through the Son" in order to phrase the supposed difference, so of course he didn't change the text. Attempts of reconciliation have basically always interpreted the Western "and the Son" as equaling the Eastern "through the Son". These reunions were, whenever they were achieved, short-lived.

The ommission in Dominus Iesus might be a gesture of ecumenism towards the Eastern Churches. However, it also backfired, since some Protestant leaders in Germany complained about the ommission and denounced it as tampering with the creed. (This was a very hilarious complaint coming from Peter Steinacker. I won't get into details about him. If you want to know more, please tell me.) Str1977 18:09, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

 * As I've already said on Str1977's talk page, thanks for doing that. I'm very interested in the Pope Benedict article, but don't really have enough time to contribute much.  I have to limit the amount of time I spend on Wikipedia, and the Terri Schiavo article is taking up more time.  Ann Heneghan 3 July 2005 23:03 (UTC)

Images
This Wikipedia uses a number of fair use images. However, for other Wikipedias which do not accept fair use, it is extremely difficult to find images of the Pope, with only one or two very mediocre being available. We should ask professional photographers or agencies to donate a couple of images of the Pope to Wikipedia under a license which make it possible to use for other Wikipedias. There are so many beautiful images of him taken.

 * Out of the question for the Associated Press and Reuters. They want Wikipedia to purchase a license if it wants to use its images.  --Gerald Farinas 19:22, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * There are some Images at Commons:Benedictus XVI, I hope we can get some Images as a pope at the World Youth Day 2005. -83.129.61.171 01:00, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

There is a really good picture of Benedict darthbenedict.ytmnd.com here. → Jarlaxle Artemis   01:03, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)
 * I'll pass on that one. Plus, I had a picture request listed here for a while, but it has been fulfiled. I removed the notice, but others are welcome to stick it back on here. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 02:14, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

German or English
There have been some reverts over whether to use the German title or the English translation in the succession box no. 1.

I don't have a great preference in this, though I guess most Wikipedians would prefer the English, as this is the English Wiki, not the German.

However, in either case it should be correct language and "Biskop" is not an extisting German word. It's "Bischof" and in this case "Erzbischof" (written as one word) - also then the preposition ("von" instead of "of") and the place names ("München" instead of "Munich")should be in German.

Anyway, I posted a correct German version and then immediately a English version. Others might choose between the two.

Str1977 21:02, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, "biskop" is Scandinavian, it was a typo, and I thought that I corrected it to Bishop. The title should be in English, and not German. It's very disturbing that some Germans insist that an English language encyclopedia must use German words instead of English (like those who occasionally change Chancellor to Bundeskanzler). --83

That's allright, so we should leave it as it is. Str1977 16:04, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

removal of one section
I would propose to remove the following part: ''According to his cousin Erika Kopp, Ratzinger had no desire from childhood to be anything other than a priest. When he was 15, she says, he announced that he was going to be a bishop, whereupon she playfully remarked, 'And why not Pope?'.'' It's an anecdote without any encyclopedic information. Gugganij 11:17, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

 * I agree, and I'd support taking it out, but I don't feel very strongly about it one way or the other. Ann Heneghan 3 July 2005 23:02 (UTC)

Featured
I have resubmitted this article for featured status, see Featured article candidates. 83.109.188.50 01:19, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Succession box
Could whomever keeps inserting The Servant of God before John Paul II's name in the succession box please stop doing so. Those boxes are only there to link an office or title holder to their predecessor and successor. They are not intended to contain any titles, styles, or other terms that are not in themselves part of their name or regnal name. Servant of God should no more be in that box than should His Holiness, His Eminence, Venerable, Blessed or any other designation that is not part of the person's name or regnal name. Such designations belong in the text of the article where they can be explained and contextualised. Added in succession boxes where they cannot be explained or contextualised, they can be misread as indicating that Wikipedia is endorsing a POV. Benedict's predecessor was John Paul II and so that is all that should be in the box. Apart from anything else, he was not a Servant of God during his lifetime so should not be referred to as such when his regnal name is being used as a link. Fear ÉIREANN (talk) 21:29, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

 * I've put in an invisible,  referring editors back to Talk.  Maybe that will work.  Ann Heneghan 22:28, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

 * Good idea. Thanks. Fear ÉIREANN[[Image:Flag of Ireland.svg|25px]] (talk) 22:45, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Would he technically count as Italian aswell?
Most Tyroleans have Italian ancestors somewhere along their family lines, especially South Tyroleans.

 * It may well be that he has Italian-speaking ancestors aswell, I believe the population of the area is quite mixed. (Note also that parts of the North Italian population are actually of Germanic origin).

 * Umm...Marktl is not exactly located in Tyrol. While it's theoretically possible that there were some Italian ancestors a couple genetarions back, you don't get much more Bavarian than Ratzinger's family :) -- Ferkelparade π 13:48, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Please look at the biography. The person meant is his mother Maria, whose family were from South Tyrol. 83.109.128.127 19:22, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

 * Most Tyroleans have Italian ancestors? Do you know that as a fact? Gugganij 10:33, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Lead section
We need to expand the lead section slightly to meet the criterias for this article becoming featured. The length should be approximately that of Pope John Paul II. I've made an attempt to expand the section, improvements are very welcome. 83.109.128.127 19:24, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Actually the opposite is the case. Both article at 53K and 54K respectively are well over the recommended maximum limit for size to ensure they are compatible with all browsers and can be edited by all Wikipedians. (This one is bigger, BTW) Pope John Paul II has already had to have chunks removed to linked articles even to bring it down to 53K. It is being further broken up to bring it to manageable size. This one too is going to need severe pruning, with some of its sections removed to linked articles, and smaller summaries left in the main article. Fear ÉIREANN (talk) 19:32, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It may be the case, but see the discussion at Featured article candidates. 83.109.128.127 19:38, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

All articles, featured and non-featured alike face the same technical and editing problems if they go over 32K. In addition a bug sometimes saves the article twice on the one page, with different text in each 'version'. It is alkward enough trying to untangle 'doubled' articles that are now at 60-70K. If that bug were to hit this article, it would be a crazy 108K and it would be a nightmare to compare each version of each paragraph to its rival, work out which is the one to keep and which is the one to delete, delete it, save the change, then do the same thing with the next paragraph, and the next, and the next etc etc etc. In addition some browsers won't save a page over 32K. So if the article is bigger than that, and a user with one of these browers (and millions still use them) edits the page, they inadvertently wipe out everyone over 32K, often cutting the article mid-sentence. If, as happened recently, some people working on the top of the page didn't notice the bottom had been lost, then all their work has to be wiped out as the page is reverted to the pre-cut article. Going over 32K causes a heck of a lot of problems, which is why the warning comes up once you reach 30K, saying that the article is getting near the size where additional text should be put elsewhere and not in that article.

Many users who don't have problem browsers, or who don't have to clean up accidental cuts by other people, or untangle bug-hit duplicates, don't realise that the 32K rule is there for a reason. Those of us who have devoted ages trying to sort out messes caused by cuts/wipeouts/duplicated paragraphs know from experience the problems that arise and the hassle involved in trying to fix the mess. Fear ÉIREANN (talk) 20:11, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I see. But it is claimed that the lead section needs to be longer than it was before according to the style manual before the article can be featured. 83.109.140.228 23:44, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Please add new archivals to Talk:Pope Benedict XVI/Archive12. Thank you. Str1977 19:05, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

title: Talk:Pope Benedict XVI/Archive 11


text:
Hot Coffee

Hot Coffee may refer to:

 * Coffee, a beverage that is typically served hot
 * Hot Coffee, Mississippi, a non census-designated community in Covington County, Mississippi
 * Hot Coffee (minigame), a normally inaccessible minigame in the 2004 video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
 * Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants, a 1994 product liability lawsuit involving spilt hot coffee
 * Hot Coffee (film), a 2011 documentary about the 1994 product liability lawsuit

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

title: Hot Coffee


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Persecution of non-Muslims

 This page is an archive of the proposed deletion of the article below. Further comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or on a Votes for Undeletion nomination). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was delete. CDC  (talk)  21:16, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Persecution of non-Muslims
The title of this article, being as unspecific as it is, is a POV fork. It is riddled with, lets call them inaccuracies, and whats with the Islam Category? --Irishpunktom\talk 09:13, July 18, 2005 (UTC)
 * if there is a problem with inaccuracies, correct them. If all inaccurate articles in Wikipedia were deleted instead of corrected, there would be no Wikipedia. Tnhis article needs to be deleted, though, because its name is incorrect and there exists a better alternative now. --Germen 09:18, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
 * keep (Abstain; I have no knowledge to judge the article by its merits). You did not provide convincing argument. POV fork of what? Why POV? Were non-muslims persecuted or not? If there are inaccuracies, please list them in the talk page or correct. mikka (t) 19:45, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete I don't see the point of this article. There are over 4 billion non-Muslims.  How can we make one article about their persecution?Heraclius 22:07, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Indeed, the suggestion of Mustafaa is better i.e. to rename this article to "Religious prosecution by Muslims", which is I think a relevant subject. --Germen 09:00, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete, only editor is a known problem user who has developed the obnoxious habit of creating new articles to suit his POV rather than being willing to cooperate with others on existing ones.  (Trend within these articles is of course obvious.)  Dcarrano 22:22, July 17, 2005 (UTC)
 * You have no proof for this thus baseless slander. I have contributed to several articles and cooperated with several authors. Unfortunately, some people seem to have trouble in distinguishing between their personal POV and NPOV. --Germen 09:00, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep, cleanup, and neuter. The topic title is about as neutral as is the Persecution of Muslims article, and belongs in the same general Religious persecution suite. — RJH 23:30, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete; topic already treated better, under more meaningful titles, in Persecution_of_Christians, Persecution of Jews (sadly, Persecution of Hindus is junk.) "Persecution of non-Muslims" would refer to persecution of non-Muslims anywhere; what the author means is probably "Religious persecution by Muslims" (to which, if kept, this should be moved.)  We don't have a "Religious persecution by..." series, as far as I know, and I don't think we need one. - Mustafaa 23:42, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
 * There does not exist a summary page yet. It makes sensde to have such a page I think. --Germen 09:21, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep or Merge with existing article. Persecution by Muslims is as legitimate as a subject as persecution of Muslims, so I do not see the point of earlier remarks. The remark of Mustafaa is valid, I will create a new article under this name, because the title he mentioned or "Persecution by Muslims" does not exist as yet. This one can then be deleted. --Germen 08:41, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep and cleanup, as per RJH. JamesBurns 09:22, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Germen, it's creator and chiefe proponent agrees that "This one can then be deleted", as it stands this article could be about Persecution by Hindus of Christians, or Persecution of Hindus by Christians. It could be about Persecution of Jews by Hitler or his persecution of the Roma, etc. --Irishpunktom\talk 11:48, July 18, 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete, too broad for an article, "non-muslims" is not a group per se. Radiant_ >|< 11:55, July 18, 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete unnecesary POV article with overly broad scope. Another attempt by Germen to disrupt Wikipedia (WP:POINT) by creating more POV articles when his edits are rejected elsewhere. Why not focus on compromise and work on existing articles than consistantly attempting to circumvent Wikipedia policy in this way? Axon 14:03, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Hm, an interesting, but somewhat paranoid twist to the story. I am quite a fan of Wikipedia (as proven by many hours of editing), so disrupting Wikipedia is not in my interest. IO value good suggestions, so I have created a new article with a title proposed by user:Mustafaa. Check it out here: Religious persecution by Muslims
 * Paranoid: you've already created Prejudice (islam) and Prejudices (islam) articles, now both up for VfD, as well as attempting to re-create the successfully VfD'd Islamophilia article (an article which has been speedily deleted three times now). All these pages seem to contain content related to the protected Islamophobia article. Again, I ask that you focus on compromising and contributing to existing articles rather than rushing to create new articles whenever and whevever you can. You may find you feature less on the VfD pages if you do. Also, please always sign you comments with ~ . Axon 21:38, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Of course, all disputed pages are about islam. The majority here agrees that the article ipse has reason to exist but disagree on its title. This problem has been fixed. --Germen 21:52, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete title is ridiculous and unencyclopedic. A "Persecution by Muslims" article might work, but should only exist if "Persecution by Christians" also exists.  In any case, that can be created independently, without need of this tripe. Xoloz 17:51, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Ok, as per suggestion of several users I have started an article called Religious persecution by Muslims. I agree on deleting this gem ;). --Germen 20:07, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. --Viriditas | Talk 09:47, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. POV, unencyclopedic; see also Mustafaa's points. Jayjg (talk) 14:46, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Merge into Religious persecution by Muslims the wub  "?/!"  15:27, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. Handle persecution according to the religion of the victims, because it's more salient than the religion of the perpetrating regime. Grouping by persecutors is problematic because their motivations are not necessarily religious (the regime may not have an organized religion) and those responsible may actually be a more diverse body of powerful individuals, both in terms of religious and other interests. --Michael Snow 03:09, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete This topic is covered better elsewhere and under specific terms, rather than this general catch all "non-muslim". The original author seems to want it deleted. "Ok, as per suggestion of several users I have started an article called Religious persecution by Muslims. I agree on deleting this gem ;). --Germen 20:07, 18 July 2005 (UTC)" I agree. Hamster Sandwich 03:17, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete, far too vague, implies non-Muslims are a monolithic group persecuted by a monolithic group of Muslims. -- M P er el ( talk 05:52, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete -- incredibly broad - the religious persecution by Muslims seems to be what was created here. gren 20:13, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.


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User talk:Draxfelton

Welcome
Hello, welcome to Wikipedia.

You might find these links helpful in editing pages or creating new ones: How to edit a page, Tutorial, Naming conventions, Manual of Style. You should probably read our policies at some point too.

But don't feel you have to read every policy document before you do anything. Dive in, be bold in editing, and if you do anything wrong, someone will be quick to correct it and let you know (hopefully, politely!)

If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian!

You may have already noticed that you can sign your name using three tildes, like this:. If you use four, you can add a datestamp too, as I've done below. This is mostly useful, and is considered good wikiquette, on talk pages. But be aware that the actual wikipedia articles should never be signed - they belong to the community, rather than the individual who created them.

I like your photo on Great Salt Lake (which I've reformatted a bit, to keep with normal practice) - keep up the good work.

Again, welcome! -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 19:06, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

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title: User talk:Draxfelton


text:
User talk:Dacian~enwiki

OI

You realise, of course, that modern Romanians are Slavs and are not descended from the Dacians despite Ceausescu's propaganda claims?

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called Dacian. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name Dacian~enwiki that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name. If you think you might own all of the accounts with this name and this message is in error, please visit Special:MergeAccount to check and attach all of your accounts to prevent them from being renamed.

Your account will still work as before, and you will be credited for all your edits made so far, but you will have to use the new account name when you log in.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Yours, Keegan Peterzell Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation 23:16, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Renamed
 This account has been renamed as part of single-user login finalisation. If you own this account you can |log in using your previous username and password for more information. If you do not like this account's new name, you can choose your own using this form after logging in: . -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 11:51, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:Dacian~enwiki


text:
10.15×61mmR

The 10.15×61 mmR cartridge was designed by a joint Swedish-Norwegian rifle commission in the late 1870s and early 1880s, and approved for use in Sweden and Norway in 1881. It was primarily used by Norway in the Model 1884 Jarmann rifle, but also saw limited use in Sweden in the m/1867-84 rolling block rifle and carbine ("kammarskjutningsgevär m/1884" and "kammarskjutningskarbin m/1884", which were primarily used for gallery shooting, that is short range training). It is a rimmed, centerfire cartridge, and was initially loaded with black powder and a lead bullet wrapped in paper. Later cartridges were loaded with smokeless powder and had a lead bullet coated in steel (Full metal jacket, or FMJ).

The earliest version had a load of 4.46 g of black powder, and a projectile weighing 21.85 g. This gave a muzzle velocity of 500 m/s. The later version, with a full metal jacket, was loaded to produce the same muzzle velocity.

All in all, more than 3 million cartridges were manufactured for military use in Norway, as well as more than 2 million ordered from abroad. The majority of these were sold with the Jarmann rifles when the Norwegian Army introduced the Krag–Jørgensen.

The following variations on the 10.15x61mmR cartridge have been identified:

 * 10.15 Ball, rounded tip, lead bullet wrapped in paper, black powder (possible just used for tests)
 * 10.15 mm Ball, flat tip, lead bullet wrapped in paper, black powder
 * 10.15 mm Ball, flat tip, full metal jacket, smokeless powder
 * 10.15 mm Gallery, round lead bullet (for use indoor / short rangers)
 * 10.15 mm Gallery, same as above but with a ring crimped around the neck of the case
 * 10.15 mm Blank, unpainted wooden 'bullet', smooth case
 * 10.15 mm Blank, same as above but with six long ridges pressed into the case
 * 10.15 mm Blank, same as above but with six long and six short ridges pressed into the case
 * 10.15 mm Dummy, red wooden 'bullet' going all the way to the bottom of the case, six long and six short ridges pressed into the case and two rings crimped around the neck of the case.
 * 10.15 mm Dummy, as above but with just the six long ridges and rings around the neck.
 * 10.15 mm Dummy, as above but with brown wooden 'bullet' and two rings crimped around the neck of the case (tests only).
 * 10.15 mm Harpoon round, a blank round crimped shut, used only in the M28 harpoon gun.
 * 10.15 mm Harpoon round, as above but closed with a crimped lid.

title: 10.15×61mmR


text: User talk:70.68.225.250

title: User talk:70.68.225.250


text:
Nymphs (band)

Nymphs are an American alternative rock band that performed in the late 1980s and early 1990s with lead singer Inger Lorre. The band was signed to Geffen Records, and released their debut album in 1991. Nymphs are known for their wild stage shows and their rebellious attitude towards record companies. The band formed in 1985 and broke up in 1992, formed again in 2016, and broke up the same year, later reforming in 2017.

Members (past and present)

 * Inger Lorre – (Vocals)
 * Geoff Siegel – (Lead Guitar)
 * Sam Merrick – (Guitar)
 * Cliff D. (aka Cliff Jones) – (Bass)
 * Mario Tremaine – (Guitar)
 * Morpheus Black – (Guitar)
 * Jordan Lawson – (Bass)
 * Aaron Cruz – (Guitar)
 * Eric James Contreras – (Drums)
 * Angelique Congleton – (Bass)
 * Thomas "TJ" Jefferson – (Guitar)

Band history
Lorre and Bobby Belltower formed the band in New Jersey in the mid 1980s. The band moved to Los Angeles to pursue their musical careers and caught the attention of punk rock singer Keith Morris who managed the band for a time. After two members returned to New Jersey, Inger and Siegel recruited guitarist Sam Merrick, drummer Alex Kirst and bass player Cliff D. (Cliff Jones).

The band was hoping to sign with an alternative label such as Alternative Tentacles, but their reputation led to interest from the major labels. However, the band's wild behavior led to some companies losing interest.

Nymphs made an appearance in the 1990 film Bad Influence as a band playing in a club.

Iggy Pop sang vocals on the track "Supersonic" from the debut album.

It was at about this time that Nymphs began to have problems with their label. Almost two years had passed since Nymphs had completed their album. Lorre was losing her battle with heroin and in an alcohol induced fit she urinated on the desk of A&R man Tom Zutaut. "Rolling Stone quipped, 'Talk about being pissed at your record label.'"

Things came to a head when Inger Lorre performed fellatio on her then-boyfriend, Rodney Eastman, on stage during their set at the Marquis club in Anaheim, California, in 1992. Shortly afterwards, Lorre was fired from the band after she refused to go onstage during a concert that year in Miami opening for Peter Murphy. The band broke up soon after.

After Nymphs, Inger Lorre went on to record with Jeff Buckley and release solo albums. Alex Kirst went on to play drums for Iggy Pop. Geoff Siegel went on to do A&R for Columbia and Giant Records. Sam Merrick briefly returned to his original band, Leaving Trains. He now plays guitar in Boise, Idaho based band a.k.a. Belle.

Alex Kirst died on January 13, 2011, as the result of a car accident. His body was found just before midnight near Date Palm and Gerald Ford Drive in Cathedral City, California. He was 47. Kirst is the brother of guitarist Whitey Kirst, who has also played with Iggy Pop.

In the summer of 2016, Inger announced Nymphs were re-forming and going back into the studio with new material for the first time in over 20 years. A new album and touring would follow. The news spread through various magazines, television interviews and online social media. The new band lineup would bring back Lorre with all new members including Mario Tremaine (guitar), Jordan Lawson (bass), Aaron Cruz (guitar) and Eric James Contreras (drums). However, after several brief studio rehearsals, a cover of Dolly Parton's Hard Candy Christmas for Amazon, and an appearance at The Viper Room in Hollywood, California, the newly formed Nymphs called it quits almost as quickly as they got started.

November 18, 2016, a reissue of Nymphs' one and only Geffen release from 1991, now an underground classic was released by Rock Candy Records in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the original Geffen release. The reissue was remastered and included a 16-page full-color booklet containing a 3,500 word essay, enhanced artwork with previously unseen photos, interviews and band history.

As of April 2017 Nymphs’ lineup consists of Inger Lorre (vocals-keyboards), Joe Perez (lead guitar), T.J. (rhythm guitar), Angelique Congleton (bass-vocals) and Eric James Contreras (drums). The new Nymphs lineup began writing/rehearsing/recording new material to be released. A live recording from a 2016 show at the famous Viper Room in Hollywood was released in 2017.

Discography

 * The Nymphs (1991) Geffen 36,000
 * A Practical Guide to Astral Projection (1992) Geffen 5,000

title: Nymphs (band)


text:
Die Hard Trilogy

Die Hard Trilogy is an action video game developed by Probe Entertainment, published by Fox Interactive and distributed by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment in North America and Electronic Arts in Europe for the PlayStation, Sega Saturn and Microsoft Windows. The game is based on the first three installments of the Die Hard series of action movies, with each film entry being represented through a different gameplay genre.

The game was well received and would eventually become a PlayStation Greatest Hits and PlayStation Platinum game. Die Hard Trilogy also inspired a sequel entitled Die Hard Trilogy 2: Viva Las Vegas. The sequel retained the three different playing styles but featured a spin-off storyline that was not connected to the movie series.

Die Hard
Die Hard is a third-person shooter. The player battles terrorists and rescues hostages in the Nakatomi Plaza, which is the setting of the first film in the series.

Die Hard 2: Die Harder
Die Hard 2: Die Harder is presented as an on rails-shooter, where the player must stop terrorists who have taken over Dulles Airport from the second film.

Players control the crosshair with a gamepad, light gun, or mouse. Die Hard Trilogy was one of the few light gun games available for the PlayStation that was not compatible with Namco's GunCon/G-Con 45 controller or GunCon 2. However, it was compatible with Sega's Stunner light gun for the Saturn version.

Die Hard with a Vengeance
In Die Hard with a Vengeance, the player goes on a joyride driving a taxicab, sports car, and dump truck throughout all of New York City and is tasked with finding and defusing several explosives before they can go off.

Development
The game was developed by a UK-based development studio, Probe Entertainment. The Die Hard with a Vengeance segment was developed first and was intended to be a standalone release, but publisher Fox Interactive insisted that the game should be more closely linked to the films, leading Probe to develop the other two segments. Probe were developing Alien Trilogy at the same time. Since Alien Trilogy was being published by Probe's new owner Acclaim Entertainment, technology and experienced personnel were prioritized towards Alien Trilogy, leaving Die Hard Trilogy to be developed by a small team of young programmers and designers working with Probe's oldest equipment.

Fox Interactive exerted little creative control over the project, allowing the Probe team to be unrestrained and improvisational in their designs. Lead programmer Simon Pick recounted, "There was no real design. We made it up as we went along. We knew the overall feeling we wanted and the various points we wanted to hit gameplay-wise. We had a design document, but it was written after the fact. We’d implement a feature and the designer would write it up to send over to Fox as an update."

The inexperienced team found they had taken on more than they could comfortably handle by promising three games in one, forcing them to make technical compromises as they went along. Initially the Die Hard 2 segment of the game was developed with polygonal enemies, but they were later replaced with digitized sprites. For the Die Hard with a Vengeance segment, the team had wanted to use an authentic recreation of New York City, but found that when driving at 200 miles per hour, an accurate model of NYC felt too small and confining. The larger models could not be built completely in RAM, so the team divided it into sections, designed a system to calculate which section to load next, and fixed the resultant errors by hand.

The PlayStation was chosen as the lead platform because Pick strongly felt that it was the most powerful format of the time. In particular, he reasoned that the Saturn and PC versions would come out better if the programmers were trying to emulate impressive graphical effects on an extant PlayStation version than if they were designing the game around the hardware limitations of the Saturn. In an interview during development, Pick elaborated on how the team intended to optimize the game for Saturn: "At the moment on PlayStation, we've got six or seven circular images which appear to make the lens flare effect, but maybe we'll just have two or three on Saturn version to keep the frame rate up. ... Frame rate is the main thing. We've got one guy coming over to us from Sega who's very clever. He's written a program which basically takes a polygonal model, and as it's rendering it looks at the size of the polygons; if they're very small it says 'there's no point texturing this, let's do it flat in just one color,' and this way it saves processor time and helps keep the frame rate up. We're going to reduce the detail of the models quite a lot, and reduce the texturing so the roads on Saturn will probably be flat shaded - so it's like a gray road rather than having textures."

Reception
Die Hard Trilogy was a commercial hit, with sales above 2 million units by 2000. It became Probe's most successful release in terms of sales in the UK.

The PlayStation version was positively reviewed. As of June 2017, it holds an 86% ranking at GameRankings. Most critics considered the high value-for-money of getting three games in one to be Die Hard Trilogy's strongest point. A few even stated that none of the three component games were good enough to stand on their own, but the variety offered by the collection as a whole makes it exceptionally entertaining. However, the majority commented that all three component games are outstanding even on their own terms. GamePro presented a dissenting opinion; while they highly praised the game's addictive quality and sound effects, they argued that the three segments are ultimately just rehashes of (respectively) Resident Evil, Virtua Cop, and Twisted Metal. The most common criticism was that the Die Harder segment requires the Konami light gun to be enjoyable, since the cursor when using the standard controller is slow and difficult to move. The first segment of the game was particularly praised for its deep challenge, requiring players to out-think the enemy.

Die Hard Trilogy was a finalist for the Computer Game Developers Conference's 1996 "Best Adaptation of Linear Media" Spotlight Award, but lost the prize to I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream. However, Electronic Gaming Monthly editors named it Action Game of the Year.

The Saturn port also received mostly positive reviews, though it was often compared unfavorably to the PlayStation original. GamePro said the graphics are not as sharp as the PlayStation version's, especially in the Die Harder segment, but the gameplay is addictive enough to make this relatively unimportant. Josh Smith stated in GameSpot that the sluggish controls and poor graphics, especially as compared to the PlayStation version, make the first two segments of the game nearly unplayable, since lining up shots in time is awkward and frustrating. However, he said that in the third segment the animation is actually better than the PlayStation version's, and that the fast pace and black humor of this segment make it worth buying Die Hard Trilogy all by itself. Paul Glancey of Sega Saturn Magazine summarized, "Often when you see compilations like this there's ... one section that stands out as the one that the programmers thought of first and lavished the most attention on, but all three sections of Die Hard Trilogy have their fair share of thrills, great visuals and clever ideas."

In Germany, the game was banned because of its extreme violence, especially being able to drive through harmless people with blood spilling all over the windshield.

title: Die Hard Trilogy


text:
The Descent

The Descent is a 2005 British horror film written and directed by Neil Marshall. The film stars actresses Shauna Macdonald, Natalie Mendoza, Alex Reid, Saskia Mulder, Nora-Jane Noone and MyAnna Buring. The plot follows six women who enter an uncharted cave system and struggle to survive against the monstrous cannibals inside.

Filming took place in the United Kingdom. Exterior scenes were filmed at Ashridge Park, Hertfordshire, and in Scotland. Because the filmmakers considered it too dangerous and time-consuming to shoot in an actual cave, interior scenes were filmed on sets built at Pinewood Studios near London designed by Simon Bowles.

The Descent opened in cinemas in the United Kingdom on 8 July 2005. It premiered in the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and released on 4 August 2006 in the United States. The film received positive reviews with praise for the performances, cinematography and Marshall's direction. It was also a box-office success, grossing $57.1 million worldwide against a £3.5 million budget. Since its release, it is often regarded as one of the best horror films of the 2000s.

A sequel, titled The Descent Part 2, was released in 2009.

Plot
After thrill-seeking friends Sarah, Juno, and Beth go whitewater rafting, Sarah, her husband Paul, and their daughter Jessica, are involved in a car accident when Paul is distracted. Paul and Jessica are killed, but Sarah survives.

One year later, Sarah, Juno, and Beth, as well as friends Sam, Rebecca, and newcomer Holly reunite at a cabin in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina for a spelunking adventure. They later hike up to a mountain cave entrance and descend. After they move through a narrow passage, it collapses behind them, trapping them. After a heated discussion, Juno admits that she has led the group into an unknown cave system instead of the fully explored cave system that they had originally planned to visit, making rescue impossible.

The group presses forward with hopes of finding an exit, they discover aged climbing equipment and a cave painting that suggests an exit exists. Holly, thinking she sees sunlight, runs ahead, but she falls down a hole and breaks her leg. As the others help Holly, Sarah wanders off and observes a pale, humanoid creature drinking at a pool before it scampers away. Later, the group comes across a den of animal bones and is suddenly attacked by a creature they name a "crawler". Holly is killed when a crawler attacks and bites through her throat. Sarah runs and falls down a hole, where she is knocked unconscious. Juno, trying to prevent Holly's body from being dragged away, kills a crawler with her pickaxe but then, startled and in shock, she accidentally strikes Beth through the neck. Beth collapses with Juno's pendant in her hand and begs Juno not to leave her, but a traumatized Juno flees.

Sarah awakens to find herself in a den of human and animal carcasses, witnessing Holly's body being mauled and eaten by crawlers. Juno discovers cave markings from previous explorers that point to a specific path through the caves. Juno locates Sam and Rebecca. Sam has deduced that the crawlers are blind and rely on sound to hunt. Juno tells them about the markings, but she will not leave without Sarah. Sarah encounters Beth, who tells her that Juno attacked, and then abandoned her. Beth gives Juno's pendant to Sarah, telling her it is a gift from Paul, and Sarah realizes that Juno and Paul had an affair before his death. Beth begs Sarah for a mercy killing, which Sarah reluctantly does by bashing her head in with a rock. Sarah then encounters several crawlers and manages to kill them all, falling into a blood-filled pond in the process and emerging covered in blood.

Elsewhere, Juno, Sam, and Rebecca are pursued by a large group of crawlers. They reach a chasm. Sam tries to climb across, but a crawler scaling the ceiling attacks and rips out her throat. Sam stabs it then bleeds to death in front of Juno and Rebecca. Rebecca is then dragged away and eaten alive as Juno escapes. Juno encounters Sarah and lies to her about seeing Beth die. After defeating a group of crawlers close to the exit, Sarah confronts Juno, revealing the pendant and her knowledge of Beth's fate and the affair with Paul. Sarah strikes Juno in the leg with a pickaxe and leaves her to die as a swarm of crawlers approaches. Juno is last heard screaming as Sarah escapes. Sarah falls down a hole and is rendered unconscious.

When she awakens, she sees sunlight and clambers up a slope covered in bones to escape the cave. After exhaustedly running to her car, she speeds out of the woods. She pulls over to the side of the road, breaking down in tears. After a truck passes her, she vomits out the window. When she sits up, she sees a hallucination of a bloodied Juno sitting next to her and screams. Sarah suddenly awakens, back in the cave. She sees a vision of her dead daughter Jessica, and smiles as the shrieks of crawlers grow closer.

Production
When Neil Marshall's film Dog Soldiers (2002) was a moderate success, the director received numerous requests to direct other horror films. The director was initially wary of being typecast as a horror film director, although he eventually agreed to make The Descent, emphasizing, "They are very different films."

Casting
Filmmakers originally planned for the cast to be both male and female, but Neil Marshall's business partner realized that horror films rarely have all-female casts. Defying convention, Marshall cast all women, and to avoid making them clichéd, he solicited basic advice from his female friends. He explained the difference, "The women discuss how they feel about the situation, which the soldiers in Dog Soldiers would never have done." He also gave the characters different accents to enable the audience to tell them apart and to establish a more "cosmopolitan feel" than the British marketing of Dog Soldiers.

The cast included Shauna Macdonald as Sarah, Natalie Mendoza as Juno, Alex Reid as Beth, Saskia Mulder as Rebecca, MyAnna Buring as Sam, Nora-Jane Noone as Holly, Oliver Milburn as Paul, and Molly Kayll as Jessica. Craig Conway portrayed one of the film's crawlers, Scar.

Filming
While The Descent is set in North America, the film was shot entirely in the United Kingdom. Exterior scenes were filmed in Scotland, and interior scenes were filmed in sets built at Pinewood Studios, near London. The cave was built at Pinewood because filmmakers considered it too dangerous and time-consuming to shoot in an actual cave. Set pieces were reused with care, and filmmakers sought to limit lighting to the sources the characters bring with them into the cave, such as helmet lights.

Marshall cited the films The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The Thing, and Deliverance as influences in establishing tension in The Descent. The director elaborated, "We really wanted to ramp up the tension slowly, unlike all the American horror films you see now. They take it up to 11 in the first few minutes and then simply can't keep it up. We wanted to show all these terrible things in the cave: dark, drowning, claustrophobia. Then, when it couldn't get any worse, make it worse." Marshall also said at the 63rd Venice International Film Festival that he was inspired by Italian horror films of the past, in particular, those by Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci.

Simon Bowles designed the maze of caves for The Descent. Reviews credited Bowles: e.g., "Bowles' beautifully designed cave sets conjure a world of subterranean darkness." The film had twenty-one cave sets, built by Rod Vass and his company Armordillo Ltd. using a unique system of polyurethane sprayed rock that was developed for this production.

Production of The Descent competed with a big-budget American film that had a similar premise, The Cave. The Descent was originally scheduled to be released in the United Kingdom by November 2005 or February 2006, but The Cave began filming six months before its competitor. The filmmakers of The Descent decided to release their film before The Cave, so they fast-tracked production to be completed by the end of February 2005.

Editing
The Descent was released in North America with approximately one minute cut from the end. In the American cut, Sarah escapes from the cave and sees Juno, but the film does not cut back to the cave. The 4 August 2006 issue of Entertainment Weekly reported that the ending was trimmed because American viewers did not like its "uber-hopeless finale". Lionsgate marketing chief Tim Palen said, "It's a visceral ride, and by the time you get to the ending you're drained. [Director Neil] Marshall had a number of endings in mind when he shot the film, so he was open [to making a switch]". Marshall compared the change to the ending of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, saying, "Just because she gets away, does that make it a happy ending?" The ending is featured on DVD as an "unrated cut" in the United States.

Creature design
In the film, the women encounter underground creatures referred to as crawlers by the production crew. Marshall described the crawlers as cavemen who have stayed underground. The director explained, "They've evolved in this environment over thousands of years. They've adapted perfectly to thrive in the cave. They've lost their eyesight, they have acute hearing and smell and function perfectly in the pitch black. They're expert climbers, so they can go up any rock face and that is their world." Filmmakers kept the crawler design hidden from the actresses until they were revealed in the scenes in which the characters encountered the creatures, to allow for natural tension.

Conception
Director Neil Marshall first chose to have a dark cave as the setting for his horror film The Descent then decided to add the element of the crawlers, describing them as "something that could get the women, something human, but not quite". The crawlers were depicted as cavemen who for some reason never left the caves and yet managed to evolve in the dark. The director included mothers and children in the colony of creatures, defining his vision, "It is a colony and I thought that was far more believable than making them the classic monsters. If they had been all male, it would have made no sense, so I wanted to create a more realistic context for them. I wanted to have this very feral, very primal species living underground, but I wanted to make them human. I didn't want to make them aliens because humans are the scariest things."

The crawlers were designed by Paul Hyett, a makeup and prosthetics creator. Production designer Simon Bowles said that the crawler design had started out as "wide-eyed and more creature-like", but the design shifted toward a more human appearance. Crawlers originally had pure white skin, but the look was adjusted to seem grubbier. The skin was originally phosphorescent in appearance, but the effect was too bright and reflective in the darkened set, so the adjustment was made for them to blend in shadows. The director barred the film's cast from seeing the actors in full crawler make-up until their first appearance on screen. Actress Natalie Mendoza said of the effect, "When the moment came, I nearly wet my pants! I was running around afterwards, laughing in this hysterical way and trying to hide the fact that I was pretty freaked out. Even after that scene, we never really felt comfortable with them."

The crawlers reappear in The Descent Part 2, a sequel by Jon Harris with the first film's director Neil Marshall as executive producer. For the sequel, Hyett improved the camouflaging ability of the crawlers' skin tones to deliver better scares. According to Hyett, "Jon wanted them more viciously feral, inbred, scarred and deformed, with rows of sharklike teeth for ripping flesh." A charnel house was designed for the crawlers as well as a set that the crew called the "Crawler Crapper".

Description
Rene Rodriguez of The Miami Herald described the crawlers as "blind, snarling cave-dwellers, looking much like Gollum's bigger kin". Douglas Tseng of The Straits Times also noted that the crawlers looked similar to Gollum, being a cross between the creature and the vampiric Reapers from Blade II. David Germain of the Associated Press noted of the crawlers, "[They] have evolved to suit their environment—eyes blind because of the darkness in which they dwell, skin slimy and gray, ears batlike to channel their super-hearing." The crawlers are sexually dimorphic, with males being completely bald, whilst females sport thick dark hair on their heads. They are nocturnal hunters which surface from their caves to hunt for prey and bring the spoils of their hunts to their caverns.

Marketing
The skull of women motif used in some advertising material is based on Philippe Halsman's In Voluptas Mors photograph.

The film's marketing campaign in the United Kingdom was disrupted by the London bombings in July 2005. Advertisements on London's public transport system (including the bus that had exploded) had included posters that carried the quote, "Outright terror... bold and brilliant", and depicted a terrified woman screaming in a tunnel. The film's theatrical distributor in the UK, Pathé, recalled the posters from their placement in the London Underground and reworked the campaign to exclude the word "terror" from advertised reviews of The Descent. Pathé also distributed the new versions to TV and radio stations. The distributor's marketing chief, Anna Butler, said of the new approach, "We changed tack to concentrate on the women involved all standing together and fighting back. That seemed to chime with the prevailing mood of defiance that set in the weekend after the bombs." Neil Marshall stated in a review "Shauna was pretty upset about it; it was on newspapers all across the county" and cites the attacks as harming the film's box office, as "people were still trapped underground in reality, so no one really wanted to go see a film about people trapped underground...".

Reception
The Descent premiered at the Edinburgh horror film festival Dead by Dawn on 6 July 2005. The film opened commercially to the public in the UK on 10 July 2005, showing on 329 screens and earned £2.6 million. The film received limited releases in other European countries. The London bombings in the same month were reported to have affected the box office performance of The Descent. On its debut weekend in the US, The Descent opened with a three-day gross of $8.8 million, and finished with $26,005,908. Total worldwide box office receipts are $57,051,053.

Roger Ebert's editor, Jim Emerson, reviewed the film for Ebert's column whilst Ebert was on leave due to surgery, giving it four out of four stars. He wrote, "This is the fresh, exciting summer movie I've been wanting for months. Or for years, it seems."

Manohla Dargis of The New York Times described The Descent as "one of the better horror entertainments of the last few years", calling it "indisputably and pleasurably nerve-jangling". Dargis applauded the claustrophobic atmosphere of the film, though she perceived sexual overtones in the all-female cast with their laboured breathing and sweaty clothing. Rene Rodriguez of The Miami Herald thought that the film devolved into a guessing game of who would survive, though he praised Marshall's "nightmare imagery" for generating scares that work better than other horror films. Rodriguez also noted the attempt to add dimension to the female characters but felt that the actresses were unable to perform.

Top ten lists, 2006:
 * 1st – Bravo's 13 Even Scarier Movie Moments
 * 7th — Sight & Sound
 * 10th – Nathan Lee, Village Voice
 * 10th – Stephen Hunter, The Washington Post

Bloody Disgusting ranked the film third in their list of the 'Top 20 Horror Films of the Decade', with the article saying "One of the scariest films of this or any decade... Ultimately, The Descent is the purest kind of horror film – ruthless, unforgiving, showing no mercy." In the early 2010s, Time Out conducted a poll with several authors, directors, actors and critics who have worked within the horror genre to vote for their top horror films. The Descent placed at number 39 on their top 100 list.

Lawrence Toppman of The Charlotte Observer thought a weakness of The Descent was the failure of the writer to explain the evolution of the creature, though he said, "Their clicking and howling, used for echolocation and communication, makes them more alien; this otherness gives humans permission to mutilate them without seeming too disgusting to be sympathetic." Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune thought that the crawlers should have been left out of the film, believing, "Watching those gray, slithering beings chasing and biting the women makes it hard to maintain any suspension of disbelief."

Home media
The Descent was released on DVD and Blu-ray on 26 December 2006. The discs contain both the unaltered UK release and the edited US theatrical cut, the former being advertised as an "unrated" version.

Sequel
A sequel to The Descent was filmed at Ealing Studios in London during 2008 and was released on 2 December 2009 in the UK.

title: The Descent


text:
Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/July, 2005 media contest nominations

July, 2005 media contest nominations
These images exemplify pure ideals of nature photography, still lives, sketches and diagrams, drawings and painting, and even animated gifs... please nominate them. WARNING: this is actually a reverse nomination and format anomaly. Please add nominations to the contest's Wikimedia Commons page and link to them from the contest page on meta. +sj +  19:12, 17 July 2005 (UTC)


text: Category:Organized crime writers

title: Category:Organized crime writers


text:
Siege of Jerusalem (1187)

The Siege of Jerusalem lasted from 20 September to 2 October 1187, when Balian of Ibelin surrendered the city to Saladin. Earlier that summer, Saladin had defeated the kingdom's army and conquered several cities. Balian was charged with organizing a defense. The city was full of refugees but had few soldiers. Despite this fact the defenders managed to repulse several attempts by Saladin's army to take the city by storm. Balian bargained with Saladin to buy safe passage for many, and the city was peacefully surrendered with limited bloodshed. Though Jerusalem fell, it was not the end of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, as the capital shifted first to Tyre and later to Acre after the Third Crusade. Latin Christians responded in 1189 by launching the Third Crusade led by Richard the Lionheart, Philip Augustus, and Frederick Barbarossa separately. In Jerusalem, Saladin restored Muslim holy sites and generally showed tolerance towards Christians; he allowed Orthodox and Eastern Christian pilgrims to visit the holy sites freely—though Frankish (i.e. Catholic) pilgrims were required to pay a fee for entry. The control of Christian affairs in the city was handed over to the patriarch of Constantinople.

Background
The Kingdom of Jerusalem, weakened by internal disputes, was defeated at the Battle of Hattin on 4 July 1187. Most of the nobility were taken prisoner, including King Guy. Thousands of Muslim slaves were freed. By mid-September, Saladin had taken Acre, Nablus, Jaffa, Toron, Sidon, Beirut, and Ascalon. The survivors of the battle and other refugees fled to Tyre, the only city able to hold out against Saladin, due to the fortuitous arrival of Conrad of Montferrat.

Situation in Jerusalem
In Tyre, Balian of Ibelin had asked Saladin for safe passage to Jerusalem to retrieve his wife Maria Komnene, Queen of Jerusalem and their family. Saladin granted his request, provided that Balian not take up arms against him and not remain in Jerusalem for more than one day; however, upon arrival in the holy city, Patriarch Heraclius of Jerusalem, Queen Sibylla, and the rest of the inhabitants begged him to take charge of the defense of the city. Heraclius, who argued that he must stay for the sake of Christianity, offered to absolve him of the oath, and Balian agreed.

He sent word of his decision to Saladin at Ascalon via a deputation of burgesses, who rejected the sultan's proposals for a negotiated surrender of Jerusalem; however, Saladin arranged for an escort to accompany Maria, their children, and all their household to Tripoli. As the highest-ranking lord remaining in Jerusalem, according to the chronicler Ibn al-Athir, Balian was seen by the Muslims as holding a rank "more or less equal to that of a king."

Balian found the situation in Jerusalem dire. The city was filled with refugees fleeing Saladin's conquests, with more arriving daily. There were fewer than fourteen knights in the whole city, so he created sixty new knights from the ranks of the squires (knights in training) and burgesses. He prepared for the inevitable siege by storing food and money. The armies of Syria and Egypt assembled under Saladin, and after conquering Acre, Jaffa, and Caesarea (though he unsuccessfully besieged Tyre), the sultan arrived outside Jerusalem on September 20.

Siege
After a brief reconnoitre around the city, Saladin's army came to a rest before the Tower of David and the Damascus Gate. His archers continually pelted the ramparts with arrows. Siege towers/belfries were rolled up to the walls but were pushed back each time. For six days, skirmishes were fought with little result. Saladin's forces suffered heavy casualties after each assault. On September 26, Saladin moved his camp to a different part of the city, on the Mount of Olives where there was no major gate from which the crusaders could counter-attack. The walls were constantly pounded by the siege engines, catapults, mangonels, petraries, Greek fire, crossbows, and arrows. A portion of the wall was mined, and it collapsed on September 29. The crusaders were unable to push Saladin's troops back from the breach, but at the same time, the Muslims could not gain entrance to the city. Soon there were only a few dozen knights and a handful of remaining men-at-arms defending the wall, as no more men could be found even for the promise of an enormous fee.

The civilians were in great despair. According to a passage possibly written by Ernoul, a squire of Balian, in the Old French Continuation of William of Tyre, the clergy organized a barefoot procession around the walls, much as the clergy on the First Crusade had done outside the walls in 1099. At Mount Calvary, women cropped their children's hair, after immersing them chin-deep in basins of cold water. These penances were aimed at turning away God's wrath from the city, but "…Our Lord did not deign to hear the prayers or noise that was made in the city. For the stench of adultery, of disgusting extravagance and of sin against nature would not let their prayers rise to God."

At the end of September, Balian rode out with an envoy to meet with the sultan, offering surrender. Saladin told Balian that he had sworn to take the city by force, and would only accept an unconditional surrender. Saladin told Balian that Saladin's banner had been raised on the city wall, but his army was driven back. Balian threatened that the defenders would destroy the Muslim holy places, slaughter their own families and the 5000 Muslim slaves, and burn all the wealth and treasures of the Crusaders. Saladin, who wanted to take the city with as little bloodshed of his fellow Muslims as possible, insisted that the Crusaders were to unconditionally surrender but could leave by paying a ransom of ten dinars for men, five for women and two for children; those who couldn't pay would be enslaved. Balian told him that there were 20,000 in the city who could never pay that amount. Saladin proposed a total of 100,000 dinars to free all the 20,000 Crusaders who were unable to pay. Balian complained that the Christian authorities could never raise such a sum. He proposed that 7,000 of them would be freed for a sum of 30,000 dinars, and Saladin agreed.

Aftermath

On Balian's orders, the Crusaders surrendered the city to Saladin's army on October 2. The take-over of the city was relatively peaceful especially in contrast to the Crusader siege of the city in 1099. Balian paid 30,000 dinars for freeing 7,000 of those unable to pay from the treasury of the city. The large golden Christian cross that had been placed over the Dome of the Rock by the Crusaders was pulled down and all Muslim prisoners of war taken by the Crusaders were released by Saladin. According to the Kurdish scholar and historian Baha ad-Din ibn Shaddad, these numbered close to 3,000. Saladin allowed many of the noblewomen of the city to leave without paying any ransom. For example, Queen Maria was allowed to leave the city with her retinue and associates, as was Queen Sibylla. Saladin also granted Sibylla safe passage to visit her captive husband, King Guy, in Nablus. The native Christians were allowed to remain in the city while those of Crusader origin were allowed to leave Jerusalem for other lands along with their goods through a safe passage via Akko by paying a ransom of 10 dinars. Saladin's brother Al-Adil was moved by the sight and asked Saladin for 1,000 of them as a reward for his services. Saladin granted his wish and Al-Adil immediately released them all. Heraclius, upon seeing this, asked Saladin for some slaves to liberate. He was granted 700 while Balian was granted 500 and all of them were freed by them. All the aged people who could not pay the ransom were freed by orders of Saladin and allowed to leave the city. Saladin then proceeded to free 1,000 more captives upon request of Muzaffar al-Din Ibn Ali Kuchuk, who claimed they were from his hometown of Urfa. In order to control the departing population, Saladin ordered the gates of the city to be closed. At each gate of the city, a commander was placed to check the movement of the Crusaders and make sure only those who paid the ransom left the city. Saladin then assigned some of his officers the job of ensuring the safe arrival of the Crusaders in Christian lands. 15,000 of those who could not pay the ransom were sold into slavery. According to Imad ad-Din al-Isfahani, 7,000 of them were men and 8,000 were women and children.

On Saladin's orders, the ransomed inhabitants marched away in three columns accompanied by 50 cavalrymen of Saladin's army. The Knights Templar and Hospitallers led the first two, with Balian and the Patriarch leading the third. Balian joined his wife and family in the County of Tripoli. The refugees first reached Tyre, where only men who could fight were allowed to enter by Conrad of Montferrat. The remaining refugees went to the County of Tripoli, which was under Crusader control. They were denied entrance and robbed of their possessions by raiding parties from within the city. Most of the less affluent refugees went to Armenian and Antiochian territories and were later successful in gaining entrance into Antioch. The remaining refugees fled from Ascalon to Alexandria, where they were housed in makeshift stockades and received hospitable treatment from the city officials and elders. They then boarded Italian ships which arrived from Pisa, Genoa and Venice in March 1188. The captains of the ships at first refused to take the refugees since they were not being paid for them and did not have supplies for them. The governor of Alexandria, who had earlier taken the oars of the ships for payment of taxes, refused to grant sailing permits to the captains until they agreed. The latter then agreed to take the refugees along with them and were made to swear decent treatment and safe arrival of the refugees before they left.

After the surrender of the city, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was ordered to be closed for three days by Saladin while he considered what to do with it. Some of his advisers told him to destroy the Church in order to end all Christian interest in Jerusalem. Most of his advisers, however, told him to spare the Church, saying that Christian pilgrimages would continue anyway because of the sanctity of the place and also reminded him of the Caliph Umar, who allowed the Church to remain in Christian hands after conquering the city. Saladin ultimately decided not to destroy the church, saying that he had no intention to discourage Christian pilgrimages to the site; it was reopened after three days on his orders. The Frankish pilgrims were allowed to enter the church upon paying a fee. To solidify Muslim claims to Jerusalem, many holy sites, including the shrine known as Al-Aqsa, were ritually purified with rose water. Christian furnishings were removed from the mosque and it was fitted with oriental carpets. Its walls were illuminated with candelabras and text from the Quran. The Orthodox Christians and Syriacs were allowed to remain and to worship as they chose. The Copts, who were barred from entering Jerusalem by the Crusader kingdom of Jerusalem as they were considered heretics and atheists, were allowed to enter the city without paying any fees by Saladin as he considered them his subjects. The Coptic places of worship that were earlier taken over by the Crusaders were returned to the Coptic priests. The Copts were also allowed to visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and other Christian sites. The Abyssinian Christians were allowed to visit the holy places of Jerusalem without paying any fees.

The Byzantine emperor, Isaac Angelus, sent a message to Saladin congratulating him on taking the city, requesting him to convert all the churches in the city back to the Orthodox church and all Christian ceremonies to be performed according to the Greek Orthodox liturgy. His request was granted and the rights of other confessions were preserved. The local Christians were allowed to pray freely in their churches and the control of Christian affairs was handed over to the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople.

Saladin went on to capture a number of other castles that were still holding out against him, including Belvoir, Kerak, and Montreal, and returned to Tyre to besiege it for a second time.

Meanwhile, news of the disastrous defeat at Hattin was brought to Europe by Joscius, Archbishop of Tyre, as well as other pilgrims and travellers, while Saladin was conquering the rest of the kingdom throughout the summer of 1187. Plans were immediately made for a new crusade; on October 29, Pope Gregory VIII issued the bull Audita tremendi, even before hearing of the fall of Jerusalem. In England and France, the Saladin tithe was enacted in order to finance expenses. The Third Crusade did not get underway until 1189, in three separate contingents led by Richard I of England, Philip II of France, and Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor.

In popular culture

 * The final part of H.R. Haggard's novel The Brethren takes place during the siege.
 * Much of the film Kingdom of Heaven focuses on the siege.

title: Siege of Jerusalem (1187)