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Duke (G.I. Joe)

Duke is a fictional character from the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero toyline, comic books, and animated series. He is the G.I. Joe Team's First Sergeant, and debuted in 1983. The character is also featured in both the G.I. Joe: Sigma 6 animated series and comic books. Channing Tatum portrays Duke in the 2009 live-action film, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, and the 2013 sequel G.I. Joe: Retaliation.

Profile
Duke is the code name of First Sergeant Conrad S. Hauser, and was born in St. Louis, Missouri. He is a skilled polyglot, being fluent in English, French and German, as well as several Southeast Asian languages. He was at the top of his class at Fort Benning, attended U.S. Army Special Language school, has undergone Special Forces training, and worked with South Vietnamese tribesmen. He was also an instructor in four different Special Forces schools. Despite his accomplishments, he has repeatedly turned down any officer commissions offered to him. He believes a commander's place is with his troops, not behind the battle lines.

Duke is field commander and second-in-command of the G.I. Joe team after Hawk. In this role, he has served as a rugged leader by example, a precise giver of orders, a source of history and knowledge, and a fair settler of disputes. As the team has fluctuated in size and structure over the years, Duke has supervised the training of the non-commissioned officers in G.I. Joe, as well as leading special units such as Tiger Force and Star Brigade.

After the G.I. Joe Team disbanded, Duke disappeared. It was later learned that he had been performing Black Ops for a secret government agency, his missions of which are still highly classified. One such mission was to locate and detain the mercenary Major Bludd, which led to evidence that Cobra Commander had returned, and hastened the reinstatement of G.I. Joe. Duke returned to active duty in G.I. Joe when the team was reinstated, though his maverick and dangerous behavior took some of his longtime colleagues by surprise, and caused him to relinquish his position as field commander for a more behind-the-scenes advisory role.

Vintage/Modern
Duke was one of the first mail-away figures created in 1983 for the G.I. Joe 3 3/4" action figure line of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero. He was later released as a carded figure in 1984, as part of the third series. The figure was recolored and released as the leader of the "Tiger Force" line in 1988.

A new version of Duke was released in 1992. Another version was released as part of the Battle Corps line in 1993. New versions of Duke were also released in 1993 and 1994, as commander of the Star Brigade line.

A version of Duke with no accessories came with the Built to Rule Armadillo Assault, which followed the G.I. Joe: Spy Troops story line. The forearms and the calves of the figure sported places where blocks could be attached. The same figure was recolored and released in 2005 with the Built to Rule Freedom Defense Outpost.

Hall of Fame
In response to the high demand from nostalgic collectors of the vintage era G.I. Joe action figures, Hasbro introduced the G.I. Joe: Hall of Fame era of 12" action figures in 1991. Duke was the first 12" (30 cm) action figure produced in the Hasbro G.I. Joe line since 1978.

The first 12" Duke was a Target Stores exclusive. The popularity of the figure convinced Hasbro to unleash a new series of 12" G.I. Joe action figures, known as the Hall of Fame series. These new 12" figures were based on the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero series of 3.75" action figure characters. The 12" Duke had a headsculpt that was never used again for any other G.I. Joe figure, and was dressed for Desert Storm combat, with a backpack, commemorative stand, a light-up weapon with sound effects, grenades, and a Beretta handgun and holster.

25th anniversary
Duke was released in a box packed with Snake Eyes, Scarlett, Roadblock, and Gung-Ho, created from an entirely new mold that was based heavily on the original design. He was also released in several single packs (with one including his Jet Pack featured in the opening credits of G.I. Joe: The Movie), comic packs, movie packs (packaged with the greatest battles DVD), and multi-packs. Duke was one of the only G.I. Joe figures to be released in a special package for the G.I. Joe: Resolute animated series.

The Rise of Cobra
To coincide with the launch of the movie G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Hasbro released at least two figures in 2009 based on the Duke movie character. For both releases, he is listed as Conrad "Duke" Hauser. The first, classified as "Desert Ambush", features Duke in a desert camouflage uniform. The second, classified as "Reactive Impact Armor", features him in the movie style black uniform. Two versions of Duke were also released as part of "The Pursuit of Cobra" line in 2010, with non-actor based heads.

30th Anniversary
The G.I. Joe: Renegades version of Duke was released as an action figure in 2011, as part of the 30th Anniversary line. Three versions of Duke were released in 2012, the last one listed again as Conrad "Duke" Hauser to tie in with the movie G.I. Joe: Retaliation.

G.I. Joe Classified Series
Q2 of 2020 sees the release of G.I. Joe Classified Series, a new line of highly articulated 6-inch scale action figures that includes prominent characters like Duke. This line features premium deco, detailing, articulation, and classic design updated to bring the classic characters into the modern era, plus accessories inspired by each character’s rich history.

Marvel Comics
In the Marvel Comics G.I. Joe series, Duke first appears in issue #22. He and Roadblock act as security for the funeral of General Flagg, shooting down an attacking Rattler plane. Duke is added to the G.I. Joe team line-up, to help straighten the team out and become the new field commander. His first mission is surveillance of the Baroness and Major Bludd at the Bern Institute of Reconstructive Surgery in Switzerland. A major battle results in the capture of Cobra Commander. Duke leads an effort to keep Cobra Commander prisoner in a mountain base. However, the Cobra ninja Storm Shadow rescues the Commander.

Duke then traveled down to Florida, where he and Roadblock met up with Cutter and Deep Six, taking the W.H.A.L.E. hovercraft and attacking Zartan's swamp shack hideout in the Florida Everglades. After Destro and Firefly steal the W.H.A.L.E., Duke and Wild Bill take the Dragonfly copter to go after Destro and recover the vehicle. In the opening ceremony of the new Pit headquarters, Hawk chooses Duke as the new field commander and the top sergeant of the G.I. Joe team. His next field mission is to investigate a suspected Cobra undercover agent on Staten Island. The agent escapes, but leaves behind clues to a secret Cobra operation in the Gulf of Mexico. Duke leads an assault team on the newly formed Cobra Island, but is forced to withdraw when the island is officially recognized as a sovereign state.

Duke takes part in the invasion of the Cobra-controlled town of Springfield, as the leader of the Security Team. He also plays second-in-command to Hawk during the Cobra Civil War. After that mission, Duke spends some time training new members of the Joe team. His next mission involves leading a team to push Cobra out of Trucial Abysmia, but intelligence vastly underestimates Cobra's presence there. Duke's squad is captured, and a misinterpreted order leads to several men being shot dead by a S.A.W. Viper. Doc, Heavy Metal, Thunder, and Crankcase are slain immediately. The Viper is wounded, and the survivors escape in a Cobra Rage tank. It is destroyed, killing Crazylegs, Breaker, and Quick Kick. Duke and the other two survivors, Cross-Country and Lt. Falcon, make it back to friendly lines safely.

Duke would recover from that experience and lead the defense of the Joe headquarters, The Pit, against Cobra. He also led a covert mission to Cobra Island, to oust control of it by Firefly and the Red Ninjas. As leader of Star Brigade, Duke teamed up with the Oktober Guard to destroy an asteroid threatening Earth. He would continue working with G.I. Joe until its disbandment.

In an interview in ToyFare magazine, G.I. Joe comic book writer Larry Hama admitted he could never get a handle on Duke. According to Hama, military comic book conventions maintain that the commanding officer is the "good cop" and the first sergeant is the "bad cop," and Duke, as first sergeant, never really fit the "bad cop" mold.

Devil's Due
After the disbandment, Duke went to take on black ops assignments for a secret government agency for a few years. It was during one of his missions that he discovers Cobra's attempt to make a comeback. He uses this information to help rally the effort to have G.I. Joe reinstated. By this time, Duke had a different edge to him, taking more risks and sometimes putting teammates in danger.

Duke returns as the team's field commander, leading a team to defend Washington D.C. when Cobra threatens the world with nanomites. Later, Flint and the Baroness are both kidnapped by the same organization in Czechoslovakia. Destro and Duke arrange for G.I. Joe, Cobra and the Oktober Guard to team up, in order to rescue them. When Hawk is incapacitated in a Cobra assassination attempt, Duke takes up his injured mentor's causes, fighting the corrupt Jugglers while holding the team together in the wake of the loss of their leader.

America's Elite
The team is reorganized in the G.I. Joe: America's Elite series. Duke disappears, going off on his own mission to locate Cobra Commander. During his search, he is captured by a group of B.A.T.s under the control of a Crimson Guardsman, who also had a grudge against Cobra Commander and wished to locate him. Duke frees himself, and after much torture, kills the Guardsman and saves Washington D.C. from being nuked. Civilians then treat his wounds and help him return home. Duke also assists his colleagues in defending their Yellowstone base from enemy infiltration.

Following the invasion of The Rock, General Rey goes on a sabbatical to fill in some of the holes in his memory, and Duke accompanies him because he does not trust his intentions. They discover that Zandar was involved, and travel to the Florida Everglades, where they learn that one of Zandar's aliases was hired to broker a deal between The Coil and the Jugglers. This leads them to General Rey's psychiatrist Dr. Scott Stevens, who reveals that General Rey is a clone of Serpentor. Dr. Stevens is then revealed to be Cobra hypnotist Crystal Ball, who has brainwashed General Rey, and commands him to kill Duke. General Rey breaks free from Crystal Ball's control with Duke's help.

Later, Duke deals with his father, a protester who dislikes the military. During a talk in his father's home, Cobra agent Interrogator captures Duke and tries to obtain information on G.I. Joe's Middle East operations. After being rescued by Roadblock, Duke leads battles against The Plague in both the Middle East and in New York during "World War III".

Hasbro later announced that all stories published by Devil's Due Publishing are no longer considered canonical, and are now considered an alternate continuity.

IDW Publications
In this continuity, Duke has been promoted to colonel after General Hawk is dismissed and is now the leader of the G.I. Joe team.

G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers II
A scientific accident eventually sends a small group of Joe and Cobra soldiers twenty years into the future. Older Duke is there, having lost all but his right arm. He leads the last remnants of human resistance against Shockwave's army. This Duke has no consideration for what the time travelers has to say and this narrow thinking threatens the entire timestream.

G.I. Joe Reloaded
In this series, Duke is a double agent working for Cobra, due to his distress over the U.S. government's willingness to create destructive weaponry. In the final issue, he confronts Scarlett in a sewer system. She gains the upper hand and kills him with a knife to the back.

In the mirror universe created by Fun Publications, Duke's counterpart is Secretary of Defense Conrad Hauser, serving in the administration of U.S. President Joe Colton. In the story "Eye in the Sky", Hauser had to report to the president on the loss of an orbital defense satellite to the evil alien robots called the Autobots, and its eventual destruction thanks to the efforts of the heroic Decepticons.

A Real American Hero
In the first G.I. Joe miniseries The MASS Device, Duke is the field leader of G.I. Joe, under the command of General Flagg. Though the comic books and file cards say Duke is from St. Louis, Missouri, The MASS Device miniseries said that Duke was from Iowa. By the beginning of the first season of G.I. Joe, the role of commanding officer frequently alternated between Duke and Flint, the warrant officer who was introduced in The Revenge of Cobra miniseries. This was due in part to the series writers trying to balance the regulation of characters, based on the prominence of their action figures. In the first-season episode "The Synthoid Conspiracy", Duke was taken prisoner by Cobra and replaced with a synthetic doppelgänger known as a synthoid, in an attempt to get the G.I. Joe team disbanded permanently.

In the second season, Hawk replaces Duke as commander of G.I. Joe. Duke becomes second-in-command, while Flint is the third man down. Duke also appears briefly alongside Torpedo in one of the series' public service announcements about the dangers of swimming alone. Duke was voiced by Michael Bell.

G.I. Joe: The Movie
In G.I. Joe: The Movie, Duke tests the Broadcast Energy Transmitter (B.E.T.) in the Himalayas. He is responsible for foiling Cobra's first attempt to take over the B.E.T. by using it against Cobra and defeating Serpentor. Duke reprimands Lt. Falcon for neglecting his guard duty, which allows the captured Serpentor to escape with the aid of Cobra-La and the Dreadnoks. However, Duke later spares Falcon from a harsh punishment at a court martial, revealing he is the older half brother of Falcon. In Cobra's second attempt to obtain the BET machine, Duke is critically wounded while protecting Falcon when Serpentor impales him in battle. Scarlett holds him as he asks Falcon to become a better soldier before slipping into a coma. This makes the second time that Duke has lapsed into a coma - the first being in "The Traitor" two-part story, where his condition prevents him from letting the other Joes in on Dusty's triple-agent status.

Duke's original fate in the movie was to die at the hands of Serpentor. However, due to fan backlash regarding the death of the Autobot leader Optimus Prime in The Transformers: The Movie, Hasbro asked for a re-edit, so Duke would merely fall into a coma following Serpentor's venomous attack, and a later edit added dialogue near the end of the movie, indicating Duke recovered from his injuries.

Spy Troops and Valor vs. Venom
Duke appeared in the direct-to-video CGI animated movies G.I. Joe: Spy Troops and G.I. Joe: Valor vs. Venom, voiced by John Payne.

Sigma 6
In G.I. Joe: Sigma 6, Duke is the leader of the G.I. Joe team. He has retained much of his personality from the A Real American Hero series. albeit looking much younger and with a new haircut. One other physical differentiation of this Duke from previous continuities, is the scar on his right cheek. He is still willing to go into the most dangerous situations, rather than send a member of his team to do it. This Duke is much more comfortable being the military man than engaging in social situations, as seen in the first-season episode "Vacation".

Resolute
Duke appeared in G.I. Joe: Resolute, in which he was voiced by Steve Blum. He and the other Joes learn of Cobra Commander's latest scheme to take over the world with a particle superweapon, sending his various underlings across the globe to ensure its success. In the course of the storyline, Duke presents Scarlett with an ultimatum, to go with Snake Eyes or to remain with him, and she chooses to be with Duke. Later on while on a mission in Siberia, Duke gets injured fighting Zartan and orders Scarlett to leave him. She refuses and replies: "Oh, to hell with your orders! It's taken me years to sort out in my head what I want - who I want - and today I did. I'm staying with you, for all the time I have left. And if that's only six minutes, then damn it, I'm spending my last six minutes with you!" After the duo are picked up by Ripcord, Duke makes a vow to kill Cobra Commander for his actions over the course of the story, and leads the assault on the Cobra base in Springfield. He manages to get to the control room for the weapon, where the Commander gloats behind a bunker window that the weapon can't be stopped from firing on Washington D.C. Duke instead redirects the weapon to fire at the Springfield base, and though the area is decimated and the Joes evacuated, a field report at the end of the miniseries reveals in a return to the site, Duke found the bunker that Cobra Commander took shelter in to be empty.

Renegades
In G.I. Joe: Renegades, Duke is a younger, and far more aggressive version than his other incarnations. Duke is a member of command staff, and makes the decision to expose the Cobra mega-corporation's true basis at cost, which results in them being branded as criminals following the destruction of Cobra Pharmaceuticals. He is also humble and selfless; during training Duke saves a fellow cadet who had stepped on a pressure-activated land mine, with Duke taking the small blunt of the blast scarring his back in the process. Duke also turns down an accommodation and a medal ceremony.

In the two-part episode "Homecoming," a flashback revealed that Duke was on a football team in his youth and went up against the football team that Flint was a part of. A play that Flint did ended up breaking Duke's leg costing him his college scholarship. A later encounter with Flint had Duke being given the offer to join the military. When he was assigned to work with Stalker to thwart a weapons trade held by M.A.R.S. Industries, Duke ended up disobeying orders when a M.A.R.S. Operative shoots down a helicopter that Lady Jaye was on and ended up saving her and the pilot.

In the present, Duke splinters from the others when his parents Max and Connie are captured. During that time, he did have some problems with his brother Vince who was shown displeased with what happened at Cobra Pharmaceuticals and stated that their parents are in doubt about what happened. After Duke saves his parents and reunites with the other Joes, they arrive at the Hauser household where Connie wanted to treat them to a meal. Unfortunately, Vince had called Flint after he had warned Duke to stay away. Duke ends up defending his actions towards the other Joes and tells Flint upon the group's arrest to see that their families are protected.

In the season finale, he obtains his trademark scar across his right eye as a result of a fight with Cobra Commander.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
Channing Tatum portrays Duke in the 2009 film G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. He is the primary protagonist and is part of General Hawk's team. Contrary to his original back-story, he is a newcomer to the G.I. Joe team; all Joe rookies are already established, well-trained soldiers. Also in the 2009 film, Duke identifies himself as a Captain, while conspicuously wearing the rank of Major (Army) or Lt. Commander (Navy), although all versions of his action figure have him graded at Major/O-4. There is no reference in the film to him ever performing duties as a First Sergeant. He was also engaged to marry Ana Lewis (who would end up becoming the Baroness), but left her at the altar because of guilt due to the apparent death of Ana's brother, Rex Lewis.

In the beginning of the film, Duke and Ripcord lead a convoy to deliver a case of nanomite warheads to the United Nations and North Atlantic Treaty Organization. They are ambushed by the soldiers led by the Baroness, whom Duke recognizes as his ex-fiancée, and are saved by a group of Joes. They take the warheads to The Pit. Duke reveals how he knows the Baroness, and through training, he becomes a member of the G.I. Joe team. During Cobra's infiltration of the Pit, Duke asks the Baroness to drop the case of warheads that she came for, and is unable to shoot her. Cobra soon launches an attack on the Joes, and the Baroness steals the warheads.

The Joes pursue the Baroness and Storm Shadow in Paris. Duke manages to shut down a warhead fired by Storm Shadow before the nanomites could spread through the city, but not before it destroys the Eiffel Tower, and is captured. He unsuccessfully tries to convince the Baroness to help him, also apologizing for his failure to protect Rex and abandoning her. He is taken to the laboratory of a masked man called The Doctor, who reveals he is Rex Lewis and that he has been controlling Ana with nanomites. The Doctor begins a process to turn Duke into a Neo-Viper, but Baroness comes to her senses and frees Duke. M.A.R.S. Industries leader James McCullen tries to kill him with a flamethrower, but Duke shoots it, disfiguring McCullen's face in the explosion. Duke and the Baroness then pursue the Doctor and McCullen, who later become Cobra Commander and Destro respectively. Along with the other Joes, they help defeat and imprison them. While Baroness waits for her nanomites to be removed, Duke and her share a kiss.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation
Tatum returns as Duke in the sequel, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, in which the character has become a captain and the leader of tactical operations and has been awarded his own team of Joes. In one mission, he leads the team to find a North Korean defector in the Korean Demilitarized Zone. Duke has also become friends with his second-in-command Roadblock; the two later play video games at the latter's house. Shortly after, Duke and the Joes are sent to Pakistan to retrieve nuclear warheads when the country is in a civil war. After saving Flint, Duke is killed off early in the film via an airstrike ordered by Zartan (who was masquerading as the President of the United States). Zartan is exposed and killed by Storm Shadow, Cobra Commander escapes, and G.I. Joe is reinstated. Roadblock vows to go after Cobra Commander and avenge Duke.

Director Jon M. Chu had stated that Duke may return in the third film, but this did not happen.

Video games
Duke is one of the featured characters in the 1985 G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero computer game.

Duke is featured as a playable character in the 1991 G.I. Joe video game created for the Nintendo Entertainment System. He is also featured as a playable character in the 1992 game G.I. Joe: The Atlantis Factor, and in the G.I. Joe arcade game.

Duke appears as a playable character in the video game G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and G.I. Joe: Operation Blackout.

Other media

 * Duke appeared in the Robot Chicken episode "More Blood, More Chocolate", voiced by Skeet Ulrich. In the "Inside the Battlefield: The Weather Dominator" segment, it is mentioned that he and Snake Eyes were captured by Cobra and forced to battle each other. A recurring gag in that segment is that Duke can't understand what Snake Eyes wrote on the Etch A Sketch. In "PS: Yes In That Way", Duke introduces the G.I. Joe team to the newest recruit named Calvin, and ends up nicknaming him "Fumbles" for his clumsiness. After another of Calvin's clumsy moments during the introduction, Duke makes "Fumbles" the team's janitor. When Calvin defects to Cobra and snipes the G.I. Joe team, Calvin only leaves Duke alive. In "The Ramblings of Maurice," he and the G.I. Joe members award Roadblock with a chocolate statue. After Junkyard eats the chocolate statue and dies, Duke speaks at Junkyard's funeral, and has Junkyard's name added to the Wall of Fallen Heroes. Amazed that Junkyard was the only name on the list, he bets that Cobra's Wall of Fallen Villains is full of names.
 * Duke's romantic inclinations are touched on in the non-fiction paperback Saturday Morning Fever.
 * Michael Bell reprises his role of Duke in the Community episode "G.I. Jeff."

title: Duke (G.I. Joe)


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Lanka Sama Samaja Party (Revolutionary)

Lanka Sama Samaja Party (Revolutionary) was a Trotskyist political party in Sri Lanka, formed in 1964 when the Lanka Sama Samaja Party was expelled from the Fourth International. LSSP(R) was constituted by the ideological hardliners who opposed LSSP joining the national government and wanted to preserve the bonds to the Fourth International. The United Secretariat recognised it as the Sri Lanka section of the Fourth International.

The founders of LSSP(R) had 14 LSSP Central Committee members, and two members of parliament, Edmund Samarakkody and Meryl Fernando. Other significant leaders were V. Karalasingham and P. Bala Tampoe.

LSSP(R) later disintegrated in internal strife. A source of discontent was the issue of parliamentary tactics. On December 3, 1964, the parliamentary fraction of LSSP(R) voted alongside the right-wing United National Party and dissidents of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party for an amendment to second throne speech of the SLFP-led government. The amendment was passed and the government defeated. The action of the LSSP(R) parliamentarians made V. Karalasingham and the Sakthi fraction leave LSSP(R) and return to the LSSP.

In 1966 Samarakkody started a left opposition against Bala Tampoe and the rest of the leadership. Samarakkody and his supporters left the LSSP(R) following a Special Conference (18–19 April 1968) and formed the Revolutionary Samasamaja Party. The 1969 World Congress of the Fourth International appointed a Ceylon Commission to discuss with both Samarakkody's group and the LSSP (R), but was unable to resolve the differences.

A Healyite splinter group, formed amongst students in 1968, is now called the Socialist Equality Party.

LSSP(R) published Fight (around 1966) and Samasamajist (1968-1970) in English.

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

title: Lanka Sama Samaja Party (Revolutionary)


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SGroup European Universities' Network

The SGroup - Universities in Europe network (SGroup), previously called Santander, is a non-profit association of universities incorporated in Spain. It was founded in 1992.

Members

 * Armenia
 * Yerevan State Medical University – Associate Member

 * Australia
 * La Trobe University

 * Belgium
 * Ghent University
 * University of Liège

 * Bosnia and Herzegovina
 * University of Sarajevo

 * China
 * Shanghai International Studies University – Associate Member

 * Colombia
 * University of Los Andes – Associate Member

 * Croatia
 * University of Split

 * Cyprus
 * University of Cyprus

 * Czech Republic
 * University of Ostrava

 * Finland
 * Tampere University

 * France
 * Université Grenoble Alpes
 * University of Le Havre
 * University of Lille
 * University of Rouen

 * Germany
 * Justus Liebig University in Giessen
 * University of Bayreuth

 * Greece
 * University of Patras

 * Hungary
 * University of Szeged

 * Italy
 * Sapienza University of Rome
 * University of Catania
 * University of Messina
 * University of Trieste

 * Malta
 * University of Malta

 * Netherlands
 * Eindhoven University of Technology

 * Norway
 * NTNU Trondheim

 * Poland
 * Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań
 * Silesian University of Technology
 * University of Szczecin

 * Portugal
 * University of Minho
 * University of Porto

 * Romania
 * Babeş-Bolyai University

 * Spain
 * Polytechnic University of Valencia
 * Rovira i Virgili University
 * University of Cantabria
 * University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
 * University of León
 * University of Valladolid

 * Sweden
 * Malmö University
 * University of Gothenburg

 * United Kingdom
 * University of Kent
 * University of Westminster

title: SGroup European Universities' Network


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O Pioneers!

O Pioneers! is a 1913 novel by American author Willa Cather, written while she was living in New York. It was her second published novel. The title is a reference to a poem by Walt Whitman entitled "Pioneers! O Pioneers!" from Leaves of Grass (1855).

Plot introduction
O Pioneers! tells the story of the Bergsons, a family of Swedish-American immigrants in the farm country near the fictional town of Hanover, Nebraska, at the turn of the 20th century. The main character, Alexandra Bergson, inherits the family farmland when her father dies, and she devotes her life to making the farm a viable enterprise at a time when many other immigrant families are giving up and leaving the prairie. The novel is also concerned with two romantic relationships, one between Alexandra and family friend Carl Linstrum and the other between Alexandra's brother Emil and the married Marie Shabata.

Synopsis
The book is divided into five parts, each of which has numerous chapters.

Part I – The Wild Land
On a windy January day in Hanover, Nebraska, Alexandra Bergson is with her five-year-old brother Emil, whose little kitten has climbed a telegraph pole and is afraid to come down. Alexandra asks her neighbor and friend Carl Linstrum to retrieve the kitten. Later, Alexandra finds Emil in the general store with Marie Tovesky. They are playing with the kitten. Marie lives in Omaha and is visiting her uncle Joe Tovesky.

Alexandra's father is dying, and it is his wish that she run the farm after he is gone. Alexandra and her brothers Oscar and Lou later visit Ivar, known as Crazy Ivar because of his unorthodox views. For instance, he sleeps in a hammock, believes in killing no living thing and goes barefoot summer and winter. But he is known for healing sick animals. Alexandra is concerned about their hogs as the hogs of many of their neighbors are dying. Crazy Ivar advises her to keep their hogs clean rather than letting them live in filth and to give them fresh, clean water and good food. This simply confirms Oscar's and Lou's opinion that Ivar deserves the name Crazy Ivar. Alexandra, however, starts making plans for where she will relocate the hogs.

After years of crop failure, many of the Bergson's neighbors are selling out, even if it means taking a loss. Then they learn the Linstrums have also decided to leave. Oscar and Lou want to leave too, but neither their mother nor Alexandra will. After visiting villages downwards to see how they are getting on, Alexandra talks her brothers into mortgaging the farm to buy more land, in hopes of ending up as rich landowners.

Part II – Neighboring Fields
Sixteen years later, the farms are now prosperous. Alexandra and her brothers have divided up their inheritance, and Emil has just returned from college. The Linstrum farm has failed, and Marie, now married to Frank Shabata, has bought it. That same day, the Bergsons are surprised by a visit from Carl Linstrum, whom they have not seen for thirteen years. [Note: Carl says it has been sixteen years, but this is a textual error. John Bergson died sixteen years earlier, and Carl's family left during the drought that occurred three years later.] Having failed at a job in Chicago, he is on his way to Alaska, but decides to stay with Alexandra for a while. Carl notices the growing flirtatious relationship between Emil and Marie. Lou and Oscar suspect that Carl wants to marry Alexandra, and are resentful at the idea that Carl might end up owning Alexandra's share of the farm, which they still view as belonging to them and which would otherwise be inherited by their children. This causes problems between Alexandra and her brothers, and they stop speaking to each other. Carl, recognizing a problem, decides to leave for Alaska. At the same time, Emil announces he is leaving to travel through Mexico. Alexandra is left alone.

Part III – Winter Memories
Winter has settled down over the Divide again; the season in which Nature recuperates, in which she sinks to sleep between the fruitfulness of autumn and the passion of spring. The birds have gone. The teeming life that goes on down in the long grass is exterminated. The prairie dog keeps his hole. The rabbits run shivering from one frozen garden patch to another and are hard put to it to find frost-bitten cabbage stalks. At night the coyotes roam the wintry waste, howling for food. The variegated fields are all one color now; the pastures, the stubble, the roads, and the sky are the same leaden gray. The hedgerows and trees are scarcely perceptible against the bare earth, whose slaty hue they have taken on. The ground is frozen so hard that it bruises the foot to walk on the roads or in the plowed fields. It is like an iron country, and the spirit is oppressed by its rigor and melancholy. One could easily believe that in that dead landscape the germs of life and fruitfulness were extinct forever. Alexandra spends the winter alone, except for occasional visits from Marie, whom she visits with Mrs. Lee, Lou's mother-in-law. She also has an increased number of mysterious dreams she has had since girlhood. These dreams are about a strong, god-like male figure who carries her over the fields.

Part IV – The White Mulberry Tree
Emil returns from Mexico City. His best friend, Amédée, is now married with a young son. At a fair at the French church, Emil and Marie kiss for the first time. They later confess their illicit love, and Emil determines to leave for law school in Michigan. Before he leaves, Amédée dies from a ruptured appendix, and as a result both Emil and Marie realize what they value most. Before leaving for Michigan, Emil stops by Marie's farm to say one last goodbye, and they fall into a passionate embrace beneath the white mulberry tree. They stay there for several hours, until Marie's husband, Frank, finds them and shoots them in a drunken rage. He flees to Omaha, where he later turns himself in for the crime. Ivar discovers Emil's abandoned horse, leading him to search for the boy and discover the bodies.

Part V – Alexandra
After Emil's death Alexandra is distraught, in shock, and slightly dazed. She goes off in a rainstorm. Ivar goes looking for her and brings her back home, where she sleeps fitfully and dreams about death. She then decides to visit Frank in Lincoln where he is incarcerated. While in town she walks by Emil's university campus, comes upon a polite young man who reminds her of Emil, and feels better. The next day she talks to Frank in prison. He is bedraggled and can barely speak properly, and she promises to do what she can to see him released; she bears no ill will toward him. She then receives a telegram from Carl, telling her that he is back. They decide to marry, unconcerned with the approval of her brothers.

Characters

 * Alexandra Bergson: the main character of the book. A strong-willed and intelligent woman. She was given the farm by her father John Bergson and over the next 16 years makes it very prosperous. She is about 40 years old in the second part of the book.
 * Emil Bergson: the youngest child of John Bergson and Alexandra's mother. An intelligent, handsome, and athletic person. A university graduate.  Tragically, he is in love with the unhappily married Marie Shabata. He leaves for Mexico to try to escape his temptation for Marie, but after a year he cannot resist and returns.
 * Ivar: In the first part of the novel, he lives in a remote plot of land in Nebraska that is difficult to get to. Most of his neighbors think he is crazy. He doesn't attend church, but reads the Swedish Bible and has a mystic quality about him. He also has a great affinity for animals, especially birds. After he fails to "prove up" on his homestead, Alexandra takes him in as a servant to save him from being sent to a lunatic asylum.
 * Carl Linstrum: Alexandra's close childhood friend. As an adult, her suitor and husband.
 * Signa: the youngest of Alexandra's Swedish-born servants, her favorite.
 * Barney Flinn: Alexandra's foreman.
 * Mrs. Hiller: a neighbor.
 * Nelse Jensen: Signa's suitor, then husband.
 * Annie Lee: Lou's wife's maiden name.
 * Mrs. Lee: Lou's mother-in-law. She clings to old ways, although her daughter Annie and son-in-law Lou try to force her to become modern and refined. One of Alexandra's friends.
 * Milly: Annie's 15-year-old daughter. She plays the organ and the piano (which Alexandra bought for her).
 * Stella: Annie's younger daughter.
 * Marie Tovesky Shabata: A charming female neighbor who has known the Bergsons since childhood. She is warm towards everyone without prejudice or favor, which infuriates her husband Frank, as well as Emil, who harbors romantic feelings for her despite her marriage.
 * Frank Shabata: Marie's husband. He has a short temper and does not get along with most of his neighbors. He kills his wife Marie and her lover Emil in a drunken rage, and is sent to prison in Lincoln.
 * Albert Tovesky: Marie's father; an adviser in Omaha. He does not approve of her husband Frank and discouraged her choice to marry him.
 * Amédée Chevalier: a French-American farmer and lifelong friend of Emil.
 * Angélique Chevalier: Amédée's wife.
 * Father Duchesne: the French priest.
 * Raoul Marcel: a good friend to Emil
 * Moses Marcel: Raoul's father.
 * Mr. Schwartz: the warden at the prison where Frank is being kept.

Literary

 * The epigraph is taken from the Polish national epic Pan Tadeusz by Adam Mickiewicz.
 * Marie is first described as being dressed as a Kate Greenaway character would be.
 * In the first chapter, the children are said to be reading works by Hans Christian Andersen and The Swiss Family Robinson.
 * In the fourth chapter, Alexandra is said to like to read Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poetry.
 * Many copies of the book are accompanied by the poem "Pioneers! O Pioneers!" by Walt Whitman, which is said to be where the title comes from.
 * The romance between Emil and Marie and their death alludes to the similarly tragic lovers Pyramus and Thisbe, from Ovid's book Metamorphoses. Clear evidence of this occurs on page 173 where "the white mulberries...were covered with a dark stain", directly corresponding to Ovid: nam color in pomo est.

Historical

 * In the first chapter of Part II, Emil and Marie mention John Huss.
 * In the first chapter of Part II, Emil's letters are said to mention Porfirio Díaz.
 * In the second chapter of Part II, Lou mentions William Jennings Bryan.

Literary significance
In a 1921 interview for Bookman, Willa Cather said, "I decided not to 'write' at all, – simply to give myself up to the pleasure of recapturing in memory people and places I'd forgotten."

Literary criticism
Since its publication, scholars have written about Cather’s novel O Pioneers! and analyzed the characteristics of its content. They have done so by using different points of view or literary lenses that guide their understanding of the text and how they examine each of its parts.

One example of some literary criticism of the novel is by Helen Fiddyment Levy. Their work is called “Damming the Stream: Willa Cather” and they examine multiple works of Cather’s—including O Pioneers!—in regard to how they communicate the American landscape and show female empowerment. Concerning O Pioneers! specifically, Levy considers how Cather invokes the Nebraskan environment through the story of the main character Alexandra. Levy goes further to explain how Alexandra is unlike other women of the time and is empowered to be more. They state this is evident in not only her appearance but in other things like her lack of marriage status and her intelligence over men like her brothers.

Another example includes Bruce Baker II’s “Nebraska Regionalism in Selected Works of Willa Cather”. Like the other example, this article critiques a multitude of Cather’s works. Baker, however, analyzes O Pioneers! and Cather’s other works based on how they discuss and depict the Nebraskan landscape in their text. Regarding O Pioneers! specifically, they state from the very beginning that the landscape is depicted as hard to work and unforgiving. When Baker brings Alexandra into the discussion, her character is also analyzed according to how she relates to the land and has cultivated her family’s farm to be successful. Even as they close their discussion on O Pioneers! to discuss another work of Cather's, their closing remark involves commenting on the symbolism of the landscape of Nebraska and how its meaning can transcend to anyone and anything.

Background
Cather had moved to New York, and wrote the novel in part while living in Cherry Valley with Isabelle McClung. She completed it at the McClungs' home in Pittsburgh.

title: O Pioneers!


text:
Felice Nazzaro

Felice Nazzaro (4 December 1881 – 21 March 1940) was an Italian racecar driver, a native of Turin. He won the Kaiserpreis in 1907 as well as the French Grand Prix in 1907 and 1922 and Targa Florio in 1907, and 1913. His European wins in 1907 resulted in an invitation to compete in the 1908 American Grand Prize in Savannah, Georgia, where he finished third. He returned to the United States for the 1910 event but a damaged rear axle forced him out of the race. It was his victory in the 1908 Circuito di Bologna that inspired a young Enzo Ferrari to become a racing driver.

In 1911 he founded his own manufacturing company in Turin, Automobili Nazzaro, which produced circa 490 vehicles in total and won both the 1913 and 1920 Targa Florios, plus the 1914 Coppa Florio.

He continued racing until 1929 at the age of 48, and died in Turin in 1940 after a long illness at the age of 58.

title: Felice Nazzaro


text:
Minus (record label)

Minus or M-nus is a recording label based in Berlin, Germany and Windsor, Canada. It was created in 1998 by Richie Hawtin when Plus 8, a label previously created by Hawtin, was put on hold. By 2005, M-nus was releasing 2 to 3 CDs and 12 to 14 records per year.

As Hawtin said of the scaling down to a smaller label, "You learn better who you are, what you are, and how to better present that and present it creatively. With Minus, we wanted to slow it down and try new things…" In 2011 Hawtin's music technology company Liine released Remiix Minus, a remix-app for iOS which enables fans to recombine loops and samples from Minus artists.

Label roster

 * Actual Jakshun
 * Manclossi Deboroner
 * Algoritmo, also known as  Plans Ospina
 * Asher Perkins
 * Barem
 * Berg Nixon, also known as Ryan Crosson
 * Click Box
 * DJ Minx
 * Fabrizio Maurizi
 * Gaiser
 * Gavin Lynch, also known as Matador
 * Hobo
 * I. A. Bericochea
 * Joop Junior
 * JPLS
 * Justin James
 * Loco Dice
 * Marco Carola
 * Mathew Jonson
 * Matthew Dear (also known as Audion and False)
 * Niederflur
 * Paco Osuna
 * Richie Hawtin, also recording as Plastikman
 * Theorem (also known as Dale Lawrence)
 * Thomas Brinkman
 * Tractile - (Joel Boychuk and Adam Young)
 * Whyt Noyz - also known as David Sidley

title: Minus (record label)


text:
Talk:History of Hanover (region)

Infobox
It's good that the flag and the arms were added. But I wonder about the map -- it shows the location of the City of Hanover (not the state) in a current map (not from before 1946, when Hanover still existed). I think it causes more confusion than it helps. Comments? --Chl 14:38, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

 * I added the map to be in line with other infoboxes- and the map showing the city was the only one avaliable. I would say it is not perfect, but better than nothing. Astrotrain 17:17, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Province of Hanover
I'm not sure I agree with making Province of Hanover a separate article. The separation has the disadvantage that it makes information harder to find for the reader; and editors linking to either article have to decide if it is the right one (which may not always be easy). The province had the exact same area as the preceding kingdom; I would consider them different constitutional stages of the same political entity. Chl 01:55, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Merger with rulers of Hanover
Against| Like all rulers, this should be kept as a serperate list for possible future expansion. It is usefull as an article on its own Lofty 15:41, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * It can be split out again when needed. Rich Farmbrough, 15:24 21 November 2006 (GMT).

kalenberg
Was Kalenberg part of Spanish Habsburg territory in 1648? This map shows it in the same colour as the spanish netherlands --Astrokey 44 03:56, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * That may be intended as a slightly different shade of green. If not, then it's just an error.RandomCritic 12:59, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Calenberg and Celle
Hanover cannot be considered exactly equivalent to Calenberg, even though when Ernest Augustus was named Elector "of Hanover" he was just ruling Calenberg; the territories assigned to the Electorate included Calenberg, Celle (which was the larger and, apparently, the more desirable portion) and several other smaller divisions that had earlier become united with either of the two (Ernest Augustus had the expectation of inheriting Celle when his uncle died). So I've included rulers of both Calenberg and Celle (all very closely related, uncles, brothers and nephews) from the point where the line becomes dynastically distinct from the Dannenburg line that ruled Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. The previous history of Calenburg should be addressed in a separate article, as it's not really pertinent to the entity that would become Hanover. Basically, Hanover = Calenberg+Celle, but not either one of them alone; the latter has its own article under Principality of Lüneburg. RandomCritic 16:17, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Kings German Army
The article said: "The Hanoverian army was dissolved, but many of the officers and soldiers went to England, where they formed the King's German Legion . The KGL was the only German army to fight during the whole Napoleonic wars against the French. They played an important part in the Battle of Waterloo in 1815." (emphasis added)

Obviously they were not the only German army to fight the French during the Napoleonic wars. I removed that line. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Special:Contributions/ (talk)

The King's German Legion was the only German army, that fought continually against the French. Every other army was either defeated and dissolved or was fighting for the French.Therefore I corrected the line accordingly and put it in again. Anne-theater 21:56 (CEST), 24.August 2007

No Map
The map referred to is now gone. Obviously I can look up 'Hanover' on Multimap or whatever, but it's inconvenient. I think a modern-day map showing Germany, with the former border of the Principality/Kingdom of Hanover outlined, would be simplest and most useful. Anyone else bothered by the lack of a map?

WikiReaderer 13:54, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

We should have a map. What happened to the one that was here before? There should probably be two maps, one of Hanover in the 18th century, and one in the 19th, preferably not traced on modern days maps, but on maps showing the neighbors that Hanover had at the time (i.e. Prussia, the Duchy of Brunswick, Oldenburg, and so forth). john k 14:42, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Timeline of Hanover
What is missing from the recently created city timeline article? Please add relevant content! Contributions welcome. Thank you. -- M2545 (talk) 09:11, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

title: Talk:History of Hanover (region)


text:
Star Castle, Isles of Scilly

Star Castle is a fortress on St Mary's, Isles of Scilly, built in 1593 by Robert Adams, Surveyor of the Royal Works (d.1595) and Francis Godolphin, Captain of the Scilly Isles, during the "Spanish invasion scare."

Description
The Star Castle is in the shape of an eight-pointed star and features on the flag of the Council of the Isles of Scilly. It is at the centre of a fortification system around the west side of St Mary’s known as the Garrison. The walls of the castle take the shape of an eight-pointed star. It comprises an outer wall around the outcrop of Hew Hill, protecting the town and the castle, with strategically placed gun batteries at regular intervals around the outer wall, allowing covering fire at all angles.

History
The Star Castle was built in 1593 by the Surveyor of the Royal Works and mapmaker Robert Adams, under the direction of Francis Godolphin, Captain of the Scilly Isles, following the Spanish Armada of 1588. Fearing another Spanish invasion, in May 1593 Queen Elizabeth I ordered the construction of a fort and two sconces as a lookout for any intruder ships.

In 1740 Master Gunner Abraham Tovey transformed the Garrison building walls with gun batteries, including Colonel Boscawen's Battery, in a circular shape following the coast line of The Hoe. In the 18th century it was garrisoned by troops from the Corps of Invalids.

Present usage
Star Castle is now a 4-star hotel. American mystery writer Aaron Elkins set his 2006 novel Unnatural Selection in and around the Castle.

title: Star Castle, Isles of Scilly


text:
Category talk:Book stubs

Reducing category size
How about a fiction stub? Or subcategory stubs by nationality of author (US-book-stub or US-fict-stub)? | Keithlaw 14:38, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
 * WikiProject_Stub_sorting/Proposals - SoM 14:59, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
 * I entered both proposals here. Thanks. | Keithlaw 22:10, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

I think there needs to be a few more stub categories. Perhaps a Teenage Fiction/Young Adult stub? There are a few books on the list I wouldn't put in Childrens book stub that would definately fit in a Teenage Fiction one. And how about a... Detective book stub? Or Horror?Tartan 20:30, 10 January 2006 (UTC) Sorry, just noticed the proposal page!

There are a lot of novels in this list. Is it alright if I put them into Catagory:Novel stubs for futher sorting. This will thin the list by at least 100 articles. The novels then can be sorted further. I am willing to help with both parts. Eagle (talk) (desk) 00:57, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

 * No problem with this. There are sub catagories which are populared just by changing the stub to s genre of novel - see the Category:Book stubs. and you could make up a Template:novel-stub as the ones arround it are set up and use that. :: Kevinalewis  :  (Talk Page)  10:01, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

 * This will make it easier to do with the autowikibrowser.Eagle (talk) (desk) 00:57, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
 * P.S. sorry, right now I am regex(ing) for biograhies and autobiograhies in this list. I have found 24 (approx. 1.4% of the articles in this category)articles that matched the criteria. These were placed in the correct stub category(thus no longer in the main category:Book stubs). Eagle (talk) (desk) 00:59, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I noticed that after the Mystery stub it says incl Crime and Detection in brackets. What does this mean? Because there is already a Crime category (under subcategories, but I'm just about to add it to the main list). If someone could clarify thisit would really help. Tartan 16:56, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

 * when i started work here (recently the arrangement was in disarray, still is really. I am steadily trying to work my way through it. I have left that one alone thinking that most of the titles could be transfered to "mystery-novel-stub" or left to remain as "non fiction" crime. I will move it now to no fiction anotated as work in progress. I will create a crime-novel-stub for those non mystery/detection stories. :: Kevinalewis  :  (Talk Page)  17:08, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

The category has shrunk
Due to a excellent effort by WP:NOVEL, this stub category is now around 400 articles. This is down from the 1500 that this started at.... I belive that the tag needs to be removed so attention can be focused else where. :-)

We need new book categeries stubs
I recommend the Categories and Subcategories below. Yours truly, --Ludvikus 00:21, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Category: Controversial literature
Yours truly, --Ludvikus 00:21, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Subcategories: Antisemitica
Yours truly, --Ludvikus 00:21, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Subsubcategories:Protocols of the Elders of Zion
Yours truly, --Ludvikus 00:21, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

 * Hi Ludvikus! I appreciate your efforts. Looks like has been created, which will probably serve your purposes. However, since literature and publications are stub-sorted by genre and occasionally by country, it's unlikely there will be a stub based on whether an item is controversial (too subjective). So I guess we'll have to use the book-stub template after all. Cheers, Her Pegship  (tis herself)  03:01, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

title: Category talk:Book stubs


text:
Mike Turner (musician)

Michael A. Turner (born June 5, 1963), also known as Emtee, is an English-born Canadian musician and producer. He is best known as the former lead guitarist and founding member of the band Our Lady Peace and current member of alternative rock supergroup Crash Karma.

Life and career
Born on June 5, 1963, in Bradford, England, Turner grew up heavily influenced by punk rock. His first guitar was a gift from his mother on his seventeenth birthday. He played in a variety of bands during the 1980s.

Turner moved to Ontario, Canada at the age of eighteen. He studied English literature at the University of Western Ontario. He lived in Saugeen-Maitland Hall at the University of Western Ontario along with fellow Our Lady Peace band member Duncan Coutts.

1991–2001
In late 1991, Turner placed an ad in Toronto-based Now newspaper in search of musicians. Michael Maida, a criminology student at the University of Toronto, was the first to reply. The two formed a band called As If, inviting Jim Newell as drummer and a friend of Turner's, Paul Martin, to play bass. After they played a number of gigs in Oshawa with sets containing a mix of original and cover material, Martin departed soon after, and the band placed an ad for a replacement bassist. Chris Eacrett, a business student at Ryerson University, replied and was accepted after an audition. During that time, Turner and Maida attended a music seminar where they met songwriter and producer Arnold Lanni, the owner of Arnyard Studios. The band, with Lanni, commenced writing new material and recorded some material under the As If name.

Soon thereafter, the band's name was changed to Our Lady Peace, with Maida changing his first name to Raine to avoid confusion, after a Mark Van Doren poem of the same name. It took the band eventually a year and half of constant back and forth talks with Sony to secure a record deal. With encouragement from their producer Lanni and his management team, the band performed some gigs in Eastern Ontario and Montreal in conjunction with The Tea Party eventually supporting acts. It was not until Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin heard a song of OLP on the radio that he asked them to be a support on his tour. and Alanis Morissette.

Turner left Our Lady Peace in late 2001, citing musical and creative differences.

2021–present
In the summer of 2021, Our Lady Peace frontman Raine Maida announced that Mike Turner was involved with the production of their tenth studio album, Spiritual Machines 2. Maida stated that it wouldn't "be right" to make a sequel to Spiritual Machines without Turner. The first Spiritual Machines album, released in 2000, was the last Our Lady Peace studio album Turner had been fully involved with prior to his original 2001 departure from the band.

Turner was also a featured special guest during Our Lady Peace's 2022 cross-country "The Wonderful Future Theatrical Experience" live tour, where he appeared in holographic form as well as performed live on stage at select venues. It was Turner's first time playing live with the band in over 20 years.

Crash Karma, other projects
After his 2001 departure from Our Lady Peace, he began producing music and played guitar in the Canadian band Fair Ground, with Harem Scarem guitarist Pete Lesperance. Turner was approached by Amir Epstein of Zygote and Edwin of I Mother Earth about forming a band after they met while recording in Turner's Toronto based studio. With the addition of Jeff Burrows of The Tea Party, Crash Karma released their first single "Awake" in 2009 followed by a debut album in March 2010.

Inspired by his work with producers Arnold Lanni and Bob Rock, he became very interested in the production side of music, and decided to produce and write full-time.

He experimented with live recordings, using a small mobile recording rig of his own design. He also built a private recording studio in his home, taking on projects for labels like Capitol, EMI and Sony. Turner then opened a public recording studio in Toronto called The Pocket with a few partners from the music industry. The partnership has since dissolved although Turner remains active at the studio hosting diverse artists including Alert the Medic, Shaye, Luke Doucet, Hawksley Workman, Sloan, and Feist. Recordings from The Pocket, with Turner producing have won two Canadian Broadcast awards, one in 2009 for "Afflicted" by Age of Days and again in 2011 for Crash Karma as Rock Group of the Year.

Our Lady Peace

 * Naveed (1994)
 * Clumsy (1997)
 * Happiness... Is Not a Fish That You Can Catch (1999)
 * Spiritual Machines (2000)
 * Gravity (2001)
 * Spiritual Machines 2 (2021)

Fair Ground

 * Down In It (2006)

Crash Karma

 * Crash Karma (2010)
 * Rock Musique Deluxe (2013)

title: Mike Turner (musician)


text:
User:InTheCastle~enwiki

Computer software engineer who is living in Japan.

I twisted the following page(s).

Computer
µPD7720, TMS320, Branch delay slot, M32R, V850, FR-V, Linux kernel, FreeBSD, PC-9801, Breakpoint, Debugger, In-circuit emulator, JTAG, Embedded system, Cross compiler, Microcontroller, Verilog, Motorola 56000, VxWorks, IBM Personal System/2, Interrupt, Context switch, Hitachi H8, Priority ceiling protocol, Instruction Set Simulator, gdb, Load-Link/Store-Conditional

Japan
Tobu Railway, Koizumi Line, Koizumimachi Station, Nakajima Aircraft Company, Nishi-Koizumi station, Higashi-Koizumi Station, Oizumi, Ota Station, Tatebayashi Station, Isesaki Line, Sanyo, Tyuugen Tetsudo, Shinoduka Station, Hon-Nakano Station, Narushima Station, Kobugan-non Station, Mujinaduka Station

Plant
Passion flower

title: User:InTheCastle~enwiki


text: Talk:Michigan (disambiguation)

title: Talk:Michigan (disambiguation)


text:
David Mann

David Mann may refer to:

Entertainment

 * David Mann (actor) (born 1966), American stage actor
 * David Mann (artist) (1940–2004), American artist of the custom motorcycle subculture
 * Dave Mann, saxophonist, member of Blood, Sweat & Tears
 * David Mann (songwriter) (1916–2002), American writer of popular songs
 * David Mann (Duel), a character from the movie Duel, a film directed by Steven Spielberg

Politics and government

 * David E. Mann (born 1924), U.S. Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Research, Engineering and Systems), 1977 to 1981
 * David S. Mann (born 1939), Mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio and U.S. Representative

Sports

 * Dave Mann (archer), Canadian archer
 * David Mann (cyclist) (born 1962), British racing cyclist
 * Dave Mann (gridiron football) (1932–2012), NFL player from 1955 to 1957, CFL player 1958 and from 1960 to 1970

title: David Mann


text:
Talk:List of islands of Michigan

External links modified
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I have just modified 2 external links on List of islands of Michigan. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
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title: Talk:List of islands of Michigan


text:
Talk:Pons

(random heading)
(Inserted for readability. Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 18:26, 31 October 2010 (UTC))

My brother could of had a stroke Thursday morning. It was in the pons. He is the first one the doctors have seen that didn't result in death or complete loss of mental function. Everyone please help. Thank you.

 * Pons strokes don't necessary cause death or loss of mental function. They may, if extensive, cause "locked-in syndrome", for which I suggest you Google if this is the case. Otherwise the cerebrovascular accident page covers most about strokes in general. I hope your brother will be doing better soon. Make sure they give him TED stockings and - if the stroke was not a bleed - prophylaxis with low-molecular weight heparins. JFW | T@lk  07:21, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

"Pons" not a first name
Iff pons was named after a Varolius/Varolio or some such, his first name was for certain not "Pons", which is not a personal name at all. Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 18:26, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I think you've misunderstood. The article does not suggest that Pons was the first name of Varolio. "Pons Varolio" is another name for the pons -- it means "the bridge of Varolio", since pons means bridge. Reidlophile (talk) 20:28, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Need for a section about physiology
There is no section alluding to the pons function. There should be a functional as well as structural and verbatim definition included.

Jason Ross 04:22, 18 December 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Moose84 (talk • contribs)

Pons
English 102.66.97.192 (talk) 22:22, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

title: Talk:Pons


text:
User:Deanos/Letters/Artistopia

The following letter was sent on 02:01, 6 October 2005 (UTC) to Artistopia's "info" and "corporate" e-mail addresses.

Dear Sir/Madam

We're delighted to see that your website, 'Artistopia', uses content from Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org/), the free encyclopedia. This is just the sort of application that we at Wikipedia wish to promote.

However, we'd like to point out that when using content from Wikipedia you should include a link back to the source Wikipedia article, as we've suggested on our copyrights page (http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights).

For example, "http://www.artistopia.com/Music-Artists/Pros/Bio.asp?ID=6849&Name=Pain%20of%20Salvation" should provide a link back to "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pain_of_Salvation". Not only does this acknowledge the source material, but there may be an updated version of the article with more accurate information.

Additionally, you should also include a GFDL notice. One way of doing this would be to add the text "This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license", and provide a link to http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html. Of course, you should only have to supply a GFDL notice for the information you have obtained from Wikipedia, not any of your material. Also, if you are using images obtained from Wikipedia please note that some images (especially album covers) are cited as "fair use" on Wikipedia (for more info, you might like to read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Image_use_policy).

Thank you for supplying a link back to a Wikipedia related page on each of the pages where you used such information. I might just quickly point out that the correct link is "wikipedia.org" rather than "wikipedia.com". (though .com still finds us!)

Thanks for your assistance,

Dean Rollins (contributer to Wikipedia)

title: User:Deanos/Letters/Artistopia


text:
Byron Johnson (baseball)

Byron Emmerson Johnson (September 16, 1911 – September 24, 2005), also known as Mex Johnson, was a baseball player in the Negro leagues. His nickname came from a hat he wore as a child which looked like a sombrero.

Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, United States, he began his Negro leagues career in 1937 as a shortstop with the Kansas City Monarchs and stayed with the Monarchs until his retirement in 1940. He also was on the road team the Monarchs called the Satchel Paige All Stars from 1939 to 1940.

Johnson accomplishments as a player included being selected as a member of the Negro leagues East-West All-Star team in 1938.

The Negro League Baseball museum, located in Kansas City, Mo, used to have a sculpture that was set out which was his hands holding a bat. Many thought that was the hands of Buck O’Neil, another more well-known player, but it was Mr. Johnson’s.

He was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1941 to fight in World War II and served in Europe until 1945.

title: Byron Johnson (baseball)


text:
List of Japanese snacks

This is a list of Japanese snacks (お菓子) and finger foods. It includes both brand name and generic snacks.

Anko, or sweet bean paste
Anko is a kind of sweet bean paste. Anko is mainly eaten during the afternoon green tea time in Japan. School students eat it after school, at home.

 * Botamochi
 * Daifuku
 * Ichigodaifuku - Daifuku with strawberry
 * Dorayaki
 * Manjū
 * Monaka
 * Imagawayaki
 * Kusa mochi
 * Taiyaki
 * Yōkan

Bean
Beans with salt are mainly taken with beer in the evening.
 * Edamame
 * Soramame - boiled broad bean
 * Ikarimame - fried broad bean

Bread/Wheat Flour

 * generic
 * Karintō – deep-fried brown sugar snack
 * Monjayaki
 * Okonomiyaki
 * Takoyaki

Candy

 * generic
 * Amezaiku - Japanese candy craft artistry
 * Aruheitō
 * Konpeitō
 * Ramune candy - compressed tablet candy

Cake

 * Tokyo Banana

Chewing gum

 * Black Black
 * Fuwarinka
 * Kiss Mint and Watering Kissmint
 * Let's
 * Plus X
 * Poscam
 * Pure White
 * Sweetie
 * whatta – chewing gum by Meiji Confectionery
 * Xylish
 * Yuzu

Corn

 * Curl (Japanese snack)
 * Kyabetsu Taro

Chocolate

 * generic
 * Matcha chocolate - chocolate containing matcha

 * brand
 * Apollo (chocolate) - chocolate in shape of Apollo command module
 * Choco Baby
 * Choco Ball
 * Crunky
 * Crunky kids
 * DARS (chocolate)
 * E-Royce'
 * Every Burger

 * Kinoko no yama - known as CHOCOROOMS in US
 * Koara no māchi
 * Ghana
 * Pocky – known as Mikado in Europe
 * Pucca Chocolate
 * Takenoko no sato - known as CHOCOCONES in US
 * Toppo

Ice cream & shaved ice

 * generic
 * Green tea ice cream
 * Kakigōri
 * Mochi ice cream

Potato

 * generic
 * Ishiyakiimo　- roasted sweet potato
 * Kenpi

Rice

 * generic
 * Onigiri, or rice ball can be eaten both as a snack and as a meal, by modern Japanese people. In Sengoku period, samurai ate large rice balls as a field ration during the war.

Seafood

 * Big Katsu
 * Ebi senbei
 * Gyoniku soseji, a surimi fish sausage
 * Miyako Konbu
 * Surume
 * Yotchan Ika

Street foods

 * Dorayaki
 * Korokke
 * Nikuman
 * Ōbanyaki
 * Taiyaki
 * Takoyaki
 * Yakitori

Mixed and other

 * Ajigonomi
 * Don Tacos

Producers

 * Calbee
 * Glico
 * Kameda Seika
 * Koikeya
 * Kuriyama Beika
 * Lotte
 * Meiji
 * Morinaga
 * Tohato
 * Yamayoshi

title: List of Japanese snacks


text:
Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/BigDaddy777

Case Opened on 14:42, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Case Closed on 18:19, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Please do not edit this page directly unless you wish to become a participant in this request. (All participants are subject to Arbitration Committee decisions, and the ArbCom will consider each participant's role in the dispute.) Comments are very welcome on the Talk page, and will be read, in full. Evidence, no matter who can provide it, is very welcome at /Evidence. Evidence is more useful than comments.

Arbitrators will be working on evidence and suggesting proposed decisions at /Workshop and voting on proposed decisions at /Proposed decision.

Those complaining
User:Kizzle, User:Derex, User:Paul_Klenk, User:JamesMLane, User:RyanFreisling, User:Hipocrite

Statements by those complaining
Please limit your statement to 500 words

Statement by Kizzle
User:BigDaddy777 began editing at Wikipedia in the beginning of September, and quickly racked up an incredible amount of personal attacks and WP:AGF / Civility violations, as evidenced in the evidence section of his current RfC. As a result, a RfC was brought against him to convince him to change his behavior (see the intro paragraphs to the RfC and Hipocrite and my note to BigDaddy on his talk page for the motives behind filing the RfC). BigDaddy refused to comment or apologize for his behavior and completely ignored the RfC's purpose or existence.

However, his edits became slightly more focused upon the content rather than his co-editors, thus I offered to suspend the RfC in order to foster good behavior (as I certainly wouldn't feel happy editing with a pending RfC against me). After this request was made, User:Hipocrite pointed out BigDaddy's continued attack upon other editors. At this point, I offered only to rescind the RfC if he would simply comment on the RfC page something to the effect of "I will not commit personal attacks anymore" or anything along the lines of recognizing that his behavior was not ok. I gave him ample time and kindly requested several times that he respect Wikpedia procedures and comment on his own RfC, but to date he still has refused. Thus, I rescinded the offer and sought community concensus to bring this to RfA.

The problem with BigDaddy's perception of his co-editors can be summarized in his own words, taken from a post made yesterday:

 * A whole bunch of Left-leaning Editors get together and, drawing from dubious sources and histrionic partisan windbags, string together a laundry list of unsubstantiated allegations, unfounded rumors and outright fabrications, and post it within the body of articles on conservative public figures they wish to marginalize under the category of 'Controversy' or 'Criticism.' Should someone suggest even the most modest of changes in order to bring the tiniest hint of balance, they fight them tooth and nail on...every...single...point before filing an RfC against them for being too uppity (sometimes they say 'too combative' but it's the same thing.) Finally, when confronted with the treachery of their actions, and exposed to the appropriate way to deal with rumor and innuendos in Wikipedia articles (usually found where the subject is a Democrat) they put their fingers in their ears and start shouting "Na, Na, Na...I can't hear you! Or else they simply demagogue the issue, distort the rules and spirit of Wikipedia to defend the perpetual and endemic on-line character assassinations of conservatives, and applaud one another for their wisdom. Kind of like what just happened here. -

BigDaddy continues to drag discussions down into a left/right war akin to an online discussion forum such as DailyKos or FreeRepublic, and does not listen or respond to any attempts to cite actual Wikipedia policies. His lack of understanding policy in combination with his "my way or the highway" style of editing has significantly dampered the general atmosphere of civil discussions on every page that he has become a part of. '''But the primary reason why I am bringing this to RfA is his continued silence on his own RfC. Someone who is too stubborn to even acknowledge that other people have a problem with his behavior needs to have real consequences.''' In fact, BigDaddy recently gave his opinion on the heavily supported RfC against him and this arbitration request:

 * Actually my footnotes 1 and 2 above pretty much explain  your  motives. Thus, this rabble-rousing attempt to revive a pathetically overwrought and hysterically shrill dead-as-a-doornail pretend 'problem' which never rose to the level of being dignified by my acknowledgment the first time around, help vindicate my thesis far more eloquently than I ever thought possible. And for that I give you heartfelt thanks.Big Daddy 12:04, 1 October 2005 (UTC) -

From this example, BigDaddy inarguably demonstrates his inability to look at his own behavior, which is the reason behind this arbitration request.

While I would not expect those reviewing this case to sift through each and every comment, here are a few sections which should speak for themselves if one has the time:

 * Talk:Karl_Rove
 * Talk:Karl_Rove
 * Talk:Ann_Coulter
 * User_talk:BigDaddy777
 * User_talk:BigDaddy777

This exchange (later modified by BigDaddy) alone merits taking BigDaddy to arbcom for making threats (and emphasizing them with huge red lettering):

 * This whole thing called a dispute resolution process might seem to be a joking matter to you, but just in case you didn't have your pending arbcom request on your watchlist, it just got accepted by 2 arbcom members. Just a heads-up. --kizzle 02:42, 2 October 2005 (UTC))

 * You know, I hear these kind of things backfire when they're filed for transparently obvious political reasons. Just a heads-up. Big Daddy 03:38, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

 * Update: Just checked with an important source. This attempt to silence me from addressing the endemic bias in Wikipedia will backfire.  I guarantee it. :)  Big Daddy 04:05, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

(the above section was copied exactly as it was coded, the creepy red lettering is BigDaddy's)

Finally (seriously this time), in response to BigDaddy's comment:

 * The unvarnished truth is that, in every single instance, those wishing to stifle my influence in Wikipedia have a political agenda. It is curious that I get along so well with the conservative editors who have worked with me on various articles. Not one of them has affirmed these charges [emphasis mine]...It's only in political (primarily conservative) commentators columns that I've been maligned and it's only non-conservatives who have done the maligning.

Here's a post right on BigDaddy's own user talk page:

 * Hi, BigDaddy777. I'm a right-winger, and it is definitely possible to work within consensus here. You need to read up on WP:NPOV. If you don't want to follow the policies, then you need to just leave. But let me promise you that NPOV is a beautiful treaty that does allow for consensus between left-wing, right-wing, and any other positions, and working in this way is very rewarding. But if you don't want to do that, please don't be a troublemaker. Jdavidb 20:55, 1 October 2005 (UTC) -

It is my wish to seek a temporary ban only on political pages for User:BigDaddy777 until he can calm down and learn a proper sense of Wikiquette by editing non-controversial pages first. Once he has done so, I would be the first to welcome him back with a newfound understanding of Wikipedia norms, policies, and etiquette.

Statement by Mr. Tibbs
Ever since BigDaddy777's very first edit, he has subjected Wikipedia to an unrelenting tirade of personal attacks, uncivil rhetoric and edit warring. User after User after User has attempted to parley with BigDaddy777 and persuade him to follow Wikipedia's rules, they have all failed. Instead of improving his behavior, BigDaddy has used this new knowledge of Wikipedia policy to try and game the system. BigDaddy has succeeded in baiting other users and forcing several articles into reversion wars, or even page protection while completely ignoring the consensus regarding his extremely POV edits. BigDaddy's behavior is completely unacceptable and needs to be stopped. Given the severity, frequency, and incredibly disruptive nature of BigDaddy's transgressions, I ask that a temporary injunction be made restricting BigDaddy to editing only his UserPages, and pages regarding his own arbitration case until this is settled. -- Mr. Tibbs 02:39, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Ryan Freisling
BigDaddy777 is a classic internet troll who communicates by chiding, threatening, blustering and accusations. The citations of examples for his RfC were in the triple digits before the 'disputed behavior after this RfC' section was moved to talk. For a juicy list of cites please see. -- RyanFreisling @ 03:05, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Eleemosynary
I concur with the above users. "BigDaddy777" is a particularly vicious troll, who vacillates between full-throated abuse and disruptive attempts to game the system. Check his RFC page, the history of his User Profile page, and the Karl Rove Talk Page for screed upon screed of vitriol and threats (some veiled, and some not). I've asked him several times to respond to his RFC page. He has labelled this "stalking" and has issued the (laughably) ominous "you've been warned" in response. --Eleemosynary 03:56, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Here is a very recent quote, fresh off his talk page, in which he discusses those Wikipedia editors who take issue with his POV edits:

 * "LOL! These guys don't get it. If you try to present fairness and balance, they will treat you like Karl Rove who of course is their hate-surrogate for President Bush who in turn is a surrogate for who they ultimately hate most - Jesus. Since I'm just a 3rd generation hate-surrogate target, their bluster is pretty mild. But the closer you go up their food chain, it gets pretty nasty. They harassed Karl Rove's family home, threw a live grenade at President Bush and don't forget what they did to Jesus...Big Daddy Ps I knew all this going in. Have had TONS of experienced with these types of disturbed individuals. And I really hate to toy with them like this, but there's not much you can do with irrational people. Trust me, reason does not work. lol! Big Daddy 08:52, 1 October 2005 (UTC)"

I see I've been quoted at length below. I did indeed make each of those statements (not all of which are attacks, btw), but only in response to personal attacks initiated by the subject of this Arbitration, which I will enumerate (upon request) when Arbitration begins. I realize this is no excuse, however. To be accused of "personal attacks" by this particular user is [insert your favorite pot/kettle analogy here]. However, it does seem I am certainly guilty of rising to too much of his troll bait, as a check of the source page for each of those statements will show.Eleemosynary 05:26, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Derex
I reluctantly agree that the time has come for arbitration. I only became involved in this controversy long after it had started. I had until recently hoped that BD could be persuaded to edit in a different spirit. I now see little likelihood of that without some relief from this arbitration process. BD has refused to even recognize the RFC, which was endorsed by 18 editors. After the RFC, he to some extent replaced his over-the-top hostility with a less blatantly outrageous, but still obvious and persistent, contempt of other editors. Plenty of people have reached out to him to no avail. Here's my attempt, which, despite BD's civilized response, changed his behavior not a whit. Here's my attempt to warn him that his behaviors, if continued, would likely move other editors to seek relief. Other editors have attempted to sincerely work towards achieving neutral language, taking even his more outrageous suggested language as a baseline. Rather than building on this to achieve a neutral compromise, BD repeatedly insists that this article conform to a (clearly flawed) precedent of some other article, thus ignoring the substantive issues at hand in this article; see Talk:Karl_Rove. In short, he changed the topic rather than sincerely work together towards a compromise, which seemed to me achievable. BD has repeatedly taken the attitude this is how it's going to be, this is contrary to the spirit of congenial dialogue and consensus here. In short, BD really has been much more disruptive than constructive. He refuses to take seriously any community input on his attitude apart from his edits; he won't even pay it lip service. I don't know what else to do but ask for some kind of intervention. Derex 22:55, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Statement by NightMonkey
I will second most everything stated by the above users, who have been more affected than myself by BigDaddy777's uncivil and nonconstructive behavior. I was soured on being involved in editing any article he has participated in as soon as he started to rant, rail and crusade against the "liberal POV conspiracy" he feels is endemic to Wikipedia, and only returned within the last week or so to check back in on Karl Rove. I'm glad I decided to quickly "take a break" from caring about this and other similar politically charged articles, which was a good move, now seeing how this has developed. It is sad how quickly one person can so thoroughly distract and dishearten other volunteering Wikipedia editors for such a long time, without anything to really stop them in a timely fashion. I've asked him to stop his name-calling and other personal attacks. I even suggested to him that he just start a blog, where he is free to do as he pleases, which he interpreted as a personal attack. All to no avail. A month of this has been a month too long.

In addition to the ban on editing political articles' associated pages, I request that some ban be placed on his edits of other users' User and Talk pages. He seems to think that he is better able to be "unseen" there and often accuses people who are merely disagreeing with him that they are making personal attacks and/or stalking him, by merely using the tools made available to all Wikipedia users to track edits.

His general readiness to engage in "barroom fight" baiting and Rush Limbaugh-style labeling of other editors is very off-putting, distracting and annoying, and precludes any attempt at consensus and dialog. His pointed absence from the RfC process is not a good sign for improvement. I have a feeling he's even lumped me in with his specious "liberal POV warriors" crowd. Funny, since I'm a Libertarian. ;) Thank you for your time. --NightMonkey 23:57, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Just a quick note on BigDaddy777's quote of me below. While I did indeed say that I would help revert any of his "low quality edits", I must underscore the "low quality" component of my statement. To be clear, what I did not say was that I would revert any high quality edits that he would make. --NightMonkey 09:17, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Woohookitty
I'll be brief. I want to echo what everyone else has said. In addition, I really like that BD's comments about wanting Wikipedia recruiting conservative editors to contract the liberalism proves that he has no clue what Wikipedia is about. He does not assume good faith, which is the policy here. Instead, he assumes that everyone is attacking him because he's a conservative and everyone here is a liberal...even people like Katefan0 who have shown absolutely no indication of political bias. Wikipedia should not "recruit" anyone. It doesn't work that way. The fact that he thinks that Wikipedia should "recuit conservatives" proves that he doesn't understand Wikipedia's purpose, which is to be NPOV. The only efforts he has made to be NPOV have been to use the policy for his own advantage.

In addition, banning Eleemosynary is an entirely separate issue and should not be addressed here. This is about BigDaddy777, not Eleemosynary.

Oh and I haven't seen this mentioned earlier, but BD supresses other viewpoints on his talkpage. More evidence that he doesn't respect other opinions on Wikipedia, which is a requirement for being a NPOV editor. If you can't collaborate, you shouldn't be here. His latest thing seems to be to label people who contradict him as "stalking". has the original comments made by kizzle under "Arbitration requested". --Woohookitty 06:23, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

 * There's an irony here. I'm quite conservative myself, and I find BD's desire that "significant and widespread efforts (should) be launched immediately to actively recruit conservative editors" to be very close to affirmative action, which smacks of state intervention, equals bad thing. I believe that Wikipedia's bias is a product of gravitation rather than prescription, just as newspapers such as the Daily Telegraph and the Manchester Guardian - without explicitly forbidding left- and right-wing contributors, respectively - tend to attract such people by a process of positive feedback. Unlike newspapers, which are closed-up, I see Wikipedia as more akin to a daisyworld, and any bias in one direction will eventually rouse the other side to action. In this instance Mr BD is a symptom of this, although he is unfortunately harming his cause. Although he comes across as a blustering wingbag, how go his article contributions? -Ashley Pomeroy 10:50, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

 * I don't know if we're supposed to comment here (sorry Woohoo if I'm stepping on your toes, feel free to delete), but like the RfC goes, he does have some valuable contributions in balancing out bias, his ability to play nice with those around him in addition to several core misunderstandings of Wikipedia policy are the problems. --kizzle 23:36, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Statement by BigDaddy777
To begin, I think it will be helpful for the sake of context, to read about some of my accusers. Most of the following are recent posts from them on various pages of Wikipedia:

Eleemosynary

*Awww... the widdle twoll wants attention. Darn right it's a personal attack. I'll call you what you are, a pathetic troll, until the cows come home, trollboy. Eleemosynary 09:56, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

*Boy, this troll sure is pathetic. ... It seems all he wants to do is demonize those he disagrees with and build an altar of worship to Karl Rove. What a sad individual. Eleemosynary 08:33, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

*You're welcome, Little Baby! There are also some "stalkers" right outside your door in white coats. They have a pleasant little room for you, with soft walls and nice bars on the window so you won't hurt yourself falling out. Go with them, and you can build pretty collages celebrating Karl Rove to your heart's content! LOL! Eleemosynary 08:54, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

*Proof positive! "Little Baby" lives in his own deluded universe, taking breaks from vandalizing Wikipedia only to travel to the drug store for hand lotion so he can better, um, "enjoy" his Ann Coulter picture collection. Duly noted! Eleemosynary 08:50, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

* He's also blatantly lied to you. He's been multiply reverting edits on the Ann Coulter page all day, under cover of an anonymous address/sockpuppet. Eleemosynary 04:21, 2 October 2005 (UTC) (NOTE: This charge is totally untrue and has been denounced by both myself and the person he claims is my sockpuppet. I'm sure someone knowledgable of the inner workings of Wikipedia could easily disprove this charge-bd777.)

*No need to engage this vandal, nor any of his anonymous sockpuppets. Any POV edits of his will be reverted. Eleemosynary 20:51, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

I'll endeavor to ignore his nonsense, and just revert his POV edits until Arbitration is concluded. Thanks again for all your hard work. Eleemosynary 23:38, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

RyanFreisling

Created mirror of my talk page entitled Trollspit to which she adds '(trollspit, for posterity :))'

According to Paul Klenk -

*Ryan made five reverts to Karl Rove in just over 18 hours.This is her pattern: She tries to disguise her reverts by going on the offense, making unfounded accusations of vandalism, POV...I believe each of her accusations, in themselves, assume bad faith.

*I suspect that she uses bullying to scare off editors you disagree with.

*She repeats the word "vandalism" over and over, but none of BigDaddy's edits on the page are vandalism.

* Ryan's continued bullying, elbow-jabbing, and accusations of bad faith while making her 5RRs. She was fueling the war. She was disguising her reverts with her continued accusations

*(Ryan's) false accusations, and (Ryan's) attitude towards BigDaddy, have clearly played a part in the many heated disputes on the Rove talk page.

Woohookitty

* "I'm sure you will now call me a Commie pinko liberal for daring to contradict you."

Kizzle

*Thanks for the laugh Big Daddy...I'd respond to your comment but I'm afraid that would constitute feeding the troll. (Very first comment to me. bd777) --kizzle 16:48, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

According to user 64.154.26.251, Kizzle and his accomplices have harassed me on the Ann Coulter page. "They reverted all your recent contributions for the sole purpose of imposing a make-believe "sanction" on you unauthorized by any administrator of Wikipedia." 64.154.26.251 01:05, 3 October 2005 (UTC

''User Kizzle is the individual who replaced a photo of President Bush here with a tight close-up photo of a pierced penis. He has fully admitted to deliberately engaging in this vandalism for the expressed purposes of getting banned because he's a self-described 'Wikaholic' and was unable to stop posting of his own accord.''

NightMonkey

*I am a fan of debate, and love the challenge it presents. I believe that editing and hashing out discussions on Wikipedia...will help me to... understand the thinking of people I may disagree with, disagree with civility and gain a more well-rounded understanding of various political and social beliefs. --NightMonkey 06:36, Aug 2, 2004 (UTC)

*"Hey, I have an idea, BD. Why don't you start your own blog? You can rant all day there...A month of this crap is enough. --NightMonkey 03:33, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

*I was going to copy and paste ... your exhortation on the RfC Talk page to ignore BD's Talk page diatribes and revert BD's low quality edits, ... Personally, I think it is a very good idea. --NightMonkey 08:23, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

''And finally, here are the comments of someone I consider a very wise user that's understood what's been going on from the beginning. (He is frequently harassed too, by the way.)''

Gator1

*Now the threats...what a surprise. All of this from an RFC that they said wasn't meant to punish you....now if you don't respond to them or bend to their will and tell them what they want to hear then it "could get much more serious." This IS a joke and will go nowhere as its unfounded and completely unwarranted. Next thing you know, they're going to start threatening me ... Some people just make me sad...Gator1 17:53, September 12, 2005 (UTC)

*Despite a reasonable motion to suspend the RFC, Hipo still wants his pound of flesh and Kizzle, depsite making the motion, quickly reverses himself when he sees Hipo's very rationale response ("no"). It's clear what the whole thing is about. I have removed the RFC page from my watchlist as it is a complete waste of my time. Gator1 02:01, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

They wanted you to change your behavior...you did and they said they wanted you to respond....you did....and now they'll set the bar higher once again and say you didn't respond with the right words and kiss all their butts ("I'm sorry...I suck...please forgive me.....I'll be good, I promise.....etc").....this is a very familiar pattern...Gator1 18:18, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

My Comments

What the users who have most significantly animated this process have demonstrated most notably is their utter contempt for Wikipedia policies themselves, be it demonstrated through what some would consider pornographic page vandalism, multiple-revert bullying, or incessant personal attacks and stalking.

It was not stubborness that gave me pause in addressing this process. But rather the certain knowing  that there's a difference between someone sincerely wanting to help you succeed at Wikipedia, like user ngb for example, and someone just wanting to 'get you' because they don't like you upsetting the status quo.

The unvarnished truth is that, in every single instance, those wishing to stifle my influence in Wikipedia have a political agenda. It is curious that I get along so well with the conservative editors who have worked with me on various articles. Not one of them has affirmed these charges. It's also interesting to observe the acrimony-free manner in which various editors and I have worked on topics as sensitive as religion in the Ann Arbor Michigan article. Surely, if even a tiny percentage of what's alleged about me were true, it would show up in edits where I'm dealing with the sensitive topic of Christianity with non-believers. It's only in political (primarily conservative) commentators columns that I've been maligned and it's only ''non-conservatives who have done the maligning. ''

User Paul Klenk has worked long and hard to educate me on how to work within the Wikipedia community. He has also spent an extraordinary (and thankless) amount of time defending me against these charges. But, why? ''Is he a defender of incivility? Does Paul Klenk champion the right to bully, intimidate and hassle? ''Or is it that he simply finds it distasteful when a new editor is marginalized by charges his very accusers are guilty of?

It has been said "Hell hath no fury as a vested interest masquerading as a moral principle." In this matter, the moral principle is my alleged disruptive behavior. And yet the key to uncovering the vested interest is found in the 'moral principle' itself. '''It is my critics interest that articles about conservatives be kept from more careful scrutiny. Thus, any such efforts by someone with my unflinching disdain for bias will always be perceived as disruptive.'''

-

I am therefore asking that arbitration be ruled in my favor so I can continue the excellent work I have begun. I also ask that user Eleemosynary be banned from Wikipedia for a period of at least one year for engaging in willful, acknowledged and unrepentant personal attacks, a disturbing pattern of stalking, false sock puppet allegations, malicious reverts and a general disdain for anything that comes even remotely close to building community cohesion.

Finally, I propose that significant and widespread efforts be launched immediately to actively recruit conservative editors to work on controversial political topics at Wikipedia. It is my hope that never again will a conservative editor have to endure the brazen hostility and withering gang-partisan attacks that I have withstood without a countervaling support system.

Arbitrators' opinions on hearing this matter (4/0/0/0)

 * 1) Accept Fred Bauder 13:36, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
 * 2) Accept ➥the Epopt 22:10, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
 * 3) Accept. James F. (talk) 07:59, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
 * 4) Accept Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 12:23, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Temporary injunction (none)
=Final decision=

No Personal Attacks
No Personal Attacks

 * Passed 7-0

NPOV
Neutral Point of View

 * Passed 7-0

Remove personal attacks
(CC'd from: Requests for arbitration/AI)

3) The remove personal attacks guideline (and the application thereof) is controversial. It has often been abused by malefactors, and may not have community consensus. . It should, at most, be interpreted strictly and used sparingly.
 * Passed 7-0

Badgering
1) has a distinct badgering style of dialogue which is readily recognizable and edits with a focus on articles regarding conservative commentators which share this confrontational style Bill O'Reilly (commentator) and Ann Coulter.

 * Passed 7-0

Common mistakes
2) has, especially since this arbitration process began, violated Wikipedia guidelines repeatedly by altering or removing comments he considers to be critical. Now, he has even created a "banned" list of people that he instantly removes all comments from. This behavior has been exhibited on a daily basis.

 * Passed 7-0

Banned indefinitely for disruption
3) has been banned indefinitely due to disruptive tactics.

 * Passed 6-0

Alteration of talk page comments
4) BigDaddy777 has altered talk page comments, removing other people's words and replacing them with other content, but leaving the signatures behind. See, e.g.  ; see also.

 * Passed 6-0

Banned for modifying other users' comments
1) BigDaddy777 is banned for 2 months for modifying other user's comments (an abuse of the remove-personal-attacks guideline, whether or not it is in force).

 * Passed 7-0

Banned for one year for incivility and engaging in personal attacks
1.1) BigDaddy777 is banned for one year for badgering other users, see Requests_for_arbitration/BigDaddy777/Workshop

 * Passed 6-0

Banned from articles related to American politics
2) BigDaddy777 is banned indefinitely from editing on topics related to American politics

 * Passed 7-0

Effect of release from indefinite block
3) Should be released by any administrator from the indefinite block imposed on him the other remedies imposed in this decision shall take effect at that point.

 * Passed 6-0

Violation of terms
1) If BigDaddy777 should make a personal attack, or edit an article related to American politics, an admin may ban him for a short time, up to 3 days.

 * Passed 7-0