When men are once checked in what they consider their special excellence, their whole opinion of themselves suffers more than if they had not at first believed in their superiority, the unexpected shock to their pride causing them to give way more than their real strength warrants [Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War , vii. 67 (Chicago: Encyclopedia Brittanica , 1952), p. 556].
II — v — Most People Assume You’re Unnaturally Assertive.
Settling into her duties as Global Village podesta, Marta Meringue copes with recent alien contacts with humanity. Piero della Vigna departs the court of Frederick II to travel to Worms, crossing the Alps and booking passage on a Rhine River excursion. Marta reflects upon a recent trip to the Inference Library with Sasha to take the exam for the post of Global Village podesta. As the leading families of Ossian wait for the arrival of Ylferim to shoot them, Soundman reviews the former’s dossier. an An Indocile, nominated as Nicean Grand High Ambassador, faces resistance from her own kins– monad, Ne Dipol. Mirabeau refers to future events in Washington, D.C.: Fernand takes a train to the district, accosts the great author Sergei Kalamparumple, and is promptly detested.
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1833 Fashion Plate: evening dress (left) and two day dresses. The lady on the right wears a fichu-pelerine (http://content.lib.washington.edu/costumehistweb/index.html%7C).* pelerine Act II, Signature v - (1)
Main Entry: pel£er£ine
Pronunciation: ƒpe-l„-‚r‡n, ‚pe-l„-r„n
Function: noun Etymology: obsolete French, neckerchief, from French pèlerine , feminine of pèlerin pilgrim, from Late Latin pelegrinus — more at pilgrim
Date: 1744 : a woman's narrow cape made of fabric or fur and usually with long ends hanging down in front.
*[Image & caption credit and following text courtesy of Wikipedia]:
General trends. The prevalent trend of Romanticism from the 1820s through the mid-1840s, with its emphasis on strong emotion as a source of aesthetic experience and its recognition of the picturesque, was reflected in fashion as in other arts. Items of historical dress including neck ruffs, ferronieres (jeweled headbands worn across the forehead), and sleeves based on styles of earlier periods were popular [Tortora, Phyllis and Keith Eubank, Survey of Historic Costume , 2nd Ed. (Fairchild, 1994), p. 275].
Innovations in roller printing on textiles introduced new dress fabrics. Rich colors such as the Turkey red of the 1820s were still found [Tozer, Jane and Sarah Levitt, Fabric of Society: A Century of People and their Clothes 1770–1870 (Laura Ashley Press, 1983), p. 29], but delicate floral prints on light backgrounds were increasingly popular. More precise printing eliminated the need for dark outlines on printed designs, and new green dyes appeared in patterns of grasses, ferns, and unusual florals. Combinations of florals and stripes were fashionable [Tozer and Levitt (1983), p. 33].
Overall, both men's and women's fashion showed width at the shoulder above a tiny waist. Men's coats were padded in the shoulders and across the chest, while women's shoulders sloped to huge sleeves.
Overview. In the 1830s, fashionable women's clothing styles had distinctive large "leg of mutton" or "gigot" sleeves, above large full conical skirts, ideally with a narrow, low waist between (achieved through corseting) [Tortora and Eubank (1994), p. 278]. The bulkiness of women's garments both above and below the waist was intended to make the waist look smaller than it was — this was the final repudiation of any last lingering aesthetic influences of the Empire silhouette of ca. 1795–1825. Heavy stiff fabrics such as brocades came back into style, and many 18th- century gowns were brought down from attics and cut up into new garments. The combination of sloping shoulders and sleeves which were very large over most of the arm (but narrowing to a small cuff at the wrist) is quite distinctive to the day dresses of the 1830s.
Pelerines, or lace coverings draped over the shoulders, were popular (one of several devices, along with full upper- arm sleeves and wide necklines, to emphasize the shoulders and their width) [Tortora and Eubank (1994), p. 281].
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metes & bounds Act II, Signature v - (2)
Main Entry: 2mete
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin meta
Date: 15th century: boundary ²metes and bounds³
*[Image & caption credit and following text courtesy of Wikipedia]:
Metes and bounds is a system or method of describing land, real property (in contrast to personal property) or real estate. The system has been used in England for many centuries, and is still used there in the definition of general boundaries. By custom, it was applied in the original Thirteen Colonies that became the United States, and in many other land jurisdictions based on English common law [Cribbet, Johnson, Findley, and Smith, Property, Cases and Materials , 8th Ed. (Foundation Press, 2002)].
Typically the system uses physical features of the local geography, along with directions and distances, to define and describe the boundaries of a parcel of land. The boundaries are described in a running prose style, working around the parcel in sequence, from a point of beginning, returning back to the same point. It may include references to other adjoining parcels (and their owners), and it, in turn, could also be referred to in later surveys. At the time the description is compiled, it may have been marked on the ground with permanent monuments placed where there were no suitable natural monuments.
The term "metes" refers to a boundary defined by the measurement of each straight run, specified by a distance between the terminal points, and an orientation or direction. A direction may be a simple compass bearing, or a precise orientation determined by accurate survey methods. The term "bounds" refers to a more general boundary description, such as along a certain watercourse, a stone wall, an adjoining public road way, or an existing building.
The system is often used to define larger pieces of property (e.g. farms), and political subdivisions (e.g. town boundaries) where precise definition is not required or would be far too expensive, or previously designated boundaries can be incorporated into the description.
Usage. A typical description for a small parcel of land would be: "beginning with a corner at the intersection of two stone walls near an apple tree on the north side of Muddy Creek road one mile above the junction of Muddy and Indian Creeks, north for 150 rods to the end of the stone wall bordering the road, then northwest along a line to a large standing rock on the corner of John Smith's place, thence west 150 rods to the corner of a barn near a large oak tree, thence south to Muddy Creek road, thence down the side of the creek road to the starting point."
The sequence begins with an identified corner serving as benchmark, then gives distance, direction and various boundary descriptions as if one were walking the bounds pacing off the distance to the next corner where there is a change of direction. Generally where watercourses form part of the bounds their meander is taken as a straight line between the established corners and their monuments.
In many deeds, the bearing is described not by a clockwise degree measure out of 360 degrees, but instead by indicating a direction north or south (N or S) followed by a degree measure out of 90 degrees and another direction west or east (W or E). For example, such a bearing might be listed as "N 42°35' W," which means that the bearing is 42°35' counterclockwise (to the west) from north. This has the advantage of providing the same degree measure regardless of which direction a particular boundary is being followed; the boundary can be traversed in the opposite direction simply by exchanging N for S and E for W. In other words, "N 42°35' W" describes the same boundary as "S 42°35' E," but is traversed in the opposite direction.
In most distance measures, especially those in older deeds and where measuring distances over a furlong, boundary lengths are listed in rods or poles instead of feet or meters. Rods and poles are equivalent measures equaling 16.5 feet.
Resolving inconsistencies. Some courts have established a list of priorities to resolve inconsistent descriptions of corners. In descending order starting with the most reliable: (1) natural monuments, (2) artificial monuments such as roads and marked or surveyed lines, (3) adjacent tracts or boundaries, (4) courses or directions, (5) distances, and (6) area or quantity [Stoebuck & Whitman, The Law of Property , 3rd Ed. (2000), p. 827].
Difficulties. Once such a survey is in place, the corners may have to depend on tradition and long use to establish the line along the boundaries between them. In some areas where land was deeded before 1693 the lengths given predate the changes to the length of the furlong and mile by Queen Elizabeth I. In other places references to the official borders of towns, counties, states and even the U.S. may have changed. Compass directions always have to be tied to a table of annual deflections because magnetic north is constantly changing. The description might refer to landmarks such as the large oak tree which could die, rot and disappear; or be confused with a different tree that had grown over time. Streams might dry up, meander or change course. Man-made features such as roads, walls, markers or stakes used to mark corners and determine the line of the boundaries between corners may have been moved. As these features move, change and disappear over time, when it comes time to re-establish the corners along the line of these boundaries (for sale, subdivision, or building construction) it can become difficult, even impossible, to determine the original location of the corner. In the metes and bounds system, corners, distance, direction, monuments and bounds are always carried back to the original intent regardless of where they are now. Court cases are sometimes required to settle the matter when it is suspected the corner markers may have been moved.
These kinds of problems caused the United States to largely replace this system except in the east. Beginning with the Land Ordinance of 1785, it began a transition to the Public Land Survey System (PLSS) used in the central and western states. The eastern, or original states, continue to use the metes and bounds surveys of their founders.
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Austrian-American composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957); George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress).* Korngold, Erich Wolfgang Act II, Signature v - (3) born May 29, 1897, Brünn, Austria-Hungary
died Nov. 29, 1957, Hollywood, Calif., U.S.
U.S. composer of Austro-Hungarian birth. Son of a music critic, he had his childhood compositions praised by Gustav Mahler and Artur Schnabel. He solidified his reputation with his operatic masterpiece, Die tote Stadt (1920). In 1934 he moved to Hollywood, and he became best known for his film scores, his broadly Romantic style proving very suitable to swashbuckling stories such as Anthony Adverse (1936, Academy Award) and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938, Academy Award), as well as 17 others. His violin concerto (1946) has been frequently recorded.
*[Image & caption credit and following text courtesy of Wikipedia]:
Born in a Jewish home in Brünn (Brno) (Austria–Hungary, now Czech Republic), Erich was the second son of eminent music critic Julius Korngold. A child prodigy, Erich played his cantata Gold to Gustav Mahler in 1906; Mahler called him a "musical genius" and recommended study with composer Alexander von Zemlinsky. Richard Strauss also spoke very highly of the youth. At the age of 11 he composed his ballet Der Schneemann (The Snowman), which became a sensation when performed at the Vienna Court Opera in 1910, including a command performance for Emperor Franz Josef. This work was followed first with a piano trio, then his Piano Sonata No. 2 in E major that Artur Schnabel played throughout Europe [Carroll, New Grove (2001), 13: 823]. During his early years Korngold also made live-recording player piano music rolls for the Aeolian Duo-Art system, all of which survive today and can be heard [citation needed].
Korngold wrote his first orchestral score, the Schauspiel Ouverture when he was 14. His Sinfonietta appeared the following year, and his first two operas, Der Ring des Polykrates and Violanta , in 1914. He completed his opera Die tote Stadt , which became an international success, in 1920 at the age of 23. At this point Korngold had reached the zenith of his fame as a composer of opera and concert music. Composers such as Richard Strauss and Giacomo Puccini heaped praise on him, and many famous conductors, soloists and singers added his works to their repertoires. He completed a Concerto for Piano Left Hand for pianist Paul Wittgenstein in 1923 and his fourth opera, Das Wunder der Heliane four years later. He also started arranging and conducting operettas by Johann Strauss II and others while teaching opera and composition at the Vienna Staatsakademie. Korngold was awarded the title professor honoris causa by the president of Austria [ ibid ].
Max Reinhardt, with whom Korngold had collaborated on the operas Die Fledermaus and La belle Helene , asked the composer to come to Hollywood in 1934 to adapt Felix Mendelssohn's incidental music for A Midsummer Night's Dream to his film version of the play. Over the next four years, he became a pioneer in composing film scores that have been recognized ever since as classics of their kind. In 1938, Korngold was conducting opera in Austria when he was asked by Warner Brothers to come back to Hollywood and compose a score for their new (and very expensive) film The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), starring Errol Flynn. He agreed and returned by ship. Shortly after he arrived in California, the Anschluss took place and the condition of Jews in Austria became very perilous so that he stayed in America. Korngold later would say the film score of The Adventures of Robin Hood saved his life. He won the Academy Award for Best Original Score for the film, and was later nominated for The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939) and The Sea Hawk (1940). A Korngold authority wrote [Brendan G. Carroll, The Last Prodigy: A Biography of Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1997)]:
"Treating each film as an 'opera without singing' (each character has his or her own leitmotif) [Korngold] created intensely romantic, richly melodic and contrapuntally intricate scores, the best of which are a cinematic paradigm for the tone poems of Richard Strauss and Franz Liszt. He intended that, when divorced from the moving image, these scores could stand alone in the concert hall. His style exerted a profound influence on modern film music."
"Die Tote Stadt : The Dead City: Opera in Three Acts," Founded on G. Rodenbach, Das Trugbild (G. Ricordi, 1921), http://books.google.com/books?id.*
*[Image & caption credit and following text courtesy of Wikipedia]:
Die tote Stadt (German for "The Dead City") is an opera in three acts by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. The libretto is by the composer and Paul Schott (a pseudonym of the composer’s father Julius Korngold), and is based on Bruges- la-Morte , a short novel by Georges Rodenbach.
Performance history. When Die tote Stadt had its premiere on December 4, 1920, Korngold was just 23 years old with two short one-act operas, Der Ring des Polykrates and Violanta , already to his name. The success of these earlier works was so great that Die tote Stadt was subject to a fierce competition among German theaters for the right to the world premiere. In the end, an unusual double premiere was arranged and the opera opened simultaneously in Hamburg and Cologne. Die tote Stadt’ s theme of overcoming the loss of a loved one resonated with contemporary audiences of the 1920s who had just come through the trauma and grief of World War I, and this undoubtedly fueled the opera’s popularity.
Die tote Stadt was one of the greatest hits of the 1920s. Within two years of its premiere it had circled the globe and even received several performances at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. But the work was banned by the Nazi régime because of Korngold’s Jewish ancestry and after World War II it fell into obscurity. In recent years, however, the work has enjoyed notable revivals, among others in Bonn, Royal Opera House, San Francisco Opera and in Vienna State Opera [http://operabase.com/oplist.cgi?id=none&lang=en&is=Die+tote+Stadt &by=&loc=&s type=abs&sd=1&sm=1&sy=2007&etype=abs&ed=&em=&ey=; http://www.amadeusonline.net/almanacco.php? Start=0&Giorno=&Mese=&Anno=&Giorna ta=&Testo=Die+tote+Stadt&Parola=Stringa].
The opera received its UK premiere on 14 January 1996 in a concert performance by the Kensington Symphony Orchestra conducted by Russell Keable at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, with Ian Caley (Paul) and Christine Teare (Marie/Marietta). The first UK staged performance was on January 27, 2009 at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. The opera received its French premiere on October 5, 2009 at the Paris Opéra Bastille, with Robert Dean Smith (Paul) and Ricarda Merbeth (Marie/Marietta), opening to very favorable reviews.
In 1943, Korngold became a naturalized citizen of the United States. The year 1945 became an important turning point in Korngold's life. His father, who had never been entirely comfortable in Los Angeles, and who had never approved of Erich's decision to focus exclusively on film composition, died after a lengthy illness [http://orelfoundation.org/ index.php/composers/article/erich_wolfgang_korngol d]. Roughly around the same time, the war in Europe drew to an end. Korngold himself had grown increasingly disillusioned with Hollywood and with the kinds of pictures he was being given, and he was eager to return to writing music for the concert hall and the stage [ ibid ]. Korngold stopped writing original film scores after 1946. His final score at Warner Bros. was Deception starring Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, and Claude Rains. However, he was asked by Republic Pictures to adapt the music of Richard Wagner for a film biography of the composer, released in Trucolor, as Magic Fire (1955), directed by William Dieterle from a script by Ewald Andre Dupont. Korngold also wrote some original music for the film and had an unbilled cameo as the conductor Hans Richter.
After World War II Korngold continued to write concert music in a rich, chromatic late Romantic style, with the Violin Concerto among his notable later works. Korngold died in North Hollywood on November 29, 1957 and was buried at Hollywood Forever Cemetery [Carroll, New Grove (2001), 13: 823].
Lauterbrunnen Valley. Train ascending to Wengen, Bernese Alps (photo by ZachT, August 27, 2007).* Bernese Alps Act II, Signature v - (4)
German Berner Oberland
Segment of the Alps, Switzerland. It lies north of the Rhône River and south of Brienzer and Thuner lakes and extends east from Martigny-Ville to Grimsel Pass and the valley of the upper Aare River. Many peaks, including the Finsteraarhorn, Jungfrau, and Aletschhorn, rise more than 12,000 ft (3,660 m). The Bernese Alps are crossed by the Lötschen, Gemmi, and Pillon passes and the Lötschberg railway tunnel. Many resorts, including Interlaken, Grindelwald, and Gstaad, dot the area.
*[Image & caption credit and following text courtesy of Wikipedia]:
One of the most considerable Alpine ranges, the Bernese Alps extend from the gorge of Saint-Maurice, through which the Rhone finds its way to Lake Geneva, to the Grimsel Pass or, depending on the definition, to the river Reuss (thus including the Urner Alps). The principal ridge, a 100 km long chain running from west (Dent de Morcles) to east (Sidelhorn), whose highest peak is the Finsteraarhorn, forms the watershed between the cantons of Berne and Valais. Except for the westernmost part, it is also the watershed between the Rhine (North Sea) and the Rhone (Mediterranean Sea). This chain is not centered inside the range but lies close (10 to 15 km) to the Rhone river on the south. This makes a large difference between the south, where the lateral short valleys descend abruptly into the deep trench forming the valley of the Rhone and the north, where the Bernese Alps extends through a great part of the canton of Berne (Bernese Oberland), throwing out branches to the west into the adjoining cantons of Vaud and Fribourg. There the mountains progressively become lower and disappear into the hilly Swiss Plateau or into the Lake Thun and Brienz on the eastern part [John Ball, The Alpine Guide: Central Alps (London, 1866)].
The main chain west of Gemmi Pass consists mainly of a few large prominent summits (as the Wildhorn) slightly above 3000 metres, generally covered by glaciers. On the eastern part, the main chain became suddenly wider and the peaks reach over 4000 metres, in the most glaciated part of the Alps [http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1037].
A characteristic in the orography of the Bernese Alps is, that whereas the western of that chain consists of a single series of summits with comparatively short projecting buttresses, the higher group presents a series of longitudinal ridges parallel to the axis of the main chain, and separated from each other by deep valleys that form the channels of great glaciers. Thus the Tschingel Glacier and the Kander Glacier, separate the portion of the main range lying between the Gemmi Pass and the Mittaghorn from the equally high parallel range of the Doldenhorn and Blümlisalp on its northern side. To the south the same portion of the main range is divided from the still higher parallel range whose summits are the Aletschhorn and the Bietschhorn by the Lötschental and the Lötschenlücke. To this again succeeds the deep trench through which the lower part of the Aletsch Glacier flows down to the Rhone, enclosed by the minor ridge that culminates at the Eggishorn [Ball (1866)].
It is in the central and eastern portions of the range only that crystalline rocks make their appearance; the western part is composed almost exclusively of sedimentary deposits, and the secondary ridges extending through Berne and the adjoining cantons are formed of jurassic, cretaceous, or eocene strata [ ibid ].
Pope Saint Gelasius I (died November 21, 496) was pope from 492 until his death in 496.* Gelasius I, Saint Act II, Signature v - (5) born probably Africa died Nov. 19, 496, feast day November 21
Pope (492–496). He combated the Acacian Schism in the East, which advocated the Monophysite heresy. He maintained papal authority and established Roman primacy in ecclesiastical affairs. He is known for his theory of the two powers of world governance in which he asserted that both sacred and civil power are of divine origin and independent. In 494 he changed the pagan Lupercalia festival into the feast of the Purification.
*[Image & caption credit and following text courtesy of Wikipedia]:
Struggle with Anastasius I and Acacius. Gelasius' election on March 1, 492 was a gesture for continuity: Gelasius inherited Felix's struggles with Eastern Roman Emperor Anastasius I and the patriarch of Constantinople and exacerbated them by insisting on the removal of the name of the late Acacius, patriarch of Constantinople, from the diptychs, in spite of every ecumenical gesture by the current, otherwise quite orthodox patriarch Euphemius (q. v. for details of the Acacian schism).
The split with the emperor and the patriarch of Constantinople was inevitable, from the western point of view, because they had embraced a view of a single, Divine ('Monophysite') nature of Christ, which was a Christian heresy. Gelasius' book De duabus in Christo naturis ('On the dual nature of Christ') delineated the Western view. Thus Gelasius, for all the conservative Latinity of his writing style stood on the cusp of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages [the title of his biography by Walter Ullmann expresses this: Gelasius I (492-496): Das Papsttum an der Wende der Spätantike zum Mittelalter (Stuttgart, 1981)].
Powers of Church and State. During the Acacian schism, Gelasius went further than his predecessors in asserting the primacy of Rome over the entire Church, East and West, and he presented this doctrine in terms that set the model for subsequent popes asserting the claims of papal supremacy. In 494, Gelasius wrote a very influential letter, known as Duo sunt , to Anastasius on the topic of Church-State relations, whose political impact was felt for almost a millennium ["Gelasius I on Spiritual and Temporal Power," Medieval Sourcebook , http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/gelasius1.html].
• Dualistic principle of Church and State. This letter established the dualistic principle that would underlie all Western European political thought for almost a millennium. In the letter, Gelasius expressed a distinction between "two powers," which he called the "holy authority of bishops" (auctoritas sacrata pontificum) and the "royal power" (regalis potestas).
• Potestas and auctoritas. These two powers, auctoritas lending justification to potestas, and potestas providing the executive strength for auctoritas were, he said, to be considered independent in their own spheres of operation, yet expected to work together in harmony.
• Sovereign immunity. The letter played a significant role in the development of the legal doctrine of sovereign immunity, in that it gave political protections to the papacy and the monarchy, who promised not to violate each others' respective jurisdictions. This doctrine remains in force in international politics, even though most absolute monarchies have been replaced by constitutional monarchies or republics.
Suppression of pagan rites and heretics. Closer to home, Gelasius finally suppressed the ancient Roman festival of the Lupercalia after a long contest. Gelasius' letter to Andromachus, the senator, covers the main lines of the controversy and incidentally offers some details of this festival combining fertility and purification that might have been lost otherwise. Significantly, this festival of purification, which had given its name — dies februatus, from februare, "to purify" — to the month of February, was replaced with a Christian festival celebrating the purification of the Virgin Mary instead: Candlemas, observed forty days after Christmas, on February 2.
Gelasius successfully suppressed the Manichaeans, a dualist sect suspected to be present in Rome in large numbers. Gelasius decreed that the Eucharist had to be received "under both kinds," with wine as well as bread. As the Manichaeans held wine to be impure and essentially sinful, they would refuse the chalice and thus be recognized. Later, with the Manichaeans suppressed, the old method of receiving communion under one kind — the bread — was restored. The Rhine River at Basle, Switzerland (photo by Norbert Aepli, Switzerland, September 13, 2006).* Basel Act II, Signature v - (6)
Or Basle (French Bâle ). City (2000: city, 166,558; metro. area, 402,387), northwestern Switzerland. It straddles the Rhine at the point where France, Germany, and Switzerland meet. It was originally a settlement of the Celtic Rauraci tribe. Its university, the first in Switzerland, was founded by Pope Pius II while attending the Council of Basel (1431–49). In 1501 Basel was admitted into the Swiss Confederation. When Desiderius Erasmus taught at the university (1521–29), the city became a centre of humanism and of the Reformation. Primarily German-speaking and Protestant, it is an important trading and industrial city and river port.
*[Image & caption credit and following text courtesy of Wikipedia]:
Basel English pronunciation: /ˈbˈˈzəl/ or Basle /ˈbˈˈl/ (German: Basel, pronounced [ˈbaˈzəl]; French: Bâle [bˈl]; Italian: Basilea [baziˈlˈˈa]; Romansh: Basilea [baziˈlˈˈa]) is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants ["Basel Population," July 2010, http://www.statistik-bs.ch/]. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany. With 830,000 inhabitants in the tri-national metropolitan area as of 2004, Basel is Switzerland's second-largest urban area ["Eurodistrict Basel: Agglomeration," http://www.eurodistrictbasel.eu/index.php?id=26&L=1].
Located in northwest Switzerland on the river Rhine, Basel functions as a major industrial centre for the chemical and pharmaceutical industry. The Basel region, culturally extending into German Baden-Württemberg and French Alsace, reflects the heritage of its three states in the modern Latin name: "Regio TriRhena." It has the oldest university of the Swiss Confederation (1460). Basel is German-speaking. The local variant of the Swiss German dialects is called Basel German.
Basel is among the most important cultural centres of Switzerland. The city comprises a large number of theatres and many museums, including the Museum of Fine Arts, the world's oldest art collection accessible to the public. In addition the Theater Basel was chosen in 1999 as the best stage for German-language performances and in 2009 & 2010 as "Opera of the Year" by the German opera magazine Opernwelt ["Basel: Culture Pure," http://www.basel- virtuell.ch/en/culture].
History. During the days of the Roman Empire, the settlement of Augusta Raurica was founded 10 or 20 kilometres upstream of present Basel, and a castle was built on the hill overlooking the river where the Basel Münster now stands. But even older Celtic settlements (including a vitrified fort) have been discovered recently in the area predating the Roman castle. The city's position on the Rhine long emphasised its importance: Basel for many centuries possessed the only bridge over the river "between Lake Constance and the sea [citation needed]."
The town of Basel was called Basilea or Basilia in Latin (from Ancient Greek Vasilèa, Βασιλεια meaning kingship) and this name is documented from 374 AD [The Encyclopedia Americana (Grolier Incorporated, 1999), p. 308]. Since the donation of the Abbey Moutier-Grandvalto and all its possessions to Bishop Adalbero II in 999 till the Reformation, Basel was ruled by prince-bishops (see Bishop of Basel [ The New Encyclopaedia Britannica (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1993), p. 659], whose memory is preserved in the crosier shown on the Basel coat-of- arms – see above). In 1019 the construction of the cathedral of Basel (known locally as the Münster) began under German Emperor Heinrich II [Franz Kugler, Kleine Schriften und Studien zur Kunstgeschichte (1853), p. 486]. In 1225–1226 the Bridge over the Rhine was constructed by Bishop Heinrich von Thun and lesser Basel (Kleinbasel) founded as a beachhead to protect the bridge.
In 1356 the Basel earthquake destroyed much of the city along with a number of castles in the vicinity. The city offered courts to nobles as an alternative to rebuilding their castles, in exchange for the nobles' military protection of the city.
In 1412 (or earlier) the well-known guesthouse Zum Goldenen Sternen was established. Basel became the focal point of western Christendom during the 15th century Council of Basel (1431–1449), including the 1439 election of antipope Felix V. In 1459 Pope Pius II endowed the University of Basel where such notables as Erasmus of Rotterdam and Paracelsus later taught. At the same time the new craft of printing was introduced to Basel by apprentices of Johann Gutenberg.
The Schwabe publishing house was founded in 1488 by Johannes Petri and is the oldest publishing house still in business. Johann Froben also operated his printing house in Basel and was notable for publishing works by Erasmus [Josef Nadler, Literaturgeschichte der deutschen Schweiz (Grethlein, 1932)]. In 1495, Basel was incorporated in the Upper Rhenish Imperial Circle; the Bishop of Basel was added to the Bench of the Ecclesiastical Princes. In 1500 the construction of the Basel Münster was finished.
In 1501 Basel joined the Swiss Confederation as its eleventh canton [Karl Strupp, Wörterbuch Des Völkerrechts (De Gruyter, 1960), p. 225], separating de facto from the Holy Roman Empire, and began the construction of the city council building. The bishop's seat remained in Basel until 1529, when the city became Protestant under Oecolampadius. The bishop's crook was however retained as the city's coat of arms.
Mainz, towards the Rhine circa 1890 and 1905. Photoglob AG, Zürich, Switzerland or Detroit Publishing Company, Detroit, MI; Photochrom print (color photo lithograph) reproduction number: LC-DIG-ppmsca-00838 (http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/pgz/).* Mainz Act II, Signature v - (7)
French Mayence. City (pop., 2002 est.: 185,293), west-central Germany. Situated on the Rhine River opposite the mouth of the Main River, it was established as a Roman military camp c. 14 BC on the site of an earlier Celtic settlement. It became an archbishopric in AD 775, a free city in 1244, and the head of the Rhenish League in 1254. It was under French rule from 1797 to 1816 and then passed to Hesse-Darmstadt. It served as a fortress of the German Confederation and later of the German Empire until 1918. Severely damaged during World War II, it was rebuilt. The birthplace of Johannes Gutenberg, it is the seat of Johannes Gutenberg University.
*[Image & caption credit and following text courtesy of Wikipedia]:
Mainz (German: ['ma?nts]; English: /'ma?nts/; French: Mayence, IPA: [maj?~s]) is a city in Germany and the capital of the German federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It was a politically important seat of the Prince-elector of Mainz (see: Archbishopric of Mainz) under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire. Mainz is located on the river Rhine across from Wiesbaden, in the western part of the Frankfurt Rhine-Main Region; in the modern age, Frankfurt shares much of its regional importance.
Roman Moguntiacum. The Roman stronghold of castrum Moguntiacum , the precursor to Mainz, was founded by the Roman general Drusus perhaps as early as 13 BC. As related by Suetonius the existence of Moguntiacum is well established by four years later (the account of the death and funeral of Nero Claudius Drusus), though several other theories suggest the site may have been established earlier [the earliest certain evidence of the existence of Moguntiacum is the account of the death and funeral of Nero Claudius Drusus, brother of the future emperor, Tiberius, given in Suetonius' Life of Drusus . Few leaders have been as loved and as popular as Drusus. He fell from his horse in 9 BCE, contracted gangrene and lingered several days. His brother Tiberius reached him in just a few days riding post-horses over the Roman roads and served as the chief mourner, walking with the deceased in a funeral procession from the summer camp where he had fallen to Moguntiacum, where the soldiers insisted on a funeral. The body was transported to Rome, cremated in the Campus Martis and the ashes placed in the tomb of Augustus, who was still alive, and wrote poetry and delivered a state funeral oration for him. If Drusus founded Moguntiacum the earliest date is the start of his campaign, 13 BCE. Some hypothesize that Moguntiacum was constructed at one of two earlier opportunities, one when Marcus Agrippa campaigned in the region in 42 BCE or by Julius Caesar himself after 58 BCE. Lack of evidence plays a part in favoring 13 BCE. No sources cite Moguntiacum before 13 BCE, no legions are known to have been stationed there, and no coins survive (citation needed)].
Although the city is situated opposite the mouth of the Main river, the name of Mainz is not from Main, the similarity being perhaps due to diachronic analogy. Main is from Latin Menus , the name the Romans used for the river. Linguistic analysis of the many forms that the name "Mainz" has taken on, make it clear that it is a simplification of Moguntiacum. The name appears to be Celtic and ultimately it is. However, it had also become Roman and was selected by them with a special significance. The Roman soldiers defending Gallia had adopted the Gallic god Mogons (Mogounus, Moguns, Mogonino), for the meaning of which etymology offers two basic options: "the great one," similar to Latin magnus, which was used in aggrandizing names such as Alexander magnus, "Alexander the Great" and Pompeius magnus, "Pompey the great," or the god of "might" personified as it appears in young servitors of any type whether of noble or ignoble birth [a second hypothesis suggests that Moguns was a wealthy Celt whose estate was taken for the fort and that a tax district was formed on the area parallel to other tax districts with a -iacum suffix (Arenacum, Mannaricium). There is no evidence for this supposedly wealthy man or his estate, but there is plenty for the god. According to Carl Darling Buck in Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin, -yo- and -k- are general Indo-European formative suffices and are not related to taxes. As the loyalty of the Vangiones was unquestioned and Drusus was campaigning over the Rhine, it is unlikely Moguntiacum would have been built to collect taxes from the Vangiones, who were not a Roman municipium (citation needed)].
Moguntiacum was an important military town throughout Roman times, probably due to its strategic position at the confluence of the Main and the Rhine. The town of Moguntiacus grew up between the fort and the river. The castrum was the base of Legio XIIII Gemina and XVI Gallica (AD 9–43), XXII Primigenia, IIII Macedonica (43–70), I Adiutrix (70–88), XXI Rapax (70–89), and XIIII Gemina (70–92), among others. Mainz was also a base of a Roman river fleet, the Classis Germanica. Remains of Roman troop ships (navis lusoria) and a patrol boat from the late 4th century were discovered in 1981/82 and may now be viewed in the Museum für Antike Schifffahrt. The city was the provincial capital of Germania Superior, and had an important funeral monument dedicated to Drusus, to which people made pilgrimages for an annual festival from as far away as Lyon. Among the famous buildings were the largest theatre north of the Alps and a bridge across the rhine.
Alamanni forces under Rando sacked the city in 368. From the last day of 405 [Michael Kulikowski, "Barbarians in Gaul: Usurpers in Britain," Britannia 31 (2000) 325-345] or 406, the Siling and Asding Vandals, the Suebi, the Alans, and other Germanic tribes crossed the Rhine, possibly at Mainz. Christian chronicles relate that the bishop, Aureus, was put to death by the Alamannian Crocus. The way was open to the sack of Trier and the invasion of Gaul.
Throughout the changes of time, the Roman castrum never seems to have been permanently abandoned as a military installation, which is a testimony to Roman military judgement. Different structures were built there at different times. The current citadel originated in 1660, but it replaced previous forts. It was used in World War II. One of the sights at the citadel is still the cenotaph raised by his legionaries to commemorate Drusus.
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quod erat demonstrandum Act II, Signature v - (8)
Main Entry: quod erat de£mon£stran£dum
Pronunciation: ƒkw•d-‚er-ƒät-ƒde-m„n-‚stran-d„m, -ƒd†-ƒm•n-‚strän-ƒd˜m
Usage: foreign term
Etymology: Latin : which was to be proved.
The Rhine as seen at Wageningen in The Nederlands (by Prashanthns, 2008).* Rhine River Act II, Signature v - (9)
German Rhein River, western Europe. Rising in the Swiss Alps, it flows north and west through western Germany to drain through the delta region of The Netherlands into the North Sea. It is 820 mi (1,319 km) long and navigable for 540 mi (870 km). Its many canals connect it with the Rhône, Marne, and Danube river systems. It has been an international waterway since 1815 (see Congress of Vienna ). It has played a prominent part in German history and legend. During World War II its course was a major line of defense. Major cities along its banks include Basel, Mannheim, Koblenz, Cologne, Duisburg, and Rotterdam.
*[Image & caption credit and following text courtesy of Wikipedia]:
The Rhine (German: Rhein; Dutch: Rijn; French: Rhin; Romansh: Rain; Italian: Reno; Latin: Rhenus; West Frisian Ryn) flows from the Swiss Alps to the Netherlands, and is one of the longest and most important rivers in Europe, at about 1,232 km (766 mi) [Schrader, Christopher, Uhlmann, Berit, "Der Rhein ist kürzer als gedacht – Jahrhundert- Irrtum," March 28, 2010, http://www.sueddeutsche.de/wissen/981/507145/text/; "Rhine River 90km shorter than everyone thinks," The Local – Germany's News in English , March 27, 2010, http://www.thelocal. de/society/20100327-26161.html], with an average discharge of more than 2,000 m3/s (71,000 cu ft/s).
The name of the Rhine derives from Gaulish Renos, and ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European root *reie- ("to move, flow, run"), which is also the root of words like river and run [Douglas Harper, "Rhine," Online Etymology Dictionary , November 2001, http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Rhine]. The Reno River in Italy shares the same etymology. The spelling with -h- seems to be borrowed from the Greek form of the name, Rhenos [ ibid ], seen also in rheos, stream, and rhein, to flow.
The Rhine and the Danube formed most of the northern inland frontier of the Roman Empire and, since those days, the Rhine has been a vital and navigable waterway carrying trade and goods deep inland. It has also served as a defensive feature and has been the basis for regional and international borders. The many castles and prehistoric fortifications along the Rhine testify to its importance as a waterway. River traffic could be stopped at these locations, usually for the purpose of collecting tolls, by the state that controlled that portion of the river.
Geologic history: Alpine orogeny. The Rhine flows from the Alps to the North Sea Basin; the geography and geology of its present day watershed has been developing, since the Alpine orogeny began.
In southern Europe, the stage was set in the Triassic Period of the Mesozoic Era, with the opening of the Tethys Ocean, between the Eurasian and African tectonic plates, between about 240 MBP and 220 MBP (million years before present). The present Mediterranean Sea descends from this somewhat larger Tethys sea. At about 180 MBP, in the Jurassic Period, the two plates reversed direction and began to compress the Tethys floor, causing it to be subducted under Eurasia and pushing up the edge of the latter plate in the Alpine Orogeny of the Oligocene and Miocene Periods. Several microplates were caught in the squeeze and rotated or were pushed laterally, generating the individual features of Mediterranean geography: Iberia pushed up the Pyrenees; Italy, the Alps, and Anatolia, moving west, the mountains of Greece and the islands. The compression and orogeny continue today, as shown by the ongoing raising of the mountains a small amount each year and the active volcanoes.
In northern Europe, the North Sea Basin had formed during the Triassic and Jurassic periods and continued to be a sediment receiving basin since. In between the zone of Alpine orogeny and North Sea Basin subsidence, remained highlands resulting from an earlier orogeny (Variscan), such as the Ardennes, Eifel and Vosges.
From the Eocene onwards, the ongoing Alpine orogeny caused a N–S rift system to develop in this zone. The main elements of this rift are the Upper Rhine Graben, in southwest Germany and eastern France and the Lower Rhine Embayment, in northwest Germany and the southeastern Netherlands. By the time of the Miocene, a river system had developed in the Upper Rhine Graben, that continued northward and is considered the first Rhine river. At that time, it did not yet carry discharge from the Alps; instead, the watersheds of the Rhone and Danube drained the northern flanks of the Alps.
Stream capture. The watershed of the Rhine reaches into the Alps today, but it did not start out that way [Cohen, K. M., Stouthamer, E., Berendsen, H. J. A., "Fluvial Deposits As a Record for Late Quaternary Neotectonic Activity in the Rhine-Meuse Delta, The Netherlands," Netherlands Journal of Geosciences – Geologie en Mijnbouw 81 (3-4): 389–405 (February 2002)]. In the Miocene period, the watershed of the Rhine reached south, only to the Eifel and Westerwald hills, about 450 km (280 mi) north of the Alps. The Rhine then had the Sieg as a tributary, but not yet the Moselle River. The northern Alps were then drained by the Danube.
Through stream capture, the Rhine extended its watershed southward. By the Pliocene period, the Rhine had captured streams down to the Vosges Mountains, including the Mosel, the Main and the Neckar. The northern Alps were then drained by the Rhone. By the early Pleistocene period, the Rhine had captured most of its current Alpine watershed from the Rhône, including the Aar. Since that time, the Rhine has added the watershed above Lake Constance (Vorderrhein, Hinterrhein River, Alpenrhein; captured from the Rhône), the upper reaches of the Main, beyond Schweinfurt and the Vosges Mountains, captured from the Meuse River, to its watershed.
Around 2.5 million years ago (ending 11,600 years ago) was the geological period of the Ice Ages. Since approximately 600,000 years ago, six major Ice Ages have occurred, in which sea level dropped 120 m (390 ft) and much of the continental margins became exposed. In the Early Pleistocene, the Rhine followed a course to the northwest, through the present North Sea. During the so-called Anglian glaciation (~450,000 yr BP, marine oxygen isotope stage 12), the northern part of the present North Sea was blocked by the ice and a large lake developed, that overflowed through the English Channel. This caused the Rhine's course to be diverted through the English Channel. Since then, during glacial times, the river mouth was located offshore of Brest, France and rivers, like the Thames and the Seine, became tributaries to the Rhine. During interglacials, when sea level rose to approximately the present level, the Rhine built deltas, in what is now the Netherlands.
The last glacial ran from ~74,000 (BP = Before Present), until the end of the Pleistocene (~11,600 BP). In northwest Europe, it saw two very cold phases, peaking around 70,000 BP and around 29,000–24,000 BP. The last phase slightly predates the global last ice age maximum (Last Glacial Maximum). During this time, the lower Rhine flowed roughly west through the Netherlands and extended to the southwest, through the English Channel and finally, to the Atlantic Ocean. The English Channel, the Irish Channel and most of the North Sea were dry land, mainly because sea level was approximately 120 m (390 ft) lower than today.
Most of the Rhine's current course was not under the ice during the last Ice Age; although, its source must still have been a glacier. A tundra, with Ice Age flora and fauna, stretched across middle Europe, from Asia to the Atlantic Ocean. Such was the case during the Last Glacial Maximum, ca. 22,000–14,000 yr BP, when ice-sheets covered Scandinavia, the Baltics, Scotland and the Alps, but left the space between as open tundra. The loess or wind-blown dust over that tundra, settled in and around the Rhine Valley, contributing to its current agricultural usefulness.
End of the last Ice Age. As northwest Europe slowly began to warm up from 22,000 years ago onward, frozen subsoil and expanded alpine glaciers began to thaw and fall-winter snow covers melted in spring. Much of the discharge was routed to the Rhine and its downstream extension [Ménot, Guillemette, Bard, Edouard, Rostek, Frauke, Weijers, Johan W. H., Hopmans, Ellen C., Schouten, Stefan, Sinninghe Damsté, Jaap S., "Early Reactivation of European Rivers During the Last Deglaciation," Science 313 (5793): 1623–1625 (September 15, 2006)]. Rapid warming and changes of vegetation, to open forest, began about 13,000 BP. By 9000 BP, Europe was fully forested. With globally shrinking ice-cover, ocean water levels rose and the English Channel and North Sea re-inundated. Meltwater, adding to the ocean and land subsidence, drowned the former coasts of Europe transgressionally.
About 11,000 years ago, the Rhine estuary was in the Dover Strait. There remained some dry land in the southern North Sea, connecting mainland Europe to Britain. About 9,000 years ago, that last divide was overtopped/dissected. These events were well within the residence of man. Since 7,500 years ago, a situation with tides and currents, very similar to present has existed. Rates of sea-level rise had dropped so far, that natural sedimentation by the Rhine and coastal processes together, could compensate the transgression by the sea; in the last 7000 years, the coast line was roughly at the same location. In the southern North Sea, due to ongoing tectonic subsidence, the sea-level is still rising, at the rate of about 1–3 cm (0.39–1.2 in) per century (1 metre or 39 inches in last 3000 years). About 7000– 5000 BP, a general warming encouraged migration up the Danube and down the Rhine, by peoples to the east, perhaps encouraged by the sudden massive expansion of the Black Sea, as the Mediterranean Sea burst into it through the Bosporus, about 7500 BP. Suspension bridge: Golden Gate Bridge Golden Gate Bridge Act II, Signature v - (10)
Suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, San Francisco. From its completion in 1937 until the completion of New York's Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in 1964, it had the longest main span in the world, 4,200 ft (1,280 m). It remains incomparable in its magnificence. Its construction, supervised by Joseph B. Strauss (1870–1938), involved many difficulties: rapidly running tides, frequent storms and fogs, and the problem of blasting rock under deep water to plant earthquake-resistant foundations.
[Following text courtesy of Wikipedia]:
Conception. Although the idea of a bridge spanning the Golden Gate was not new, the proposal that eventually took place was made in a 1916 San Francisco Bulletin article by former engineering student James Wilkins [T. O. Owens, The Golden Gate Bridge (The Rosen Publishing Group, 2001)]. San Francisco's City Engineer estimated the cost at $100 million, impractical for the time, and fielded the question to bridge engineers of whether it could be built for less [Two Bay Area Bridges," U.S. Department of Transportation: Federal Highway Administration, http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/2bridges.cfm]. One who responded, Joseph Strauss, was an ambitious but dreamy engineer and poet who had, for his graduate thesis, designed a 55-mile (89 km) long railroad bridge across the Bering Strait ["The American Experience: People & Events: Joseph Strauss (1870–1938)," Public Broadcasting Service , http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/goldengate/peopleevents/p_strauss.html]. At the time, Strauss had completed some 400 drawbridges—most of which were inland—and nothing on the scale of the new project [Denton, Harry et al., Lonely Planet (San Francisco, U.S.: Lonely Planet, 2004)]. Strauss's initial drawings [Owens (2001)] were for a massive cantilever on each side of the strait, connected by a central suspension segment, which Strauss promised could be built for $17 million [http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/2bridges.cfm].
Local authorities agreed to proceed only on the assurance that Strauss alter the design and accept input from several consulting project experts.[citation needed] A suspension-bridge design was considered the most practical, because of recent advances in metallurgy [ ibid ].
Strauss spent more than a decade drumming up support in Northern California ["Bridging the Bay: Bridges That Never Were," UC Berkeley Library (1999), http://www.lib.berkeley.edu /news_events/exhibits/bridge/up028.html]. The bridge faced opposition, including litigation, from many sources. The Department of War was concerned that the bridge would interfere with ship traffic; the navy feared that a ship collision or sabotage to the bridge could block the entrance to one of its main harbors. Unions demanded guarantees that local workers would be favored for construction jobs. Southern Pacific Railroad, one of the most powerful business interests in California, opposed the bridge as competition to its ferry fleet and filed a lawsuit against the project, leading to a mass boycott of the ferry service [http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/2bridges.cfm]. In May 1924, Colonel Herbert Deakyne held the second hearing on the Bridge on behalf of the Secretary of War in a request to use Federal land for construction. Deakyne, on behalf of the Secretary of War, approved the transfer of land needed for the bridge structure and leading roads to the "Bridging the Golden Gate Association" and both San Francisco County and Marin County, pending further bridge plans by Strauss [Miller, John B., Case Studies in Infrastructure Delivery (Springer, 2002)]. Another ally was the fledgling automobile industry, which supported the development of roads and bridges to increase demand for automobiles [Guy Span, "So Where Are They Now? The Story of San Francisco's Steel Electric Empire," Bay Crossings , May 4, 2002, http://www.baycrossings.com /archives/2002/04 _May/so_where_are_they_now.htm].
The bridge's name was first used when the project was initially discussed in 1917 by M. M. O'Shaughnessy, city engineer of San Francisco, and Strauss. The name became official with the passage of the Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District Act by the state legislature in 1923 [Gudde, Erwin G., California Place Names (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1949), p. 130].
Preliminary discussions leading to the eventual building of the Golden Gate Bridge were held on January 13, 1923, at a special convention in Santa Rosa, CA. The Santa Rosa Chamber was charged with considering the necessary steps required to foster the construction of a bridge across the Golden Gate by then Santa Rosa Chamber President Frank Doyle. On June 12, the Santa Rosa Chamber voted to endorse the actions of the "Bridging the Golden Gate Association" by attending the meeting of the Boards of Supervisors in San Francisco on June 23 and by requesting that the Board of Supervisors of Sonoma County also attend. By 1925, the Santa Rosa Chamber had assumed responsibility for circulating bridge petitions as the next step for the formation of the Golden Gate Bridge [citation needed].
Design. South tower seen from walkwayStrauss was chief engineer in charge of overall design and construction of the bridge project [Sigmund, Pete, "The Golden Gate: 'The Bridge That Couldn't Be Built,'" Construction Equipment Guide (2006), http://www.cegltd.com/story.asp?story=7045&headline=The%20Golden%20Gate:%20%E BThe% 20Bridge%20That%20Couldn%EDt%20Be%20Built%ED]. However, because he had little understanding or experience with cable-suspension designs ["People and Events: Joseph Strauss (1870-1938)," Public Broadcasting Service , http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/goldengate/peopleevents/p_strauss.html], responsibility for much of the engineering and architecture fell on other experts.
Irving Morrow, a relatively unknown residential architect, designed the overall shape of the bridge towers, the lighting scheme, and Art Deco elements such as the streetlights, railing, and walkways. The famous International Orange color was originally used as a sealant for the bridge. Many locals persuaded Morrow to paint the bridge in the vibrant orange color instead of the standard silver or gray, and the color has been kept ever since ["The American Experience: People & Events: Irving Morrow (1884-1952)," Public Broadcasting Service , http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/goldengate/peopleevents/p_morrow.html].
Senior engineer Charles Alton Ellis, collaborating remotely with famed bridge designer Leon Moisseiff, was the principal engineer of the project. Moisseiff produced the basic structural design, introducing his "deflection theory" by which a thin, flexible roadway would flex in the wind, greatly reducing stress by transmitting forces via suspension cables to the bridge towers ["American Experience: Leon Moisseiff (1872–1943)," Public Broadcasting Service , http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/goldengate/peopleevents/p_moisseiff.html]. Although the Golden Gate Bridge design has proved sound, a later Moisseiff design, the original Tacoma Narrows Bridge, collapsed in a strong windstorm soon after it was completed, because of an unexpected aeroelastic flutter [K. Billah and R. Scanlan, "Resonance, Tacoma Narrows Bridge Failure, and Undergraduate Physics Textbooks," American Journal of Physics , 59 (2), 118–124 (1991), http://www.ketchum.org/billah/Billah-Scanlan.pdf].
Ellis was a Greek scholar and mathematician who at one time was a University of Illinois professor of engineering despite having no engineering degree (he eventually earned a degree in civil engineering from University of Illinois prior to designing the Golden Gate Bridge and spent the last twelve years of his career as a professor at Purdue University). He became an expert in structural design, writing the standard textbook of the time. Ellis did much of the technical and theoretical work that built the bridge, but he received none of the credit in his lifetime. In November 1931, Strauss fired Ellis and replaced him with a former subordinate, Clifford Paine, ostensibly for wasting too much money sending telegrams back and forth to Moisseiff. Ellis, obsessed with the project and unable to find work elsewhere during the Depression, continued working 70 hours per week on an unpaid basis, eventually turning in ten volumes of hand calculations ["The American Experience: Charles Alton Ellis (1876–1949)," Public Broadcasting Service , http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/goldengate/peopleevents /p_ellis.html].
~ page 67 ~
Faust, detail from the title page of the 1616 edition of The Tragicall History of D. Faustus , by Christopher Marlowe. Faust Act II, Signature v - (11)
Legendary German necromancer or astrologer who sold his soul to the devil for knowledge and power. There was a historical Faust (perhaps two; both died c.1540), who traveled widely performing magic, referred to the devil as his crony, and had a wide reputation for evil. The Faustbuch (1587), a collection of tales purportedly by Faust, told of such reputed wizards as Merlin and Albertus Magnus. It was widely translated; an English version inspired Christopher Marlowe's Tragicall History of D. Faustus (1604), which emphasized Faust's eternal damnation. Magic manuals bearing Faust's name did a brisk business; the classic Magia naturalis et innaturalis was known to Johann W. von Goethe, who, like Gotthold Lessing, saw Faust's pursuit of knowledge as noble; in Goethe's great Faust the hero is redeemed. Inspired by Goethe, many artists took up the story, including Hector Berlioz (in the dramatic cantata The Damnation of Faust ) and Charles Gounod (in the opera Faust ).
*[Image & caption credit and following text courtesy of Wikipedia]:
Faust or Faustus (Latin for "auspicious" or "lucky") is the protagonist of a classic German legend. Though a highly successful scholar, he is unsatisfied, and makes a deal with the devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. Faust's tale is the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical works. The meaning of the word and name has been reinterpreted through the ages. Faust, and the adjective Faustian, are often used to describe an arrangement in which an ambitious person surrenders moral integrity in order to achieve power and success: the proverbial "deal with the devil." The terms can also refer to an unquenchable thirst for knowledge [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Faustian].
The Faust of early books—as well as the ballads, dramas and puppet-plays which grew out of them—is irrevocably damned because he prefers human to divine knowledge; "he laid the Holy Scriptures behind the door and under the bench, refused to be called doctor of Theology, but preferred to be styled doctor of Medicine ["Faust," Encyclopaedia Britannica (New York: The Encyclopaedia Britannica Company, 1910)]."
Plays and comic puppet theatre loosely based on this legend were popular throughout Germany in the 16th century, often reducing Faust to a figure of vulgar fun. The story was popularised in England by Christopher Marlowe, who gave it a classic treatment in his play, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus. In Goethe's reworking of the story 200 years later, Faust becomes a dissatisfied intellectual who yearns for "more than earthly meat and drink [citation needed]."
Marlowe's Doctor Faustus . The early Faust chapbook, while in circulation in northern Germany, found its way to England, where in 1592 an English translation was published, The Historie of the Damnable Life, and Deserved Death of Doctor Iohn Faustus credited to a certain "P. F., Gent[leman]". Christopher Marlowe used this work as the basis for his more ambitious play, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (published c. 1604). Marlowe also borrowed from John Foxe's Book of Martyrs , on the exchanges between Pope Adrian VI and a rival pope. Another possible inspiration of Marlowe's version is John Dee (1527–1609), who practiced forms of alchemy and science and developed Enochian magic.
Page 004 of von Goethe's Faust , translated by Bayard Taylor and illustrated by Harry Clarke (date of translation 1870–71, illustrations 1925); Project Gutenberg Open Library System, http://www.pgdp.org/ols/tools/biblio.php?id= 41364f4119695.*
*[Image & caption credit and following text courtesy of Wikipedia]:
Goethe's Faust complicates the simple Christian moral of the original legend. A hybrid between a play and an extended poem, Goethe's two-part "closet drama" is epic in scope. It gathers together references from Christian, medieval, Roman, eastern and Hellenic poetry, philosophy and literature. The composition and refinement of Goethe's own version of the legend occupied him for over 60 years (though not continuously). The final version, published after his death, is recognized as a great work of German literature.
The story concerns the fate of Faust in his quest for the true essence of life ("was die Welt im Innersten zusammenhält"). Frustrated with learning and the limits to his knowledge and power, he attracts the attention of the devil (represented by Mephistopheles), who agrees to serve Faust until the moment he attains the zenith of human happiness, at which point Mephistopheles may take his soul. Faust is pleased with the deal, as he believes the moment will never come. In the first part, Mephistopheles leads Faust through experiences that culminate in a lustful relationship with Gretchen, an innocent young woman. Gretchen and her family are destroyed by Mephistopheles' deceptions and Faust's desires. The story ends in tragedy as Gretchen is saved and Faust is left in shame.
The second part begins with the spirits of the earth forgiving Faust (and the rest of mankind) and progresses into allegorical poetry. Faust and his devil pass through the world of politics and the world of the classical gods, and meet with Helen of Troy (the personification of beauty). Finally, having succeeded in taming the very forces of war and nature, Faust experiences a single moment of happiness. Mephistopheles tries to seize Faust's soul when he dies, but is frustrated when angels intervene, recognizing the value of Faust's unending striving.
Thomas Mann's 1947 Doktor Faustus: Das Leben des deutschen Tonsetzers Adrian Leverkühn, erzählt von einem Freunde , adapts the Faust legend to a 20th-century context, documenting the life of fictional composer Adrian Leverkühn as analog and embodiment of the early 20th-century history of Germany and of Europe. The talented Leverkühn, after contracting venereal disease from a brothel visit, forms a pact with a Mephistophelean character to grant him 24 years of brilliance and success as a composer. He produces works of increasing beauty to universal acclaim, even while physical illness begins to corrupt his body. In 1930, when presenting his final masterwork ( The Lamentation of Dr Faust ), he confesses the pact he had made: madness and syphilis now overcome him, and he suffers a slow and total collapse until his death in 1940. Leverkühn's spiritual, mental, and physical collapse and degradation are mapped on to the period in which Nazism rose in Germany, and Leverkühn's fate is shown as that of the soul of Germany.
A very dusty Smith Premier Typewriter abandoned at one of the stores in the ghost town of Bodie, California. The Smith Premier 1 was introduced in 1889 and replaced by the less ornate SP2 in 1894. Author: Jon Sullivan (Camera: Canon D60, Lens: Canon 28-135mm IS), September 6, 2004, http://pdphoto.org/PictureDetail.php?mat=pdef&pg= 8264.* Smith-Corona Act II, Signature v - (12)
Machine for writing characters similar to those made by printers' types, especially a machine in which the characters are produced by steel types striking the paper through an inked ribbon, the types being activated by corresponding keys on a keyboard and the paper being held by a roller (the platen) that is automatically moved along with a carriage when a key is struck.
The first practical typewriter was patented in 1868 by Christopher L. Sholes; commercial production began at the Remington firearms company in 1874. By the end of the century the typewriter had come to dominate the American office. The first electric typewriter for office use was introduced in 1920. From the 1970s typewriters began to be replaced by personal computers and their associated printers.
*[Image & caption credit and following text courtesy of Wikipedia]:
Smith brothers. The company originated in 1886 when the Smith Premier Typewriter Company, established by Lyman, Wilbert, Monroe and Hurlburt Smith, created the first machine to use both uppercase and lowercase letters. In 1887 the Smith-Premier, the first typewriter to bear the Smith name, was manufactured in Lyman C. Smith's gun factory on South Clinton Street. Alexander T. Brown, an employee, invented the machine, and Wilbert Smith, financed the construction of the prototype ["New York, Syracuse," Atlantis (2010), http://madeinatlantis.com /new_york/syracuse.htm].
In 1893, the company joined with the Union Typewriter Company, a trust in Syracuse, New York which included rival firms Remington, Caligraph, Densmore and Yost. But when Union blocked Smith Premier from using the new front strike design, which allowed typists to see the paper they typed, the Smith brothers quit in 1903 and founded L. C. Smith & Bros. Typewriter Company. The Smith brothers started this new company with the release of the "L.C. Smith & Bros. Model No. 2", which was an odd beginning because the Smiths released the Model No. 1 a year later. Carl Gabrielson was the inventor of both No. 1 and No. 2 [Bliven, Bruce Jr., Wonderful Writing Machine (New York, NY: Random House); "About Smith Corona: History," http://www.smithcorona.com/About_Smith_Corona/mission.cfm]. Separately, in 1906, the Rose Typewriter Company of New York City marketed the first successful portable typewriter. Bought out entirely in 1909 and moved upstate to Groton, it was renamed the Standard Typewriter Company ["Inventions Built Industries Here," Syracuse Journal (Syracuse, New York), March 20, 1939].
Corona typewriter. With the success of their Corona model in 1914, Standard Typewriter was renamed again and became the Corona Typewriter Company [http://www.smithcorona.com /About_Smith_Corona/mission.cfm]. Smith Corona was created when L. C. Smith & Bros. united with Corona Typewriter in 1926, with L. C. Smith & Bros. making office typewriters and Corona Typewriter making portables. During World War II, Smith Corona made Springfield rifles and other small arms for U.S. armed forces [ ibid ]. After the war, the company concentrated on making its typewriters more convenient and efficient for use in business offices.
Mid-century. Typewriter sales peaked after World War II; in response to a demand for typewriters capable of faster output, Smith Corona introduced electric typewriters in 1955. Electric portables, intended for travelling writers and businesspeople, but later widely purchased for general home use, were introduced in 1957 [ibid ]. The new portable electric typewriters would become an essential tool for generations of U.S. high school and college students.
In a diversification move that later proved unsound, Smith Corona purchased Marchant Calculator in 1958. Smith Corona invented the typewriter power carriage return in 1960, the year it left Syracuse for Cortlandville. In 1962, they changed their corporate name to Smith-Corona Marchant (SCM). In 1967 SCM purchased the Allied Paper Corporation for $33 million.
Cartridge ribbon. The new paper-making division was named SCM Allied Paper. In 1973, SCM introduced a cartridge ribbon which eliminated the long-standing problem of getting ink-stained fingers from hand-threading a replacement spool of inked ribbon. The calculator market was devastated by cheap electronic pocket calculators in the mid 1970s. By 1985, personal computers were being widely used for word processing, and SCM launched their first portable word processor, along with the first portable typewriter that included an electronic spelling function.
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palmer Act II, Signature v - (13)
Main Entry: palm£er
Pronunciation: ‚pä-m„r, ‚päl-, ‚p•-, ‚p•l- Function: noun
Date: 13th century : a person wearing two crossed palm leaves as a sign of a pilgrimage made to the Holy Land.
*[Image & caption credit and following text courtesy of Wikipedia]:
See also Act I, Signature wxix - (5).
Levers can be used to exert a large force over a small distance at one end by exerting only a small force over a greater distance at the other.* fulcrum Act II, Signature v - (14)
Main Entry: ful£crum
Pronunciation: ‚f˜l-kr„m, ‚f„l-
Function: noun
Inflected Form: plural fulcrums or ful£cra \-kr„\
Etymology: Late Latin, from Latin, bedpost, from fulcire to prop— more at balk
Date: 1674: 1 a : prop; specifically : the support about which a lever turns b : one that supplies capability for action
2 : a part of an animal that serves as a hinge or support
*[Image & caption credit and following text courtesy of Wikipedia]:
In physics, a lever (from French lever, "to raise," c.f. a levant) is a rigid object that is used with an appropriate fulcrum or pivot point to multiply the mechanical force (effort) that can be applied to another object (load). This leverage is also termed mechanical advantage, and is one example of the principle of moments. A lever is one of the six simple machines.
The earliest remaining writings regarding levers date from the 3rd century BC and were provided by Archimedes. "Give me a place to stand, and I shall move the earth with a lever" is a remark of Archimedes who formally stated the correct mathematical principle of levers (quoted by Pappus of Alexandria) [Mackay, Alan Lindsay, "Archimedes ca 287–212 BC," in A Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (London: Taylor and Francis, 1991), p. 11]. In ancient Egypt, constructors used the lever to move and uplift obelisks weighting more than 100 tons [Budge, E. A. Wallis, Cleopatra's Needles and Other Egyptian Obelisks (Kessinger Publishing, 2003), p. 28].
Force and levers. The force applied (at end points of the lever) is proportional to the ratio of the length of the lever arm measured between the fulcrum (pivoting point) and application point of the force applied at each end of the lever. Mathematically, this is expressed by M = Fd, where F is the force, d is the distance between the force and the fulcrum, and M is the turning force known as the moment or torque. Classes. There are three classes of levers representing variations in the relative locations of the fulcrum, the load and the force [Davidovits, Paul, Physics in Biology and Medicine , 3rd Ed. (Academic Press, 2008), p. 10]:
• Class 1 - The fulcrum is located between the applied force and the load, for example, a crowbar or a pair of scissors or a seesaw.
• Class 2 - The load is situated between the fulcrum and the force, for example, a wheelbarrow or a nutcracker.
• Class 3 - The force is applied between the fulcrum and the load, for example, a pair of tweezers or the human mandible.
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Keating Hall at the Rose Hill campus circa February 1937.* Fordham Act II, Signature v - (15)
*[Image & caption credit and following text courtesy of Wikipedia]:
Fordham University is a private not-for-profit research university [Carnegie Foundation, "Institutions: Fordham University," http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/classifications/sub.asp?key=748&subkey=1529 5&start=782] in the United States, with three main campuses located in and around New York City. It was founded by the Roman Catholic Diocese of New York in 1841 as St. John's College, placed in the care of the Society of Jesus shortly thereafter, and has since become an independent institution under a lay Board of Trustees which describes the university as "in the Jesuit tradition [Fordham University, "Fordham at a Glance," http://www.fordham.edu/discover_fordham/fordham_at_a_glance/]."
Enrollment at Fordham University includes nearly 8,000 undergraduate students and 7,000 graduate students spread over three campuses in New York State: Rose Hill in The Bronx, Lincoln Center in Manhattan, and Westchester in West Harrison. Today the university operates two global centers overseas, in the People's Republic of China and the United Kingdom. Fordham awards bachelor's (BA, BFA, and BS), master's, and doctoral degrees [ ibid ].
Fordham University is composed of four undergraduate colleges and six graduate schools, including the Fordham Graduate School of Social Service, Fordham Graduate School of Business, and the Fordham School of Law. The university offers five-year dual-degree BA/BS engineering programs in cooperation with Case Western Reserve University and Columbia University [Fordham University, "Engineering: 3-2 Cooperative Program in Engineering," http://www.fordham.edu/academics/programs_at_fordham_/engineering_1650.asp], and a BFA degree program for dance in partnership with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater [Fordham University, "Ailey/Fordham Partnership," http://www.fordham.edu/Academics/ Colleges__Graduate_S/Undergraduate_Colleg/Fo rdham_College_at_L/Fields_of_Study/BFA_Dance/AileyFordham_Partner_22314.asp].
The university was once integrated with Fordham Preparatory School, a four-year, all-male, college preparatory school, with which it shares its founding. Since legally separating from the university in 1972, "Fordham Prep" moved to its own facilities bordering the northwest corner of the Rose Hill Campus [Fordham Preparatory School, "History of Fordham Preparatory School," http://www.fordhamprep.org/joomla/index.php? option=com_content&task=view&id=1 10&Itemid=204].
Fordham University was originally founded as St. John's College in 1841 by the Irish-born Coadjutor Bishop (later Archbishop) of the Diocese of New York, the Most Reverend John Joseph Hughes [Fordham University, "Fordham Facts," http://www.fordham.edu/discover_fordham/facts_26604.asp]. The College was the first Catholic institution of higher education in the northeastern United States. Bishop Hughes purchased most of Rose Hill Manor and Estate in Fordham, the Bronx, at a little less than $30,000 for the purpose of establishing St. Joseph's Seminary in September 1840 [Schroth, Raymond A. SJ, Fordham: A History and Memoir (Loyola Press, 2002)]. "Rose Hill" was the name originally given to the site in 1787 by its owner, Robert Watts, a wealthy New York merchant, in honor of his family's ancestral home in Scotland [http://www.fordham.edu/discover_fordham/facts]. The seminary was paired with St. John's College, which opened at Rose Hill with a student body of six on June 21, 1841. The Reverend John McCloskey (later Archbishop of New York, eventually to become the first American Cardinal) was its first president, and the faculty were secular priests and lay instructors. The college went through a succession of four diocesan priests in five years as presidents, including Fr. James Roosevelt Bayley, a distant cousin to Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, and nephew to Elizabeth Bayley Seton who was later the first United States citizen by birth to be canonized [Schroth (2002)]. In 1845 the seminary church, Our Lady of Mercy, was built while Bishop Hughes convinced a group of Jesuits, including five from St. Mary's College in Kentucky, to staff the new school.
In 1846 St. John's College received its charter from the New York state legislature [http://www.fordham.edu/discover_fordham/facts], and about three months later the first Jesuits began to arrive. Bishop Hughes deeded the college over, but retained title to the seminary property of about nine acres [Schroth (2002)]. In 1847, Fordham's first school in what was then New York City proper opened in Manhattan. This school became the independently chartered College of St. Francis Xavier in 1861 [Fordham University," A Brief History," http://www.fordham .edu/academics/colleges__graduate_s/undergraduate_colleg/fo rdham_college_at_l/a_brief_history_22305.asp]. It was also in 1847 that the American poet, Edgar Allan Poe, arrived in the village of Fordham and began a friendship with the Jesuits that would last throughout his years there. In 1849 he published "The Bells", to which some traditions credit the college church bells as the inspiration [Schroth (2002)].
The college's early curriculum options consisted of a junior division (effectively, the preparatory school) requiring four years of study in Latin, Greek, grammar, literature, history, geography, mathematics and religion; and a senior division (effectively, the college) of three years study in poetry (humanities), rhetoric and philosophy. Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, famed commander of the all-black 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry American Civil War regiment, attended the junior division. An Artium Baccalaureus degree was earned for completion of both, where the junior division requirements were met at the associated preparatory school or at a transfer student's originating institution. An additional year of philosophy would earn a Magister Artium degree [ ibid ] There was also a "commercial" track, similar to a college of business administration concept of today, which was an alternative to the classical Latin-based curriculum and awarded a certificate instead of a diploma. In 1855 the first student dramatic production, Henry IV, was presented. The seminary was closed in 1859, and the property was sold to the Jesuits in 1860 for $40,000 [ibid ].
A Congressional act creating instruction in military science and tactics at the college level resulted in St. John's College bringing a cadet corps to the campus. Over the course of 1885-1890 a veteran of the 7th U.S. Cavalry, Lt. Herbert C. Squires, built a cadet battalion to a strength of 200, which would provide the formal foundation for the modern ROTC unit at Fordham [ ibid ]. The college built a science building in 1886, lending more legitimacy to science in the curriculum. In addition, a three-year bachelor of science degree was created. In 1897 academic regalia for students at commencement was first adopted. The process of consolidating the Westchester towns that eventually comprised the borough of the Bronx began in 1874, bringing St. John's College within the city limits and culminating in 1898 with the incorporation of the five boroughs into New York City [ ibid ].
Bill of Rights Act II, Signature v - (16)
First 10 amendments to the Constitution of the United States , adopted as a group in 1791. They are a collection of guarantees of individual rights and of limitations on federal and state governments that derived from popular dissatisfaction with the limited guarantees of the Constitution. The first Congress submitted 12 amendments (drafted by James Madison) to the states, 10 of which were ratified. The 1st Amendment guarantees freedom of religion, speech, and the press and grants the right to petition for redress and to assemble peacefully. The 2nd Amendment guarantees the right of the people to keep and bear arms. The 3rd prohibits the quartering of soldiers in private dwellings in peacetime. The 4th protects against unreasonable search and seizure. The 5th establishes grand-jury indictment for serious offenses, protects against double jeopardy in criminal cases, and prohibits compelling testimony by a person against himself. The 6th establishes the rights of the accused to a speedy trial and an impartial jury and guarantees the right to legal counsel and to the obtaining of witnesses in his favour. The 7th preserves the right to trial by jury in serious civil suits and prohibits double jeopardy in civil cases. The 8th prohibits excessive bail and cruel and unusual punishment. The 9th states that enumeration of certain rights in the Constitution does not mean the abrogation of rights not mentioned. The 10th reserves to the states and people any powers not delegated to the federal government.
[Following text courtesy of Wikipedia]:
The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law "respecting an establishment of religion", impeding the free exercise of religion, infringing on the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances. The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment has been interpreted by the Supreme Court as erecting a separation of church and state [Thomas Jefferson's Danbury letter has been cited favorably by the Supreme Court several times, although the Court has also criticized it: in Reynolds v. United States (1879) the Supreme Court said Jefferson's observations "may be accepted almost as an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the [First] Amendment;" in Everson v. Board of Education (1947), Justice Hugo Black, writing for the Court, said, "in the words of Thomas Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect a wall of separation between church and state"].
Originally, the First Amendment only applied to laws enacted by the Congress. However, starting with Gitlow v. New York , 268 U.S. 652 (1925), the Supreme Court held that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment applies the First Amendment to each state, including any local government.
Campaign finance reform is the common term for the political effort in the United States to change the involvement of money in politics, primarily in political campaigns.
Although attempts to regulate campaign finance by legislation date back to 1867, the first successful attempts nationally to regulate and enforce campaign finance originated in the 1970s. The Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) of 1972 required candidates to disclose sources of campaign contributions and campaign expenditures. It was amended in 1974 with the introduction of statutory limits on contributions, and creation of the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA). It attempted to restrict the influence of wealthy individuals by limiting individual donations to $1,000 and donations by political action comittees (PACs) to $5,000. These specific election donations are known as 'hard money.' The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) of 2002, also known as "McCain-Feingold," after its sponsors, is the most recent major federal law on campaign finance, which revised some of the legal limits on expenditures set in 1974, and prohibited unregulated contributions (commonly referred to as "soft money") to national political parties. 'Soft money' also refers to funds spent by independent organizations that do not specifically advocate the election or defeat of candidates, and funds which are not contributed directly to candidate campaigns.
Campaign finance. In Buckley v. Valeo , 424 U.S. 1 (1976), the Supreme Court affirmed the constitutionality of some parts, while declaring other parts unconstitutional, of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 and related laws. These laws restricted the monetary contributions that may be made to political campaigns and expenditure by candidates. The Court concluded that limits on campaign contributions "serve[d] the basic governmental interest in safeguarding the integrity of the electoral process without directly impinging upon the rights of individual citizens and candidates to engage in political debate and discussion [ Buckley , p. 58]." However, the Court overturned the spending limits, which it found imposed "substantial restraints on the quantity of political speech [ Buckley , p. 39]."
Further rules on campaign finance were scrutinized by the Court when it determined McConnell v. Federal Election Commission , 540 U.S. 93 (2003). The case centered on the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, a law that introduced several new restrictions on campaign financing. The Supreme Court upheld provisions which barred the raising of soft money by national parties and the use of soft money by private organizations to fund certain advertisements related to elections. However, the Court struck down the "choice of expenditure" rule, which required that parties could either make coordinated expenditures for all its candidates, or permit candidates to spend independently, but not both, which they agreed "placed an unconstitutional burden on the parties' right to make unlimited independent expenditures [ McConnell, p. 213 ]." The Supreme Court also ruled that the provision preventing minors from making political contributions was unconstitutional, relying on the precedent established by Tinker.
In Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc ., 551 U.S. 449 (2007), the Supreme Court sustained an "as applied" challenge to provisions of the 2002 law dealing with advertising shortly before a primary, caucus, or an election.
In Davis v. Federal Election Commission , 554 U.S. ___ (2008), the Supreme Court declared the "Millionaire's Amendment" provisions of the BCRA to be unconstitutional. The Court held that easing BCRA restrictions for an opponent of a self-financing candidate spending at least $350,000 of his own money violated the freedom of speech of the self-financing candidate.
In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission , 558 U.S. ___ (2010), the Court ruled that federal restrictions on corporate electoral advocacy under the BCRA were unconstitutional for violating the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. The Court overruled Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce , 494 U.S. 652 (1990), which had previously held that a law that prohibited corporations from using treasury funds to support or oppose candidates in elections did not violate the First or Fourteenth Amendments. The Court also overruled the portion of McConnell that upheld such restrictions under the BCRA [http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/cases/clcc.html?court=US&vol= 000&invol= 08-205].
Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002. The Congress passed the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA), also called the McCain-Feingold bill after its chief sponsors, John McCain and Russ Feingold. The bill was passed by the House of Representatives on February 14, 2002 with 240 yeas and 189 nays including 6 members who did not vote. Final passage in the Senate came after supporters mustered the bare minimum of 60 votes needed to shut off debate. The bill passed the Senate, 60-40 on March 20, 2002, and was signed into law by President Bush on March 27, 2002. In signing the law, Bush expressed concerns about the constitutionality of parts of the legislation but concluded, "I believe that this legislation, although far from perfect, will improve the current financing system for Federal campaigns … taken as a whole, this bill improves the current system of financing for Federal campaigns, and therefore I have signed it into law." The bill was the first significant overhaul of federal campaign finance laws since the post-Watergate scandal era. Academic research has used game theory to explain Congress's incentives to pass the Act [Gill, David & Lipsmeyer, Christine, Soft Money and Hard Choices: Why Political Parties Might Legislate Against Soft Money Donations (Public Choice, 2005), http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1422616].
The BCRA was a mixed bag for those who wanted to remove big money from politics. It eliminated all soft money donations to the national party committees, but it also doubled the contribution limit of hard money, from $1,000 to $2,000 per election cycle, with a built-in increase for inflation. In addition, the bill aimed to curtail ads by non-party organizations by banning the use of corporate or union money to pay for "electioneering communications," a term defined as broadcast advertising that identifies a federal candidate within 30 days of a primary or nominating convention, or 60 days of a general election. This provision of McCain-Feingold, sponsored by Maine Republican Olympia Snowe and Vermont Independent James Jeffords, as introduced applied only to for-profit corporations, but was extended to incorporate non-profit issue organizations, such as the Environmental Defense Fund or the National Rifle Association, as part of the "Wellstone Amendment," sponsored by Senator Paul Wellstone. The law was challenged as unconstitutional by groups and individuals including the California State Democratic Party, the National Rifle Association, and Republican Senator Mitch McConnell (KY), the Senate Majority Whip. After moving through lower courts, in September 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case, McConnell v. FEC . On Wednesday, December 10, 2003, the Supreme Court issued a ruling that upheld the key provisions of McCain-Feingold; the vote on the court was 5 to 4. Justices John Paul Stevens and Sandra Day O'Connor wrote the majority opinion; they were joined by David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer, and opposed by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, and Antonin Scalia.
Since then, campaign finance limitations continue to be regulated in the Courts. In an interesting case, in 2005 in Washington state, Thurston County Judge Christopher Wickham ruled that media articles and segments were considered in-kind contributions under state law. The heart of the matter focused on the I-912 campaign to repeal a fuel tax, and specifically two broadcasters for Seattle conservative talker KVI. Judge Wickham's ruling was eventually overturned on appeal in April 2007, with the Washington Supreme Court holding that on-air commentary was not covered by the State's campaign finance laws ( No New Gas Tax v. San Juan County ).
In 2006, the United States Supreme Court issued two decisions on campaign finance. In Wisconsin Right to Life v. Federal Election Commission , it held that certain advertisements might be constitutionally entitled to an exception from the 'electioneering communications' provisions of McCain-Feingold limiting broadcast ads that merely mention a federal candidate within 60 days of an election. On remand, a lower court then held that certain ads aired by Wisconsin Right to Life in fact merited such an exception. The Federal Election Commission appealed that decision, and in June 2007, the Supreme Court held in favor of Wisconsin Right to Life. In an opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts, the Court declined to overturn the electioneering communications limits in their entirety, but established a broad exemption for any ad that could have a reasonable interpretation as an ad about legislative issues.
Also in 2006, the Supreme Court held that a Vermont law imposing mandatory limits on spending was unconstitutional, under the precedent of Buckley v. Valeo . In that case, Randall v. Sorrell , the Court also struck down Vermont's contribution limits as unconstitutionally low, the first time that the Court had ever struck down a contribution limit.
2010 Supreme Court ruling. In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission , on Jan, 2010, the US Supreme court ruled that the McCain-Feingold Act of 2002, the US federal law that regulates the financing of political campaigns, was in violation of corporations' and unions' First Amendment rights. Under the January 2010 ruling, corporations and unions are no longer barred from promoting the election of one candidate over another candidate [ Citizens United v. Federal Election Comm ., http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-205.pdf].
Ruling. Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion of the Court: "Federal law prohibits corporations and unions from using their general treasury funds to make independent expenditures for speech defined as an "electioneering communication" or for speech expressly advocating the election or defeat of a candidate. 2 U. S. C. §441b. Limits on electioneering communications were upheld in McConnell v. Federal Election Comm ., 540 U. S. 93, 203–209 (2003). The holding of McConnell rested to a large extent on an earlier case, Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce , 494 U. S. 652 (1990). Austin had held that political speech may be banned based on the speaker’s corporate identity [ ibid , p. 8].
Dissent. Justice Stevens, J. wrote, in partial dissent [ Citizens United v. Federal Election Comm ., http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-205.pdf].:
The basic premise underlying the Court’s ruling is its iteration, and constant reiteration, of the proposition that the First Amendment bars regulatory distinctions based on a speaker’s identity, including its "identity" as a corporation. While that glittering generality has rhetorical appeal, it is not a correct statement of the law. Nor does it tell us when a corporation may engage in electioneering that some of its shareholders oppose. It does not even resolve the specific question whether Citizens United may be required to finance some of its messages with the money in its PAC. The conceit that corporations must be treated identically to natural persons in the political sphere is not only inaccurate but also inadequate to justify the Court’s disposition of this case.
In the context of election to public office, the distinction between corporate and human speakers is significant. Although they make enormous contributions to our society, corporations are not actually members of it. They cannot vote or run for office. Because they may be managed and controlled by nonresidents, their interests may conflict in fundamental respects with the interests of eligible voters. The financial resources, legal structure, and instrumental orientation of corporations raise legitimate concerns about their role in the electoral process. Our lawmakers have a compelling constitutional basis, if not also a democratic duty, to take measures designed to guard against the potentially deleterious effects of corporate spending in local and national races."
Justice Stevens also wrote: "The Court’s ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation. The path it has taken to reach its outcome will, I fear, do damage to this institution. Before turning to the question whether to overrule Austin and part of McConnell, it is important to explain why the Court should not be deciding that question [ ibid , p. 88]."
Public response. Senator McCain, one of the two original sponsors of campaign finance reform, noted after the decisions that "campaign finance reform is dead" - but predicted a voter backlash once it became obvious how much money corporations and unions now could and would pour into campaigns [Associated Press, "McCain says campaign finance reform is dead," ABC News , January 24, 2010, http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id= 9649150].
In a Washington Post-ABC News poll in early February 2010 it was found that roughly 80% of Americans were opposed to the January 2010 Supreme court's ruling. The poll reveals relatively little difference of opinion on the issue among Democrats (85 percent opposed to the ruling), Republicans (76 percent) and independents (81 percent) [Associated Press, "Large majority opposes Supreme Court's decision on campaign financing," Yahoo News , February 17, 2010].
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The Grand-Duke's Madonna , oil painting by Raphael, 1505; in the Pitti Palace, Florence. Madonna Act II, Signature v - (17)
In Christian art, a depiction of the Virgin Mary. Though often shown with the infant Jesus, the Madonna (Italian: “My lady”) may also be represented alone. Byzantine art was the first to develop a set of Madonna types—the Madonna and child enthroned, the Madonna as intercessor, the Madonna nursing the child, and so on. Western art adapted and added to the Byzantine types during the Middle Ages, producing images of the Virgin that sought to inspire piety through beauty and tenderness. In the Renaissance and Baroque periods, the most popular image of the Madonna foreshadowed the crucifixion, showing the Virgin looking gravely away from the playful child. *[Image & caption credit and following text courtesy of Wikipedia]:
Images of the Madonna and the Madonna and Child or Virgin and Child are pictorial or sculptured representations of Mary, Mother of Jesus, either alone, or more frequently, with the infant Jesus. These images are central icons of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox Christianity where Mary remains a central artistic topic [Wendy Doniger, Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of World Religions (1999), p. 696]. No image (in either the Western or the Eastern Church) permeates Christian art as the image of Madonna and Child [Alexander Schmemann, The Celebration of Faith: The Virgin Mary (2001), p. 11].
While Mary, the Mother of Jesus, may be referred to as "the Madonna" in other contexts, in art the term is applied specifically to an artwork in which Mary, with or without the infant Jesus, is the focus, and central figure of the picture. Mary and the infant Jesus may be surrounded by adoring angels or worshipping saints, however paintings which have a narrative content are not usually referred to as a "Madonna," but are given a title that reflects the scene such as the Annunciation to Mary.
The earliest such images date from the Early Christian Church and are found in the catacombs of Rome [Timothy Verdon, Filippo Rossi, Mary in Western Art (2005), p. 11]. Representation of Mary became more common after the Council of Ephesus in 431 [Raymond Burke, Mariology: A Guide for Priests, Deacons, Seminarians, and Consecrated Persons (2008)]. For over a thousand years, through the Byzantine, Medieval and Early Renaissance periods the Madonna was the most often produced pictorial artwork. Many specific images of the Madonna, both painted and sculptured, have achieved fame, either as objects of religious veneration or for their intrinsic artistic qualities. Many of the most renowned painters and sculptors in the history of art have turned their skills toward the creation of Madonna images. These artists include Duccio, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Giovanni Bellini, Caravaggio, Rubens, Salvador Dali and Henry Moore.
"The Madonna of Humility" by Domenico di Bartolo (1433) is considered one of the most innovative devotional images from the early Renaissance [Franca Trinchieri Camiz, Katherine A. McIver, Art and Music in the Early Modern Period , p. 15].*
Development. The earliest representation of the Madonna and Child may be the wall painting in the Catacomb of Priscilla, Rome, in which the seated Madonna suckles the Child, who turns his head to gaze at the spectator [Victor Lasareff, "Studies in the Iconography of the Virgin," The Art Bulletin 20.1 (March 1938), pp. 26-65; p. 27fn]. The earliest consistent representations of Mother and Child were developed in the Eastern Empire, where despite an iconoclastic strain in culture that rejected physical representations as "idols," respect for venerated images was expressed in the repetition of a narrow range of highly conventionalized types, the repeated images familiar as icons (Greek "image"). On a visit to Constantinople in 536, Pope Agapetus was accused of being opposed to the veneration of the theotokos and to the portrayal of her image in churches [M. Mundell, "Monophysite church decoration," Iconoclasm (Birmingham, 1977), p. 72]. Eastern examples show the Madonna enthroned, even wearing the closed Byzantine pearl-encrusted crown with pendants, with the Christ Child on her lap [as in the fresco fragments of the lower Basilica di San Clemente, Rome; see John L. Osborne, "Early Medieval Painting in San Clemente, Rome: The Madonna and Child in the Niche," Gesta 20.2 (1981), pp. 299-310].
In the West, hieratic Byzantine models were closely followed in the Early Middle Ages, but with the increased importance of the cult of the Virgin in the 12th and 13th centuries a wide variety of types developed to satisfy a flood of more intensely personal forms of piety. In the usual Gothic and Renaissance formulas the Virgin Mary sits with the Infant Jesus on her lap, or enfolded in her arms. In earlier representations the Virgin is enthroned, and the Child may be fully aware, raising his hand to offer blessing. In a 15th century Italian variation, a baby John the Baptist looks on.
Late Gothic sculptures of the Virgin and Child may show a standing virgin with the child in her arms. Iconography varies between public images and private images supplied on a smaller scale and meant for personal devotion in the chamber: the Virgin suckling the Child (such as the Madonna Litta) is an image largely confined to private devotional icons.
There was a great expansion of the cult of Mary after the Council of Ephesus in 431, when her status as Theotokos ("God-bearer") was confirmed; this had been a subject of some controversy until then, though mainly for reasons to do with arguments over the nature of Christ. In mosaics in Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, dating from 432-40, just after the council, she is not yet shown with a halo, and she is also not shown in Nativity scenes at this date, though she is included in the Adoration of the Magi.
By the next century the iconic depiction of the Virgin enthroned carrying the infant Christ was established, as in the example from the only group of icons surviving from this period, at Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai. This type of depiction, with subtly changing differences of emphasis, has remained the mainstay of depictions of Mary to the present day. The image at Mount Sinai succeeds in combining two aspects of Mary described in the Magnificat , her humility and her exaltation above other humans, and has the Hand of God above, up to which the archangels look. An early icon of the Virgin as queen is in the church of Santa Maria in Trastevere in Rome, datable to 705-707 by the kneeling figure of Pope John VII, a notable promoter of the cult of the Virgin, to whom the infant Christ reaches his hand. This type was long confined to Rome. The roughly half-dozen varied icons of the Virgin and Child in Rome from the 6th - 8th century form the majority of the representations surviving from this period; "isolated images of the Madonna and Child ... are so common ... to the present day in Catholic and Orthodox tradition, that it is difficult to recover a sense of the novelty of such images in the early Middle Ages, at least in western Europe [Nees, Lawrence, Early Medieval Art (Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 143-145, 144fn]."
At this period the iconography of the Nativity was taking the form, centred on Mary, that it has retained up to the present day in Eastern Orthodoxy, and on which Western depictions remained based until the High Middle Ages. Other narrative scenes for Byzantine cycles on the Life of the Virgin were being evolved, relying on apocyphal sources to fill in her life before the Annunciation to Mary. By this time the political and economic collapse of the Western Roman Empire meant that the Western, Latin, church was unable to compete in the development of such sophisticated iconography, and relied heavily on Byzantine developments.
The earliest surviving image in a Western illuminated manuscript of the Madonna and Child comes from the Book of Kells of about 800 (there is a similar carved image on the lid of St Cuthbert's coffin of 698) and, though magnificently decorated in the style of Insular art, the drawing of the figures can only be described as rather crude compared to Byzantine work of the period. This was in fact an unusual inclusion in a Gospel book, and images of the Virgin were slow to appear in large numbers in manuscript art until the book of hours was devised in the 13th century. See also Wöhrlin, Annette, Luzie Bratner, Marlene Höbel, Hiltraud Laubach, Anne-Madeleine Plum, Mainzer Hausmadonnen (Ingelheim: Leinpfad, 2008).
Madonna (born Madonna Louise Ciccone; August 16, 1958) is an American recording artist, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy , she released her debut album in 1983. She followed it with a series of albums in which she found immense popularity by pushing the boundaries of lyrical content in mainstream popular music and imagery in her music videos, which became a fixture on MTV. Throughout her career, many of her songs have hit number one on the record charts, including "Like a Virgin," "Papa Don't Preach," "Like a Prayer," "Vogue," "Frozen," "Music," "Hung Up," and "4 Minutes". Madonna has been praised by critics for her diverse musical productions while at the same time serving as a lightning rod for religious controversy.
Her career was further enhanced by film appearances that began in 1979, despite mixed commentary. She won critical acclaim and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for her role in Evita (1996), but has received harsh feedback for other film roles. Madonna's other ventures include being a fashion designer, children's book author, film director and producer. She has been acclaimed as a businesswoman, and in 2007, she signed an unprecedented US $120 million contract with Live Nation.
Madonna has sold more than 300 million records worldwide and is recognized as the world's top-selling female recording artist of all time by the Guinness World Records. According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), she is the best-selling female rock artist of the 20th century and the second top-selling female artist in the United States, behind Barbra Streisand, with 64 million certified albums. In 2008, Billboard magazine ranked Madonna at number two, behind only The Beatles , on the Billboard "Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists," making her the most successful solo artist in the history of the Billboard chart. She was also inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the same year. Considered to be one of the "25 Most Powerful Women of the Past Century" by Time for being an influential figure in contemporary music, Madonna is known for continuously reinventing both her music and image, and for retaining a standard of autonomy within the recording industry. She is recognized as an inspiration among numerous music artists.
Throughout her career Madonna has repeatedly reinvented herself through a series of visual and musical personas, earning her the nickname "Queen of Reinvention [Gallo, Carmine, 10 Simple Secrets of the World's Greatest Business Communicators (Sourcebooks, 2006), p. 67]." In doing so, "she exploited her sexuality to fashion herself into a cultural and commercial icon who, for more than a decade, was unchallenged as the reigning Queen of Pop music [Axelrod, Alan, One Thousand One People Who Made America (National Geographic Books, 2007), p. 103]. Fouz-Hernández agrees that these reinventions are one of her key cultural achievements [Fouz-Hernández, Santiago; Jarman-Ivens, Freya, Madonna's Drowned Worlds (Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2004), p. 168]. Madonna reinvented herself by working with upcoming talented producers and previously unknown artists, while remaining at the center of media attention. According to Freya Jarman-Ivens, "in doing so Madonna has provided an example of how to maintain one's career in the entertainment industry [ ibid ]." Such reinvention was noted by scholars as the main tool in surviving the musical industry, for a female artist [Tetzlaff, David, Metatextual Girl (Westview Press, 1993), p. 259]. As Ian Youngs from BBC News commented, "Her ability to follow the latest trends and adapt her style has often been credited with preserving her appeal [Ian Youngs, "Madonna fights to keep pop crown," BBC , April 18, 2003, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/2953665.stm]." Madonna's use of shocking sexual imagery has benefited her career and catalyzed public discourse on sexuality and feminism [Fouz-Hernández, Jarman-Ivens (2004), p. 168]. The Times stated, "Madonna, whether you like her or not, started a revolution amongst women in music ... her attitudes and opinions on sex, nudity, style and sexuality forced the public to sit up and take notice [Fouz-Hernández & Jarman-Ivens (2004), p. 162]." Rodger Streitmatter, author of Sex Sells ! (2004), commented that "from the moment Madonna burst onto the nation's radar screen in the mid-1980s, she did everything in her power to shock the public, and her efforts paid off [Streitmatter, Rodger, Sex Sells ! (Westview Press, 2004), p. 34]." Shmuel Boteach, author of Hating Women (2005), felt that Madonna was largely responsible for erasing the line between music and pornography. He stated: "Before Madonna, it was possible for women more famous for their voices than their cleavage, to emerge as music superstars. But in the post-Madonna universe, even highly original performers such as Janet Jackson now feel the pressure to expose their bodies on national television to sell albums [Boteach, Shmuel, Hating Women: America's Hostile Campaign Against the Fairer Sex (HarperCollins, 2005), p. 110]." "Lucky Star" is a song by American recording artist Madonna from her debut studio album of the same name. Released on November 12, 1983, by Sire Records, it was the fourth single from the album.*
Madonna has influenced numerous music artists throughout her career. Mary Cross, in her book Madonna: A Biography , wrote: "Her influence on pop music is undeniable and far-reaching. New pop icons from Nelly Furtado and Shakira to Gwen Stefani and Christina Aguilera (not to mention Britney Spears) owe Madonna, a debt of thanks for the template she forged, combining provocative sexiness and female power in her image, music, and lyrics [Cross, Mary, Madonna: A Biography (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007), p. 107]." According to Fouz- Hernández, female pop performers such as Spears, the Spice Girls , Destiny's Child , Jennifer Lopez, Kylie Minogue and Pink were like "Madonna's daughters in the very direct sense that they grew up listening to and admiring Madonna, and decided they wanted to be like her [Fouz-Hernández & Jarman-Ivens (2004), p. 161]." Among them, Madonna's influence was most notable in Spears, who has been called her protégé [Fouz-Hernández & Jarman-Ivens (2004), p. 162]. Madonna has also been credited with the introduction of European electronic dance music into mainstream American pop culture, and for bringing European producers such as Stuart Price and Mirwais Ahmadzaï into the spotlight [Fouz-Hernández & Jarman-Ivens (2004), pp. 67–70 ]. Madonna has sold more than 300 million records worldwide [Egan, Barry, "U2 strike a chord in the best albums from 2009," The Independent (Independent News & Media), January 3, 2010, http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/music/u2-strike-a-chord-in-the-best-a lbums-from-2009-1997058.html]. She is ranked by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) as the best-selling female rock artist of the 20th century, and the second top-selling female artist in the United States (behind Barbra Streisand), with 64 million certified albums sold [Recording Industry Association of America, "Top Selling Artists," http://www.riaa.com/goldandplatinumdata.php?table=tblTopArt; "The American Recording Industry Announces Its Artists of the Century," November 10, 1999, http://www.riaa.com/newsitem.php? news_year_filter=1999&resultpage=2&id=3ABF3E C8-EF5B-58F9-E949-3B57F5E313DF].
Madonna has received acclaim as a role model for businesswomen in her industry, "achieving the kind of financial control that women had long fought for within the industry," and generating over $1.2 billion in sales within the first decade of her career [Kramarae, Cheris, Spender, Dale, "Global Women's Issues and Knowledge," Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women (Routledge, 2000), p. 459]. After its establishment, Maverick Records became a major commercial success from her efforts, which was unusual at that time for an artist-established label [Susman, Gary, "So-called Chaos," Entertainment Weekly , June 15, 2004, http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,652432,00.html]. Music journalist Robert Sandall said that while interviewing Madonna, it was clear that being "a cultural big hitter" was more important to her than pop music, a career she described as "an accident". He also saw a contrast between her anything-goes sexual public persona and a secretive and "paranoid" attitude toward her own finances; she fired her own brother when he charged her for an extra item [Sandall, Robert, "Why Madonna is still a Material Girl," The Times (London), April 5, 2009, http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/artic le6015124.ece]. Professor Colin Barrow of the Cranfield School of Management described Madonna as "America's smartest businesswoman… who has moved to the top of her industry and stayed there by constantly reinventing herself". He held up her "planning, personal discipline and constant attention to detail" as models for all aspiring entrepreneurs [Johnston, Ian, "Get a head for business, tune into Madonna," The Scotsman (Johnston Press), September 23, 2004, http://news.scotsman.com/madonna/Get-a-head-for-business.2566459.jp]. London Business School academics called her a "dynamic entrepreneur" worth copying; they identified her vision of success, her understanding of the music industry, her ability to recognize her own performance limits (and thus bring in help), her willingness to work hard and her ability to adapt as the key to her commercial success [Anderson, Jamie, Kupp, Martin, "Case Study: Madonna," The Times (London), January 18, 2007, http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/career_and_jobs/graduate_manag ement/article1293585.ece]. Morton commented that "Madonna is opportunistic, manipulative and ruthless — somebody who won't stop until she gets what she wants — and that's something you can get at the expense of maybe losing your close ones. But that hardly mattered to her [Morton, Andrew, Madonna (Macmillan Publishers, 2002), p. 89]." Taraborrelli felt that this ruthlessness was visible during the shooting of the Pepsi commercial in 1989. "The fact that she didn't want to hold a Pepsi can in the commercial, clued the Pepsi executives that Madonna the pop star and Madonna the businesswoman were not going to be dictated by somebody else, she will do everything in her way—the only way [Taraborrelli, Randy J., Madonna: An Intimate Biography (Simon and Schuster, 2002), p. 167]." Conversely, reporter Michael McWilliams commented: "The gripes about Madonna – she's cold, greedy, talentless – conceal both bigotry and the essence of her art, which is among the warmest, the most humane, the most profoundly satisfying in all pop culture [McWilliams, Michael, "Why the rock world hates Madonna," Detroit News , April 21, 1990, http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080224/ENT04/802240345/10 31/POLITICS01]."
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Te Deum Act II, Signature v - (18)
Main Entry: Te De£um
Pronunciation: ƒt†-‚d†-„m, ƒt‡-‚d‡-
Function: noun
Inflected Form: plural Te Deums
Etymology: Middle English, from Late Latin te deum laudamus thee , God, we praise; from the opening words of the hymn
Date: before 12th century : a liturgical Christian hymn of praise to God.
*[Image & caption credit and following text courtesy of Wikipedia]:
The Te Deum (also known as "Te Deum Laudamus," "Ambrosian Hymn," or "A Song of the Church") is an early Christian hymn of praise. The title is taken its opening Latin words, rendered literally as "Thee, O God, we praise."
The hymn remains in regular use in the Roman Catholic Church in the Office of Readings found in the Liturgy of the Hours, and in thanksgiving to God for a special blessing such as the election of a pope, the consecration of a bishop, the canonization of a saint, a religious profession, the publication of a treaty of peace, a royal coronation, etc.It is sung either after Mass or the Divine Office or as a separate religious ceremony ["The Te Deum (cont.)," Musical Musings: Prayers and Liturgical Texts — The Te Deum (CanticaNOVA Publications) http://www.canticanova.com/articles/hymns/artd42.htm]. The hymn also remains in use in the Anglican Communion and some Lutheran Churches in similar settings.
In the traditional Office, the Te Deum is sung at the end of Matins on all days when the Gloria is said at Mass; those days are all Sundays outside Advent, Septuagesima, Lent, and Passiontide; on all feasts (except the Triduum) and on all ferias during Eastertide. Before the 1962 reforms, neither the Gloria nor the Te Deum were said on the feast of the Holy Innocents, unless it fell on Sunday, as they were martyred before the death of Christ and therefore could not immediately attain the beatific vision ["Holy Innocents," Catholic Encyclopedia (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1913), http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07419a.htm]. In the Liturgy of the Hours of Paul VI, the Te Deum is sung at the end of the Office of Readings on days when the Gloria is sung (in this case Sundays outside Lent and all solemnities, including the octaves of Easter and Christmas, and all feasts) and also on the Sundays of Advent ["General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours," http://www.ewtn.com/library/curia /cdwgilh.htm#Ch%20II-III]. It is also used together with the standard canticles in Morning Prayer as prescribed in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer , in Matins for Lutherans, and is retained by many other churches of the Reformed tradition. It is also used by the Eastern Orthodox Churches in the Paraklesis (Moleben) of Thanksgiving .
~ page 72 ~
"In memoriam - our civil service as it was." A political cartoon by Thomas Nast showing statue of Andrew Jackson, mounted upon a hog, on the platform of "fraud ... bribery ... spoils" and "plunder." From Harper's Weekly , April 28, 1877, p. 325.* spoils system Act II, Signature v - (19)
Or patronage system. In U.S. politics, the practice by political parties of rewarding partisans and workers after winning an election. Proponents claim it helps maintain an active party organization by offering supporters jobs and contracts. Critics charge that it awards appointments to the unqualified and is inefficient because even jobs unrelated to public policy change hands after an election. In the U.S., the Pendleton Civil Service Act (1883) was the first step in introducing the merit system in the hiring of government workers. The merit system has almost completely replaced the spoils system. See also civil service .
*[Image & caption credit and following text courtesy of Wikipedia]:
In the politics of the United States, a spoil system (also known as a patronage system) is a practice where a political party, after winning an election, gives government jobs to its voters as a reward for working toward victory, and as an incentive to keep working for the party—as opposed to a system of awarding offices on the basis of some measure of merit independent of political activity.
The term was derived from the phrase "'to the victor belong the spoils" by New York Senator William L. Marcy ["Andrew Jackson: The White House," http://www.whitehouse.gov /about/presidents/andrewjackson/; "Re: To the victor belong the spoils," http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/32/messages/793.html; Marcy William Learned (1786-1857), Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1989), http://www.bartleby.com/73/1314.html], referring to the victory of the Jackson Democrats in the election of 1828.
Similar spoils systems are common in other nations that are struggling to transcend systemic clientage based on tribal organization or other kinship groups and localism in general.
Previous to March 4, 1829, moderation had prevailed in the transfer of political power from one presidency to another. President Andrew Jackson's inauguration signaled a sharp departure from past presidencies. An unruly mob of office seekers made something of a shambles of the March inauguration, and though some tried to explain this as democratic enthusiasm, the real truth was Jackson supporters had been lavished with promises of positions in return for political support. These promises were honored by an astonishing number of removals after Jackson assumed power. Fully 919 officials were removed from government positions, amounting to near 10 percent of all government postings [Howe, Daniel W., What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 (Oxford University Press, Inc., 2007), pp. 328-33].
The Jackson administration attempted to explain this unprecedented purge as reform, or constructive turnover, but in the months following the changes it became obvious that the sole criterion for the extensive turnover was political loyalty to Andrew Jackson. The hardest hit organization within the federal government proved to be the post office. The post office was the largest department in the federal government, and had even more personnel than the war department. In one year 423 postmasters were deprived of their positions, most with extensive records of good service. The new emphasis on loyalty rather than competence would have a long term negative effect on the efficiency and effectiveness of the federal government [Howe (2007), p. 334].
Presidents after President Andrew Jackson continued the use of the spoils system to encourage others to vote for them. But by the late 1860s, reformers began demanding a civil service system. Running under the Liberal Republican Party in 1872, they were harshly defeated by patronage-hungry Ulysses S. Grant.
After the assassination of James A. Garfield by a rejected office-seeker in 1881, the calls for civil service reform intensified. The end of the spoils system at the federal level came with the passage of the Pendleton Act in 1883, which created a bipartisan Civil Service Commission to evaluate job candidates on a nonpartisan merit basis. While few jobs were covered under the law initially, the law allowed the President to transfer jobs and their current holders into the system, thus giving the holder a permanent job. The Pendleton Act's reach was expanded as the two main political parties alternated control of the White House every election between 1884 and 1896. After each election the outgoing President applied the Pendleton Act to jobs held by his political supporters. By 1900, most federal jobs were handled through civil service and the spoils system was limited only to very senior positions.
The separation between the political activity and the civil service was made stronger with the Hatch Act of 1939 which prohibited federal employees from engaging in many political activities.
The spoils system survived much longer in many states, counties and municipalities, such as the Tammany Hall ring, which survived well into the 1930s when New York City reformed its own civil service. Illinois modernized its bureaucracy in 1917 under Frank Lowden, but Chicago held on to patronage in city government until the city agreed to end the practice in the Shakman Decrees of 1972 and 1983. Modern variations on the spoils system are often described as the political machine.
In the United States during the Gilded Age, patronage became a controversial issue. Democrat William Magear Tweed (April 3, 1823 – April 12, 1878), sometimes erroneously referred to as William Marcy Tweed ["William Magear Tweed," Britannica Online Encyclopedia , http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/610865/William- Magear-Tweed] and known as "Boss Tweed," was an American politician who ran what is considered to be one of the most corrupt political machines in the country's history. Tweed and his Tammany Hall cronies ruled with absolute power over the city and state of New York and they played a major role in the politics of 19th century New York. At the height of his influence, Tweed was the third-largest landowner in New York City, a director of the Erie Railway, the Tenth National Bank, and the New-York Printing Company, as well as proprietor of the Metropolitan Hotel [Ackerman, Kenneth D., Boss Tweed (New York: Carrol & Graf Publishers, 2005), p. 2].
Tweed was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1852, and the New York City Board of Advisors in 1856. In 1858, Tweed became the "Grand Sachem" of Tammany Hall. He was elected to the New York State Senate in 1867.
Tweed was convicted for stealing between $40 million and $200 million ["Boss Tweed," Gotham Gazette (New York), July 4, 2005] (based on the inflation or devaluation rate of the dollar since 1870 of 2.7%, this is between 1.5 and 8 billion 2009 dollars) from New York City taxpayers through political corruption. He died in the Ludlow Street Jail.
When James Garfield became president, he appointed corrupt men to several offices (despite the appointment of the clean 'stalwart' Chester A. Arthur to the role of Vice President, which represented a compromise within the Republican Party). This provoked the ire of the Stalwarts. Charles J. Guiteau, a Stalwart, assassinated Garfield in 1881, six months after he became President. To prevent further political violence and to assuage public outrage, Congress passed the Pendleton Act in 1883, which set up the Civil Service Commission. Henceforth, applicants for most federal government jobs would have to pass an examination. Federal politicians' influence over bureaucratic appointments waned, and patronage declined as a national political issue.
Political patronage — on a low-level and when not entangled in financial means — is not inherently unseemly. In the United States, the U.S. Constitution provides the president with the power to appoint individuals to government positions. He also may appoint personal advisers without congressional approval. Not surprisingly, these individuals tend to be supporters of the president. Similarly, at the state and local levels, governors and mayors retain appointments powers. Some scholars have argued that patronage may be used for laudable purposes, such as the "recognition" of minority communities through the appointment of their members to a high profile positions. Bearfield has argued that patronage be used for four general purposes: create or strengthen a political organization; achieve democratic or egalitarian goals; bridge political divisions and create coalitions; and to alter the existing patronage system [Bearfield, Domonic A., "What Is Patronage? A Critical Reexamination," Public Administration Review (Oxford, UK: Blackwell) 69 (1): 64–76 (January/February 2009), http://www3. interscience.wiley.com/cgi- bin/fulltext/121580351/PDFSTART].
aegrotat Act II, Signature v - (20)
[Following text courtesy of Wikipedia]:
Aegrotat (English: s/he is sick) [Pearsall, Judy (ed.), The New Oxford Dictionary of English (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1998)] is a medical certificate of illness excusing student's sickness. The term is used primarily in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth, in the context of degrees and courses considered as passed by a student too ill to finish the appropriate material. Aegrotat is the only surviving remnant in English of the Latin verb aegrotare (English: fall ill, make ill) ["English Translation: aegrotare," Webster's Online Dictionary , http://www.websters- online-dictionary.org/translation/Latin/aegrot are]. A typical 1980s CB base station. This two-way radio can also be used in an automobile as it can be powered by 13.8 volts DC. Shown with aftermarket Astatic Power D-104 desk mic (photo by Junglecat, December 16, 2006).* citizen's band radio Act II, Signature v - (21)
Electromagnetic radiation of lower frequency (hence longer wavelength) than visible light or infrared radiation, and consisting of the range of frequencies used for navigation signals, AM and FM broadcasting, television transmissions, cell-phone communications, and various forms of radar.
*[Image & caption credit and following text courtesy of Wikipedia]:
Citizens' Band radio (often shortened to CB radio) is, in many countries, a system of short-distance radio communications between individuals on a selection of 40 channels within the 27-MHz (11 m) band. The CB radio service is distinct from FRS, GMRS, MURS, or amateur ("ham") radio. In many countries, CB does not require a license and, unlike amateur radio, it may be used for business as well as personal communications. Like many other two-way radio services, Citizens' Band channels are shared by many users. Only one station may transmit at a time. Other stations must listen and wait for the shared channel to be available.
Over time, several countries have created similar radio services, with varying requirements for licensing and differing technical standards. While they may be known by other names, such as General Radio Service in Canada [Canadian "General Radio Service," http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/epic/site/smt-gst.nsf/en/sf01016e.html], they often use similar frequencies (26 to 28 MHz), and have similar uses, and similar difficulties with antennas and propagation. Licenses may be required, but eligibility is generally simple.
CB Antennae. As 27 MHz is a relatively long wavelength for mobile communications, and as with all radio systems, the choice of antenna has a considerable impact on the performance of a CB radio. One common mobile antenna is a quarter-wave vertical whip. This is roughly nine feet (2.7 m) tall and mounted low on the vehicle body, and often has a spring and ball mount to enhance its resilience to scraping and striking overhead objects.
Where a nine-foot whip would be impractical, shorter antennas include loading coils to make the antenna electrically longer than it actually is. The loading coil may be on the bottom, middle, or top of the antenna, while some antennas are wound in a continuously loaded helix.
Many truckers use two co-phased antennas mounted on their mirrors. Such an array is intended to enhance performance to the front and back, while reducing it to the sides, a desirable pattern for long-haul truckers. However, the efficiency of such an arrangement is only an improvement over a single antenna when the co-phased antennas are separated by approximately eight feet or more, restricting this design to use mainly on tractor trailers and some full- size pickups and SUVs. Some operators will use only one of the antennas in the pair; this removes both the complexity and benefit of a true co-phased array but gives a symmetrical cosmetic appearance that some truck drivers prefer.
Another mobile antenna is the continuously-loaded half-wave antenna. These do not necessarily require a ground plane to present a near 50 Ohm load to the radio, and are often used on fiberglass vehicles such as snowmobiles or boats. They are also ideal for base station usage where the circumstances preclude the use of an antenna that requires a ground plane to function properly.
Handheld CBs often use either a telescoping center-loaded whip, or a continuously-loaded "rubber ducky" antenna.
Base CB antennas may be vertical for omnidirectional coverage, or directional "beam" antennas may be used to direct communications to a particular region. "Ground Plane" kits exist as a mounting base for typical mobile whips, and have several wire terminals or hardwired ground radials attached. These kits are designed to have a mobile whip screwed on top (again, the full-length steel whip is a preferred candidate) and mounted on top of a mast. The ground radials take the place of the vehicle body, which is used as a counterpoise for the mobile whip in a typical vehicle installation.
Origins. The Citizens' Band radio service originated in the United States as one of several personal radio services regulated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). These services began in 1945 to permit citizens a radio band for personal communication (e.g., radio-controlled models, family communications, individual businesses). In 1948, the original "Class D" CB Radios were to be operated on the 460 MHz–470 MHz UHF band [27 Megacycle History , http://www.retrocom.com/wtcollect/27_megacycle_history_in_the_u.htm]. There were two classes of CB: A and B. Class B radios had simpler technical requirements but were limited to a smaller range of frequencies. Al Gross, inventor of the walkie-talkie, started Citizen's Radio Corp. in the late 1940s to merchandise Class B handhelds for the general public [Kneitel, Tom, Tomcat's Big CB Handbook (Commack, NY: CRB Research Books, 1988), p. 13].
Ultra-high frequency, or UHF, radios, at the time, were neither practical nor affordable for the average consumer. In 1958 [Kneitel (1988), p. 14], the Class D CB service was moved to 27 MHz, and this band became what is popularly known as CB. There were only 23 channels at the time; the first 22 were taken from what used to be an Amateur 11- meter band, while channel 23 was shared with radio-controlled devices. Some hobbyists continue to use the designation "11 meters" to refer to the Citizens' Band and adjoining frequencies. Part 95 of the Code of Federal Regulations regulated the Class D CB service, on the 27 MHz band, as of the 1970s [citation needed].
Most of the 460 MHz–470 MHz band was reassigned for business and public safety uses, but Class A CB is the ancestor of the present General Mobile Radio Service GMRS. Class B, in the same vein, is a more distant ancestor of the Family Radio Service. The Multi-Use Radio Service is another two-way radio service, in the VHF high band. An unsuccessful petition was made in 1973 to create a Class E CB service at 220 MHz, this was opposed by amateur radio organizations [in the Americas, the 220 MHz band is used by ham operators] and others. There are several other classes of personal radio services for specialized purposes such as remote control devices.
In the 1960s, the service was popular with small trade businesses (e.g., electricians, plumbers, carpenters), as well as truck drivers and radio hobbyists. By the late 60s the advancement of solid-state electronics allowed the weight, size, and cost of the radios to decrease, giving the general public access to a communications medium that had previously been only available to specialists. Many CB clubs were formed, and a special CB slang language evolved, used alongside 10-codes similar to those used in the emergency services.
Growing popularity in the 1970s. Following the 1973 oil crisis, the U.S. government imposed a nationwide 55 mph speed limit, and fuel shortages and rationing were widespread. CB radio was often used, especially by truckers, to locate service stations with a supply of gasoline, to notify other drivers of speed traps, and to organize blockades and convoys in a 1974 strike protesting the new speed limit and other trucking regulations. Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, a phenomenon was developing over the CB radio. Similar to the Internet chat rooms a quarter century later, the CB allowed people to get to know one another in a quasi-anonymous manner. Many movies and stories about CBers and the culture on-the-air developed.
The prominent use of [www.dictionary.com] CB radios in 1970s-era films such as Smokey and the Bandit (1977), Convoy (1978), and television shows like Movin' On (debuted 1974) and The Dukes of Hazzard (debuted 1979) bolstered the appeal of CB radio. Moreover, popular novelty songs such as C. W. McCall's Convoy (1976) helped establish CB radio as a nationwide craze in the USA in the mid- to late-1970s.
Originally, CB required a license and fee (it was $20.00 in the early 70's; and $4.00 in the late 70's), and the use of a call sign, but when the CB craze was at its peak, many people ignored this requirement and used made-up nicknames or "handles." The many restrictions on the authorized use of CB radio led to widespread disregard of the regulations, most notably in antenna height, distance restriction for communications, licensing and the use of call signs, and allowable transmitter power. After the FCC started receiving over 1,000,000 license applications a month, the license requirement was dropped entirely.
Originally, there were only 23 CB channels in the U.S.; the present 40-channel bandplan did not come along until 1977. Channel 9 was reserved for emergency use in 1969 [Chilton Automotive Editorial Department, Chilton's CB Handbook (Radnor, PA: Chilton Book Company, 1977), p. 12]. Channel 10 was used for highway communications at first, then, it was Channel 10 east of the Mississippi River, and channel 19 west of the Mississippi; then later Channel 19 became the preferred highway channel in most areas, as it did not have adjacent-channel interference problems with channel 9. Many CB'ers called Channel 19 "the trucker's channel."
Until 1975 [Chilton (1977), p. 14], only channels 9–15 and 23 [channels 10-15 and 23, after channel 9 was reserved for emergency use] could be used for "interstation" calls to other licensees. Channels 1–8 and 16–22 were reserved for "intrastation" communications among units under the same license [the terms "interstation" and "intrastation" appear in the FCC's Part 95 rules from that time period]. After the interstation/intrastation rule was dropped, Channel 11 was reserved as a calling frequency for the sole purpose of establishing communications; however this was withdrawn in 1977 [Chilton (1977), p. 120]. During this time period, it was common for many CB radios to have these "interstation" channels 'colored' on their dial, whilst the other channels were 'clear' or 'normal'; with the exception of Channel 9 - it was usually colored Red. Also, it was common for Single Sideband (SSB) users to use Channel 16 as 'their' channel.
It was also very common for towns relatively close together, to 'adopt' one of these "interstation" channels as their 'home' channel. This accomplised two things: first, this help prevent overcrowding on Ch 11, and 2nd; this allowed a CB'er to go to that town's 'home channel' to try and contact another CB'er from that town, instead of a general 'call' on Ch 11.
In more recent years, CB has lost much of its original appeal due to development of mobile phones, the Internet, and Family Radio Service. The changing radio wave propagation for long-distance communications, due to the 11 year sunspot cycle, is always a factor for these frequencies. In addition, CB in some respects became a victim of its own intense popularity. Because of the millions of users jammed onto frequencies during the mid-to-late 1970s and early 1980s, channels often were intolerably noisy and communication became difficult. Many CBers started to use their radios less frequently or not at all after this period.
~ page 74 ~ A page from Azbuka, the first Ruthenian language textbook, printed by Ivan Fyodorov in 1574, features the Cyrillic alphabet (source: http://lib.1september.ru/2004/14/16.htm).* Cyrillic alphabet Act II, Signature v - (22)
Alphabet used for Russian, Serbian ( see Serbo-Croatian language ), Bulgarian and Macedonian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, and many non-Slavic languages of the former Soviet Union, as well as Khalka Mongolian ( see Mongolian language ). The history of the Cyrillic alphabet is complex and much disputed. It is clearly derived from 9th-century Greek uncial capital letters, with the non-Greek letters probably taken from the Glagolitic alphabet, a highly original alphabet in which (along with Cyrillic) Old Church Slavonic was written. A commonly held hypothesis is that followers of Sts. Cyril and Methodius developed Cyrillic in the southern Balkans around the end of the 9th century. The 44 original Cyrillic letters were reduced in number in most later alphabets used for vernacular languages, and some wholly original letters introduced, particularly for non-Slavic languages.
*[Image & caption credit and following text courtesy of Wikipedia]:
The Cyrillic alphabet (pronounced /sˈˈrˈlˈk/) is an alphabetic writing system developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 10th century AD at the Preslav Literary School ["and later finalized and spread by disciples Kliment and Naum in Ohrid and Preslav schools of Tsar Boris' Bulgaria," Paul Cubberley, "The Slavic Alphabets," in Daniels and Bright, eds., The World's Writing Systems (Oxford University Press, 1996)] and is used in various languages, past and present, of Eastern Europe and Asia, especially those of Slavic origin as well as non-Slavic languages influenced by Russian.
With the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union on January 1, 2007, Cyrillic became the third official alphabet of the European Union, following the Latin and Greek alphabets.
Letterforms and typography. The development of Cyrillic typography passed directly from the medieval stage to the late Baroque, without a Renaissance phase as in Western Europe. Late Medieval Cyrillic letters (still found on many icon inscriptions even today) show a marked tendency to be very tall and narrow; strokes are often shared between adjacent letters. Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia, mandated the use of westernized letter forms in the early 18th century. Over time, these were largely adopted in the other languages that use the alphabet. Thus, unlike the majority of modern Greek fonts that retained their own set of design principles for their lower case letters (such as the placement of serifs, the shapes of stroke ends, and stroke-thickness rules, although Greek capital letters do use Latin design principles), modern Cyrillic fonts are much the same as modern Latin fonts of the same font family. The development of some Cyrillic computer typefaces from Latin ones has also contributed to the visual Latinization of Cyrillic type.
Cyrillic uppercase and lowercase letterforms are not as differentiated as in Latin typography. Upright Cyrillic lowercase letters are essentially small capitals (with exceptions: Cyrillic ‹а, е, p, and y› adopted Western lowercase shapes, lowercase ‹ф› is typically designed under the influence of Latin ‹p›, lowercase ‹б› is a traditional handwritten form), although a good-quality Cyrillic typeface will still include separate small-caps glyphs ["in Cyrillic, the difference between normal lower case and small caps is more subtle than it is in the Latin or Greek alphabets..." (p. 32); "in most Cyrillic faces, the lower case is close in color and shape to Latin small caps..." (p. 107). Bringhurst, Robert, The Elements of Typographic Style , Vers. 2.5 (Vancouver: Hartley & Marks, 2002), pp. 262-264].
Cyrillic fonts, as well as Latin ones, have roman and italic type (practically all popular modern fonts include parallel sets of Latin and Cyrillic letters, where many glyphs, uppercase as well as lowercase, are simply shared by both). However, the native font terminology in Slavic languages (for example, in Russian) does not use the words "roman" and "italic" in this sense [name ital'yanskiy shrift (Italian font) in Russian refers to a particular font family [http://citforum.univ.kiev.ua/open_source/fonts/theory/thumbs/ris320.jpg], whereas rimskiy shrift (roman font) is just a synonym for Latin font, Latin alphabet]. Instead, the nomenclature follows German naming patterns:
• A roman type is called pryamoy shrift ("upright type")—compare with Normalschrift ("regular type") in German
• An italic type is called kursiv ("cursive") or kursivniy shrift ("cursive type")—from the German word Kursive, meaning italic typefaces and not cursive writing
• Cursive handwriting is rukopisniy shrift ("hand-written type") in Russian—in German: Kurrentschrift or Laufschrift, both meaning literally 'running type'
Similarly to Latin fonts, italic and cursive types of many Cyrillic letters (typically lowercase; uppercase only for hand-written or stylish types) are very different from their upright roman types. In certain cases, the correspondence between uppercase and lowercase glyphs does not coincide in Latin and Cyrillic fonts: for example, italic Cyrillic ‹т› is the lowercase counterpart of ‹Т› not of ‹М›. A boldfaced type is called poluzhirniy shrift ("semi-bold type"), because there existed fully boldfaced shapes which are out of use since the beginning of the 20th century.
In Serbian, as well as in Macedonian and Bulgarian, some italic and cursive letters are different from those used in other languages. These letter shapes are often used in upright fonts as well, especially for advertisements, road signs, inscriptions, posters and the like, less so in newspapers or books. The Cyrillic lowercase ‹б› has a slightly different design both in the roman and italic types, which is similar to the lowercase Greek letter Delta, ‹δ›. See also Tsanev, Stefan, Български хроники, том 4 ("Bulgarian Chronicles, Volume 4"), (Sofia, 2009), p. 165.
The Cyrillic alphabet was created in the First Bulgarian Empire [Cubberley (1996)] and is derived from the Greek uncial script, augmented by ligatures and consonants from the older Glagolitic alphabet for sounds not found in Greek. Tradition holds that Cyrillic and Glagolitic were formalized either by the two Greek brothers born in Thessaloniki, Saints Cyril and Methodius who brought Christianity to the southern Slavs, or by their disciples ["Cyril and Methodius, Saints," in The Columbia Encyclopaedia , 6th Ed. (O. Ed., 2001-2005): "Greek missionaries, 869 and 884, respectively, brothers, called Apostles to the Slavs and fathers of Slavonic literature;" Warren E. Preece, "Cyril and Methodius, Saints," "Eastern Orthodoxy, Missions ancient and modern," in Encyclopedia Britannica (Encyclopedia Britannica Incorporated, 1972), p. 846; David H. Levinson, "Social Science," in Encyclopedia of World Cultures (1991), p. 239; Eric M. Meyers, The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East (1997), p. 151; Lunt, Slavic Review (June 1964), p. 216; Roman Jakobson, Crucial problems of Cyrillo-Methodian Studies ; Leonid Ivan Strakhovsky, A Handbook of Slavic Studies , p. 98; V. Bogdanovich, History of the Ancient Serbian Literature (Belgrade, 1980), p. 119; "Major alphabets of the world: Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabets," in Encyclopedia Britannica (O. Ed., 2008): "The two early Slavic alphabets, the Cyrillic and the Glagolitic, were invented by St. Cyril, or Constantine (c. 827–869), and St. Methodii (c. 825–884). These men from Thessaloniki who became apostles to the southern Slavs, whom they converted to Christianity;" Kazhdan, Alexander P., The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 507: "Constantine (Cyril) and his brother Methodius were the sons of the droungarios Leo and Maria, who may have been a Slav"]. Paul Cubberly posits that while Cyril may have codified and expanded Glagolitic, it was his students at the Preslav Literary School in the First Bulgarian Empire that developed Cyrillic from Greek in the 890s as a more suitable script for church books [Cubberley (1996)]. Later the alphabet spread among other Slavic peoples - Russians, Serbs and others, as well as among non-Slavic Vlachs and Moldavians.
Cyrillic and Glagolitic were used for the Church Slavonic language, especially the Old Church Slavonic variant. (See Early Cyrillic alphabet.) Hence expressions such as "И is the tenth letter of the Cyrillic alphabet" typically mean the order in Church Slavonic; not every Cyrillic-based language uses every letter of the alphabet.
The Cyrillic alphabet came to dominate over Glagolitic in the 12th century. The literature produced in the Old Bulgarian language soon began spreading north and became the lingua franca of Eastern Europe where it came to also be known as Old Church Slavonic [Horace G. Lunt, "On the relationship of old Church Slavonic to the written language of early Rus,'" Russian Linguistics , Volume 11, Numbers 2-3 (January 1987); Schenker, Alexander, The Dawn of Slavic (Yale University Press, 1995), pp. 185–186, 189–190; Lunt, Horace, Old Church Slavonic Grammar (Mouton de Gruyter), pp. 3–4; Wien, Lysaght, "Old Church Slavonic (Old Bulgarian)," in Middle Greek-Modern English Dictionary (Verlag Bruder Hollinek, 1983); Benjamin W. Fortson, Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction , p. 374]. The alphabet used for the modern Church Slavonic language in Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic rites still resembles early Cyrillic. However, over the following ten centuries, the Cyrillic alphabet adapted to changes in spoken language, developed regional variations to suit the features of national languages, and was subjected to academic reforms and political decrees. Today, dozens of languages in Eastern Europe and Asia are written in the Cyrillic alphabet.
Baba Yaga, from Vassilisa the Beautiful (1899) by Ivan Bilibin (1876-1942).* Baba-Yaga Act II, Signature v - (23)
*[Image & caption credit and following text courtesy of Wikipedia]:
Baba-Yaga (Russian: Ба ба-Яга , IPA: [ˈbabə jəˈˈa]) is a witch-like character in Slavic folklore. She flies around on a giant pestle or broomstick, kidnaps (and presumably eats) small children, and lives in a hut that stands on chicken legs. In most Slavic folk tales, she is portrayed as an antagonist; however, some characters in other mythological folk stories have been known to seek her out for her wisdom, and she has been known on rare occasions to offer guidance to lost souls. According to Propp, she often fulfills the function of donor; that is, her role is in supplying the hero (sometimes unwillingly) with something necessary for the further quest.
Etymology and origin. The name of Baba-Yaga is composed of two elements. Baba means "old woman" or "grandmother" used in most Slavic languages; it derives from babytalk and often has come to have pejorative connotations in modern Slavic languages [Max Vasmer, Etimologicheskii slovar' russkogo yazyka , Vol. I (Moscow: Progress, 1964), p. 99]. The second element, yaga, is from Proto-Slavic (j)ęga, "Jędza" [Polish], which is probably related to Lithuanian ingis ("lazybones" or "sluggard"), Old Norse ekki ("pain"), and Old English inca ("question, scruple, doubt; grievance, quarrel") [Max Vasmer, Etimologicheskii slovar' russkogo yazyka , Vol. IV (Moscow: Progress, 1973), p. 542]. It has also been suggested that Yaga may be a diminutive of the feminine name Jadwiga [citation needed].
An early recorded reference to yaga-baba is in Of the Russe Commonwealth , by Giles Fletcher the Elder, in the section "About Permyaks, Samoyeds and Lopars [http://www.gumer. info/bibliotek_Buks/History/flet/02.php]," indicating a possible Finno-Ugric influence [Aleksandr Tutov, "Baba Yaga was a Good Old Northerner," Energiya, No. 3 (2004), http://www.booksite.ru/arhiv/region/2004/yaga.htm].
The name differs within the various Slavic languages. It is spelled Baba Jaga in Czech, Slovak and Polish (though Czech and Slovak also use Ježibaba). In Slovene, the words are reversed, producing Jaga Baba. In Russian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian and Belarusian, it is Баба Яга transliterated as Baba Yaga (also Baba Jaga, in Ukrainian and Baba Yaha or Baba Jaha in Belarusian). In South Slavic languages and traditions, there is a similar old witch, written Baba Roga in Croatian and Bosnian, and Баба Рога in Serbian and Macedonian. In Romanian, which is not Slavic but one of the Romance languages, the name is Baba Cloanţa (roughly translated as "old hag with broken teeth").
Baba Yaga is used as a stock character by authors of modern Russian fairy tales, and from the 1990s in Russian fantasy. In particular, Baba Yaga in included in such books as Andrey Belyanin's cycle Secret Service of Tsar Pea . The childhood and youth of Baba Yaga were described for the first time in the A. Aliverdiev's tale Creek ("Lukomorie").
In some fairy tales, such as "The Feather of Finist the Falcon," the hero meets with three Baba Yagas. Such figures are usually benevolent, giving the hero advice, magical presents, or both [W. R. S. Ralston, "Storyland Beings," in Songs of the Russian People , http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/srp/srp07.htm].
Other recorded Russian fairy tales that feature Baba Yaga are "Teryoshechka," "The Enchanted Princess," and "The Silver Saucer and the Red Apple [Bonnie Marshall, "Preface," The Snow Maiden and Other Russian Tales (2004), p. 19, http://books.google.com/books]."
~ page numbers refer to topic's appearance within main text ~ End Notes Ready Reference Library from Encyclopædia Britannica Ready Reference 2005 CD-ROM (unless otherwise indicated). Copyright 1994-2003 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. *[Image & caption credit and text (if indicated): courtesy of Wikipedia].