title: Long short-term memory

text: However, with LSTM units, when error values are back-propagated from the output layer, the error remains in the LSTM unit's cell. This "error carousel" continuously feeds error back to each of the LSTM unit's gates, until they learn to cut off the value.


title: Long short-term memory

text: Many applications use stacks of LSTM RNNs and train them by connectionist temporal classification (CTC) to find an RNN weight matrix that maximizes the probability of the label sequences in a training set, given the corresponding input sequences. CTC achieves both alignment and recognition.


title: Long short-term memory

text: Sometimes, it can be advantageous to train (parts of) an LSTM by neuroevolution or by policy gradient methods, especially when there is no "teacher" (that is, training labels).


title: Long short-term memory

text: There have been several successful stories of training, in a non-supervised fashion, RNNs with LSTM units.


title: Long short-term memory

text: In 2018, Bill Gates called it a "huge milestone in advancing artificial intelligence" when bots developed by OpenAI were able to beat humans in the game of Dota 2. OpenAI Five consists of five independent but coordinated neural networks. Each network is trained by a policy gradient method without supervising teacher and contains a single-layer, 1024-unit Long-Short-Term-Memory that sees the current game state and emits actions through several possible action heads.


title: Long short-term memory

text: In 2018, OpenAI also trained a similar LSTM by policy gradients to control a human-like robot hand that manipulates physical objects with unprecedented dexterity.


title: Long short-term memory

text: In 2019, DeepMind's program AlphaStar used a deep LSTM core to excel at the complex video game Starcraft II. This was viewed as significant progress towards Artificial General Intelligence.


title: Long short-term memory

text: 1991: Sepp Hochreiter analyzed the vanishing gradient problem and developed principles of the method in his German diploma thesis


title: Long short-term memory

text: 1995: "Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM)" is published in a technical report by Sepp Hochreiter and Jürgen Schmidhuber.


title: Long short-term memory

text: 1997: The main LSTM paper is published in the journal Neural Computation. By introducing Constant Error Carousel (CEC) units, LSTM deals with the vanishing gradient problem. The initial version of LSTM block included cells, input and output gates.


title: Long short-term memory

text: 1999: Felix Gers and his advisor Jürgen Schmidhuber and Fred Cummins introduced the forget gate (also called "keep gate") into the LSTM architecture,


title: Long short-term memory

text: 2000: Gers & Schmidhuber & Cummins added peephole connections (connections from the cell to the gates) into the architecture. Additionally, the output activation function was omitted.


title: Long short-term memory

text: 2001: Gers and Schmidhuber trained LSTM to learn languages unlearnable by traditional models such as Hidden Markov Models.


title: Long short-term memory

text: 2005: First publication (Graves and Schmidhuber) of LSTM with full backpropagation through time and of bi-directional LSTM.


title: Long short-term memory

text: 2005: Daan Wierstra, Faustino Gomez, and Schmidhuber trained LSTM by neuroevolution without a teacher.


title: Long short-term memory

text: 2006: Graves, Fernandez, Gomez, and Schmidhuber introduce a new error function for LSTM: Connectionist Temporal Classification (CTC) for simultaneous alignment and recognition of sequences. CTC-trained LSTM led to breakthroughs in speech recognition.


title: Long short-term memory

text: 2007: Wierstra, Foerster, Peters, and Schmidhuber trained LSTM by policy gradients for reinforcement learning without a teacher.


title: Long short-term memory

text: 2009: An LSTM trained by CTC won the ICDAR connected handwriting recognition competition. Three such models were submitted by a team led by Alex Graves. One was the most accurate model in the competition and another was the fastest. This was the first time an RNN won international competitions.


title: Long short-term memory

text: 2013: Alex Graves, Abdel-rahman Mohamed, and Geoffrey Hinton used LSTM networks as a major component of a network that achieved a record 17.7% phoneme error rate on the classic TIMIT natural speech dataset.


title: Long short-term memory

text: 2014: Kyunghyun Cho et al. put forward a simplified variant of the forget gate LSTM called Gated recurrent unit (GRU).


title: Long short-term memory

text: 2015: Google started using an LSTM trained by CTC for speech recognition on Google Voice. According to the official blog post, the new model cut transcription errors by 49%.


title: Long short-term memory

text: 2015: Rupesh Kumar Srivastava, Klaus Greff, and Schmidhuber used LSTM principles to create the Highway network, a feedforward neural network with hundreds of layers, much deeper than previous networks. 7 months later, Kaiming He, Xiangyu Zhang; Shaoqing Ren, and Jian Sun won the ImageNet 2015 competition with an open-gated or gateless Highway network variant called Residual neural network. This has become the most cited neural network of the 21st century.


title: Long short-term memory

text: 2016: Google started using an LSTM to suggest messages in the Allo conversation app. In the same year, Google released the Google Neural Machine Translation system for Google Translate which used LSTMs to reduce translation errors by 60%.


title: Long short-term memory

text: Apple announced in its Worldwide Developers Conference that it would start using the LSTM for quicktype in the iPhone and for Siri.


title: Long short-term memory

text: Amazon released Polly, which generates the voices behind Alexa, using a bidirectional LSTM for the text-to-speech technology.


title: Long short-term memory

text: 2017: Facebook performed some 4.5 billion automatic translations every day using long short-term memory networks.


title: Long short-term memory

text: Researchers from Michigan State University, IBM Research, and Cornell University published a study in the Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDD) conference. Their Time-Aware LSTM (T-LSTM) performs better on certain data sets than standard LSTM.


title: Long short-term memory

text: Microsoft reported reaching 94.9% recognition accuracy on the Switchboard corpus, incorporating a vocabulary of 165,000 words. The approach used "dialog session-based long-short-term memory".


title: Long short-term memory

text: 2018: OpenAI used LSTM trained by policy gradients to beat humans in the complex video game of Dota 2, and to control a human-like robot hand that manipulates physical objects with unprecedented dexterity.


title: Long short-term memory

text: 2019: DeepMind used LSTM trained by policy gradients to excel at the complex video game of Starcraft II.


title: Long short-term memory

text: 2021: According to Google Scholar, in 2021, LSTM was cited over 16,000 times within a single year. This reflects applications of LSTM in many different fields including healthcare.


title: Inherently funny word

text: An inherently funny word is a word that is humorous without context, often more for its phonetic structure than for its meaning.


title: Inherently funny word

text: Vaudeville tradition holds that words with the letter "k" are funny. A 2015 study at the University of Alberta suggested that the humor of certain nonsense words can be explained by whether they seem rude, and by the property of entropy; the improbability of certain letters being used together in a word. The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer posited that humor is a product of one's expectations being violated.


title: Inherently funny word

text: Vaudeville words can be found in Neil Simon's 1972 play "The Sunshine Boys", in which an aging comedian gives a lesson to his nephew on comedy, saying that words with "k" sounds are funny:


title: Inherently funny word

text: Richard Wiseman, a professor of the public understanding of psychology at the University of Hertfordshire, conducted a small experiment to determine whether words with a "k" sound were actually considered funnier than others for English speakers. His LaughLab tested the degree of funniness among a family of jokes based on animal sounds; the joke rated the funniest was also the one with the most "k" sounds:


title: Inherently funny word

text: Robert Beard, a professor emeritus of linguistics at Bucknell University, told an interviewer that "The first thing people always write in [to his website] about is funny words". Beard's first book was "The 100 Funniest Words in English", and among his own selected words are "absquatulate", "bowyangs", "collywobbles", "fartlek", "filibuster", "gongoozle", "hemidemisemiquaver", and "snollygoster".


title: Inherently funny word

text: A 2015 study published in the "Journal of Memory and Language" examined the humor of nonsense words. The study used a computer program to generate pronounceable nonsense words that followed typical English spelling conventions and tested them for their perceived comedic value to human test subjects.


title: Inherently funny word

text: The funniest nonsense words tended to be those that reminded people of real words that are considered rude or offensive. This category included four of the top-six nonsense words that were rated the funniest in the experiment: "whong", "dongl", "shart" (now slang, not a nonsense word), and "focky". To explain why these words seemed funny, the study's author said "The expectation that you've read or uttered a rude word is raised – and then violated, because in fact it's harmless nonsense. There's a sense of relief – of getting away with it."


title: Inherently funny word

text: After removing from consideration the words that seemed rude, another factor was suggested to also be significant. The study's lead author, Chris Westbury from the University of Alberta, suggests that the humor of certain invented words can be explained by the property of entropy. Entropy (specifically Shannon entropy) here expresses how unlikely the letter combinations in certain nonsense words are: the more unlikely the letters are to be used together in English, the more funny the combination is likely to be found. Nonsense words such as "rumbus", "skritz", and "yuzz-a-ma-tuzz", which were created by children's book author and illustrator Dr. Seuss, were found to have less probable letter combinations and to seem funnier than most ordinary English words. According to Westbury, "there's actually a consistent relationship between how funny [nonwords] are and how weird they are".


title: Inherently funny word

text: The entropy explanation also supports the notion that words with a 'k' in them tend to be more funny, as the letter 'k' is one of the least frequently used letters in the English language.


title: Inherently funny word

text: The idea that humor can be predicted by a word's entropy corresponds to the work of 19th-century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, who posited that humor is a product of one's expectations being violated. According to Westbury, "One reason puns are funny is that they violate our expectation that a word has one meaning". Violating expectations corresponds mathematically to having a low probability combination of letters, which also makes the word seem particularly funny, according to Westbury.


title: Inherently funny word

text: To provide a possible evolutionary explanation of these phenomena, the authors of the study said that unusual occurrences may be experienced as indicating the presence of potential threats, and that humor may be a way of signalling to others that one has realized that a perceived threat is actually harmless. Westbury said "Strange as it may seem, that same mechanism may be activated when you see an unlikely looking word or a highly taboo one – you experience relief as you recognize that it's completely harmless – just a joke."


title: Georgism

text: Georgism, also called in modern times Geoism, and known historically as the single tax movement, is an economic ideology holding that, although people should own the value they produce themselves, the economic rent derived from land—including from all natural resources, the commons, and urban locations—should belong equally to all members of society. Developed from the writings of American economist and social reformer Henry George, the Georgist paradigm seeks solutions to social and ecological problems, based on principles of land rights and public finance which attempt to integrate economic efficiency with social justice.


title: Georgism

text: Georgism is concerned with the distribution of economic rent caused by land ownership, natural monopolies, pollution rights, and control of the commons, including title of ownership for natural resources and other contrived privileges (e.g. intellectual property). Any natural resource which is inherently limited in supply can generate economic rent, but the classical and most significant example of land monopoly involves the extraction of common ground rent from valuable urban locations. Georgists argue that taxing economic rent is efficient, fair and equitable. The main Georgist policy recommendation is a tax assessed on land value, arguing that revenues from a land value tax (LVT) can be used to reduce or eliminate existing taxes (such as on income, trade, or purchases) that are unfair and inefficient. Some Georgists also advocate for the return of surplus public revenue to the people by means of a basic income or citizen's dividend.


title: Georgism

text: The concept of gaining public revenues mainly from land and natural resource privileges was widely popularized by Henry George through his first book, "Progress and Poverty" (1879). The philosophical basis of Georgism draws on earlier thinkers such as John Locke, Baruch Spinoza and Thomas Paine. Economists from Adam Smith and David Ricardo, to Milton Friedman and Joseph Stiglitz, have observed that a public levy on land value does not cause economic inefficiency, unlike other taxes. A land value tax also has progressive tax effects. Advocates of land value taxes argue that they would reduce economic inequality, increase economic efficiency, remove incentives to under-utilize urban land and reduce property speculation.


title: Georgism

text: Georgist ideas were popular and influential during the late 19th and early 20th century. Political parties, institutions and communities were founded based on Georgist principles during that time. Early devotees of Henry George's economic philosophy were often termed "Single Taxers" for their political goal of raising public revenue mainly or only from a land value tax, although Georgists endorsed multiple forms of rent capture (e.g. seigniorage) as legitimate. The term "Georgism" was invented later, and some prefer the term "geoism" as more generic.


title: Georgism

text: Henry George is best known for popularizing the argument that government should be funded by a tax on land rent rather than taxes on labor. George believed that although scientific experiments could not be performed in political economy, theories could be tested by comparing different societies with different conditions and by thought experiments about the effects of various factors. Applying this method, he concluded that many of the problems that beset society, such as poverty, inequality, and economic booms and busts, could be attributed to the private ownership of the necessary resource, land rent. In his most celebrated book, "Progress and Poverty", George argues that the appropriation of land rent for private use contributes to persistent poverty in spite of technological progress, and causes economies to exhibit a tendency toward boom and bust cycles. According to George, people justly own what they create, but natural opportunities and land belong equally to all.


title: Georgism

text: George believed there was an important distinction between common and collective property. Although equal rights to land might be achieved by nationalizing land and then leasing it to private users, George preferred taxing unimproved land value and leaving the control of land mostly in private hands. George's reasoning for leaving land in private control and slowly shifting to land value tax was that it would not penalize existing owners who had improved land and would also be less disruptive and controversial in a country where land titles have already been granted.


title: Georgism

text: Georgists have observed that privately created wealth is socialized via the tax system (e.g., through income and sales tax), while socially created wealth in land values are privatized in the price of land titles and bank mortgages. The opposite would be the case if land rents replaced taxes on labor as the main source of public revenue; socially created wealth would become available for use by the community, while the fruits of labor would remain private. According to Georgists, a land value tax can be considered a user fee instead of a tax, since it is related to the market value of socially created locational advantage, the privilege to exclude others from locations. Assets consisting of commodified privilege can be considered as wealth since they have exchange value, similar to taxi medallions. A land value tax, charging fees for exclusive use of land, as a means of raising public revenue is also a progressive tax tending to reduce economic inequality, since it applies entirely to ownership of valuable land, which is correlated with income, and there is generally no means by which landlords can shift the tax burden onto tenants or laborers. Landlords are unable to pass the tax on to tenants because the supply and demand of rented land is unchanged. Because the supply of land is perfectly inelastic, land rents depend on what tenants are prepared to pay, rather than on the expenses of landlords, and so the tax cannot be passed on to tenants.


title: Georgism

text: Standard economic theory suggests that a land value tax would be extremely efficient—unlike other taxes, it does not reduce economic productivity. Milton Friedman described Henry George's tax on unimproved value of land as the "least bad tax", since unlike other taxes, it would not impose an excess burden on economic activity (leading to zero or even negative "deadweight loss"); hence, a replacement of other more "distortionary" taxes with a land value tax would improve economic welfare. As land value tax can improve the use of land and redirect investment toward productive, non-rent-seeking activities, it could even have a negative dead-weight loss that boosts productivity. Because land value tax would apply to foreign land speculators, the Australian Treasury estimated that land value tax was unique in having a negative marginal excess burden, meaning that it would increase long-run living standards.


title: Georgism

text: It was Adam Smith who first noted the efficiency and distributional properties of a land value tax in his book "The Wealth of Nations".


title: Georgism

text: Benjamin Franklin and Winston Churchill made similar distributional and efficiency arguments for taxing land rents. They noted that the costs of taxes and the benefits of public spending always eventually apply to and enrich, respectively, the owners of land. Therefore, they believed it would be best to defray public costs and recapture value of public spending by applying public charges directly to owners of land titles, rather than harming public welfare with taxes assessed against beneficial activities such as trade and labor.


title: Georgism

text: Henry George wrote that his plan for a high land value tax would cause people "to contribute to the public, not in proportion to what they produce ... but in proportion to the value of natural [common] opportunities that they hold [monopolize]". He went on to explain that "by taking for public use that value which attaches to land by reason of the growth and improvement of the community", it would, "make the holding of land unprofitable to the mere owner, and profitable only to the user".


title: Georgism

text: A high land value tax would discourage speculators from holding valuable natural opportunities (like urban real estate) unused or only partially used. Henry George claimed this would have many benefits, including the reduction or elimination of tax burdens from poorer neighborhoods and agricultural districts; the elimination of a multiplicity of taxes and expensive obsolete government institutions; the elimination of corruption, fraud, and evasion with respect to the collection of taxes; the enablement of true free trade; the destruction of monopolies; the elevation of wages to the full value of labor; the transformation of labor-saving inventions into blessings for all; and the equitable distribution of comfort, leisure, and other advantages that are made possible by an advancing civilization. In this way, the vulnerability that market economies have to credit bubbles and property manias would be reduced.


title: Georgism

text: Income flow resulting from payments for restricted access to natural opportunities or for contrived privileges over geographic regions is termed economic rent. Georgists argue that economic rent of land, legal privileges, and natural monopolies should accrue to the community, rather than private owners. In economics, "land" is everything that exists in nature independent of human activity. George explicitly included climate, soil, waterways, mineral deposits, laws/forces of nature, public ways, forests, oceans, air, and solar energy in the category of land. While the philosophy of Georgism does not say anything definitive about specific policy interventions needed to address problems posed by various sources of economic rent, the common goal among modern Georgists is to capture and share (or reduce) rent from all sources of natural monopoly and legal privilege.


title: Georgism

text: Henry George shared the goal of modern Georgists to socialize or dismantle rent from all forms of land monopoly and legal privilege. However, George emphasized mainly his preferred policy known as land value tax, which targeted a particular form of unearned income known as ground rent. George emphasized ground-rent because basic locations were more valuable than other monopolies and everybody needed locations to survive, which he contrasted with the less significant streetcar and telegraph monopolies, which George also criticized. George likened the problem to a laborer traveling home who is waylaid by a series of highway robbers along the way, each who demand a small portion of the traveler's wages, and finally at the very end of the road waits a robber who demands all that the traveler has left. George reasoned that it made little difference to challenge the series of small robbers when the final robber remained to demand all that the common laborer had left. George predicted that over time technological advancements would increase the frequency and importance of lesser monopolies, yet he expected that ground rent would remain dominant. George even predicted that ground-rents would rise faster than wages and income to capital, a prediction that modern analysis has shown to be plausible, since the supply of land is fixed.


title: Georgism

text: Spatial rent is still the primary emphasis of Georgists because of its large value and the known dis-economies of misused land. However, there are other sources of rent that are theoretically analogous to ground-rent and are debated topics of Georgists. The following are some sources of economic rent.


title: Georgism

text: Where free competition is impossible, such as telegraphs, water, gas, and transportation, George wrote, "[S]uch business becomes a proper social function, which should be controlled and managed by and for the whole people concerned." Georgists were divided by this question of natural monopolies and often favored public ownership only of the rents from common rights-of-way, rather than public ownership of utility companies themselves.


title: Georgism

text: The early conservationism of the Progressive Era was inspired partly by Henry George, and his influence extended for decades afterward. Some ecological economists still support the Georgist policy of land value tax as a means of freeing or rewilding unused land and conserving nature by reducing urban sprawl.


title: Georgism

text: Pollution degrades the value of what Georgists consider to be commons. Because pollution is a negative contribution, a taking from the commons or a cost imposed on others, its value is economic rent, even when the polluter is not receiving an explicit income. Therefore, to the extent that society determines pollution to be harmful, most Georgists propose to limit pollution with taxation or quotas that capture the resulting rents for public use, restoration, or a "citizen's dividend".


title: Georgism

text: Georgism is related to the school of ecological economics, since both propose market-based restrictions for pollution. The schools are compatible in that they advocate using similar tools as part of a conservation strategy, but they emphasize different aspects. Conservation is the central issue of ecology, whereas economic rent is the central issue of geoism. Ecological economists might price pollution fines more conservatively to prevent inherently unquantifiable damage to the environment, whereas Georgists might emphasize mediation between conflicting interests and human rights. Geolibertarianism, a market-oriented branch of Geoism, tends to take a direct stance against what it perceives as burdensome regulation and would like to see auctioned pollution quotas or taxes replace most command and control regulation.


title: Georgism

text: Since ecologists are primarily concerned with conservation, they tend to emphasize less the issue of equitably distributing scarcity/pollution rents, whereas Georgists insist that unearned income not accrue to those who hold title to natural assets and pollution privilege. To the extent that geoists recognize the effect of pollution or share conservationist values, they will agree with ecological economists about the need to limit pollution, but geoists will also insist that pollution rents generated from those conservation efforts do not accrue to polluters and are instead used for public purposes or to compensate those who suffer the negative effects of pollution. Ecological economists advocate similar pollution restrictions but, emphasizing conservation first, might be willing to grant private polluters the privilege to capture pollution rents. To the extent that ecological economists share the geoist view of social justice, they would advocate auctioning pollution quotas instead of giving them away for free. This distinction can be seen in the difference between basic cap and trade and the geoist variation, cap and share, a proposal to auction temporary pollution permits, with rents going to the public, instead of giving pollution privilege away for free to existing polluters or selling perpetual permits.


title: Georgism

text: The revenue can allow the reduction or elimination of taxes, greater public investment/spending, or the direct distribution of funds to citizens as a pension or basic income/citizen's dividend.


title: Georgism

text: In practice, the elimination of all other taxes implies a high land value tax, greater than any currently existing land tax. Introducing or increasing a land value tax would cause the purchase price of land to decrease. George did not believe landowners should be compensated and described the issue as being analogous to compensation for former slave owners. Other geoists disagree on the question of compensation; some advocate complete compensation while others endorse only enough compensation required to achieve Georgist reforms. Some geoists advocate compensation only for a net loss due to a shift of taxation to land value; most taxpayers would gain from the replacement of other taxes with a tax on land value. Historically, those who advocated for taxes on rent tax only great enough to replace other taxes were known as endorsers of "single tax limited".


title: Georgism

text: Most early advocacy groups described themselves as single taxers and George reluctantly accepted the single tax as an accurate name for his main political goal—the repeal of all unjust or inefficient taxes, to be replaced with a land value tax (LVT).


title: Georgism

text: Some modern proponents are dissatisfied with the name "Georgist". While Henry George was well known throughout his life, he has been largely forgotten by the public and the idea of a single tax of land predates him. Some now prefer the term "geoism", with "geo" (from Greek "earth, land") being the first compound of the name "George" < (Gr.) < "farmer" or "agriculture, farming" < + "work" deliberately ambiguous. The terms "Earth Sharing", "geonomics" and "geolibertarianism" are also used by some Georgists. These terms represent a difference of emphasis and sometimes real differences about how land rent should be spent (citizen's dividend or just replacing other taxes), but they all agree that land rent should be recovered from its private recipients.


title: Georgism

text: Compulsory fines and fees related to land rents are the most common Georgist policies, but some geoists prefer voluntary value capture systems that rely on methods such as non-compulsory or self-assessed location value fees, community land trusts and purchasing land value covenants. Some geoists believe that partially compensating landowners is a politically expedient compromise necessary for achieving reform. For similar reasons, others propose capturing only future land value increases, instead of all land rent.


title: Georgism

text: Some libertarians and minarchists take the position that limited social spending should be financed using Georgist concepts of rent value capture, but that not all land rent should be captured. Today, this relatively conservative adaptation is usually considered incompatible with true geolibertarianism, which requires that excess rents be gathered and then distributed back to residents. During Henry George's time, this restrained Georgist philosophy was known as "single tax limited", as opposed to "single tax unlimited". George disagreed with the limited interpretation, but he accepted its adherents (e.g. Thomas Shearman) as legitimate "single-taxers".


title: Georgism

text: A key issue to the popular adoption of Georgism is that homes are illiquid yet governments need cash every year. Some economists have proposed other ways of extracting value from land such as building government housing and selling homes to new buyers in areas of fast-rising land value. The government would theoretically collect revenue from home sales without much cost to current homeowners while slowing down land value appreciation in high-demand areas.


title: Georgism

text: Georgist ideas heavily influenced the politics of the early 20th century. Political parties that were formed based on Georgist ideas include the Commonwealth Land Party in the United States, the Henry George Justice Party in Victoria, the Single Tax League in South Australia, and the Justice Party in Denmark.


title: Georgism

text: In the United Kingdom, George's writings were praised by emerging socialist groups in 1890s such as the Independent Labour Party and the Fabian Society, which would each go on to help form the modern-day Labour Party. The Liberal government included a land tax as part of several taxes in the 1909 People's Budget intended to redistribute wealth (including a progressively graded income tax and an increase of inheritance tax). This caused a political crisis that resulted indirectly in reform of the House of Lords. The budget was passed eventually—but without the land tax. In 1931, the minority Labour government passed a land value tax as part III of the 1931 Finance act. However, this was repealed in 1934 by the National Government before it could be implemented.


title: Georgism

text: In Denmark, the Georgist Justice Party has previously been represented in Folketinget. It formed part of a centre-left government 1957–60 and was also represented in the European Parliament 1978–1979. The influence of Henry George has waned over time, but Georgist ideas still occasionally emerge in politics. For the United States 2004 presidential election, third-party presidential candidate Ralph Nader mentioned George in his policy statements.


title: Georgism

text: Economists still generally favor a land value tax. Monetarist economist Milton Friedman publicly endorsed the Georgist land value tax as the "least bad tax". Economist Joseph Stiglitz stated that: "Not only was Henry George correct that a tax on land is non-distortionary, but in an equilibrium society … tax on land raises just enough revenue to finance the (optimally chosen) level of government expenditure." He dubbed this proposition the Henry George theorem.


title: Georgism

text: Several communities were initiated with Georgist principles during the height of the philosophy's popularity. Two such communities that still exist are Arden, Delaware, which was founded in 1900 by Frank Stephens and Will Price, and Fairhope, Alabama, which was founded in 1894 under the auspices of the Fairhope Single Tax Corporation. Some established communities in the United States also adopted Georgist tax policies. A Georgist in Houston, Texas, Joseph Jay "J.J." Pastoriza, promoted a Georgist club in that city established in 1890. Years later, in his capacity as a city alderman, he was selected to serve as Houston Tax Commissioner, and promulgated a "Houston Plan of Taxation" in 1912. Improvements to land and merchants' inventories were taxed at 25 percent of the appraised value, unimproved land was taxed at 70 percent of appraisal, and personal property was exempt. This Georgist tax continued until 1915, when two courts struck it down as violating the Texas Constitution in 1915. This quashed efforts in several other Texas cities which took steps towards implementing the Houston Plan in 1915: Beaumont, Corpus Christi, Galveston, San Antonio, and Waco.


title: Georgism

text: The German protectorate of the Kiautschou Bay concession in Jiaozhou Bay, China fully implemented Georgist policy. Its sole source of government revenue was the land value tax of six percent which it levied in its territory. The German colonial empire had previously had economic problems with its African colonies caused by land speculation. One of the main reasons for using the land value tax in Jiaozhou Bay was to eliminate such speculation, which the policy achieved. The colony existed as a German protectorate from 1898 until 1914, when seized by Japanese and British troops in World War I. In 1922 the territory was returned to the Republic of China.


title: Georgism

text: Georgist ideas were also adopted to some degree in Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, and Taiwan. In these countries, governments still levy some type of land value tax, albeit with exemptions. Many municipal governments of the US depend on real property tax as their main source of revenue, although such taxes are not Georgist as they generally include the value of buildings and other improvements. One exception is the town of Altoona, Pennsylvania, which for a time in the 21st century only taxed land value, phasing in the tax in 2002, relying on it entirely for tax revenue from 2011, and ending it 2017; the "Financial Times" noted that "Altoona is using LVT in a city where neither land nor buildings have much value".


title: Georgism

text: Various organizations still exist that continue to promote the ideas of Henry George. According to "The American Journal of Economics and Sociology", the periodical "Land&Liberty", established in 1894, is "the longest-lived Georgist project in history". Founded during the Great Depression in 1932, the Henry George School of Social Science in New York offers courses, sponsors seminars, and publishes research in the Georgist paradigm. Also in the US, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy was established in 1974 based on the writings of Henry George. It "seeks to improve the dialogue about urban development, the built environment, and tax policy in the United States and abroad".


title: Georgism

text: The Henry George Foundation continues to promote the ideas of Henry George in the United Kingdom. The IU is an international umbrella organisation that brings together organizations worldwide that seek land value tax reform.


title: Georgism

text: The economist Alfred Marshall believed that George's views in "Progress and Poverty" were dangerous, even predicting wars, terror, and economic destruction from the immediate implementation of its recommendations. Specifically, Marshall was upset about the idea of rapid change and the unfairness of not compensating existing landowners. In his lectures on "Progress and Poverty", Marshall opposed George's position on compensation while fully endorsing his ultimate remedy. So far as land value tax moderately replaced other taxes and did not cause the price of land to fall, Marshall supported land value taxation on economic and moral grounds, suggesting that a three or four percent tax on land values would fit this condition. After implementing land taxes, governments would purchase future land values at discounted prices and take ownership after 100 years. Marshall asserted that this plan, which he strongly supported, would end the need for a tax collection department of government. For newly formed countries where land was not already private, Marshall advocated implementing George's economic proposal immediately.


title: Georgism

text: Karl Marx considered the single-tax platform as a regression from the transition to communism and referred to Georgism as "capitalism’s last ditch". Marx argued that, "The whole thing is ... simply an attempt, decked out with socialism, to save capitalist domination and indeed to establish it afresh on an even wider basis than its present one." Marx also criticized the way land value tax theory emphasizes the value of land, arguing that George's "fundamental dogma is that everything would be all right if ground rent were paid to the state." Georgist Fred Harrison responded to these objections in 2003.


title: Georgism

text: Richard T. Ely agreed with the economic arguments for Georgism but believed that correcting the problem the way Henry George wanted, without compensation, was unjust to existing landowners. In explaining his position, Ely wrote, "If we have all made a mistake, should one party to the transaction alone bear the cost of the common blunder?"


title: Georgism

text: John R. Commons supported Georgist economics, but opposed what he perceived as an environmentally and politically reckless tendency for advocates to rely on a one-size-fits-all approach to tax reform, specifically, the "single tax" framing. Commons concluded "The Distribution of Wealth", with an estimate that "perhaps 95% of the total values represented by these millionaire ["sic"] fortunes is due to those investments classed as land values and natural monopolies and to competitive industries aided by such monopolies", and that "tax reform should seek to remove all burdens from capital and labour and impose them on monopolies". However, he criticized Georgists for failing to see that Henry George's anti-monopoly ideas must be implemented with a variety of policy tools. Commons wrote, "Trees do not grow into the sky—they would perish in a high wind; and a single truth, like a single tax, ends in its own destruction." Commons uses the natural soil fertility and value of forests as an example of this destruction, arguing that a tax on the in situ value of those depletable natural resources can result in overuse or over-extraction. Instead, Commons recommends an income tax based approach to forests similar to a modern Georgist severance tax.


title: Georgism

text: Other contemporaries such as Austrian economist Frank Fetter and neoclassical economist John Bates Clark argued that it was impractical to maintain the traditional distinction between land and capital, and used this as a basis to attack Georgism. Mark Blaug, a specialist in the history of economic thought, credits Fetter and Clark with influencing mainstream economists to abandon the idea "that land is a unique factor of production and hence that there is any special need for a special theory of ground rent" claiming that "this is in fact the basis of all the attacks on Henry George by contemporary economists and certainly the fundamental reason why professional economists increasingly ignored him".


title: Georgism

text: Robert Solow endorsed the theory of Georgism, while being wary of the perceived injustice of expropriation. Solow stated that taxing away expected land rents "would have no semblance of fairness"; however, Georgism would be good to introduce where location values were not already privatized or if the transition could be phased in slowly.


title: Georgism

text: George has also been accused of exaggerating the importance of his "all-devouring rent thesis" in claiming that it is the primary cause of poverty and injustice in society. George argued that the rent of land increased faster than wages for labor because the supply of land is fixed. Modern economists, including Ottmar Edenhofer have demonstrated that George's assertion is plausible but was more likely to be true during George's time than now.


title: Georgism

text: An early criticism of Georgism was that it would generate too much public revenue and result in unwanted growth of government, but later critics argued that it would not generate enough income to cover government spending. Joseph Schumpeter concluded his analysis of Georgism by stating that, "It is not economically unsound, except that it involves an unwarranted optimism concerning the yield of such a tax." Economists who study land conclude that Schumpeter's criticism is unwarranted because the rental yield from land is likely much greater than what modern critics such as Paul Krugman suppose. Krugman agrees that land value taxation is the best means of raising public revenue but asserts that increased spending has rendered land rent insufficient to fully fund government. Georgists have responded by citing studies and analyses implying that land values of nations like the US, UK, and Australia are more than sufficient to fund all levels of government.


title: Georgism

text: Anarcho-capitalist political philosopher and economist Murray Rothbard criticized Georgism in "Man, Economy, and State" as being philosophically incongruent with subjective value theory, and further stating that land is irrelevant in the factors of production, trade, and price systems, but this critique is seen by some, including other opponents of Georgism, as relying on false assumptions and flawed reasoning.


title: Georgism

text: Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek credited early enthusiasm for Henry George with developing his interest in economics. Later, Hayek said that the theory of Georgism would be very strong if assessment challenges did not result in unfair outcomes, but he believed that they would.


title: 2015–16 UEFA Champions League

text: The 2015–16 UEFA Champions League was the 61st season of Europe's premier club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 24th season since it was renamed from the European Champion Clubs' Cup to the UEFA Champions League. Barcelona were the title holders, but were eliminated by Atlético Madrid in the quarter-finals.


title: 2015–16 UEFA Champions League

text: The final was played between Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid at the San Siro in Milan, Italy, with Madrid defeating Atlético 5–3 on penalties (1–1 after extra time) to win a record-extending eleventh European Cup/Champions League title. It was the second time in the tournament's history that both finalists were from the same city, after the same clubs faced each other in the 2014 final.


title: 2015–16 UEFA Champions League

text: As the winners of the 2015–16 UEFA Champions League, Real Madrid qualified as the UEFA representative for the 2016 FIFA Club World Cup in Japan (their third Club World Cup appearance), and also earned the right to play against the winners of the 2015–16 UEFA Europa League, Sevilla, in the 2016 UEFA Super Cup. Madrid won both competitions.


title: 2015–16 UEFA Champions League

text: The UEFA Executive Committee held in May 2013 approved the following changes to the UEFA Champions League starting from the 2015–16 season (for the three-year cycle until the 2017–18 season):


title: 2015–16 UEFA Champions League

text: A total of 78 teams from 53 of the 54 UEFA member associations participated in the 2015–16 UEFA Champions League (the exception being Liechtenstein, which does not organise a domestic league). The association ranking based on the UEFA country coefficients was used to determine the number of participating teams for each association:


title: 2015–16 UEFA Champions League

text: For the 2015–16 UEFA Champions League, the associations are allocated places according to their 2014 UEFA country coefficients, which takes into account their performance in European competitions from 2009–10 to 2013–14.


title: 2015–16 UEFA Champions League

text: Apart from the allocation based on the country coefficients, associations may have additional teams participating in the Champions League, as noted below:


title: 2015–16 UEFA Champions League

text: In the default access list, the Champions League title holders enter the group stage. However, since Barcelona already qualified for the group stage (as the champions of the 2014–15 La Liga), the Champions League title holders berth in the group stage is given to the Europa League title holders, Sevilla.


title: 2015–16 UEFA Champions League

text: League positions of the previous season qualified via league position shown in parentheses. Sevilla qualified as Europa League title holders. (TH: Champions League title holders; EL: Europa League title holders).


title: 2015–16 UEFA Champions League

text: The schedule of the competition is as follows (all draws are held at UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland, unless stated otherwise).


title: 2015–16 UEFA Champions League

text: In the qualifying rounds and the play-off round, teams were divided into seeded and unseeded teams based on their 2015 UEFA club coefficients, and then drawn into two-legged home-and-away ties. Teams from the same association could not be drawn against each other.


title: 2015–16 UEFA Champions League

text: The draw for the first and second qualifying rounds was held on 22 June 2015. The first legs were played on 30 June and 1 July, and the second legs were played on 7 July 2015.


title: 2015–16 UEFA Champions League

text: Lincoln Red Imps became the first Gibraltar team to win a tie in a UEFA competition, two years after Gibraltar's teams were first admitted entry.


title: 2015–16 UEFA Champions League

text: The first legs were played on 14 and 15 July, and the second legs were played on 21 and 22 July 2015.


title: 2015–16 UEFA Champions League

text: The third qualifying round was split into two separate sections: Champions Route (for league champions) and League Route (for league non-champions). The losing teams in both sections entered the 2015–16 UEFA Europa League play-off round.


title: 2015–16 UEFA Champions League

text: The draw for the third qualifying round was held on 17 July 2015. The first legs were played on 28 and 29 July, and the second legs were played on 4 and 5 August 2015.


title: 2015–16 UEFA Champions League

text: The play-off round was split into two separate sections: Champions Route (for league champions) and League Route (for league non-champions). The losing teams in both sections entered the 2015–16 UEFA Europa League group stage.


title: 2015–16 UEFA Champions League

text: The draw for the play-off round was held on 7 August 2015. The first legs were played on 18 and 19 August, and the second legs were played on 25 and 26 August 2015.


title: 2015–16 UEFA Champions League

text: The draw for the group stage was held in Monaco on 27 August 2015. The 32 teams were drawn into eight groups of four, with the restriction that teams from the same association could not be drawn against each other. For the draw, the teams were seeded into four pots based on the following principles (introduced starting this season):


title: 2015–16 UEFA Champions League

text: In each group, teams played against each other home-and-away in a round-robin format. The group winners and runners-up advanced to the round of 16, while the third-placed teams entered the 2015–16 UEFA Europa League round of 32. The matchdays were 15–16 September, 29–30 September, 20–21 October, 3–4 November, 24–25 November, and 8–9 December 2015.


title: 2015–16 UEFA Champions League

text: The youth teams of the clubs that qualified for the group stage also played in the 2015–16 UEFA Youth League on the same matchdays, where they competed in the UEFA Champions League Path (with the UEFA Youth League expanded to 64 teams, the youth domestic champions of the top 32 associations compete in a separate Domestic Champions Path until the play-offs).


title: 2015–16 UEFA Champions League

text: A total of 17 national associations were represented in the group stage. Astana, Borussia Mönchengladbach and KAA Gent made their debut appearances in the group stage. Astana were the first team from Kazakhstan to play in the Champions League group stage. With the maximum teams from the same association in the group stage increased from four to five, Spain became the first association to have five teams in the Champions League group stage. Since all three qualifying teams from the highest ranked leagues won their ties in the league route playoff round, the three countries of Spain, England and Germany had 13 of the 32 clubs in the group stage.


title: 2015–16 UEFA Champions League

text: In the knockout phase, teams played against each other over two legs on a home-and-away basis, except for the one-match final. The mechanism of the draws for each round was as follows:


title: 2015–16 UEFA Champions League

text: The draw for the round of 16 was held on 14 December 2015. The first legs were played on 16, 17, 23 and 24 February, and the second legs were played on 8, 9, 15 and 16 March 2016.


title: 2015–16 UEFA Champions League

text: The draw for the quarter-finals was held on 18 March 2016. The first legs were played on 5 and 6 April, and the second legs were played on 12 and 13 April 2016.


title: 2015–16 UEFA Champions League

text: The draw for the semi-finals was held on 15 April 2016. The first legs were played on 26 and 27 April, and the second legs were played on 3 and 4 May 2016.


title: 2015–16 UEFA Champions League

text: The final was played on 28 May 2016 at the San Siro in Milan, Italy. The "home" team (for administrative purposes) was determined by an additional draw held after the semi-final draw.


title: Mimi (2021 Hindi film)

text: Mimi is a 2021 Indian Hindi-language comedy-drama film directed by Laxman Utekar and produced by Dinesh Vijan under Maddock Films. A remake of the 2011 Marathi film "Mala Aai Vhhaychy!", it stars Kriti Sanon in the eponymous lead who opts to be a surrogate mother for a foreign couple. Pankaj Tripathi, Sai Tamhankar, Manoj Pahwa, Supriya Pathak, Evelyn Edwards and Aidan Whytock appear in supporting roles.


title: Mimi (2021 Hindi film)

text: "Mimi" was announced in August 2019 and began shooting in October 2019 with filming taking place in Rajasthan and Mumbai. The film score and soundtrack were composed by A. R. Rahman, with lyrics penned by Amitabh Bhattacharya; cinematography and editing were respectively handled by Akash Agarwal and Manish Pradhan, the latter of whom had also edited Utekar's "Luka Chuppi" (2019) that also starred Sanon.


title: Mimi (2021 Hindi film)

text: Following the non-existent theatrical releases due to COVID-19 pandemic, "Mimi" was later planned for a digital release through the streaming services Netflix and JioCinema on 30 July 2021. However, the film was released through the platforms on 26 July 2021, 4 days prior as the film was released accidentally by JioCinema and went into torrent sites. It received mostly mixed reviews from critics, but praise was directed to the cast's performances, in particular Sanon, Tripathi, and Tamhankar.


title: Mimi (2021 Hindi film)

text: At the 67th Filmfare Awards, "Mimi" received 6 nominations, including Best Music Director (A. R. Rahman), Best Female Playback (Shreya Ghoshal), and Best Choreography (Ganesh Acharya), the latter two for the song "Param Sundari", winning Best Actress (Sanon), Best Supporting Actor (Tripathi) and Best Supporting Actress (Tamhankar).


title: Mimi (2021 Hindi film)

text: John and Summer are an American couple who cannot conceive. They visit Rajasthan in search of a surrogate mother. Upon meeting local dancer and aspiring actress Mimi Rathod, they feel she would be a perfect surrogate for their child. They convince local taxi driver Bhanu Pratap Pandey to recruit Mimi to be their surrogate, with a promise of . Mimi, who wishes for stardom in Bollywood and goes to Mumbai but doesn't have the financial means required to chase her dreams, agrees after initial hesitation. The IVF procedure succeeds and Mimi becomes pregnant with John and Summer's child. In order to hide the pregnancy from her parents, Mimi lies to them that she is going to Mumbai for 9 months for the shoot of a film. She starts living with her friend Shama. Bhanu is asked by John and Summer to take care of Mimi during her pregnancy.


title: Mimi (2021 Hindi film)

text: A routine check-up reveals that Mimi's unborn child has down syndrome, leaving John and Summer devastated. They abruptly leave for USA, saying they don't want the baby anymore and suggest Mimi to abort it. Disheartened, Mimi rejects the idea of abortion and decides to carry the child to term. Visibly pregnant now, Mimi returns home and lies that the child belongs to Bhanu when asked about its father, causing more problems as Bhanu's wife lives in Delhi who hasn't seen him for months.


title: Mimi (2021 Hindi film)

text: Mimi gives birth to a healthy boy Raj, revealing the earlier test result was false and also evoking curiosity and bafflement among people because of the child's fair skin, which didn't resemble his supposed biological parents, making him a locally adored wonder. When Bhanu's family shows up in Rajasthan, confusion and chaos ensue. Eventually, Mimi comes clean about the surrogacy and her family accepts the child. She becomes deeply attached to Raj, giving up her Bollywood aspirations to care for him.


title: Mimi (2021 Hindi film)

text: Raj has grown up as a kid, doted upon by Mimi's parents and also attracting attention and sometimes bullying from his schoolmates for his 'different' looks. John and Summer return to India after seeing a video of Mimi and Raj on Facebook. They say that they've changed their mind and want to take Raj back to America. Mimi confronts Summer, saying Raj is her child now, and refuses to give him back. However, John threatens legal action as Mimi had signed surrogacy contract and has no legal right over Raj as long as she was paid for her services. Bhanu and Mimi's parents prepare to fight it out in court, but Mimi rejects this notion and decides to give Raj back to John and Summer as she doesn't want Raj to face the struggle of court cases.


title: Mimi (2021 Hindi film)

text: On the day of John and Summer's flight back to America; Mimi, Bhanu, and her family meet the couple to send Raj off with them but are surprised to see John with a child Tara, who Summer claims as their daughter. It is revealed that while coming back from Mimi's house, they came across an orphanage and felt a connection with Tara, who they saw crying from behind the orphan gate, and adopted her. Summer explains how after seeing Mimi with Raj, she realized parenthood has nothing to do with blood but everything to do with love and care. They leave Raj with Mimi and her family, recognizing he is her son in every practical sense and belongs with her.


title: Mimi (2021 Hindi film)

text: In April 2019, "The Times of India" reported that Kriti Sanon will lead in a film that will revolve around surrogacy. Dinesh Vijan's production house Maddock Films was reported to back the project. The film was officially announced in August 2019 followed by a poster release and Sanon and Pankaj Tripathi were reported to feature in lead roles. It was further confirmed to be based on the Marathi film "Mala Aai Vhhayachy" (2011). In an interview with "India Today", Dinesh Vijan stated that Mimi was a tale based on true events unlike poignant stories. For him, the film explores a beautiful relationship between a woman who never wanted to be a mother and one who can't wait to be one. The unexpected part was called "humor" in the storyline by him. Sanon added: "You will have a lot of humour and situational humour. At the same time, there are a lot of characters you will take back home." For Sanon, Mimi was the film which she signed hearing the idea but not the script. Later, realising that the role has a lot to offer to her as an actor. She gained fifteen kilograms of body weight to fit into the character of a pregnant woman. In an interview with "Hindustan Times", she was quoted: "We had to shoot the pregnancy scenes and Laxman Sir was very clear that it was necessary to gain weight for those scenes because he didn't want the character to have a chiseled face". Actress Sai Tamhankar was roped into playing a pivotal character in the film, sharing screen with Tripathi. She was reported to play a Muslim woman from Rajasthan, hence learnt Urdu as well as the Rajasthani dialect for her role.


title: Mimi (2021 Hindi film)

text: Principal photography commenced at Mandawa, Rajasthan by 29 October 2019. In an interview with "Filmfare", Sanon confirmed it to be her first female centric film. By December 2019, the team had completed 40% of the film's production. The next filming schedule was planned from February 2020 for 30–40 days. Filming took place in Jaipur on 10 February 2020, where makers finished shooting major sequences within 4 March 2020. Reportedly, filming was stalled for a few days due to COVID-19 pandemic induced lockdown in India. In June 2020, Utekar confirmed that five days shoot was pending which included an introductory song featuring artists from United Kingdom. The song (later deciphered as "Param Sundari") was planned to be filmed by January 2021. He added that owing to the pandemic situations, big crew and cast traveling back to Rajasthan was not feasible. The international cast was called to Mumbai for the shoot as they were required for the continuity of the film. By May 2021, it was revealed that the entire shooting process has been completed.


title: Mimi (2021 Hindi film)

text: The original score and soundtrack were composed by A. R. Rahman and featured lyrics written by Amitabh Bhattacharya. Vipin Nair of "Music Aloud" wrote in its review that "the soundtrack had fairly low expectations, but it had thrown up a surprise with a very diverse and engaging set of songs" and gave 3.5 out of 5. A critic from "The Humming Heart" gave a score 8 (out of 10) and said ""Mimi" may not be a top-shelf Hindi mainstream soundtrack of AR Rahman. But, this is a lovely low-key album with tunes that might pay off with revisits in the years to come."


title: Mimi (2021 Hindi film)

text: Producer Dinesh Vijan had planned for a theatrical release in March 2021 after his production "Roohi", which was the first mainstream Hindi film to have a theatrical release post COVID-19 pandemic. However, following the nationwide lockdown due to rise in COVID-19 cases and the second wave of the pandemic, the makers planned for a digital release in May 2021. The film was distributed worldwide by Netflix and JioCinema (the digital platform for Jio Studios, which co-produced the film) additionally distributed the film in India, with a scheduled release date of 30 July 2021. However, four days before the release, the platform JioCinema released the film earlier for few minutes on 26 July 2021, and resulted in online piracy as it was made available for torrent sites and illegal movie streaming platforms. To counter piracy, both Netflix and JioCinema premiered the film on the same date instead of 30 July.


title: Mimi (2021 Hindi film)

text: On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a rating of 25% based on 12 reviews and an average rating of 3.5/5.


title: Mimi (2021 Hindi film)

text: Renuka Vyahare of "The Times of India" gave 4 (out of 5) stars and said ""Mimi" picks a relevant topic and turns it into an engaging, empowering and compassionate tale on humanity and motherhood". Taran Adarsh, in his review for "Bollywood Hungama", wrote ""Mimi" is a heartwarming saga, aimed at families and it will keep the audience thoroughly entertained. Had it released in cinemas, it had a good chance of becoming a success", giving a rating of 3.5 stars out of five. Sushri Sahu of "Mashable India" too gave 3.5 stars describing the film as an "feel-good family entertainer" and wrote, ""Mimi" is a family entertainer that might make you cry, laugh and smile all at the same time; If you're into that, you will enjoy "Mimi", which is enriched by Sanon and Tripathi's performances". Calling Sanon's performance in "Mimi" her career-best, she further wrote, "Sanon has outdone herself. In fact, as you see her shoulder the film with her craft, you will also see her deliver her career best performance; "Mimi" is Sanon's labor of love all the way".


title: Mimi (2021 Hindi film)

text: Anupama Chopra of "Film Companion" wrote ""Mimi" is content to operate at a simplistic, superficial level. Laxman puts together a roster of terrific actors, but "Mimi" rests on Kriti's shoulders. She also works hard – putting on weight, working with a Rajasthani accent. In the climax, she is able to summon a wellspring of emotion but largely, her efforts are undermined by the script and her own inability to let go of synthetic Bollywood glamour."


title: Mimi (2021 Hindi film)

text: Jyoti Kanyal of "India Today" gave 2.5 (out of 5) and said ""Mimi" is a great attempt at bringing a social taboo like surrogacy to the center stage. However, in trying to make it more entertaining and emotional, the makers lose a good opportunity. The film has some really funny scenes, and if melodrama is something you don't mind, you should definitely give "Mimi" a watch". Anna M. M. Vetticad of "Firstpost" gave 1.5 (out of 5) saying "Writer-director Laxman Utekar's new Hindi film is a muddled take on motherhood with clarity only on its conservative mission to condemn abortion. If it had been better written and directed, "Mimi" might have been considered dangerous anti-women propaganda. To describe it thus would be a compliment though to the director's storytelling abilities".


title: Jessica Williams (actress)

text: Jessica Renee Williams is an American actress and comedian. She has appeared as a senior correspondent on "The Daily Show", as cohost of the podcast "2 Dope Queens", and as Lally Hicks in the "Fantastic Beasts" film series.


title: Jessica Williams (actress)

text: Jessica Renee Williams was born in Los Angeles County, California. She attended Nathaniel Narbonne High School where she flourished in the school's drama department. She made her television debut as a series regular on the Nickelodeon series "Just for Kicks" in 2006, and in 2012, she became "The Daily Show"'s youngest correspondent ever. She attended California State University, Long Beach. Results of a DNA test traced Williams's maternal ancestry to the Bamileke people of Cameroon.


title: Jessica Williams (actress)

text: Williams made her "Daily Show" debut on January 11, 2012. Williams is a frequent performer at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in Los Angeles. Williams also made appearances on Season 3 of HBO's "Girls". She currently resides in Brooklyn, New York and Los Angeles, California. She appears in the film "People Places Things". She co-hosted the comedy podcast "2 Dope Queens" with Phoebe Robinson. Williams appears in an HBO special spun off from the podcast in February, 2018. She appeared on her last "Daily Show" episode on June 30, 2016. She is the star of the 2017 Netflix comedy movie "The Incredible Jessica James", in which she portrays a character whom the Guardian described as "a struggling Brooklyn-based playwright navigating the murky waters of modern romance while waiting impatiently for her big break." She appeared in the sequels of "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them", titled "" and "" as Lally Hicks, a teacher from Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.


title: Caroline Polachek

text: Caroline Elizabeth Polachek (born June 20, 1985) is an American singer, producer and songwriter. Raised in Connecticut, Polachek co-founded the indie pop band Chairlift while studying at the University of Colorado. The duo emerged from the late-2000s Brooklyn music scene with the sleeper hit "Bruises".


title: Caroline Polachek

text: During her time in the band, she worked on the solo projects Ramona Lisa and CEP before embarking on a career under her own name after Chairlift's disbandment in 2017. Her debut studio album, "Pang" (2019), featured an avant-pop sound and was released to critical acclaim, with its single "So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings" going viral on TikTok.


title: Caroline Polachek

text: Polachek has worked extensively with other artists, collaborating with Blood Orange, Fischerspooner, Sbtrkt, Christine and the Queens, Charli XCX, and the British music collective PC Music, as well as writing material for Beyoncé ("No Angel") and Travis Scott.


title: Caroline Polachek

text: Polachek was born in Manhattan, New York City, on June 20, 1985, to James Montel Polachek (1944–2020), a financial markets analyst and trained classical musician, and Elizabeth Allan. Her great-grandfather, Arthur Polachek, was a Jewish confectioner from the Slovak village of Lastomír. Her family relocated to Tokyo, Japan, where she lived between the ages of one and six, and later settled in Greenwich, Connecticut, where Polachek started singing choir in the third grade. She was a synth player from a young age as her father gifted her a Yamaha keyboard to dissuade her from being disruptive on the piano.


title: Caroline Polachek

text: Polachek's parents divorced in 1994. She described herself as "a very hyperactive kid" and said that they would play Enya at their respective houses to calm her senses. Her father died from COVID-19 in 2020. Polachek recounts her early exposure to traditional Japanese songs and anime themes as being influential on her musical education. She rode horses growing up. As a teenager, she began traveling to New York to attend concerts, which were a mix of post-hardcore emo, DIY punk and jazz shows. Mike Patton once personally walked her into a show at the Knitting Factory when her fake ID was rejected. She played in a couple of bands in high school and college.


title: Caroline Polachek

text: Polachek founded the band Chairlift with musician Aaron Pfenning after the pair met during her sophomore year at the University of Colorado. They relocated to New York, where Polachek studied art at New York University, and were joined by Patrick Wimberly in early 2007, the year the band released their first EP titled "Daylight Savings", followed by their debut album "Does You Inspire You."


title: Caroline Polachek

text: Polachek and Wimberly went on as a duo to write and produce their 2012 full-length record "Something" alongside producers Dan Carey and Alan Moulder. In addition, she directed the record's music videos, including "Amanaemonesia", and "I Belong in Your Arms".


title: Caroline Polachek

text: In 2008, Polachek formed Girl Crisis choir with 12 other female singers, including members of Au Revoir Simone and Class Actress. The modular group arranged and recorded two covers a year from 2008 to 2013, including songs by Black Sabbath, Nirvana, Leonard Cohen, the Bangles, and Ace of Base.


title: Caroline Polachek

text: In 2010, Polachek joined Jorge Elbrecht of Brooklyn-based Violens to record a "sgin" of Justin Bieber's "Never Let You Go": "We went on YouTube to find a video among the highest ranks of hits, and came across 'Never Let You Go'. We went on to make what we call a 'sgin' (anagram of the word 'sing')—an original song written specifically to synch into someone else's video on mute". The same year, she also recorded a duet with Violens, "Violent Sensation Descends (French Duet Version)". She later shot and directed the music video for the band's song "It Couldn't Be Perceived" in 2011. She collaborated with Elbrecht again on the EP "Gloss Coma 001" in 2013, which includes the single "I.V. Aided Dreams".


title: Caroline Polachek

text: In 2012, Polachek featured on the song "Everything Is Spoilt by Use" by Ice Choir, a solo project by Kurt Feldman of the Pains of Being Pure at Heart; she also directed and edited the song's music video. Polachek collaborated with Blood Orange on the tracks "Chamakay" in 2013 and "Holy Will" in 2018. In 2013, she co-wrote and co-produced "No Angel", which was featured on Beyoncé's critically acclaimed fifth studio album "Beyoncé". Due to her production and engineering work on the song, "Beyoncé"s nomination for the Grammy Award for Album of the Year at the 57th ceremony included Polachek.


title: Caroline Polachek

text: Polachek began performing sets under the moniker Ramona Lisa in 2013. The name originates from a former pseudonym Polachek used on Facebook. She announced her debut self-produced album as Ramona Lisa, entitled "Arcadia", in February 2014. Polachek described the album as "pastoral electronic music".


title: Caroline Polachek

text: Polachek began writing the album during an artistic residency at the Villa Medici in Rome, Italy. In an interview with Pitchfork, she described how her time in Rome inspired the sounds of "Arcadia", stating: "When I was looking out the window in Rome, I wanted this type of electronic music to feel as organic as what I was seeing. I don't think any of the tools that I'm using are particularly new—a lot of the MIDI instruments have been around for 15 years—but the compositions make them sound less electronic, more mysterious." The record was made entirely on Polachek's laptop without instruments or external microphones, except to capture field recordings of the sounds she heard in her surroundings. She sang vocals directly into her computer's built in microphone, making use of hotel closets, quiet airport gates, and spare dressing rooms during Chairlift's world tour. The album artwork was shot by New York photographer Tim Barber.


title: Caroline Polachek

text: In early 2014, Polachek composed and produced instrumental scores for designers Proenza Schouler and Tess Giberson to be featured on runways and promotional videos. In April, she scored a live performance piece by artists India Menuez and Hayden Dunham at SIGNAL gallery in Brooklyn. In October, Polachek scored "HappyOkay", a ballet performance video directed by Elena Parasco and produced by House of Makers and Last Hour. The performance was choreographed by Peter Lueng of the Dutch National Ballet, the largest dance company in the Netherlands, and performed by New York City Ballet's Harrison Ball, Joseph Gordon, and Megan LeCrone.


title: Caroline Polachek

text: On January 22, 2016, Chairlift released their third and final album, "Moth". In December of the same year, the band announced that they would be breaking up, with a final tour in the spring of 2017.


title: Caroline Polachek

text: In January 2017, Polachek released her second solo album, "Drawing the Target Around the Arrow", under her initials, CEP. She was scheduled to perform at Moogfest 2018, but pulled out in December 2017 when the festival advertised a list of female artists performing that year, despite the festival lineup being predominantly male. She followed up with a statement on Twitter saying: "This speaks not to the artists or their music, but to the politics of the festival and self-congratulatory PR. To do this without permission from the artists on display is exploitative and unprofessional", adding "Moogfest, and all other festivals, simply have a responsibility to position inclusivity as normal".


title: Caroline Polachek

text: Polachek featured on Danny L Harle's single "Ashes of Love" in 2016. In 2017, she appeared on two songs from Charli XCX's mixtape "Pop 2": as a featured artist on "Tears" and as a backing vocalist on "Delicious", the latter of which features Tommy Cash. In 2018, Polachek featured on Felicita's version of the traditional Polish song "", released on their debut album "Hej!" under the title "Marzipan".


title: Caroline Polachek

text: In June 2019, Polachek released her debut single under her full name titled "Door". In a press release for the single, Polachek announced that the single was the beginning of a new project, made mostly in collaboration with PC Music member Danny L Harle. Later in July, Polachek released two singles off of the project, titled "Ocean of Tears" and "Parachute", and began to detail her then upcoming album "Pang" which was released on October 18. The album received critical acclaim and placed on many critics' end of the year lists. A remix album titled "Standing at the Gate: Remix Collection" was released on vinyl on April 16, 2021. In promotion, Polachek released five of the album's remixes as singles, as well as a cover of the Corrs' "Breathless".


title: Caroline Polachek

text: In 2019, Polachek was a songwriter, along with Yung Jake, on the single "RIP Harambe" released by entrepreneur Elon Musk about the captive gorilla killed in 2016. In 2020, Polachek featured on "La vita nuova" by Christine and the Queens and made a guest appearance in the short film around the EP of the same name. The song was later remixed by various producers associated with PC Music, including A. G. Cook and Easyfun.


title: Caroline Polachek

text: In September 2021, Polachek was announced as one of the opening acts on Dua Lipa's Future Nostalgia Tour. The tour began on February 9, 2022. On November 4, 2021, Charli XCX released "New Shapes" featuring Christine and the Queens and Polachek as the second single from her album "Crash" (2022).


title: Caroline Polachek

text: On July 14, 2021, Polachek released the single "Bunny Is a Rider", another collaboration with Harle; she told "Crack Magazine" that the song was part of a future project. In December, "Pitchfork" ranked "Bunny Is a Rider" at the top of their list of "The 100 Best Songs of 2021". On February 9, 2022, Polachek released the single "Billions". In March, she was featured on Australian electronic music producer Flume's single "Sirens", released ahead of his upcoming studio album "Palaces". In June, Polachek confirmed that she was working on her fourth studio album, posting a picture of herself in studio with Danny L Harle on Instagram. She recorded a cover of "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)" for the , released on July 1, 2022. On October 17, her flamenco-inspired single "Sunset", a co-production with Sega Bodega, was released.


title: Caroline Polachek

text: On December 5, 2022, Polachek released the single "Welcome to My Island" and announced her second studio album under her full name, "Desire, I Want to Turn Into You", for February 14, 2023. The album is set to include "Bunny Is a Rider", "Billions", "Sunset", and "Welcome to My Island".


title: Caroline Polachek

text: Polachek's musical style has been described as mainly alternative pop, along with art pop, indie pop, experimental pop.


title: Caroline Polachek

text: Polachek's influences have been described as "eclectic" by music critics. When asked about her earliest musical influence by "Interview", she responded that it was "[p]robably Enya". Growing up in Japan until the age of six, she was exposed to traditional Japanese songs and anime themes, which she says were influential on her musical education; she stated that Japanese singing consists of "a lot of minor and pentatonic [tonality], with really angular melodies that I think really stuck in my subconscious". She named Mishio Ogawa in particular as "one of [her] biggest influences". Other vocal influences include Celine Dion and Matia Bazar's song "Ti siento". She also credits riding horses as a child with helping her "[learn] a lot about rhythm and about voice".


title: Caroline Polachek

text: Polachek says that she "grew up kneeling at the altar of alternative music" and that Björk, Kate Bush, and Fiona Apple were her "absolute heroes" when she was a teenager. Her alter ego Ramona Lisa was inspired by "artists whose looks were inseparable from their music", such as Nirvana, Marilyn Manson, and David Bowie. She named those artists, along with Björk and Busta Rhymes, as influences for her visual identity. She called Paddy McAloon of Prefab Sprout her "favorite lyricist" and stated that she is "very inspired by contemporary artists like Rosalía or Doja Cat, who play with sounds". She also finds inspiration in "more abstract" domains beyond music, such as landscapes.


title: Caroline Polachek

text: Polachek's 2015 wedding to artist Ian Drennan was extensively photographed by "Vogue" magazine. They divorced in 2017. , she is in a relationship with Matt Copson, an artist.


title: Om mani padme hum

text: The precise meaning and significance of the words remains much discussed by Buddhist scholars. The literal meaning in English has been expressed as "praise to the jewel in the lotus", or as a declarative aspiration possibly meaning "I in the jewel-lotus". "Padma" is the Sanskrit for the Indian lotus ("Nelumbo nucifera"), and "mani" for "jewel", as in a type of spiritual "jewel" widely referred to in Buddhism. The first word, "aum/om", is a sacred syllable in various Indian religions, and "hum" represents the spirit of enlightenment.


title: Om mani padme hum

text: In Tibetan Buddhism, this is the most ubiquitous mantra and the most popular form of religious practice, performed by laypersons and monastics alike. It is also an ever present feature of the landscape, commonly carved onto rocks, known as mani stones, painted into the sides of hills or else it is written on prayer flags and prayer wheels.


title: Om mani padme hum

text: Due to the increased interactions between Chinese Buddhists and Tibetans and Mongolians during the 11th century, the mantra also entered Chinese Buddhism. The mantra has also been adapted into Chinese Taoism.


title: Om mani padme hum

text: Mantras may be interpreted by practitioners in many ways, or even as mere sequences of sound whose effects lie beyond strict semantic meaning.


title: Om mani padme hum

text: The middle part of the mantra, ', is often interpreted as being in the locative case, "jewel in the lotus", Sanskrit ' "jewel, gem, cintamani" and the locative of ' "lotus". The lotus is a symbol present throughout Indian religion, signifying purity (due to its ability to emerge unstained from the mud) and spiritual fruition (and thus, awakening). "Maṇipadme" is preceded by the ' syllable and followed by the "" syllable, both interjections without linguistic meaning, but widely known as divine sounds.


title: Om mani padme hum

text: However, according to Donald Lopez (citing Tibetan grammatical sources) it is much more likely that ' is in fact a vocative, addressing a bodhisattva called ', "Jewel-Lotus"- an alternative epithet of the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara.


title: Om mani padme hum

text: Damien Keown also notes that another theory about the meaning of the mantra is that it actually invokes a female deity named Manipadmi. This is due to evidence from texts such as the "Kāraṇḍavyūhasūtra" which depict the mantra as a female deity. Also, as noted by Studholme, if the word is read as a vocative, it is most likely in the feminine grammatical gender, because if masculine, it would be a highly irregular form. Thus as Lopez notes, the original meaning of the mantra could in fact be an invocation of "she of the lotus jewel", who is the "vidya" (wisdom) and consort of Avalokiteshvara and is equivalent to Shakti's role "vis a vis" Shiva.


title: Om mani padme hum

text: Regarding the relationship between the jewel and the lotus, Sten Konow argued that it could either refer to "a lotus that is a jewel" or to "a jewel in the lotus". He argues that the second explanation makes more sense, indicating Shaivite influence through the imagery of the lingam and the yoni, both also terms associated with "mani" and "padma" respectively. Thus the mantra could in fact mean "O, she with the jewel in her lotus".


title: Om mani padme hum

text: According to Alexander Studholme however, the meaning of "manipadme" "should be parsed as a tatpurusa, or 'determinative', compound in the (masculine or neuter) locative case", meaning "in the jewel-lotus", or "in the lotus made of jewels", which refers to:the manner in which buddhas and bodhisattvas are said to be seated in these marvelous blooms and, in particular, to the manner in which more mundane beings are believed to appear in the pure land of the buddhas. Given the predominance, in the "Kāraṇḍavyūha" and in the Mahayana in general, of the religious goal of the pure land of Amitabha, it may be safely assumed that "" would have been quite naturally associated with the mode of the rebirth of human beings there. The recitation of , then, the bringing to mind of the name of the Buddhist isvara, includes a declaration of the manner in which a person is reborn in Sukhavati: “in the jewel lotus.”


title: Om mani padme hum

text: The first known description of the mantra appears in the "Kāraṇḍavyūhasūtra" (“The Basket’s Display”, c. 4-5th centuries), which is part of certain Mahayana canons such as the Tibetan. In this sutra, Shakyamuni Buddha states, "This is the most beneficial mantra. Even I made this aspiration to all the million Buddhas and subsequently received this teaching from Buddha Amitabha."


title: Om mani padme hum

text: The sutra promotes the recitation of this mantra as a means to liberation. It states that whoever knows ("janati") the mantra will know liberation as a fully enlightened Buddha. It also states that initiation into the mantra by a qualified preceptor (which is said to be a lay "dharmabhanaka", "vidyadhara" or "mahasiddha") is an important requirement for practicing this mantra. In the sutra, Avalokitesvara says that the mantra should not be given to one who has not seen the mandala. This initiation is said to be open to all Buddhists regardless of class and gender, whether they be of the Mahayana or Hinayana, but not to "tirthikas".


title: Om mani padme hum

text: The "Kāraṇḍavyūhasūtra" also sees the mantra as the pith or condensed expression of all "eighty four thousand Dharmas". Because of this it is called "the grain of rice of the Mahayana", and reciting it is equivalent to reciting numerous sutras.


title: Om mani padme hum

text: Thus, according to Studholme, the significance of the mantra in the "Kāraṇḍavyūha" is mainly that it is the "innermost heart" of Avalokitesvara, and therefore is "a means both of entering into the presence of Avalokitesvara and of appropriating some of the bodhisattva's power". Its practice is said to lead numerous positive qualities including:


title: Om mani padme hum

text: In this sutra, the "sadaksari mahavidya" (six syllabled great "vidya") also appears as a goddess, "autumn yellow" in color, with four arms, with two arms holding a lotus and prayer beads, and the other two in anjali mudra. According to Studholme, these features are similar to the way the mantra "Om nama shivaya" is depicted in Shaiva texts, since "both are concise "vidyas", the "hrdayas" [heart] of their respective "isvaras", sui generis means of attaining liberation, universally available, though of rare value and somewhat secret. Both are also, it has been argued, conceived of as forms of "pranava" [divine sound]."


title: Om mani padme hum

text: The "Kāraṇḍavyūhasūtra" was translated into Chinese in the 11th or 12th century and is part of the Chinese Buddhist canon.


title: Om mani padme hum

text: The 11th-century Bengali master Atiśa Dīpaṃkara Śrījñāna, who was influential in bringing Buddhism to Tibet, also wrote a short treatise on the mantra called the "Arya-sad-aksari-sadhana". Some Buddhist scholars argue that the mantra as practiced in Tibetan Buddhism was based on the "Sadhanamala", a collection of "sadhana" or spiritual practices published in the 12th century. However, according to Peter Alan Roberts, "the primary source for Tibetan Avalokitesvara practices and teachings" is the 11th-century "Maṇi Kambum".


title: Om mani padme hum

text: Donald Lopez writes that according to a 17th-century work by the prime minister of the fifth Dalai Lama, the meaning of the mantra is said to be "O, you who have the jewel and the lotus." That "manipadme" is in the vocative case is also supported by a 9th-century Tibetan grammatical treatise.


title: Om mani padme hum

text: Lopez also notes that the majority of Tibetan Buddhist texts have regarded the translation of the mantra as secondary, focusing instead on the correspondence of the six syllables of the mantra to various other groupings of six in the Buddhist tradition.


title: Om mani padme hum

text: For example, in the "Chenrezig Sadhana", Tsangsar Tulku Rinpoche expands upon the mantra's meaning, taking its six syllables to represent the purification of the six realms of existence:


title: Om mani padme hum

text: The tutor to the present Dalai Lama, Trijang Rinpoche (1901-1981) wrote a commentary on the mantra which states: Regarding mani padme, "Jewel Lotus" or "Lotus Jewel" is one of the names of the noble Avalokitesvara. The reason that he is called by that is that, just as a lotus is not soiled by mud, so the noble Avalokitesvara himself has, through his great wisdom, abandoned the root of samsara, all the stains of the conception of true existence together with its latencies. Therefore, to symbolize that he does not abide in the extreme of mundane existence, he holds a white lotus in his hand...He joins the palms of his two upper hands, making the gesture of holding a jewel to symbolize that, like a wish-granting jewel, he eliminates all the oppression of suffering for all sentient beings and bestows upon them all temporary and ultimate benefit and bliss.


title: Om mani padme hum

text: In English, the mantra is variously transliterated, depending on the schools of Buddhism as well as individual teachers.


title: Om mani padme hum

text: Most authorities consider "maṇipadme" to be one compound word rather than two simple words. Sanskrit writing does not have capital letters and this means that capitalisation of transliterated mantras varies from all caps, to initial caps, to no caps. The all-caps rendering is typical of older scholarly works, and Tibetan Sadhana texts.


title: Om mani padme hum

text: As Bucknell "et al." (1986, p. 15.) say, the complete Avalokiteshvara Mantra includes a final "hrīḥ" (, ), which is iconographically depicted in the central space of the syllabic mandala as seen in the ceiling decoration of the Potala Palace. The full mantra in Tibetan is thus: ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་ཧྲཱིཿ The "hrīḥ" is not always vocalized audibly and may be resonated "internally" or "secretly" through intentionality.


title: Om mani padme hum

text: According to Sam Van Schaik, Tibetan works from Dunhuang which was a major cult center of Avalokitesvara, contain numerous mantras associated with this figure, the six syllable mantra only being one of many. Some of these are lesser known variations on the six syllable mantra such as: "Om vajra yaksa mani padme hum."


title: The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (film)

text: Its ensemble voice cast including Aki Asakura, Kengo Kora, Takeo Chii, Nobuko Miyamoto, Atsuko Takahata, Tomoko Tabata, Tatekawa Shinosuke, Takaya Kamikawa, Hikaru Ijūin, Ryudo Uzaki, Nakamura Shichinosuke II, Isao Hashizume, Yukiji Asaoka (in a special appearance) and Tatsuya Nakadai. It was the final film performance by Chii, who died in June 2012, and the final film directed by Takahata, who died in April 2018.


title: The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (film)

text: It was released in Japan on 23 November 2013, distributed by Toho. With a budget of US$49.3 million, it is the most expensive Japanese film to date. It received critical acclaim and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature at the 87th Academy Awards, losing to "Big Hero 6". Its production was the subject of the feature-length documentary "Isao Takahata and His Tale of the Princess Kaguya".


title: The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (film)

text: A bamboo cutter named Sanuki no Miyatsuko discovers a miniature girl inside a glowing bamboo shoot. Believing her to be a divine presence, he and his wife decide to raise her as their own, calling her "Princess". The girl grows rapidly, earning her the nickname from the village children. , the oldest among Takenoko's friends, develops a close relationship with her.


title: The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (film)

text: Miyatsuko comes upon gold and fine cloth in the bamboo grove the same way he found his daughter. He takes these as proof of her divine royalty and begins planning to make her a proper princess. He relocates the family to the capital, forcing the girl to leave her friends behind, and the family moves into a mansion replete with servants. The girl is saddled with a governess who is tasked with taming her into a noblewoman. The girl struggles with the restraints of nobility, yearning for her prior life in the countryside.


title: The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (film)

text: When she comes of age, she is granted the formal name . Miyatsuko holds a celebration, where Kaguya overhears partygoers ridiculing her father's attempts to turn a peasant girl into a noble through money. Kaguya flees the capital in despair and runs back to the mountains, seeking Sutemaru and her friends, but discovers that they have all moved away. She passes out in the snow and awakens back at the party.


title: The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (film)

text: Kaguya grows in beauty, attracting suitors. Five noblemen attempt to court her, comparing her to mythical treasures. Kaguya tells them she will only marry whoever can bring her the mythical treasure mentioned. Eventually, spring comes, and the Princess wishes to see the cherry blossoms bloom. Her mother and one of her handmaidens take her back to the country, where not far from the hut she once lived, a tree is in bloom. Reveling in its bursting forth with life, she happily whirls amid its petals, until she accidentally stumbles across a small child. The family of the child quickly takes it away, bowing in her presence, reminding the Princess of who and what she is now.


title: The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (film)

text: Returning to the capital, the cart the group is in finds itself stuck, when a ruckus is heard outside. Kaguya notices several men running through the streets, and upon seeing one of them, recognizes Sutemaru. Unable to contain herself, she cries out to him, but upon realizing her station in life, quickly retreats into the carriage as it drives off. Sutemaru attempts to go after her, but is beaten for his attempts, as Kaguya cries.


title: The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (film)

text: Two suitors attempt to persuade her with counterfeits, the third abandons his quest, and the fourth gives Kaguya a flower instead of his treasure, but is found by his wife before Kaguya can accept. When the last suitor is killed in his quest, Kaguya becomes depressed. The Emperor takes notice of Kaguya's beauty and tries to kidnap her but she convinces him to leave.


title: The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (film)

text: Kaguya reveals to her parents that she originally came from the Moon. Once a resident there, she broke its laws, hoping to be exiled to Earth so that she could experience mortal life. When the Emperor made his advances, she silently begged the Moon to help her. Having heard her prayer, the Moon restored her memories and said she will be reclaimed during the next full moon. Kaguya confesses her attachment to Earth and her reluctance to leave; Miyatsuko swears to protect her and begins turning the mansion into a fortress.


title: The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (film)

text: Kaguya returns to her home village and finds Sutemaru. The two profess their love, and in their joy, they fly over the countryside, only to encounter the Moon and fall. Sutemaru wakes up alone and reunites with his wife and child, interpreting the experience as a dream.


title: The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (film)

text: On the night of the full moon, a procession of celestial beings led by the Buddha descends from the Moon, and Miyatsuko is unable to stop it. An attendant offers Kaguya a robe that will erase her memories of Earth. She is granted one last moment with her parents before an attendant drapes the robe around her, appearing to erase her memory. They leave, and Miyatsuko and his wife are distraught. Kaguya looks back at Earth one last time, and cries as she remembers her mortal life, which is now only a dream to her.


title: The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (film)

text: As a child, Takahata read "The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter". He recalled that he struggled to relate and sympathize with the protagonist; to him, the "heroine's transformation was enigmatic" and that it "didn't evoke any empathy from [him]". In 1960, Takahata was preparing for a potential adaptation for his employer Toei Animation, which eventually was abandoned. After rereading the tale, he realized the story's potential to be entertaining, as long as an adaptation allowed the audience to understand how Princess Kaguya felt.


title: The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (film)

text: Studio Ghibli revealed that Isao Takahata was working on a feature-length film in 2008. Takahata announced at the 62nd Locarno International Film Festival in 2009 that he intended to direct a film based on the anonymous Japanese literary tale "The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter".


title: The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (film)

text: "The Tale of the Princess Kaguya" was financed by Nippon TV, whose late chairman, Seiichiro Ujiie, gave (approximately ) towards the project. Ujiie loved Takahata's work, and pleaded with Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki to let Takahata make one more film. Ujiie died on 3 March 2011, but not before being able to view the script and some of the storyboards.


title: The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (film)

text: To make sure the audience emotionally connected with the film, it was important to Takahata that viewers were able to "imagine or recall the reality deep within the drawings", rather than be distracted by a realistic art style. He wanted to have people "recollect the realities of this life by sketching ordinary human qualities with simple props". To assist with this vision, Osamu Tanabe provided the character designs and animation, and Kazuo Oga drew the watercolor backgrounds.


title: The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (film)

text: The release of "The Tale of the Princess Kaguya" was finally confirmed by Studio Ghibli and distributor Toho on 13 December 2012.


title: The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (film)

text: A variety of themes are presented in "The Tale of the Princess Kaguya", including feminism and the restriction of women, the beauty of life in spite of sorrow, and the duties and responsibilities of parenting.


title: The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (film)

text: Some of the most striking themes introduced are feminism and the restriction of women. Evidence of them is when Princess Kaguya and her adoptive parents moved to the capital city in order to find her a husband befitting her royal status. Such a decision confronted Princess Kaguya's wishes, but her father's urge to make her live a princess' lifestyle prevailed. Moreover, her mother's submissive role in terms of decision-making is evident in the construction of the theme. Another feminist depiction is a dream sequence scene where Princess Kaguya bursts through a series of doors, representing the barriers she faces from her family and society, depicting the many restrictions women face against their own wishes and desires.


title: The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (film)

text: Another topic within the film is the illustration of how absurd notions of beauty can be, when she is instructed on the principles of beauty and behaviour of women in the Heian period, principles all royal women must follow. However, the princess expresses her discontent and the pain of having to renounce humanity when expected to stop smiling or expressing any kind of feeling or thought. Moreover, the scene where she sets her suitors impossible tasks shows the fierce determination of a woman in a world dominated by hierarchy and men. Princess Kaguya is independent and introspective, but at times crestfallen and saddened by her living situation.


title: The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (film)

text: The weight of immaterial pleasures over wealth is represented mainly through the drawings. The style of soft lines and muted hues express the simplicity of life in rural Japan where Princess Kaguya finds joy around friends and family. In contrast, life in the palace is represented with bolder colors insinuating indulgence. There, Kaguya finds herself full of luxury and wealth, but she is also shown as caged and isolated and in many scenes the film shows how much she misses the simple rural life. This is represented in the scene where Princess Kaguya escapes from the palace searching for freedom, where Takahata uses spontaneous brush strokes abandoning the carefully drawn charcoal lines. The use of heavy and violent strokes when Princess Kaguya runs shows her frustration and despair for having to live in the palace. To add sadness and despair, her eyes start losing their brightness as the film progresses. There is a sense of drowning in her that is constructed when the Princess overheard a group of drunk men talking about wanting to see her and mocking her father for paying to turn her from a commoner into a princess. She takes a breath, the frame pulls back and her image shrinks into the surrounding darkness. This represents her feeling of being constricted and trapped, the self-awareness of her isolation, and surrender to the loss of the happy simple life she once had. Furthermore, both the life of peasants and aristocrats are represented tragically as poverty prevents love, and the restrictions of class prevent Kaguya from enjoying the life she would have chosen for herself.