title: Battle of Goose Green

text: The A Company Paras were in the gorse line at the bottom of Darwin Hill facing the entrenched Argentines, who were looking down the hill at them. They were pinned down by heavy machine gun and automatic rifle fire as well as sniper fire for an hour, between 9 and 10 am. 2 Para's B Company also broke off their attacks and began to withdraw to the reverse side of Middle Hill and the base of Coronation Point. Their defence and the re-organisation of the attack was organised by 2 Para's second-in-command. The British A and B Companies could not get across the open ground to get at the Argentinean machine-guns and snipers and after five hours of fighting, their ammunition supply was becoming critical. Nevertheless, the paras with Spanish-speaking Royal Marines Captain Roderick Bell forward with them, using a loudspeaker called on the Argentines to surrender.


title: Battle of Goose Green

text: With both A and B Companies advance halted and the entire attack in jeopardy, the 2 Para Commander, Lieutenant Colonel Jones led an unsuccessful charge up a small gully to try to regain the initiative. Three of his men, his adjutant Captain Wood, A Company's second-in-command Captain Dent, and Corporal Hardman, were killed when they followed his charge. Shortly after that, Jones was seen to run west along the base of Darwin Ridge to a small re-entrant, followed by his bodyguard. He checked his Sterling submachine gun, then ran up the hill towards an Argentine trench. He was seen to be hit once, then fell, got up, and was hit again from the side. He fell metres short of the trench, shot in the back and the groin, and died within minutes. Jones was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.


title: Battle of Goose Green

text: As Jones lay dying, his men radioed for urgent casualty evacuation. However, the British Scout helicopter sent to evacuate Jones was shot down by an Argentine FMA IA 58 Pucará ground-attack aircraft (this was to be the only Argentine air-to-air victory of the war). The pilot, Lieutenant Richard Nunn RM was killed and posthumously received the DFC, and the aircrewman, Sergeant Bill Belcher RM was severely wounded in both legs. While returning from this attack, the Pucará (A-537) crashed into Blue Mountain and its pilot, , was killed. His remains were not recovered until 1986 and the cause of the crash remains unknown.


title: Battle of Goose Green

text: Jones' death was attributed to an Argentine Army commando sniper identified as Corporal Osvaldo Faustino Olmos. However, historian Hugh Bicheno attributed Jones' death to Corporal José Luis Ríos of the 12th Regiment's Reconnaissance Platoon that had fallen back from the earlier fighting in Darwin Parks. Ríos was later fatally wounded manning a machine-gun in his trench by Abols, who fired a 66mm rocket.


title: Battle of Goose Green

text: With the death of Jones, command passed to Major Chris Keeble. Following the failure of this initial attack and the death of Jones, it took Keeble an additional two hours to reorganize and resume the attack. Former Para officer and military theorist Spencer Fitz-Gibbon wrote in 1995 that despite his undoubted courage, H. Jones did more to hinder than to help 2 Para, losing sight of the overall battle picture and failing to allow his sub-unit commanders to exercise mission command, before his fatal attempt to lead A Company forward from the position where they had become bogged down.


title: Battle of Goose Green

text: By the time of Jones' death it was 10:30, and Major Dair Farrar-Hockley's A Company made a third attempt to advance, but this petered out. Eventually the British company, hampered by the morning fog as they advanced up the slope of Darwin Ridge, were driven back to the gully by fire from the survivors of the 1st Platoon from 25IR's C Company. During that morning's fighting 2 Para's mortar crews fired over 1,000 rounds to support the attacks, preventing the Argentines' fire from being properly aimed. Many of the Argentine fatalities during the fighting were caused by mortar fire.


title: Battle of Goose Green

text: The Argentineans requested close air-support and were expecting a strike by Argentine Air Force Skyhawk fighter-bombers in support of the Darwin Ridge defenders. Company Sergeant-Major Juan Coelho spread out white bedsheets in front of the trenches to mark the front line of Argentinean troops but was severely wounded in the process. On their approach to the islands the Argentine flight of five Skyhawks observed the British hospital ship "Uganda" and lost considerable time reporting and investigating the presence of the red-cross marked ship. The Skyhawk pilots, having lost much fuel and flying in bad weather, then carried out a poorly executed bomb run in support of the Darwin defenders but mistakenly attacked Argentine positions as they released their bombs. The Skyhawks were engaged by Argentine anti-aircraft fire that damaged the lead aircraft.


title: Battle of Goose Green

text: It was almost noon before the British advance resumed. A Company cleared the eastern end of the Argentine position and opened the way forward towards Goose Green settlement. Sub-Lieutenant Guillermo Ricardo Aliaga's 3rd Platoon of 8IR's C Company held Boca Hill but by 13:47. and after fierce fighting, the position was taken by Major John Crosland's B Company, with support from the MILAN anti-tank platoon.


title: Battle of Goose Green

text: About the time of the final attack on the Boca House position, A Company overcame the Argentine defenders on Darwin Hill, finally reporting taking it at 13:13 local time, and advanced to take Boca Hill. With 2nd Lieutenant Estévez killed and the other two platoon commanders (Sub-Lieutenants Peluffo and Aliaga) involved badly wounded, Corporal Osvaldo Olmos ordered the survivors of the rifle platoon from the 25th Regiment to wave a white T-shirt from a rifle and surrender, ending all resistance on the part of the Argentines holding Darwin Ridge. After securing Boca Hill, the battle for Darwin Ridge was over and the Paras had secured their interim objectives after six hours of fighting, with grievous loss: the commanding officer, the adjutant, A Company Second-in-Command, and nine non-commissioned officers and soldiers were killed and 30 wounded. Corporal David Abols later said that an Argentine sniper (Corporal Osvaldo Olmos) who killed or wounded seven Paras with head-shots during the morning fighting was mainly responsible for holding up the British battalion. "This sniper fire was responsible for the deaths of at least seven paratroopers, according to Abols – 'all headshots. That is the main reason A Company was stuck."


title: Battle of Goose Green

text: After securing Darwin Ridge, C and D Companies began to make their way to the small airfield, as well as to Darwin School (to the east of the airfield), while B Company made their way south of Goose Green Settlement. A Company remained on Darwin Hill. C Company took heavy losses when they became the target of intense direct fire from 35mm anti-aircraft guns from Goose Green. Private Mark Hollman-Smith, a signaller in the company headquarters, was killed by anti-aircraft fire while trying to recover a heavy machine gun from wounded Private Steve Russell. C Company's commander, Major Roger Jenner, his signaller and eight other men were also wounded. In the airfield itself, Argentine Air Force anti-aircraft gunners (under Lieutenant Darío Del Valle Valazza) from the 1st Anti-Aircraft Group ("Grupo 1 de Artillería Antiaérea" or G1AA) and the 12IR platoon under Sub-Lieutenant Carlos Oslvaldo Aldao, attempted to halt the renewed advance from Boca Hill, but eventually they were forced to abandon their positions, including the five remaining 20mm Rheinmetall guns at Cóndor airfield, having earlier lost one of these guns to naval shelling as well as the Elta radar to MILAN missiles or mortar fire. A large part of the 12IR platoon was overrun and forced to surrender, but Aldao, along with a corporal, managed to escape in the confusion of the Argentine airstrikes that materialised later that afternoon.With Lieutenant Valazza wounded in the fighting, Second Lieutenant Arnaldo Favre took over the 1st Anti-Aircraft Group and ordered the anti-aircraft gunners to destroy with hand grenades their 20mm anti-aircraft guns before withdrawing to Goose Green Settlment.


title: Battle of Goose Green

text: Private John Graham, from Lieutenant Chris Waddington's No. 11 Platoon, claimed that Lieutenant Barry and Corporal Sullivan, during a local truce, went forward to accept the Argentine surrender at the airfield and that the defenders suddenly opened fire without warning, killing Barry and wounding Sullivan, with one Argentine crawling forward to Sullivan and shooting him at point-blank range:


title: Battle of Goose Green

text: ... I saw the white flag incident; I was in 11 Platoon. We were going up the hill, and the flag went up. The officer [Barry] called the sergeant [sic] and then got halfway up the hill. Bang! They let rip into them, Killed them. One guy [Corporal Paul Sullivan] was hit in the knee, and one of the bastards came forward and shot him in the head. He moved forward out of his position and shot him.


title: Battle of Goose Green

text: I set out with thirty-six men toward the north. Passing the school, we entered a depression from which we saw the hill. I sent a scouting party ahead, and they told me that the British were advancing from the other side of the low ridge, some one hundred and fifty men. [My] men were very tense; there was a brutal cold; we shivered with cold, with fear. When they were about fifty metres away, we opened fire. We kept firing for at least forty minutes. They started to attack our flank, my soldiers had to take cover, the firing went down, and the situation started to become critical. Then we were surrounded, we had wounded, people started to lose control. I began to ask about casualties, each time, more casualties. There was no way out behind because we had been flanked, nearly surrounded. So when there was a pause in the firing, I decided that it was the time to stop, and I gave the order to disengage.


title: Battle of Goose Green

text: The 25IR platoon defending the airfield fell back into the Darwin-Goose Green track and was able to escape. Sergeant Sergio Ismael Garcia of 25IR single-handedly covered the withdrawal of his platoon during the British counterattack. He was posthumously awarded the Argentine Nation to the Valour in Combat Medal. Under orders from Major Carlos Alberto Frontera (second in command of 12IR), Sub-Lieutenant César Álvarez Berro's 12IR platoon took up new positions and helped cover the retreat of Gómez-Centurión's platoon along the Darwin-Goose Green track.


title: Battle of Goose Green

text: Four Paras of D Company and approximately a dozen Argentines were killed in these engagements. Among the British dead were 29-year-old Lieutenant Barry and two NCOs, Lance-Corporal Smith and Corporal Sullivan, who were killed after Barry's attempt to convince Sub-Lieutenant Gómez-Centurión to surrender was rebuffed. C Company did not lose a single man in the Darwin School fighting, but Private Steve Dixon, from D Company, died when a splinter from a 35mm anti-aircraft shell struck him in the chest. The Argentine 35mm anti-aircraft guns under the command of Sub-Lieutenant Claudio Oscar Braghini reduced the schoolhouse to rubble after sergeants Mario Abel Tarditti and Roberto Amado Fernandez reported to him that sniper fire was coming from the building.


title: Battle of Goose Green

text: At around this time, three British Harriers attacked the Argentine 35 mm gun positions; the army radar-guided guns were unable to respond effectively because a piece of mortar shrapnel had earlier struck the generator for the firearms and fire-control radar. This attack considerably lifted morale among the British paras. Although it was not known at the time, the Harriers came close to being shot down in their bomb run after being misidentified as enemy aircraft by Lieutenant-Commander Nigel Ward and Flight Lieutenant Ian Mortimer of 801 Squadron. According to Lieutenant Braghini's report, and at least one British account, the Harrier strike missed their intended target, but the Argentine antiaircraft guns were already out of action anyway.


title: Battle of Goose Green

text: Meanwhile, the 12IR platoon—under Sub-Lieutenant Orlando Lucero, a platoon that Lieutenant-Colonel Piaggi and Major Frontera had organised, using survivors from the earlier fighting—took up positions on Goose Green's outskirts and continued to resist, while supporting air force Pucará and navy Aermacchi aircraft struck the forward British companies. The Argentine pilots did not have much effect, suffering two losses: at 5:00, when a Macchi 339A (CANA 1 squadron) was shot down by a Blowpipe missile from the Royal Marines' air defence troop, killing Sub-Lieutenant Daniel Miguel.


title: Battle of Goose Green

text: Just about 10 minutes later, another Pucará was shot down by small arms fire from 2 Para, drenching several paratroopers with fuel and napalm, which did not ignite. Lieutenant Miguel Cruzado survived and was captured by British forces on the ground.


title: Battle of Goose Green

text: By last light, the situation for 2 Para was critical. A Company was still on Darwin Hill, north of the gorse hedge; B Company had penetrated much further south and had swung in a wide arc from the western shore of the isthmus eastwards towards Goose Green. They were isolated and under fire from an Argentinian platoon and unable to receive mutual support from the other companies. To worsen their predicament, Argentine helicopters—a Puma, a Chinook and six Hueys—landed southwest of their position, just after last light, bringing in the remaining Company B of 12IR ("Combat Team Solari") from Mount Kent.


title: Battle of Goose Green

text: B Company managed to bring in artillery fire on these new Argentinean reinforcements, forcing them to disperse towards the Goose Green settlement, while some re-embarked and left with the departing helicopters. For C Company, the attack had also fizzled out after the battle at the school-house, with the company commander injured, the second-in-command unaccounted for, no radio contact, and the platoons scattered with up to 1,200 metres between them. D Company had regrouped just before last light, and they were deployed to the west of the dairy—exhausted, hungry, low on ammunition, and without water. Food was redistributed, for A and C Companies to share one ration-pack between two men; but B and D Companies could not be reached. At this time, a British helicopter casualty evacuation flight took place, successfully extracting C Company casualties from the forward slope of Darwin Hill, while under fire from Argentine positions.


title: Battle of Goose Green

text: To Keeble, the situation looked precarious: the settlements had been surrounded but not captured, and his companies were exhausted, cold, and low on water, food, and ammunition. His concern was that the Argentine 12IR B Company reinforcements, dropped by helicopter, would either be used in an early morning counter-attack or used to stiffen the defences around Goose Green. He had seen the C Company assault stopped in its tracks by the anti-aircraft fire from Goose Green, and had seen the Harrier strikes of earlier that afternoon missing their intended targets. In an order group with the A and C Company commanders, he indicated his preference for calling for an Argentine surrender, rather than facing an ongoing battle the following morning. His alternative plan, if the Argentines did not surrender, was to "flatten Goose Green" with all available fire-power and then launch an assault with all forces possible, including reinforcements he had requested from Thompson. On Thompson's orders, J Company of 42 Commando, Royal Marines, the remaining guns of 8 Battery, and additional mortars were helicoptered in to provide the necessary support.


title: Battle of Goose Green

text: Once Thompson and 3 Brigade had agreed to the approach, a message was relayed by CB radio from San Carlos to Mr. Eric Goss, the farm manager in Goose Green—who, in turn, delivered it to Piaggi. The call explained the details of a planned delegation who would go forward from the British lines, bearing a message, to the Argentine positions in Goose Green. Piaggi agreed to receive the delegation. Soon after midnight, two Argentine Air Force warrant-officer prisoners of war (PW) were sent to meet with Piaggi and to hand over the proposed terms of surrender. The conditions read:


title: Battle of Goose Green

text: The battle had turned into a sniping contest. They could sit well out of range of our soldiers' fire and, if they wanted to, raze the settlement. I knew that there was no longer any chance of reinforcements from the 6th Regiment's B Company (Compañía B 'Piribebuy'). So I suggested to Wing Commander [Vice Commodore] Wilson Pedrozo that he talk to the British. He agreed reluctantly.


title: Battle of Goose Green

text: The next morning, an agreement for an unconditional surrender was reached. Pedrozo held a short parade, and those on show then laid down their weapons. After burning the regimental flag, Piaggi led the troops and officers, carrying their personal belongings, into captivity.


title: Battle of Goose Green

text: In the week preceding the attack, the Argentinians had sunk four British ships, including the "Atlantic Conveyor" containing vital air-lift helicopters essential for the re-capture of Stanley. This led the British government to question the lack of movement by their ground-forces and London needed a sign of progress. The victory at Goose Green accomplished the political purpose of sustaining public support in Britain by a badly needed victory and the success marked a turning point in the campaign, as it emphasised the Argentine failure to thwart the establishment of a beachhead and subsequent breakout into the island. The Argentineans had counted on achieving at least a stalemate through air attacks and ground defences, if not stopping the landings altogether. From this point onwards, the British forces were to retain the initiative in all successive battles.


title: Battle of Goose Green

text: Between 45 and 55 Argentines were killed32 from RI 12, 13 from Company C 25IR, five killed in the platoon from RI R8, 4 Air Force staff, and one Navy service member and 86 were recorded as wounded. The remainder of the Argentine force was taken prisoner with 140 Argentine wounded evacuated to hospital ships via the medical post in San Carlos. Argentine dead were buried in a cemetery to the north of Darwin; military chaplain Mora and sub-lieutenants Bracco and Gómez-Centurión assisted burying the army dead with Second Lieutenant Arnaldo Favre from the 1st Anti-Aircraft Artillery Group tasked with collecting the air force dead. Prisoners were used to clear the battlefield. In an incident, while moving artillery ammunition, the 2nd Rifle Platoon (under Sub-Lieutenant Leonardo Durán) from RI 12's C Company was engulfed in a massive explosion that left 5 dead or missing and 10 seriously wounded. In an interview in April 2022, Durán clarified that the actual losses in the explosion were three men (Privates Rafael Barrios, Víctor Rodríguez and José Ramón Ferrau) killed and ten men (the officer along with Privates Raúl Vallejos, Ricardo Pinatti, Ángel Urban, Ricardo Jakuisuk, Gerardo Fernández, Luis Spinberger, Hugo Duarte, Francisco Ocampo and Martín Flores) wounded in his platoon.


title: Battle of Goose Green

text: The British lost 18 killed (16 Paras, one Royal Marine pilot, and one commando sapper) and 64 wounded with nearly 50 requiring operations under general anaesthetic.


title: Battle of Goose Green

text: The seriously injured were evacuated to the hospital ship much to the relief of 2 PARA's medical officer (Captain Steve Hughes) who thought that 47 badly wounded Paras had succumbed to their injuries at the British field dressing station in San Carlos.


title: Battle of Goose Green

text: By 3 June, the Gurkhas were deployed at Darwin and Goose Green. They were used in helicopter-borne operations to find Argentine patrols operating on the southern flank of the British advance to Port Stanley. This resulted in an encounter with a 10-man army–air force patrol (under Lieutenant Jaime Enrique Ugarte from the Argentine Air Force's 1st Anti-Aircraft Group, and Sergeant Roberto Daniel Berdugo from the 12th Regiment) that had been helicoptered to Egg Harbour House, an abandoned farmhouse in Lafonia, to shoot down British aircraft with SA-7 shoulder-launched missiles. On 7 June, a Sea King arrived with 20 Gurkhas to clear this outpost. On being ordered to lie down to be searched by the Gurkhas, all the wet and hungry Argentine soldiers, including Sergeant Berdugo, did so, except the air force officer. A Gurkha rifleman, brandishing a 10" Kukri blade, threatened the air force officer with beheading, then Lieutenant Ugarte obeyed.


title: Battle of Goose Green

text: Lieutenant-Colonel Ítalo Ángel Piaggi surrendered his forces in Goose Green on the Argentinian National Army Day (29 May). After the war, he was forced to resign from the army, and faced ongoing trials questioning his competence at Goose Green. In 1986, he wrote a book titled "Ganso Verde", in which he strongly defended his decisions during the war and criticised the lack of logistical support from Stanley. In his book, he said that Task Force Mercedes had plenty of 7.62mm rifle ammunition left, but had run out of 81mm mortar rounds; and there were only 394 shells left for the 105mm artillery guns. On 24 February 1992, after a long fight in both civil and military courts, Piaggi had his retired military rank and pay reinstated, as a full colonel. He died in July 2012.


title: Battle of Goose Green

text: Lieutenant-Colonel Herbert 'H' Jones was buried at Ajax Bay on 30 May; after the war, his body was exhumed and transferred to the British cemetery in San Carlos. He was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.


title: Battle of Goose Green

text: Major Chris Keeble, who took over command of 2 Para when Jones was killed, was awarded the DSO for his actions at Goose Green. Keeble's leadership was one of the key factors that led to the British victory, in that his flexible style of command and the autonomy he afforded to his company commanders were much more successful than the rigid control, and adherence to plan, exercised by Jones. Despite sentiment among the soldiers of 2 Para for him to remain in command, he was superseded by Lieutenant-Colonel David Robert Chaundler, who was flown in from the UK to take command of the battalion.


title: Battle of Goose Green

text: • First Lieutenant Roberto Néstor Estévez: Posthumously awarded the Argentine Heroic Combat Valour Cross. He is buried at the Darwin Argentine Military Cemetery.


title: Battle of Goose Green

text: Below data is from Adkin, "Goose Green: A Battle is Fought to be Won" unless specifically indicated by additional citations.


title: Battle of Goose Green

text: During the planning of the assault of both Darwin and Goose Green, the battalion headquarters were listening in to the BBC World Service, when the newsreader announced that the 2nd Battalion of the Parachute Regiment was poised and ready to assault Darwin and Goose Green. This caused great trepidation among the commanding officers of the battalion, with fears that the operation was compromised. Jones became furious with the level of incompetence and told BBC representative Robert Fox he was going to sue the BBC, Whitehall, and the War Cabinet.


title: Battle of Goose Green

text: In the years after the battle, Argentine army officers and NCOs were accused of handing out brutal field punishment to their troops at Goose Green, and other locations, during the war. In 2009, Argentine authorities in Comodoro Rivadavia ratified a decision made by authorities in Río Grande, Tierra del Fuego, announcing their intention to charge 70 officers and NCOs with inhumane treatment of conscript soldiers during the war.


title: Battle of Goose Green

text: There was, however, false testimony that was used as evidence in accusing the Argentine officers and NCOs of abandonment; and Pablo Vassel, who had denounced the alleged perpetrators, had to step down from his post as head of the human rights sub-secretariat of Corrientes Province. Other veterans were sceptical about the veracity of the accusations, with Colonel José Martiniano Duarte, an ex–601 Commando Company officer and decorated veteran of the Falklands War, saying that it had become "fashionable" for ex-conscripts to accuse their superiors of abandonment. Since the 2009 announcement was made, no one in the military, or among the retired officers and NCOs, has been charged, causing Vassel to comment in April 2014:


title: Battle of Goose Green

text: "For over two years we've been waiting for a final say on behalf of the courts ... There are some types of crimes that no state should allow to go unpunished, no matter how much time has passed, such as the crimes of the dictatorship. Last year Germany sentenced a 98-year-old corporal for his role in the concentration camps in one of the Eastern European countries occupied by Nazi Germany. It didn't take into account his age or rank.""


title: Cerner

text: Cerner Corporation is an American supplier of health information technology (HIT) services, devices, and hardware. As of February 2018, its products were in use at more than 27,000 facilities around the world. The company had more than 29,000 employees globally, with over 13,000 in Kansas City, Missouri. Its headquarters are in the suburb of North Kansas City, Missouri.


title: Cerner

text: In December 2021, Oracle Corporation announced an agreement to buy Cerner for approximately $28.3 billion. The deal closed in June 2022.


title: Cerner

text: Cerner was founded in 1979 by Neal Patterson, Paul Gorup, and Cliff Illig, who were colleagues at Arthur Andersen. Its original name was PGI & Associates but was renamed Cerner in 1984 when it rolled out its first system, PathNet. It went public in 1986. Cerner's client base grew steadily in the late 1980s, reaching 70 sites in 1987, 120 sites in 1988, 170 sites in 1989, and reaching 250 sites in 1990. Installations were primarily of PathNet systems.


title: Cerner

text: During this time, Cerner was developing components of a Health Network Architecture (HNA), an integrated IT system designed to automate health care processes. Clients could purchase individual components or the whole system at one time. By 1994, more than 30 clients had purchased the full HNA system, while 100 clients had purchased multiple components of the system.


title: Cerner

text: In 1997, the company introduced Cerner Millennium, an upgrade to its HNA system which incorporated all of the company's software offerings into one unified architecture. The introduction of Millennium contributed to significant growth for the company, with revenue increasing to $1.1 billion in 2005 from $245.1 million in 1997.


title: Cerner

text: Cerner acquired IMC Health Care, Inc. in early 2010 to continue expanding its wellness services to outside commercial employers, pharmacies, and wellness programs.


title: Cerner

text: In July 2010, president Trace Devanny left the company and Patterson became the company's president, in addition to his roles as chairman and chief executive officer. In September 2013, Zane Burke was named president, assuming the title from Patterson.


title: Cerner

text: On August 5, 2014, Cerner announced its intent to purchase Siemens Health Services, the health information technology business of Germany's Siemens AG, for $1.3 billion. The acquisition was completed on February 2, 2015.


title: Cerner

text: On July 29, 2015, Leidos Partnership for Defense Health, which includes Cerner, Accenture, and Leidos, was awarded a 10-year, $4.3 billion contract to overhaul and manage the electronic health records for the Department of Defense.


title: Cerner

text: On January 10, 2018, Brent Shafer was named Chairman and CEO and took over leadership responsibilities in February 2018.


title: Cerner

text: On September 4, 2019, Cerner laid off 255 employees as part of an ongoing cost-cutting effort and reorganization.


title: Cerner

text: In February 2020, Cerner sold parts of its healthcare IT business in Germany and Spain to German company CompuGroup Medical SE for EUR 225 million (USD 247.5M).


title: Cerner

text: In 2020, Cerner announced the hire of three new C-suite executives including Jerome Labat as chief technology officer (CTO), Darrell Johnson as chief marketing officer (CMO) and William Mintz as chief strategy officer (CSO).


title: Cerner

text: On August 19, 2021, Cerner announced that Dr. David Feinberg, vice-president and head of Google Health, will become President and CEO of Cerner, effective October 1, 2021.


title: Cerner

text: On December 20, 2021, Oracle Corporation announced an agreement to buy Cerner for approximately $28.3 billion. The deal closed in June 2022.


title: Cerner

text: In 2001, a memo authored by CEO Patterson and sent to about 400 managers was leaked online. The memo, written in harsh language, was meant to motivate the managers to get more productivity out of employees and promised layoffs, a hiring freeze, closing of an "Associate Center," and the implementation of a punch-card system if Patterson did not see evidence of changes. Patterson's metric was the fullness of the company's Kansas City office lot at the hours of 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. The memo was widely seen as inflammatory and poor management, and Cerner's stock price fell 22% over three days.


title: Cerner

text: In 2005, Cerner and other companies paid for a report by the RAND Corporation which predicted great efficiencies from electronic health records, including savings of $81 billion a year or more, which RAND now says is overstated. This report helped drive growth in the electronic health record and billions of dollars in federal incentives to hospitals and doctors. Cerner's revenue tripled from $1 billion in 2005 to a projected $3 billion in 2013. The study was criticized by the Congressional Budget Office for overstating potential savings. A 2013 reassessment of the 2005 report by the RAND Corporation said that the conversion had failed to produce savings and had mixed results in efficiency and patient care.


title: Cerner

text: In 2016, the emergency department of Nanaimo Regional General Hospital in Nanaimo, British Columbia began using the system. The implementation, which cost $230 million, was met with widespread criticism, with staff calling it a "huge failure" due to an increase in software errors resulting in reduced efficiency of the department. An investigation by British Columbia's Health Ministry indicated that the project was not correctly planned or implemented and that organizational dysfunction at the facility contributed to the failure.


title: Cerner

text: In 2014, a coroner ruled that a three-year-old heart patient died as a result of a delay to his treatment at Bristol Royal Hospital for Children. The coroner ruled that the hospital's outpatient booking system was responsible for the child not being seen or receiving treatment. The Royal United Hospital had recently installed the Cerner Millennium system. However appointments for the hospital's legacy booking system were not migrated to the new system.


title: Cerner

text: In 2002, the installation of a computerized health system by Cerner in the UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh made it harder for the doctors and nurses to do their jobs in emergency situations and resulted in a "disaster," according to Phillip Longman, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation. Longman wrote, "According to a study conducted by the hospital and published in the journal "Pediatrics", mortality rates for one vulnerable patient population—those brought by emergency transport from other facilities—more than doubled, from 2.8 percent before the installation to almost 6.6 percent afterward." Defenders of Cerner in the study charged that the Pittsburgh hospital did not adequately prepare for the transition to the Computerized Provider Order Entry (CPOE) system because it had simultaneously modified its pharmacy process, did not provide adequate wireless bandwidth, and did not have order sets pre-programmed on day one. They stated that other hospitals that more carefully planned the implementation did not experience the same problems.


title: Cerner

text: In 2010, Girard Medical Center, Crawford County, Kansas, hired Cerner to install an electronic records system. But after receiving $1.3 million, Cerner employees failed to get the system running in time to qualify for federal incentive payments, and in September 2011, notified the hospital that it was abandoning the project, according to a lawsuit Girard filed against Cerner. Cerner and executives at Girard agreed that Girard did not have adequate staff to manage the acquisition and implementation of the system. As of June 2014, the case remained in arbitration. The outcome of the Girard case will likely be kept confidential due to contract provisions.


title: Cerner

text: In 2012, Trinity Health, a large hospital in North Dakota, sued Cerner, claiming that Cerner's patient accounting software didn't work correctly; the parties settled for $106M in 2014.


title: Cerner

text: In 2014, a grand jury in California found that Cerner knew that the Ventura County healthcare agency was unprepared to complete a $32 million installation. Also in 2014, a $31 million Cerner implementation at the Athens Regional Health System in Georgia had many problems, leading to forced resignations by the CEO and the CIO of ARHS.


title: Cerner

text: Concern has been expressed that the US CLOUD Act could enable US authorities to request data managed by US companies. It has been reported in Sweden that patient data managed by Cerner might be disclosed based on this requirement. Based on this concern, the Vastra Gotland and Skana region health care systems have decided to store any patient data managed by Cerner in Swedish data centers.


title: Cerner

text: In 2022, the regional director of the Vastra Gotaland health care system in Sweden sent a letter to Cerner claiming a breach of contract for deployment of the Millenium system. The letter stated that there were numerous issues with the system that Cerner had declined to address. At the same time, a deployment of Millenium in region Skane has been delayed but is moving forward.


title: Cerner

text: Cerner's world headquarters campus is at 2800 Rockcreek Parkway, North Kansas City, Missouri. It acquired additional space in Kansas City, Missouri in 2005 and in 2006 it acquired another location in Kansas City. In 2013, Cerner announced plans to redevelop 236 acres in south Kansas City, Missouri into an office park. The site was previously occupied by Bannister Mall, which was demolished in 2009. Cerner broke ground on the new campus on November 11, 2014. The $4.45 billion project intends to employ 16,000 new Cerner workers within the decade.


title: When Doves Cry

text: "When Doves Cry" is a song by American musician Prince, and the lead single from his sixth studio album "Purple Rain". According to the DVD commentary of the film "Purple Rain" (1984), Prince was asked by director Albert Magnoli to write a song to match the theme of a particular segment of the film that involved intermingled parental difficulties and a love affair. The next morning, Prince had composed two songs, one of which was "When Doves Cry". According to Prince's biographer Per Nilsen, the song was inspired by his relationship with Vanity 6 member Susan Moonsie.


title: When Doves Cry

text: "When Doves Cry" was Prince's first "Billboard" Hot 100 No. 1 single, staying there for five weeks, and was also a worldwide hit. According to "Billboard", it was the top-selling single of 1984. It is certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). It was the last single released by a solo artist to receive a Platinum certification before the certification requirements were lowered in 1989. "When Doves Cry" was ranked number one on the "Billboard" Year-End Hot 100 singles of 1984. Following Prince's death, the song re-charted on the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart at number eight, its first appearance in the top 10 since the week ending September 1, 1984.


title: When Doves Cry

text: The music video, directed by Prince, premiered on MTV in June 1984. It opens with white doves emerging from double doors to reveal Prince in a bathtub, then shows him performing the song in various scenes. The video sparked controversy among network executives, who thought that its sexual nature was too explicit for television. "When Doves Cry" is ranked No. 37 on "Rolling Stone"'s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and is included in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. According to Acclaimed Music, it is the 31st most celebrated song in popular music history.


title: When Doves Cry

text: Prince wrote and composed "When Doves Cry" after all the other tracks were complete on "Purple Rain". In addition to providing vocals, he played all instruments on the track. The song's texture is remarkably stark. There is no bass line, which is very unusual for an '80s dance song; Prince said that there originally was a bass line but, after a conversation with singer Jill Jones, he decided that the song was too conventional with it included. The song features an intro of a guitar solo and a Linn LM-1 drum machine, followed by a looped guttural vocal. After the lyrics, there is another, much longer, guitar and synthesizer. The song ends on a classical music-inspired keyboard piece backed by another synthesizer solo. Keyboardist Matt Fink revealed in 2014 that the baroque synthesizer solo was recorded by Prince at half speed and an octave lower against a half-speed backing track, then sped up to create the final version. Fink was then tasked to learn and perform the solo at the album's speed.


title: When Doves Cry

text: On versions edited for radio, either the song fades out as the long guitar and synthesizer solo begins, or the solo is eliminated altogether and the song skips to the ending with Prince's harmonizing and classical finish.


title: When Doves Cry

text: During live performances of the song on the Purple Rain Tour, Prince's bass player Brown Mark added bass lines to the song as well as to other songs without bass lines.


title: When Doves Cry

text: In its contemporary review of the song, "Cash Box" said that "featuring ethereal lyrics, a pounding backbeat and a sometimes ominous musical atmosphere, this single again proves Prince to be one of the most provocative and sophisticated artists in the business. ."


title: When Doves Cry

text: "When Doves Cry" was No. 1 in the US for five weeks, from July 7, 1984, to August 4, 1984, keeping Bruce Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark" from reaching the top spot. Because of tabulation differences, the song was announced as the year's No. 2 single on the "American Top 40" year-end countdown (with "Say Say Say" at No. 1). The song was voted as the best single of the year in "The Village Voice" Pazz & Jop critics' poll. "Billboard" ranked it as the No. 1 year-end single of 1984. In 2016, after Prince's death, "When Doves Cry" re-entered the "Billboard" Hot 100 at No. 20, peaking at No. 8. It also ranked No. 1 on the "Billboard" Hot Black Singles chart for eight weeks (from June 30, to August 18, 1984), preventing Tina Turner's "What's Love Got to Do With It" from reaching the top spot for five of those weeks.


title: When Doves Cry

text: The B-side was the cult fan favorite "17 Days", which was originally intended for Apollonia 6's self-titled album. A 12-inch single issued in the UK included "17 Days" and two tracks from Prince's previous album, "1999:" its title track and "D.M.S.R.". The entire title of "17 Days (the rain will come down, then U will have 2 choose, if U believe, look 2 the dawn and U shall never lose)" is now the longest-titled flip side of a Hot 100 No. 1, with 85 letters and/or numbers.


title: When Doves Cry

text: "When Doves Cry" became one of Prince's signature songs. "Spin" magazine ranked No. 6 of all time. "Rolling Stone" ranks "When Doves Cry" No. 37 on its list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. In 2006, VH1's "The 100 Greatest Songs of the '80s" ranked the song at No. 5. On October 13, 2008, the song was voted No. 2 on Australian VH1's Top 10 Number One Pop Songs countdown. The "80 of the 80s" podcast ranks it as the No. 59 song of the decade. In 2016, "Paste" ranked the song number three on their list of the 50 greatest Prince songs, and in 2022, "American Songwriter" ranked the song number two on their list of the 10 greatest Prince songs.


title: When Doves Cry

text: "When Doves Cry" was sampled for use in MC Hammer's 1990 hit song, "Pray", one of the few samples of his songs legally sanctioned by Prince.


title: When Doves Cry

text: The music video (directed by Prince himself) was released on MTV in June 1984. It opens with white doves emerging from double doors to reveal Prince in a bathtub. It also includes scenes from the "Purple Rain" film interspersed with shots of The Revolution performing and dancing in a white room. The final portion of the video incorporates a mirrored frame of the left half of the picture, creating a doubling effect. The video was nominated for Best Choreography at 1985's MTV Video Music Awards. The video sparked controversy among network executives, who thought that its sexual nature was too explicit for television.


title: When Doves Cry

text: A cover version by American singer Ginuwine was produced by Timbaland and released on July 25, 1997, for Ginuwine's album "The Bachelor"; Ginuwine's cover uses actual dove sound effects as texture for the song. The official music video for this version was directed by Michael Lucero.


title: The Old Guitarist

text: The Old Guitarist is an oil painting by Pablo Picasso, which he created in late 1903 and early 1904. It depicts an elderly musician, a haggard man with threadbare clothing, who is hunched over his guitar while playing in the streets of Barcelona, Spain. It is on display at the Art Institute of Chicago as part of the Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection.


title: The Old Guitarist

text: At the time of "The Old Guitarist"s creation, Modernism, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, and Symbolism had greatly influenced Picasso's style. Furthermore, El Greco, Picasso's poor standard of living, and the suicide of a dear friend influenced Picasso's style at the time which came to be known as his Blue Period. Several x-rays, infrared images and examinations by curators revealed three different figures hidden behind the old guitarist.


title: The Old Guitarist

text: At the time, having renounced his classical and traditional education and searching for fame, Picasso and his friend Carlos Casagemas moved to Paris. A year later, Casagemas became hopelessly miserable from a failed love affair and committed suicide. Picasso was greatly afflicted by this event and was soon depressed and desolate. In addition, Picasso was very poor. His poverty made him identify and relate to beggars, prostitutes and other downtrodden outcasts in society.


title: The Old Guitarist

text: These events and circumstances were the impetus for the beginning of Picasso's Blue Period which lasted from 1901 to 1904. The Blue Period is identified by the flat expanses of blues, greys and blacks, melancholy figures lost in contemplation, and a deep and significant tragedy. After the Blue Period came Picasso's Rose Period, and eventually the Cubism movement which Picasso co-founded.


title: The Old Guitarist

text: Elements in "The Old Guitarist" were carefully chosen to generate a reaction from the spectator. For example, the monochromatic color scheme creates flat, two-dimensional forms that dissociate the guitarist from time and place. In addition, the overall muted blue palette creates a general tone of melancholy and accentuates the tragic and sorrowful theme. The sole use of oil on panel causes a darker and more theatrical mood. Oil tends to blend the colors together without diminishing brightness, creating an even more cohesive dramatic composition.


title: The Old Guitarist

text: Furthermore, the guitarist, although muscular, shows little sign of life and appears to be close to death, implying little comfort in the world and accentuating the misery of his situation. Details are eliminated and scale is manipulated to create elongated and elegant proportions while intensifying the silent contemplation of the guitarist and a sense of spirituality. The large, brown guitar is the only significant shift in color found in the painting; its dull brown, prominent against the blue background, becomes the center and focus. The guitar comes to represent the guitarist's world and only hope for survival. This blind and poor subject depends on his guitar and the small income he can earn from his music for survival. Some art historians believe this painting expresses the solitary life of an artist and the natural struggles that come with the career. Therefore, music, or art, becomes a burden and an alienating force that isolates artists from the world. And yet, despite the isolation, the guitarist (artist) depends on the rest of society for survival. All of these emotions reflect Picasso's predicament at the time and his criticism of the state of society. "The Old Guitarist" becomes an allegory of human existence.


title: The Old Guitarist

text: Paul Mariani, a biographer of Wallace Stevens, presented his analysis of the painting as a counterpoint to objections raised by Stevens concerning the origin of his 1937 poem titled "The Man With the Blue Guitar" stating, "Despite his repeatedly denying it, Stevens does seem to have a particular painting in mind here: Picasso's 1903 "The Old Guitarist", which portrays an old man with white hair and beard sitting distorted and cross-legged as he plays his guitar. If Picasso attempted to portray the world of poverty and abject misery, it was because that had been his own plight as a struggling young artist in Barcelona, where he painted many pictures including this one, of the poor. The painting is almost entirely done in monochromatic blues and blue-blacks, except for the guitar itself, which is painted in a slightly warmer brown. The man is blind but, no longer seeing the world around him, he sees more deeply into the reality within."


title: The Old Guitarist

text: In "The Old Guitarist", Picasso may have drawn upon George Frederic Watts's 1886 painting of "Hope", which similarly depicts a hunched, helpless musician with a distorted angular form and predominantly blue tone.


title: The Old Guitarist

text: Recent x-rays and examinations by curators found three figures peering behind the old guitarist's body. The three figures are an old woman with her head bent forward, a young mother with a small child kneeling by her side, and an animal on the right side of the canvas. Despite unclear imagery in crucial areas of the canvas, experts determined that at least two different paintings are found beneath "The Old Guitarist".


title: The Old Guitarist

text: In 1998, researchers used an infrared camera to penetrate the uppermost layer of paint (the composition of "The Old Guitarist") and clearly saw the second-most composition. By using this camera, researchers were able to discover a young mother seated in the center of the composition, reaching out with her left arm to her kneeling child at her right, and a calf or sheep on the mother's left side. Clearly defined, the young woman has long, flowing dark hair and a thoughtful expression.


title: The Old Guitarist

text: The Art Institute of Chicago shared its infrared images with the Cleveland Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., where curator William Robinson identified a sketch by Picasso sent to his friend Max Jacob in a letter. It revealed the same composition of mother and child, but it had a cow licking the head of a small calf. In a letter to Jacob, Picasso reveals he was painting this composition a few months before he began "The Old Guitarist". Despite these discoveries, the reason Picasso did not complete the composition with a mother and child, and how the older woman fitted into the history of the canvas, remain unknown.


title: The Old Guitarist

text: In 2019, researchers at University College London used neural network to recreate the painting found by infrared camera. The neural network was trained to recreate the painting from other works of Picasso during his Blue Period.


title: The Old Guitarist

text: As one of Picasso's more notable Blue Period works, "The Old Guitarist" has influenced other artists of all backgrounds. For example, Paul McCartney drew from the painting when creating a chord progression. This progression and McCartney's accompanying melody were his contributions to the 2015 Kanye West song "All Day".


title: Kentucky meat shower

text: The Kentucky meat shower was an incident occurring for a period of several minutes between 11 a.m. and 12 p.m. on March 3, 1876, where what appeared to be chunks of red meat measuring approximately , with at least one being , fell from the sky in a area near Olympia Springs in Bath County, Kentucky. There exist several explanations as to how this occurred and what the "meat" was, the most popular being the vulture theory, in which a group of vultures regurgitated their meals after being startled into taking flight. The exact type of meat was never identified, although various reports suggested it was beef, lamb, deer, bear, horse, or even human.


title: Kentucky meat shower

text: At the time, the farmer’s wife Mrs. Crouch was making soap on her porch when she reported seeing the meat pieces fall from the sky. She said she was 40 steps from her house when the meat started to slap the ground. The meat looked gristly, according to Mrs. Crouch. She and her husband believed the event signified a sign from God. A similar event was later reported in Europe. The phenomenon was reported by "Scientific American", "The New York Times", and several other publications at the time.


title: Kentucky meat shower

text: Most of the pieces were approximately ; at least one was . The meat appeared to be beef, but according to the first report in "Scientific American", two men who tasted it judged it to be lamb or deer. Writing in the "Sanitarian", Leopold Brandeis identified the substance as "Nostoc", a type of cyanobacteria. Brandeis gave the meat sample to the Newark Scientific Association for further analysis, leading to a letter from Dr. Allan McLane Hamilton appearing in the "Medical Record" and stating the meat had been identified as lung tissue from either a horse or a human infant, "the structure of the organ in these two cases being almost identical." The composition of this sample was backed up by further analysis, with two samples of the meat being identified as lung tissue, three as muscle, and two as cartilage.


title: Kentucky meat shower

text: Brandeis's "Nostoc" theory relied on the fact that "Nostoc" expands into a clear jelly-like mass when rain falls on it, often giving the sense that it was falling with the rain. Charles Fort noted in his first book, "The Book of the Damned", that there had been no rain. Locals favored the explanation that the meat was vomited up by buzzards, "who, as is their custom, seeing one of their companions disgorge himself, immediately followed suit." Dr. Lewis D. Kastenbine presented this theory in the contemporaneous "Louisville Medical News" as the best explanation of the variety of meat. Vultures vomit as part of making a quick escape and also as a defensive method when threatened. Fort explained the flattened, dry appearance of the meat chunks as the result of pressure, and noted that nine days later, on March 12, 1876, red "corpuscles" with a "vegetable" appearance fell over London.


title: Self-induced abortion

text: A self-induced abortion (also called a self-managed abortion, or sometimes a self-induced miscarriage) is an abortion performed by the pregnant woman herself, or with the help of other, non-medical assistance. Although the term includes abortions induced outside of a clinical setting with legal, sometimes over-the-counter medication, it also refers to efforts to terminate a pregnancy through alternative, potentially more dangerous methods. Such practices may present a threat to the health of women.


title: Self-induced abortion

text: Self-induced (or self-managed) abortion is often attempted during the beginning of pregnancy (the first eight weeks from the last menstrual period). In recent years, significant reductions in maternal death and injury resulting from self-induced abortions have been attributed to the increasing availability of misoprostol (known commercially as "Cytotec"). This medication is a synthetic prostaglandin E1 that is inexpensive, widely available, and has multiple uses, including the treatment of post-partum hemorrhage, stomach ulcers, cervical preparation and induction of labor. The World Health Organization (WHO) has endorsed two regimens for abortion up to 12 weeks of pregnancy using misoprostol: a standardized regimen of mifepristone and misoprostol and a regimen of misoprostol alone. The regimen with misoprostol alone has been shown to be up to 83% effective in terminating a pregnancy but is more effective combined with mifepristone.


title: Self-induced abortion

text: Women can use many different methods to self-manage (or self-induce) an abortion. Some are safe and effective, while others are dangerous to the health of the woman and/or ineffective at terminating a pregnancy.


title: Self-induced abortion

text: The only scientifically studied effective self-induced abortion method is ingesting a combination of mifepristone and misoprostol or misoprostol alone. The combination of these medications is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines. In some countries, these pills may be available over-the-counter in pharmacies, although some pharmacists do not provide accurate instructions on use. In Latin America, women have reported self-inducing abortions with misoprostol alone since the 1980s. The history of women self-managing abortion with pills includes projects such as the Socorristas in Argentina and Las Libres in Mexico. Other countries have "safe abortion hotlines", which facilitate access to pills, provide instructions on proper use of the pills, and provide emotional, logistical, and/or financial support. Some women use online abortion pill help services such as Women on Web and Aid Access to order mifepristone and/or misoprostol, with reported effectiveness and safety in pregnancy termination and satisfaction in the service. Instructions on abortion pill use are widely available on the websites of the World Health Organization (WHO), Gynuity Health Projects, and the International Women's Health Coalition.


title: Self-induced abortion

text: First trimester medical abortion is highly safe and effective. The side effects of medication abortion include uterine cramping and prolonged bleeding, and common side effects include nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. The majority of women who use abortion pills on their own do not need an ultrasound or a clinician, although one may be recommended to ensure that the pregnancy is not ectopic. In the rare case of a complication, a woman can access a clinician skilled in miscarriage management, which is available in all countries.


title: Self-induced abortion

text: Studies confirm a correlation between the increase in the self-administration of medical abortion with misoprostol, and a reduction in maternal morbidity and mortality. Some studies argue that unfettered access to medication abortion is a key tenet of public health, human rights, and reproductive rights.


title: Self-induced abortion

text: Self-induced abortion methods vary around the world. The most commonly recorded are ingestion of plants or herbs, ingesting toxic substances, causing trauma to the uterus, causing physical trauma to the body, using alcohol and drugs in an attempt to end the pregnancy, and ingesting other substances and mixtures. There are no known effectiveness studies for plants, herbs, drugs, alcohol, or other substances. These methods are more likely to cause bodily harm to the pregnant woman than to be effective in terminating a pregnancy. Causing physical trauma to a woman's body or uterus may also result in physical harm or even death to the woman instead of causing an abortion.


title: Self-induced abortion

text: , an estimated 56 million abortions occurred worldwide, of which 25 million are less safe or least safe. Induced abortion is medically safe when WHO recommended methods are used by trained persons, less safe when only one of those two criteria is met, and least safe when neither is met. Self-induced abortions can be safe or unsafe depending on the methods used.


title: Self-induced abortion

text: It is difficult to measure the prevalence or rate of self-induced abortions. , in the United States, the estimate was that one in 10 abortions is self-induced. While maternal morbidity and mortality from unsafe abortion has continued to increase due to population growth, in Latin America, from 2005 to 2012, there was a 31% decrease in the number of complications from unsafe abortion, from 7.7/1,000 to 5.3/1,000. Researchers believe that this may be due to the wide availability of misoprostol in Latin America. In late 2019, it was reported that rates of self-induced abortion in the United States were rising, partly due to fears that more conservative policies would limit access to clinical abortion, and partly due to the increased availability and convenience of telehealth medical supervision and prescriptions and mail-order drugs.


title: Self-induced abortion

text: The practice of attempted self-induced abortion has long been recorded in the United States. Turn-of-the-20th-century birth control advocate Margaret Sanger wrote in her autobiography of a 1912 incident in which she was summoned to treat a woman who had nearly died from such an attempt.


title: Self-induced abortion

text: Charles Jewett wrote "The Practice of Obstetrics" in 1901. In it, he stated, "Oil of tansy and oil of rue are much relied on by the laity for the production of abortion, and almost every day one may read of fatal results attending their use. Oil of tansy in large doses is said to excite epileptiform convulsions; quite recently one of my colleagues met such a case in his practice."


title: Self-induced abortion

text: In the 1994 documentary "Motherless: A Legacy of Loss from Illegal Abortion", Louis Gerstley, M.D., said that, in addition to knitting needles, some women would use the spokes of bicycle wheels or umbrellas. "Anything that was metal and long and thin would be used," he claimed. He stated that a common complication from such a procedure was that the object would puncture through the uterus and injure the intestines, and the women would subsequently die from peritonitis and infection. Later in the film he mentioned that potassium permanganate tablets were sometimes used. The tablets were inserted into the vagina where they caused a chemical burn so intense that a hole may be left in the tissue. He claimed the tablets left the surrounding tissue in such a state that doctors trying to stitch up the wound couldn't do so because "the tissue was like trying to suture butter." Dr. Mildred Hanson also described the use of potassium permanganate tablets in the 2003 documentary "Voices of Choice: Physicians Who Provided Abortions Before Roe v. Wade". She said, "the women would bleed like crazy because it would just eat big holes in the vagina."


title: Self-induced abortion

text: Dr. David Reuben mentions that many African women use a carved wooden "abortion stick" to induce, which has often been handed down.


title: Self-induced abortion

text: A study concluded in 1968 determined that over 500,000 illegal abortions were performed every year in the United States, a portion of which were performed by women acting alone. The study suggested that the number of women dying as a result of self-induced abortions exceeded those resulting from abortions performed by another person. A 1979 study noted that many women who required hospitalization following self-induced abortion attempts were admitted under the pretext of having had a miscarriage or spontaneous abortion.


title: Self-induced abortion

text: WHO estimates that approximately 25 million abortions continue to be performed unsafely each year. Around 7 million women are admitted to hospitals every year in developing countries and between 4.7% – 13.2% of all maternal deaths can be attributed to unsafe abortion. Almost every one of these deaths and disabilities could have been prevented through sexual education, family planning, and the provision of safe abortion services. Abortion pills, which were first used by Brazilian women in the 1980s, can prevent many of these deaths from unsafe abortion.


title: Self-induced abortion

text: In the United States, experts report that self-induced abortion can be medically safe but legally risky. The 1973 Supreme Court decision "Roe v. Wade", which was overturned in the 2022 case Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, made abortion more readily available throughout the U.S., yet women who have abortions with pills ordered online or through non-clinical means may face risk of arrest.


title: Self-induced abortion

text: It is not common for women in the United States to be charged for the crime of self-inducing an abortion. However, a small number of people in the U.S. have been arrested for ending their own pregnancies with pills ordered online, including Purvi Patel, Jennie Linn McCormack, and Kenlissia Jones. These women were prosecuted under a variety of laws including: laws directly criminalizing self-induced abortions, laws criminalizing harm to fetuses, criminal abortion laws misapplied to people who self-induce, and various laws deployed when no other legal authorization could be found. In 2022, Lizelle Herrera of Texas was charged with murder after the authorities alleged that she caused "the death of an individual by self-induced abortion". It was unclear whether she had an abortion herself or helped someone else with it. According to University of Texas law professor Stephen Vladeck, the state law exempts the mother from criminal homicide charges for aborting her own child. On April 10, 2022, the district attorney of Texas announced that the murder charges would be dismissed.


title: Self-induced abortion

text: As of 2019, there are seven states with laws directly criminalizing self-induced abortion, 11 states with laws criminalizing harm to fetuses that lack adequate exemptions for the pregnant woman, and 15 states with criminal abortion laws that could be applied to women who self-induce an abortion. Both the National Lawyers Guild and the American Medical Association passed resolutions condemning the criminalization of self-induced abortion.


title: Kim Ji-seok (actor)

text: Kim is the grandson of Kim Seong-il, who worked as an independent activist in Manchuria during the Japanese colonial era. His grandfather was a student of Kim Gu, a Manchurian independence activist.


title: Kim Ji-seok (actor)

text: Kim Bo-seok debuted in 2001 as a rapper in the five-member Eurodance boyband LEO (리오), formed to capitalize on the success of then-popular boyband g.o.d, however, LEO never hit it big, and the group disbanded after eight months.


title: Kim Ji-seok (actor)

text: After failing the exam to get into the theater department, Kim majored in German at the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. Having attended middle school and high school in England, Kim is also fluent in English, and received his secondary teaching certificate in German and English in 2006. He also has a master's degree in Cultural Contents Planning from Kyung Hee University's Graduate School of Journalism and Communication.


title: Kim Ji-seok (actor)

text: Kim was told by the head of his agency that his birth name could be confused with veteran actors Jung Bo-seok and Kim Bo-seong, he was given the stage name "Kim Ji-seok."


title: Kim Ji-seok (actor)

text: Kim began his acting career by appearing in the 2004 music video of Kim Hyung-joong's "She's Laughing", followed by several minor roles. Though his daily drama "Likeable or Not" recorded high ratings of over 40% in 2007–2008, Kim still did not become a household name. Then a year later, Kim played a member of the Korean national ski jumping team in "Take Off", which became the second-highest grossing Korean film in 2009. His popularity increased even more when he played an immature, womanizing slave hunter ("chuno") in period drama "The Slave Hunters", the lover of a transgender man in comedy "Lady Daddy", and a competitive ex-boyfriend in "Personal Taste".


title: Kim Ji-seok (actor)

text: Kim's first post-army acting project was horror film "Two Moons" (also known as "The Sleepless"), released in July. This was followed by television romantic comedies "I Need Romance 2012" in June, and "Cheongdam-dong Alice" in December.


title: Kim Ji-seok (actor)

text: Kim then starred in "Wonderful Mama" (2013), "Angel Eyes" (2014), "Unkind Ladies" (2015), and "Cheer Up". He also appeared as one of the cast members of talk show "".


title: Kim Ji-seok (actor)

text: Kim then starred in the hit romantic comedy drama, "Another Oh Hae-young" (2016), garnering praise from viewers for his comic acting. This was followed by acclaimed historical drama "The Rebel', which gained him recognition by critics for his outstanding portrayal of King Lee Yong.


title: Kim Ji-seok (actor)

text: Kim was then cast as the lead male role in the romantic comedy drama "Children of the 20th Century" (2017) alongside Han Ye-seul, followed by another romantic comedy drama "Top Star U-back" as the titular character.


title: Kim Ji-seok (actor)

text: In 2021, Kim will write a book, "Writing your name on the breath of dawn", to be published on December 13, 2021.


title: Kim Ji-seok (actor)

text: Kim enlisted for his mandatory military service on May 24, 2010, at the Nonsan training center in South Chungcheong Province for five weeks of basic training. After serving active duty with the Defense Media Agency of the Ministry of National Defense in Yongsan-dong, Yongsan-gu, Seoul, he was discharged in March 2012.


title: Line-crossing ceremony

text: The line-crossing ceremony is an initiation rite that commemorates a person's first crossing of the Equator. The tradition may have originated with ceremonies when passing headlands, and become a "folly" sanctioned as a boost to morale, or have been created as a test for seasoned sailors to ensure their new shipmates were capable of handling long, rough voyages. Equator-crossing ceremonies, typically featuring King Neptune, are common in the Navy and are also sometimes carried out for passengers' entertainment on civilian ocean liners and cruise ships. They are also performed in the merchant navy and aboard sail training ships.


title: Line-crossing ceremony

text: Throughout history, line-crossing ceremonies have sometimes become dangerous hazing rituals. Most modern navies have instituted regulations that prohibit physical attacks on sailors undergoing the line-crossing ceremony.


title: Line-crossing ceremony

text: In 1995, a notorious line-crossing ceremony took place on the Royal Australian Navy submarine . Sailors undergoing the ceremony were physically and verbally abused before being subjected to an act called "sump on the rump", where a dark liquid was daubed over each sailor's anus and genitalia. One sailor was then sexually assaulted with a long stick before all sailors undergoing the ceremony were forced to jump overboard and tread water until permitted to climb back aboard the submarine. A videotape of the ceremony was obtained by the Nine Network and aired on Australian television. The coverage provoked widespread criticism, especially when the videotape showed some of the submarine's officers watching the entire proceedings from the conning tower.


title: Line-crossing ceremony

text: In the Royal Canadian Navy, those who have not yet crossed the equator are nicknamed "Tadpoles", or "Dirty Tadpoles"; an earlier nickname was "griffins".


title: Line-crossing ceremony

text: By the eighteenth century, there were well-established line-crossing rituals in the British Royal Navy. On the voyage of HMS "Endeavour" to the Pacific in 1768, captained by James Cook, Joseph Banks described how the crew drew up a list of everyone on board, including cats and dogs, and interrogated them as to whether they had crossed the equator. If they had not, they must choose to give up their allowance of wine for four days, or undergo a ducking ceremony in which they were ducked three times into the ocean. According to Banks, some of those ducked were "grinning and exulting in their hardiness", but others "were almost suffocated".


title: Line-crossing ceremony

text: Captain Robert FitzRoy of suggested the practice had developed from earlier ceremonies in Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian vessels passing notable headlands. He thought it was beneficial to morale. FitzRoy quoted Otto von Kotzebue's 1830 description in his 1839 "Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of His Majesty's Ships" Adventure "and" Beagle "between the Years 1826 and 1836".


title: Line-crossing ceremony

text: A similar ceremony took place during the second survey voyage of HMS "Beagle". As they approached the equator on the evening of 16 February 1832, a pseudo-Neptune hailed the ship. Those credulous enough to run forward to see Neptune "were received with the watery honours which it is customary to bestow". The officer on watch reported a boat ahead, and Captain FitzRoy ordered "hands up, shorten sail". Using a speaking trumpet he questioned Neptune, who would visit them the next morning. About 9 am the next day, the novices or "griffins" were assembled in the darkness and heat of the lower deck, then one at a time were blindfolded and led up on deck by "four of Neptunes constables", as "buckets of water were thundered all around". The first "griffin" was Charles Darwin, who noted in his diary how he "was then placed on a plank, which could be easily tilted up into a large bath of water. — They then lathered my face & mouth with pitch and paint, & scraped some of it off with a piece of roughened iron hoop. —a signal being given I was tilted head over heels into the water, where two men received me & ducked me. —at last, glad enough, I escaped. — most of the others were treated much worse, dirty mixtures being put in their mouths & rubbed on their faces. — The whole ship was a shower bath: & water was flying about in every direction: of course not one person, even the Captain, got clear of being wet through." The ship's artist, Augustus Earle, made a sketch of the scene.


title: Line-crossing ceremony

text: The U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard have well-established line-crossing rituals. Sailors who have already crossed the Equator are nicknamed "Shellbacks", "Trusty Shellbacks", "Honorable Shellbacks", or "Sons of Neptune". Those who have not crossed are nicknamed "Pollywogs", or "Slimy Pollywogs," or sometimes simply "Slimy Wogs."


title: Line-crossing ceremony

text: In the 18th century and earlier, the line-crossing ceremony was quite a brutal event, often involving beating pollywogs with boards and wet ropes and sometimes throwing the victims over the side of the ship, dragging the pollywog through the surf from the stern. In more than one instance, sailors were reported to have been killed while participating in a line-crossing ceremony.


title: Line-crossing ceremony

text: Baptism on the line, also called equatorial baptism, is an alternative initiation ritual sometimes performed as a ship crosses the Equator, involving water baptism of passengers or crew who have never crossed the Equator before. The ceremony is sometimes explained as being an initiation into the court of King Neptune.


title: Line-crossing ceremony

text: The ritual is the subject of a painting by Matthew Benedict named "The Mariner's Baptism" and of a 1961 book by Henning Henningsen named "Crossing the Equator: Sailor's Baptism and Other Initiation Rites".


title: Line-crossing ceremony

text: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt described his crossing-the-line ceremony aboard the "Happy Ship" with his "Jolly Companions" in a letter to his wife Eleanor Roosevelt on 26 November 1936. Later, during World War II, the frequency of the ceremony increased dramatically, especially in the U.S. Navy in the Pacific, where the service's fleet operations grew enormously to counter widely dispersed Japanese forces. As late as World War II, the line-crossing ceremony was still rather rough and involved activities such as the "Devil's Tongue", which was an electrified piece of metal poked into the sides of those deemed pollywogs. Beatings were often still common, usually with wet firehoses, and several World War II Navy deck logs speak of sailors visiting sick bay after crossing the line.


title: Line-crossing ceremony

text: Efforts to curtail the line-crossing ceremony did not begin until the 1980s, when several reports of blatant hazing began to circulate regarding the line-crossing ceremony, and at least one death was attributed to abuse while crossing the line.


title: Line-crossing ceremony

text: The two-day event (evening and day) is a ritual in which previously inducted crew members (Trusty Shellbacks) are organized into a "Court of Neptune" and induct the Slimy Pollywogs into "the mysteries of the Deep". Physical hardship, in keeping with the spirit of the initiation, is tolerated, and each Pollywog is expected to endure a standard initiation rite in order to become a Shellback. Depending on the Ocean or Fleet AOR, there can be variations in the rite. Some rites have discussed a role reversal as follows, but this is not always a normal feature, and may be dependent on whether a small number of Shellbacks exist to conduct the initiation.


title: Line-crossing ceremony

text: The transition flows from established order to the "controlled chaos" of the Pollywog Revolt, the beginnings of re-order in the initiation rite as the fewer but experienced enlisted crew converts the Wogs through physical tests, then back to, and thereby affirming, the pre-established order of officers and enlisted.


title: Line-crossing ceremony

text: The eve of the equatorial crossing is called Wog Day and, as with many other night-before rituals, is a mild type of reversal of the day to come. Wogs (all of the uninitiated) are allowed to capture and interrogate any Shellbacks they can find (e.g., tying them up, cracking eggs or pouring aftershave lotion on their heads). The Wogs are made very aware that it will be much harder on them if they do anything like this.


title: Line-crossing ceremony

text: After crossing the line, Pollywogs receive subpoenas to appear before "King Neptune and his court" (usually including his first assistant Davy Jones and her Highness Amphitrite and often various dignitaries, who are all represented by the highest-ranking sailors who are Shellbacks), who officiate at the ceremony, which is often preceded by a beauty contest of men dressing up as women, each department of the ship being required to introduce one contestant in swimsuit drag. Afterwards, some may be "interrogated" by King Neptune and his entourage, and the use of "truth serum" (hot sauce + after shave) and whole uncooked eggs put in the mouth. During the ceremony, the Pollywogs undergo a number of increasingly embarrassing ordeals (wearing clothing inside out and backwards; crawling on hands and knees on nonskid-coated decks; being swatted with short lengths of firehose; being locked in stocks & pillories and pelted with mushy fruit; being locked in a water coffin of salt-water and bright green sea dye [fluorescent sodium salt]; crawling through chutes or large tubs of rotting garbage; kissing the Royal Baby's belly coated with axle grease, hair chopping, etc.), largely for the entertainment of the Shellbacks.


title: Line-crossing ceremony

text: Once the ceremony is complete, a Pollywog receives a certificate declaring his new status. Another rare status is the "Golden Shellback", a person who has crossed the Equator at the 180th meridian. The rarest Shellback status is that of the "Emerald Shellback" (US), or "Royal Diamond Shellback" (Commonwealth), which is received after crossing the Equator at the prime meridian, near the Null Island weather buoy. When a ship must cross the Equator reasonably close to one of these meridians, the ship's captain might plot a course across the "Golden X" so that the ship's crew can be initiated as Golden or Emerald/Royal Diamond Shellbacks.


title: Line-crossing ceremony

text: In the PBS documentary "Carrier," filmed in 2005 (Episode 7, "Rites of Passage"), a crossing-the-line ceremony on is extensively documented. The ceremony is carefully orchestrated by the ship's officers, with some sailors reporting the events to be lackluster due to the removal of the rites of initiation.


title: Line-crossing ceremony

text: Reflecting the popularity of tattoos among sailors, some people choose to get tattoos to mark that they have participated in a ceremony, such as an image of a shellback turtle or King Neptune.


title: Line-crossing ceremony

text: As Shellback initiation is conducted by each individual ship as a morale exercise and not officially recognized by the Navy with inclusion on discharge papers (DD Form 214) or through a formally organized institution, variations of the names as well as the protocol involved in induction vary from ship to ship and service to service.


title: Line-crossing ceremony

text: Consequently, similar "fraternities" commemorating other significant milestones in one's career include:


title: Line-crossing ceremony

text: California Maritime Academy observed the line-crossing ceremony until 1989, after which the ceremony was deemed to be hazing and was forbidden. The 1989 crossing was fairly typical, as it was not realized to be the last one. Pollywogs participated voluntarily, though female midshipmen observed that they were under social pressure to do the ceremony but were targets of harder abuse. Pollywogs (midshipmen and anyone else who had not crossed) ascended a ladder from the forecastle to the superstructure deck of the ship. There, they crawled down a gauntlet of Shellbacks on both sides of a long, heavy canvas runner, about 10–12 meters. The shellbacks had prepared 3-foot lengths of canvas/rubber firehose, which they swung hard at the posterior of each Wog. The Wogs then ascended a ladder to the boat deck to slide down a makeshift chute into the baptism of messdeck leavings in sea water in an inflated liferaft back on the superstructure deck. Wogs then returned to the forecastle, where they were hosed off by firehose and then allowed to kiss, in turn, the belly of the sea-baby, the foot of the sea-hag, and the ring of King Neptune, each personified by Shellbacks.


title: Line-crossing ceremony

text: SUNY Maritime occasionally holds a Blue Nose ceremony for its cadets after crossing the Arctic Circle. Their most recent ceremony was during the summer of 2019, on the TSES VI, held shortly after departing Reykjavik. Cadets crawled through a tunnel with lo mein, or "Eel Spawn", and then had food put in their hair before crawling through the fantail while being sprayed by fire hoses.


title: Line-crossing ceremony

text: Colorado State University's Semester at Sea Program holds a line-crossing ceremony twice a year for its students when their vessel, , crosses the equator.


title: Marauders (2016 film)

text: Marauders is a 2016 American crime film directed by Steven C. Miller and written by Michael Cody and Chris Sivertson. The film stars Christopher Meloni, Bruce Willis, Dave Bautista, and Adrian Grenier. Meloni plays an FBI agent investigating a series of brutal bank robberies that seem to be personally targeting a ruthless CEO played by Willis. Lionsgate Premiere released the film on July 1.


title: Marauders (2016 film)

text: In Cincinnati, four masked robbers get away with $3 million in cash from Hubert National Bank after the crew's leader executes manager Steven Hutchinson point-blank. FBI Special Agent Jonathan Montgomery heads the joint robbery-homicide investigation with Cincinnati PD. Forensics techs find a print matched to a dead Army Ranger named TJ Jackson. According to the official report, in 2011, TJ's unit went rogue, capturing civilian Alexander Hubert to collect a ransom. The exchange went awry and Alexander and the Rangers were killed by a Special Forces team. TJ's body was never recovered. As the sole heir, Jeffrey Hubert, Alexander's brother, became president of Hubert International. By tracking the serial numbers, the FBI discovers the robbers donated the money to a City Mission charity fund.


title: Marauders (2016 film)

text: In a second heist at a different Hubert bank location, the robbers steal cash and the contents of personal safety deposit boxes belonging to Hubert and Ohio Senator Cook. David Dagley, a member of Hubert's security detail, is lured to the bank then stabbed to death in an ambush. The killer leaves a bullet with TJ's fingerprint on it. Dagley was Commanding Officer of the Rangers who snatched Alexander Hubert but didn't take part in the ransom scheme. The getaway vehicle is discovered registered to TJ's brother, James. Montgomery receives photo evidence of an apparent homosexual affair between Hubert and Cook, and the robbers attempt to persuade Montgomery into investigating Hubert's corruption. Converging on the Main Branch for the third robbery, the gang surprise the FBI during an interview with Hubert. High-powered rifle firefights erupt across the lobby as the men engage in close quarters combat. One thief is killed, and the three others retreat into the downtown traffic. Victims Hutchinson and Dagley are found to be old members of an elite platoon with Cook.


title: Marauders (2016 film)

text: Montgomery is sent a file stolen from Hubert detailing the conspiracy to commit murder and military cover-up. It leaks to the media, and the truth finally outs: Hubert conspired with Cook to prevent Alexander from taking over the company. They briefed the Ranger unit with false mission intel of a terrorist threat in Costa Rica. The Rangers sent in were then assessed as rogue agents and ambushed by a Special Forces team with no knowledge of the Rangers' innocence. TJ was the sole survivor, saved by then-Special Forces sniper Wells.


title: Marauders (2016 film)

text: With his assets frozen, Hubert hastily makes large unauthorized cash withdrawals to flee the country. TJ is tracked by the FBI to a concert venue and taken into custody. FBI Special Agent Wells is revealed to be the thief crew leader, and three special forces members that attacked TJ's squad are accomplices. He planned the heists as vengeance for the Ranger massacre he took part in. Recalling a key detail in a map location, detective Mims predicts Wells as the thief and arrives as Wells preps to leave the stash spot with the cash. Tormented by a guilty conscience and his wife's terminal cancer prognosis, Mims pleads with Wells to allow him to return the stolen money and atone. Wells tries to reason with Mims but kills him as Mims raises his weapon.


title: Marauders (2016 film)

text: Some time later, Montgomery tracks Hubert to Tijuana, Mexico. He finds Wells preparing to kill Hubert in a restaurant and suggests Wells absolve his transgressions by using the stolen money to help others. Montgomery takes a seat at Hubert's table, sips wine in remembrance of his wife, then stabs Hubert with a concealed blade. Wells shoots Hubert's bodyguard, shares a glance with Montgomery, and leaves.


title: Marauders (2016 film)

text: On September 9, 2015, it was announced that Steven C. Miller would be directing a bank robbery film "Marauders" based on the script by Michael Cody and Chris Sivertson. Bruce Willis, Christopher Meloni, and Dave Bautista would star in the film, which Emmett/Furla/Oasis Films would finance and produce while Lionsgate Premiere would release it. Lydia Hull, Tyler Olson, Christopher Rob Bowen, and Danny A. Abeckaser would also star in the film. Randall Emmett and George Furla would produce through Emmett/Furla/Oasis Films along with Joshua Harris and Rosie Charbonneau through 4th Wall Entertainment. On September 25, 2015, Adrian Grenier joined the film.


title: Marauders (2016 film)

text: Principal photography on the film began on September 25, 2015, in Cincinnati, Ohio. First-day filming took place at the Dixie Terminal building. On September 26, 2015, filming was underway at the Stock Yard Bank & Trust, which was transformed into Hubert National Bank. Filming also took place in Downtown Cincinnati and Over-the-Rhine through October 16.


title: Marauders (2016 film)

text: As of September 23, 2018, "Marauders" grossed $1,024,158 in Portugal, Argentina, China, and the Netherlands.


title: Marauders (2016 film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes the film has a rating of 24% based on 21 reviews and an average rating of 4.1/10. The critical consensus reads: "From its clichéd story to Bruce Willis' rote performance, "Marauders" is a crime thriller content to settle for merely competent – a goal it all too rarely achieves." On Metacritic the film has a score of 42 out of 100 based on six critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Frank Scheck of "The Hollywood Reporter" called it a "by-the-numbers B-movie" with slow pacing and a convoluted plot. Owen Gleiberman of "Variety" wrote that the film's complex plot makes less sense as it progresses because the explanations are so unbelievable. Lukas Spathis of "Voices from the Balcony" scored the film with a 3.5/5 and wrote that "Marauders isn't perfect, but it satisfies the requirements of crime cinema and then some with its plot, characters, heist scenes, and strong acting across the board."


title: Thomas Nagel

text: Thomas Nagel (; born July 4, 1937) is an American philosopher. He is the University Professor of Philosophy and Law Emeritus at New York University, where he taught from 1980 to 2016. His main areas of philosophical interest are legal philosophy, political philosophy, and ethics.


title: Thomas Nagel

text: Nagel is known for his critique of material reductionist accounts of the mind, particularly in his essay "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" (1974), and for his contributions to liberal moral and political theory in "The Possibility of Altruism" (1970) and subsequent writings. He continued the critique of reductionism in "Mind and Cosmos" (2012), in which he argues against the neo-Darwinian view of the emergence of consciousness.


title: Thomas Nagel

text: Nagel was born on July 4, 1937, in Belgrade, Yugoslavia (now Serbia), to German Jewish refugees Carolyn (Baer) and Walter Nagel. He arrived in the US in 1939, and was raised in and around New York. He had no religious upbringing, but regards himself as a Jew.


title: Thomas Nagel

text: Nagel received a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy from Cornell University in 1958, where he was a member of the Telluride House and was introduced to the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein. He then attended the University of Oxford on a Fulbright Scholarship and received a Bachelor of Philosophy degree in 1960; there, he studied with J. L. Austin and Paul Grice. He received his Doctor of Philosophy degree in philosophy from Harvard University in 1963. At Harvard, Nagel studied under John Rawls, whom Nagel later called "the most important political philosopher of the twentieth century."


title: Thomas Nagel

text: Nagel taught at the University of California, Berkeley, (from 1963 to 1966) and at Princeton University (from 1966 to 1980), where he trained many well-known philosophers, including Susan Wolf, Shelly Kagan, and Samuel Scheffler, the last of whom is now his colleague at New York University.


title: Thomas Nagel

text: Nagel is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a corresponding fellow of the British Academy, and, in 2006, was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society. He has held a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 2008, he was awarded a Rolf Schock Prize for his work in philosophy, the Balzan prize, and the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters from the University of Oxford.


title: Thomas Nagel

text: Nagel began to publish philosophy at age 22; his career now spans over 60 years of publication. He thinks that each person, owing to their capacity to reason, instinctively seeks a unified world view, but if this aspiration leads one to believe that there is only one way to understand our intellectual commitments, whether about the external world, knowledge, or what our practical and moral reasons ought to be, one errs. For contingent, limited and finite creatures, no such unified world view is possible, because ways of understanding are not always better when they are more objective.


title: Thomas Nagel

text: Like the British philosopher Bernard Williams, Nagel believes that the rise of modern science has permanently changed how people think of the world and our place in it. A modern scientific understanding is one way of thinking about the world and our place in it that is more objective than the commonsense view it replaces. It is more objective because it is less dependent on our peculiarities as the kinds of thinkers that people are. Our modern scientific understanding involves the mathematicized understanding of the world represented by modern physics. Understanding this bleached-out view of the world draws on our capacities as purely rational thinkers and fails to account for the specific nature of our perceptual sensibility. Nagel repeatedly returns to the distinction between "primary" and "secondary" qualities—that is, between primary qualities of objects like mass and shape, which are mathematically and structurally describable independent of our sensory apparatuses, and secondary qualities like taste and color, which depend on our sensory apparatuses.


title: Thomas Nagel

text: Despite what may seem like skepticism about the objective claims of science, Nagel does not dispute that science describes the world that exists independently of us. His contention, rather, is that a given way of understanding a subject matter should not be regarded as better simply for being more objective. He argues that scientific understanding's attempt at an objective viewpoint—a "view from nowhere"—necessarily leaves out something essential when applied to the mind, which inherently has a subjective point of view. As such, objective science is fundamentally unable to help people fully understand themselves. In "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" and elsewhere, he writes that science cannot describe what it is like "to be" a thinker who conceives of the world from a particular subjective perspective.


title: Thomas Nagel

text: Nagel argues that some phenomena are not best grasped from a more objective perspective. The standpoint of the thinker does not present itself to the thinker: they "are" that standpoint. One learns and uses mental concepts by being directly acquainted with one's own mind, whereas any attempt to think more objectively about mentality would abstract away from this fact. It would, of its nature, leave out what it is to be a thinker, and that, Nagel believes, would be a falsely objectifying view. Being a thinker is to have a subjective perspective on the world; if one abstracts away from this perspective one leaves out what he sought to explain.


title: Thomas Nagel

text: Nagel thinks that philosophers, over-impressed by the paradigm of the kind of objective understanding represented by modern science, tend to produce theories of the mind that are falsely objectifying in precisely this kind of way. They are right to be impressed—modern science really is objective—but wrong to take modern science to be the only paradigm of objectivity. The kind of understanding that science represents does not apply to everything people would like to understand.


title: Thomas Nagel

text: As a philosophical rationalist, Nagel believes that a proper understanding of the place of mental properties in nature will involve a revolution in our understanding of both the physical and the mental, and that this is a reasonable prospect that people can anticipate in the near future. A plausible science of the mind will give an account of the stuff that underpins mental and physical properties in such a way that people will simply be able to see that it necessitates both of these aspects. Now, it seems to people that the mental and the physical are irreducibly distinct, but that is not a metaphysical insight, or an acknowledgment of an irreducible explanatory gap, but simply where people are at their present stage of understanding.


title: Thomas Nagel

text: Nagel's rationalism and tendency to present human nature as composite, structured around our capacity to reason, explains why he thinks that therapeutic or deflationary accounts of philosophy are complacent and that radical skepticism is, strictly speaking, irrefutable. The therapeutic or deflationary philosopher, influenced by Wittgenstein's later philosophy, reconciles people to the dependence of our worldview on our "form of life". Nagel accuses Wittgenstein and American philosopher of mind and language Donald Davidson of philosophical idealism. Both ask people to take up an interpretative perspective to making sense of other speakers in the context of a shared, objective world. This, for Nagel, elevates contingent conditions of our makeup into criteria for what is real. The result "cuts the world down to size" and makes what there is dependent on what there can be interpreted to be. Nagel claims this is no better than more orthodox forms of idealism in which reality is claimed to be made up of mental items or constitutively dependent on a form supplied by the mind.


title: Thomas Nagel

text: Nagel is probably most widely known in philosophy of mind as an advocate of the idea that consciousness and subjective experience cannot, at least with the contemporary understanding of physicalism, be satisfactorily explained with the concepts of physics. This position was primarily discussed by Nagel in one of his most famous articles: "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" (1974). The article's title question, though often attributed to Nagel, was originally asked by Timothy Sprigge. The article was originally published in 1974 in "The Philosophical Review", and has been reprinted several times, including in "The Mind's I" (edited by Daniel Dennett and Douglas Hofstadter), "Readings in the Philosophy of Psychology" (edited by Ned Block), Nagel's "Mortal Questions" (1979), "The Nature of Mind" (edited by David M. Rosenthal), and "Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings" (edited by David J. Chalmers).


title: Thomas Nagel

text: In "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?", Nagel argues that consciousness has essential to it a "subjective character," a "what it is like" aspect. He writes, "an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to "be" that organism—something it is like "for" the organism." His critics have objected to what they see as a misguided attempt to argue from a fact about how one represents the world (trivially, one can only do so from one's point of view) to a false claim about the world, that it somehow has first-personal perspectives built into it. On that understanding, Nagel is a conventional dualist about the physical and the mental. This is, however, a misunderstanding: Nagel's point is that there is a constraint on what it is to possess the concept of a mental state, namely, that one be directly acquainted with it. Concepts of mental states are only made available to a thinker who can be acquainted with their own states; clearly, the possession and use of physical concepts has no corresponding constraint.


title: Thomas Nagel

text: Part of the puzzlement here is because of the limitations of imagination: influenced by his Princeton colleague Saul Kripke, Nagel believes that any type identity statement that identifies a physical state type with a mental state type would be, if true, necessarily true. But Kripke argues that one can easily imagine a situation where, for example, one's C-fibres are stimulated but one is not in pain and so refute any such psychophysical identity from the armchair. (A parallel argument does not hold for genuine theoretical identities.) This argument that there will always be an explanatory gap between an identification of a state in mental and physical terms is compounded, Nagel argues, by the fact that imagination operates in two distinct ways. When asked to imagine "sensorily", one imagines C-fibres being stimulated; if asked to imagine "sympathetically", one puts oneself in a conscious state resembling pain. These two ways of imagining the two terms of the identity statement are so different that there will always seem to be an explanatory gap, whether or not this is the case. (Some philosophers of mind have taken these arguments as helpful for physicalism on the grounds that it exposes a limitation that makes the existence of an explanatory gap seem compelling, while others have argued that this makes the case for physicalism even more impossible as it cannot be defended even in principle.)


title: Thomas Nagel

text: Nagel is not a physicalist because he does not believe that an internal understanding of mental concepts shows them to have the kind of hidden essence that underpins a scientific identity in, say, chemistry. But his skepticism is about "current" physics: he envisages in his most recent work that people may be close to a scientific breakthrough in identifying an underlying essence that is neither physical (as people currently think of the physical), nor functional, nor mental, but such that it necessitates all three of these ways in which the mind "appears" to us. The difference between the kind of explanation he rejects and the kind he accepts depends on his understanding of transparency: from his earliest work to his most recent Nagel has always insisted that a prior context is required to make identity statements plausible, intelligible and transparent.