title: Durvasa

text: Rama is filled with sorrow, for he did not want to kill his beloved brother, Lakshmana. Still, he had given his word to Yama and could not go back on it. He called his advisers to help him resolve this quandary. On Vasishta's advice, he ordered Lakshmana to leave him for good, since such abandonment is equivalent to death, as far as the pious were concerned. Lakshmana then went to the banks of the Sarayu, and resolved on giving up the world by drowning himself in the Sarayu river.


title: Durvasa

text: In the Mahabharata, Durvasa is known for granting boons to those who pleased him, particularly when he had been served well as an honoured guest. An example of such behaviour is the episode between him and Kunti, the future wife of Pandu and the mother of the Pandavas. When Kunti is a young girl, she lived in the house of her adopted father, Kuntibhoja. Durvasa visited Kuntibhoja one day and sought his hospitality. The king entrusted the sage to his daughter's care and tasked Kunti with the responsibility of entertaining the sage and meeting all his needs during his stay. Kunti patiently put up with Durvasa's temper and his unreasonable requests (such as demanding food at odd hours of the night) and served the sage with great dedication. Eventually, the sage is gratified. Before departing, he rewarded Kunti by teaching her the Atharvaveda mantras, which enables a woman to invoke any god of her choice to beget children by them. Curious and skeptical, Kunti decided to test the mantra.


title: Durvasa

text: After invoking Surya, the sun god, she bore her first son, Karna. Fearing the fate of an unmarried mother, she placed the newborn in a basket and set him afloat down a river. The infant Karna is later found and raised by Adhiratha, a charioteer for the monarch of Hastinapura, and his wife, Radha. Soon after this episode, Kunti is married to Pandu, the king of Hastinapur, and, by invoking those same mantras taught to her by Durvasa, she bore the three eldest of Pandu's five sons. Karna would go on to become an accomplished warrior and a formidable adversary of the Pandavas. This enmity would eventually culminate in his death on the battlefield of Kurukshetra at the hands of Arjuna, his younger half-brother, who is unaware of their fraternal bond. Apart from his hair-trigger anger, Durvasa is also known for his extraordinary boons. According to the Shiva Purana, once while bathing in a river, Durvasa's clothes were carried away by the river's currents. Seeing this, Draupadi, who is nearby, gave her own clothes to the sage. Durvasa blessed her by saying that she would never lack clothes at the time of requirement, and it is due to his blessing that the Kauravas were unable to strip off her clothes in the gambling hall, thus protecting her modesty.


title: Durvasa

text: Another example of Durvasa's benevolent side is the incident when he granted Duryodhana a boon. During the Pandavas's exile, Durvasa and several disciples arrived at Hastinapura. Duryodhana with his maternal uncle Shakuni managed to gratify the sage. Durvasa is pleased enough to grant him a boon. Duryodhana, secretly wanting Durvasa to curse the Pandavas in anger, asked the sage to visit his cousins in the forest after Draupadi had eaten her meal, knowing that the Pandavas would then have nothing to feed him.


title: Durvasa

text: Durvasa and his disciples visited the Pandavas in their hermitage in the forest, as per Duryodhana's request. During this period of exile, the Pandavas would obtain their food by means of the Akshaya Patra, which would become exhausted each day once Draupadi finished her meal. Because Draupadi had already eaten by the time Durvasa arrived that day, there was no food left to serve him and the Pandavas were very anxious as to their fate should they fail to feed such a venerable sage. While Durvasa and his disciples were away bathing at the river, Draupadi prayed to Krishna for help.


title: Durvasa

text: Krishna immediately appeared before Draupadi, announcing that he was hungry and asked her for food. Draupadi grew exasperated, and said she had prayed to Krishna precisely because she had no food left to give. Krishna then told her to bring the Akshaya Patra to him. When she did, he partook of the lone grain of rice and a piece of vegetable that he found stuck to the vessel, and announced that he was satisfied by the "meal".


title: Durvasa

text: This satiated the hunger of Durvasa and his disciples, as the satisfaction of Krishna (An avatar of Vishnu himself) meant the satiation of the hunger of all living things. Sage Durvasa and his disciples then quietly left after their bath, without returning to the Pandavas's hermitage, for they were afraid of facing what they thought would be the Pandavas's wrath at their impolite behaviour of refusing the food that would be served to them.


title: Durvasa

text: According to the followers of Swaminarayan Hinduism, Narayana took birth as the saint Swaminarayan due to a curse by Durvasa. The story goes that shortly after Krishna's passing, Uddhava proceeded to Badrinath, the abode of Nara-Narayana. He joined the many divine sages and saints who were there listening to Nara-Narayana's discourses. As Nara is speaking, Durvasa arrived at the assembly from Mount Kailash, but no one noticed him because they were all so engrossed in the discourse.


title: Durvasa

text: He waited for one ghadi (about half an hour), for someone to welcome him with the respect he felt he is entitled to, but still, no one realized that he was there. Seeing no one rise to receive him, he took this as an insult, and cursed the entire assembly, saying that they would all be born as humans and suffer insults and agony from the wicked. Nara-Narayana's parents, the god Dharma and goddess Bhakti, pacified Durvasa, who then reduced his curse, saying that Narayana himself (represented here as the Supreme Being) would be born as Dharma and Bhakti's son, and that his birth would relieve them all from the clutches of evil. Proclaiming thus, Durvasa made his way back to Kailasha.


title: Durvasa

text: Dharma and Bhakti were eventually born as Hariprasad Pande (a.k.a. Dharmadev) and Premvati Pande( a.k.a. Bhaktidevi). Narayana is born as their son, named Ghanshyam, who is now known as Swaminarayan. The story is limited to Swaminarayan Hinduism, and no other Hindu scriptures support the tale.


title: Durvasa

text: In Azamgarh, a site of pilgrimage is named Durvasa where the temple of Durvasa is located. As per the priest of the temple, Durvasa took samadhi at this place in a shiva linga.


title: Durvasa

text: Indian filmmaker Shree Nath Patankar made "Durvas Shaap" ("Curse of Durvasa"), a silent film about the sage in 1923.


title: Chivalry 2

text: Chivalry 2 is a 2021 multiplayer hack and slash action video game developed by Torn Banner Studios and published by Tripwire Interactive. The sequel to "" (2012), the game was released on June 8, 2021 for Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X and Series S.


title: Chivalry 2

text: "Chivalry 2" is an action game played from either first-person or third-person perspective, either on foot or on horseback for the first time in the series.


title: Chivalry 2

text: In the game, players are equipped with various medieval melee weapons such as war hammers, maces, flails, long swords, and battle axes, though they can also use bows and arrows. New weapons can be found in weapon caches in a map. Players have three basic melee attack patterns: horizontal slash, vertical slash, and a stab, which can be chained together. Players also need to block hostile attacks, and with the right timing, they can stagger their opponents and parry their attacks. Players must be aware of how they swing their weapons, as friendly fire may occur following an unplanned strike. Players can also pick up the dismembered limbs and decapitated heads of any player on the battlefield and use them as weapons. They can also throw their melee weapons at their enemies, though this may leave the player defenseless.


title: Chivalry 2

text: All team-based modes pit the Agatha Knights, who wear blue and white, and the Mason Order, who wear red and black, against each other. The Tenosian Empire, a third faction, was released in a later update. The game includes team deathmatch and a team objective mode, which supports a maximum of 64 players, as well as a free-for-all deathmatch mode. In team objective mode, one group must break into the opposite team's castle and, depending on the map, destroy an ultimate objective, escort a player-controlled Duke to a safe zone, eliminate the enemy Duke, or kill all remaining enemy players, while another group is tasked with defending the castle. The battle is divided into various phases, with each phase having their own unique objectives. On certain maps, once attacking players successfully storm the castle, the top players in either the attacking or defending team (depending on the map) can become the Duke and gain various gameplay perks. Each phase of the battle is timed, and if the invaders fail to complete the objectives within the time period, the defenders win the match.


title: Chivalry 2

text: A "brawl mode" was introduced on October 26, 2021 that is essentially a free-for-all mode of up to 40 players allowing strictly the use of unconventional weapons such as a fish, chair, bottles, a rolling pin, bread and a turkey leg. As of June 12, 2022 the game has become available on the Steam store alongside its initial Epic Games Store release on PC. As of October 4, 2022 the game has become available on Xbox Game Pass.


title: Chivalry 2

text: Torn Banner Studios started developing the game in 2017. According to Torn Banner, the game was not designed to be a sword fighting simulation game, and that combat would be similar to a "bar fight more than a fencing match", as players can use whatever they find in the battlefield as their weapons. "Monty Python" was often cited as the inspiration for this feature. The main goal during the game's development was to increase its scale, as the player count was significantly increased to 64. The gameplay and the structure of the team objective mode, which features these large-scale battles, was inspired by "Game of Thrones" and "The Lord of the Rings", as the team described it as a "fluid, cinematic experience."


title: Chivalry 2

text: "Chivalry 2" was announced at E3 2019 by publisher Tripwire Interactive during the PC Gaming Show. An open beta was launched on May 27, 2021, and lasted until June 1. The game was released for Microsoft Windows via the Epic Games Store as a one year exclusive, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Series S on June 8, 2021 with cross-platform play supported. Deep Silver served as the game's retail publishing partner.


title: Chivalry 2

text: Leana Hafer of "IGN" praised the battle of Chivalry 2, writing, "An axe-cellent compromise between hack-and-slash fun and skill-based medieval melee makes Chivalry 2's 64-player medieval brawls a ton of fun." "PC Gamer" liked how the game balanced the combat alongside the comedy describing it as "a brilliant mix of high skill and low comedy, and the best medieval combat game out there."


title: Chivalry 2

text: "PCGamesN" enjoyed the maps, comparing the design and scale of the areas to "Hollywood blockbusters" and "Monty Python". "Rock Paper Shotgun"s Brendan Caldwell felt that the classes offered a variety of different playstyles but criticized the deathmatch mode commenting that they "lack the heroic (or disastrous) moments of the objective-based battles, and some are underwhelmingly short".


title: Chivalry 2

text: On August 18, 2021, Torn Banner announced that the game had sold 1 million copies. After its Steam release, it generated a further 300,000 copies sold within 10 days of its release.


title: Cooley High

text: Cooley High is a 1975 American coming-of-age comedy-drama film that follows the narrative of high school seniors and best friends, Leroy "Preach" Jackson (Glynn Turman) and Richard "Cochise" Morris (Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs). Written by Eric Monte, directed by Michael Schultz, the film, primarily shot in Chicago, was a major hit at the box office, grossing over $13,000,000 (USD). The light-hearted-turned-tragic storyline was complemented by a soundtrack featuring many Motown hits.


title: Cooley High

text: In a 40th-year retrospective by "NPR" in 2015, "Cooley High" was called a "classic of black cinema" and "a touchstone for filmmakers like John Singleton and Spike Lee." In 2021, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".


title: Cooley High

text: In 1964 on Chicago's Near-North Side, Preach – an aspiring playwright – and Cochise – an all-city basketball champion – are best friends who are both celebrating the final weeks of their senior year with their classmates at Edwin G. Cooley Vocational High School. While sitting in class, Cochise sleeps while Preach comes up with the idea that Pooter, another classmate and friend, should fake a nosebleed so they can get out of class. As Preach and Pooter leave with the teacher's permission, Cochise, who is now awake, sneaks out the classroom's back door.


title: Cooley High

text: After getting out of class, the trio meet up with another classmate who is sitting outside the school. The group then hitch a ride from school by hanging on the back of a city bus. The group end up at Lincoln Park Zoo where they spend the day stealing snacks from the concession stand and antagonizing animals.


title: Cooley High

text: After spending a few hours at the zoo, the group heads back to the neighborhood via train. Once back, the group shoots a few basketball hoops with some locals before Pooter states he needs to return to school before closing to retrieve his books. The group ends up at Martha's, a local hangout where they run into another classmate on their way inside (Dorothy, who is giving a "Quarter" party at her house later that evening). While inside, Preach is shooting dice with two guys from the neighborhood, Stone and Robert.


title: Cooley High

text: During the dice game, they encounter one of Preach's classmates, Brenda, in whom Preach shows an immediate interest. After Preach is chased out of the hangout by the owner for gambling, the group splits up. Cochise arrives home, where he learns via mail that he has received a basketball scholarship to attend Grambling State University. The group meets up and binges on alcohol, celebrating Cochise's scholarship before heading off to Dorothy's house party.


title: Cooley High

text: Once at the party, Preach encounters Brenda again, who has no interest in him. While the party is going on, Preach retreats to a bedroom where Brenda is and the two discuss love poems. The party ends abruptly when another classmate named Damon shows up and spots Cochise dancing with his girlfriend, Loretta. This leads to a fight between the two.


title: Cooley High

text: Having trashed the house during the fight, the group retreats back to Martha's. The group, which consists of Cochise, Preach, Pooter and Tyrone, encounters Stone and Robert. The pair ride up in a Cadillac and convince Cochise and Preach to go for a joyride with them, driving through the neighborhood, downtown Chicago and the Gold Coast area with Stone at the wheel.


title: Cooley High

text: Preach convinces Stone to let him drive, which leads to attention from the police due to his bad driving. A chase leads from downtown into a garage at Navy Pier, in which they get away from the police, only to end up hitting a parked car with occupants inside. After the accident, they flee the vehicle, with Preach and Cochise running in one direction and Stone and Robert in another.


title: Cooley High

text: The next day, Cochise, Preach, Pooter, Tyrone, and Willie all decide to go the movies. However, the group is short on cash. Preach and Cochise approach two prostitutes, pretending to want countless sexual services. Later, they are both stating they are actually cops. While searching and threatening to arrest them, one of the women pays $10 to Preach to be let go. The other one notices that the police badge is a fake. After realizing their scam is blown, the two run off with the money.


title: Cooley High

text: The group then ends up at the movie theater where they watch "Mothra vs. Godzilla." Cochise, Tyrone, and Preach are with their girlfriends, while Pooter is left venturing around the theater by himself. Upon finding a seat, he bumps into a man who gets confrontational. Another man intervenes on Pooter's behalf, which leads to a brawl between the Disciples and the Counts street gangs in the theater. The following day, Preach and Brenda spend a day together which leads to their having sex back at Preach's house. After learning that Cochise and Preach had an inside cash bet on Preach hooking up with her, Brenda leaves the house upset.


title: Cooley High

text: The following day at school, Cochise and Preach are arrested for being in the stolen car and are charged with Grand Theft Auto. While at the station, the pair are reunited with Stone and Robert, who are also being questioned. Mr. Mason, the boys' history teacher, persuades the police to release Preach and Cochise because of their clean records. Both Stone and Robert remain imprisoned due to them being repeat offenders.


title: Cooley High

text: Confused as to how they were let off the hook early, Preach and Cochise leave the holding area. Thinking that Preach and Cochise placed all the blame on them, Stone and Robert immediately hunt for both of them after being released from jail a few days later. While in school, Preach learns that Mr. Mason actually got them out of jail. He sets off to look for Cochise to tell him the information. In his pursuit of looking for Cochise, Preach runs into Cochise's cousin Jimmy Lee who takes him to his apartment. Once there, Preach finds him with his ex-girlfriend. Preach becomes angry and leaves.


title: Cooley High

text: Preach then retreats to Martha's. Spotted by Damon, he walks over to a table where Brenda is sitting and begins to apologize. While talking to Brenda, Preach overhears Damon speaking to Stone and Robert who have just walked into the hangout. As he sends Brenda out of the restaurant, urging her to meet him at the train station in 15 minutes, he tries to sneak out the back.


title: Cooley High

text: Preach's presence is then made known by Damon. Stone and Robert began taunting and chasing Preach around the restaurant. After spotting the confrontation, the hangout's owner intervenes. She forces both Stone and Robert out of her place with a meat cleaver while Preach is hiding in the restroom. Preach tries to sneak out the side door but is spotted by the pair who are waiting for him outside.


title: Cooley High

text: After evading them, Preach meets up with Brenda, where he learns from her that Cochise went to Martha's looking for him. Stone, Robert, and Damon ultimately find and catch Cochise on a side street. Together, the vengeful trio corner him and beat him severely, leaving him to die. Having been notified of the attack on Cochise, Preach frantically searches the streets. He finds his best friend's lifeless body lying face-down under an overpass. Using Cochise's untimely death as motivation and inspiration, Preach runs off after the funeral to pursue his dream of becoming a renowned Hollywood poet and writer. This ultimately makes both him and his newfound guardian angel proud.


title: Cooley High

text: Monte based the film on his experiences attending the real-life Cooley Vocational High School (which closed in 1979) that served students from the Cabrini–Green public housing project on Chicago's north side. While the film was set in and around Cabrini–Green, it was primarily filmed at another Chicago-area housing project. Monte has said that he wrote the film to dispel myths about growing up in the projects: "I grew up in the Cabrini–Green housing project and I had one of the best times of my life, the most fun you can have while inhaling and exhaling".


title: Cooley High

text: "Cooley High" is seen as "changing the landscape" for black people in film, with its humane focus on the dreams of young inner-city black men, according to actor and film director Robert Townsend, who got his start in film with a one-line walk-on role in "Cooley High." Screenwriter and producer Larry Karaszewski holds that the film is also one of the great movies about real friendship, with outstanding performances by the male leads. Boyz II Men named their debut album "Cooleyhighharmony" which featured a version of the song "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday" from the "Cooley High" soundtrack. The 1991 movie "Boyz in the Hood" was influenced by "Cooley High". During the 40th anniversary of the film's release, nationally syndicated news station NPR published a story that discussed some of the fondest memories that the cast and crew shared of the film's production. Actor Sherman Smith (now using the professional name Rick Stone), who played the character of Stone in the film, recalled how he was approached by producers of the film while playing basketball one day. The crew members were looking for realistic gang members to be a part of the cast, so after being tipped off by police, producers offered Stone and his sidekick Norman Gibson, who played the character of Robert in the film, a role in the movie.


title: Cooley High

text: During this interview, screenwriter Eric Monte revealed that Cochise's untimely death in the film was inspired by a childhood friend of his who had been killed in a similar manner. Furthermore, just as Preach headed to Hollywood after the death of Cochise, Monte reveals that after his friend was murdered he hitchhiked his way to the west coast where he began working for shows such as "Good Times" and "The Jeffersons". Unfortunately, not everyone from the film went on to live a life of success. Nearly two years after the film's release, Norman Gibson was gunned down outside of his neighborhood.


title: Cooley High

text: The movie was filmed from October through November 1974 in Chicago, Illinois. Some scenes include other areas of Chicago such as Navy Pier and the Gold Coast area but primarily in and around the Cabrini-Green housing project on the near-north side. Interior school scenes were shot at Chicago's Providence St. Mel High School.


title: Cooley High

text: "Cooley High" was a critical and commercial success. Produced on a $750,000 budget, the film grossed $13 million at the domestic box office, making it one of the top 30 highest-grossing films of 1975.


title: Cooley High

text: Jack Slater of "The New York Times" was positive, writing, "To be black and to watch 'Cooley High' is to see one's vanished innocence—and beauty." Slater acknowledged that the movie was being hailed as "a black "American Graffiti"" but he thought "Cooley High" had "far more vitality and variety" than that film. Gene Siskel of the "Chicago Tribune" gave the film 3.5 stars out of 4 and wrote that the opening 10 minutes "leave you with the impression that 'Cooley High' is going to be nothing more than a series of routine and unfunny gags. But then the film's magic begins to work, and 'Cooley High' turns into a beguiling story that's affecting, lasting, and worth seeing more than once."


title: Cooley High

text: Arthur D. Murphy of "Variety" called it "a heartening comedy drama" with "a fine cast of young players" that were "well directed by Michael Schultz", adding that "you don't have to be black to enjoy it immensely." Kevin Thomas of the "Los Angeles Times" called it "a landmark movie, one of the year's most important and heartening pictures, that shows what the black film can be when creative talents are given an opportunity free of the strong sex and violence requirements of the exploitation formulae."


title: Cooley High

text: Jacqueline Trescott of "The Washington Post" was not so impressed, calling the film's nostalgia "deja vu and hackneyed, antiseptic even." She found several comic scenes to be "[w]ell-executed ... But these passages still lack a distinctive look and enough fire to raise 'Cooley' above the mediocre mark." Reviewing "Cooley High" for "The Monthly Film Bulletin" in 1977, Jonathan Rosenbaum said that "Michael Schultz's first feature can be viewed with hindsight as the promising debut of a very talented director, intermittently doing what he can with an uneven and somewhat routine script."


title: Cooley High

text: The film holds an 85% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on reviews from 13 critics. Filmmaker Spike Lee included the film on his essential film list entitled "List of Films All Aspiring Filmmakers Must See". The movie also ranked #23 on "Entertainment Weekly"s list of the 50 Best High School Movies. Metacritic gave the film a score of 72 based in 8 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: Cooley High

text: ABC planned a television adaptation of "Cooley High", but the pilot was poorly received, and Fred Silverman, the head of the network, asked the pilot's producers, TOY Productions, to redo the show as a sitcom with new characters and with a new title so as not to confuse it with Monte's film "Cooley High". New writers were hired, cast changes made, and a switch from one-camera to three-camera filming delivered "What's Happening!!" to the network, where it ran from August 5, 1976 to April 28, 1979. The show and the production company were then purchased by Columbia Pictures Television in 1979 and ran in syndication for a number of years.


title: Cooley High

text: In 2000, "Cooley High" was released on DVD. In 2010, it was digitized in High Definition (1080i) and broadcast on MGM HD.. The Criterion Collection is releasing the film on Blu-ray on December 13, 2022.


title: Cooley High

text: On July 19, 2016, it was reported that MGM was developing a remake of 1975 film "Cooley High", with DeVon Franklin, Common and Tony Krantz starring. Seth Rosenfeld would write the screenplay.


title: Dina Asher-Smith

text: Geraldina "Dina" Rachel Asher-Smith, (; born 4 December 1995) is a British sprinter. She is the fastest British woman on record. She won a gold medal in the 200 metres, silver in the 100 metres and another silver in the 4×100 m relay at the 2019 World Championships, breaking her own British records with further records which still stand. Aged 24, Asher-Smith was the first Briton to win three medals at a World Championships. She earned a bronze in the 200 m at the 2022 World Championships. As part of 4×100 m relay teams, she won medals at the 2016 Rio Olympics and 2020 Tokyo Olympics, and also at the 2013 and 2017 World Championships.


title: Dina Asher-Smith

text: Asher-Smith won the 2013 European Junior 200 m title and the 2014 World Junior 100 m title. In July 2015, she became the first British woman to run under 11 seconds for the 100 m. She then broke Kathy Cook's 31-year-old British 200 m record when finishing fifth at the 2015 World Championships. In this distance, she placed fifth at the 2016 Olympics and fourth at the 2017 World Championships. Asher-Smith is also a three-time individual European champion, including the 200 m title in 2016 and the 100 m/200 m double in 2018, and earned a silver for the 200 m in 2022. She was 100 m 2019 Diamond League champion.


title: Dina Asher-Smith

text: She has been listed in the "Powerlist" as one of the UK's most influential people of African-Caribbean descent, most recently in the 2021 edition.


title: Dina Asher-Smith

text: Dina Asher-Smith was born on 4 December 1995 in Orpington, London. Her parents are Julie, who was born in London, and Winston, who was born in Jamaica but moved to England when he was a child. She has Jamaican and Trinidadian ancestry. She attended Perry Hall Primary School. From 2008 to 2014, she attended Newstead Wood School in Orpington. Asher-Smith achieved 9 A stars in her GCSEs. In August 2014, she got 3 As for her A-Level exam results which allowed her entry into King's College London to study history. Upon receiving the results, she called it "the best morning" of her life. Asher-Smith graduated with a 1st class BA in 2017. She is a supporter of Manchester United F.C.


title: Dina Asher-Smith

text: Asher-Smith is coached by John Blackie. In 2009, she ran the 300 metres in 39.16 seconds to set the current world age 13 best. She has won the English Schools Championships 200 m title as an Under 15 (2010), U17 (2011) and U20 (2013). She won the 2013 event in a time of 23.63 s into a strong headwind.


title: Dina Asher-Smith

text: Asher-Smith worked as a kit-bag carrier during the 2012 London Olympics, including on "Super Saturday".


title: Dina Asher-Smith

text: At the 2012 World Junior Championships, Asher-Smith finished seventh in the 200 m final in a then personal best time of 23.50 seconds. She said afterwards that "I am elated to have made the final and achieve a PB in the process, and I'm looking ahead to next year in Italy."


title: Dina Asher-Smith

text: In 2013, she earned two gold medals at the European Junior Championships in Rieti, winning the 200 m in 23.29 s, before joining Yasmin Miller, Steffi Wilson and Desiree Henry to win the 4 × 100 m relay and break the UK junior record. The British squad originally finished fourth in the final but were promoted to the bronze medal after the disqualification of the French team. Asher-Smith was shortlisted for the 2013 BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year.


title: Dina Asher-Smith

text: At the 2014 World Junior Championships in Eugene, Asher-Smith won the 100 metres running 11.23 seconds.


title: Dina Asher-Smith

text: Asher-Smith was part of the winning Great Britain team for the 4 × 100 m relay at the London Grand Prix meet and was the youngest athlete selected for the Great Britain and Northern Ireland Squad for the 2013 World Championships in Moscow. Along with teammates Annabelle Lewis, Ashleigh Nelson and Hayley Jones, she won a bronze medal in the 4 × 100 m relay.


title: Dina Asher-Smith

text: At the 2014 European Athletics Championships in Zurich, she qualified for the 200 m final but pulled out with a hamstring injury on the bend.


title: Dina Asher-Smith

text: She took the silver medal for the 60 m at the 2015 European Indoor Championships. It was the first time in 30 years that a British female won a medal in the event. In doing so, Asher-Smith equalled Jeanette Kwakye's British record of 7.08 s and, being 19 years old, became the fastest ever teenager at 60 m. She first broke the British 100 metres record with 11.02 s on 24 May in Hengelo, before becoming the first British woman to run a legal time under 11 seconds, with 10.99 s on 25 July at the London Anniversary Games. She then finished fifth at the 2015 IAAF World Championships in Beijing with a time of 22.07 s, a new British record.


title: Dina Asher-Smith

text: At the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Asher-Smith finished fifth in the 200 metres, in 22.31 seconds, then won a bronze medal with her teammates Asha Philip, Desiree Henry and Daryll Neita in the 4 x 100 m relay in a British record of 41.77 seconds.


title: Dina Asher-Smith

text: On 17 February 2017, Asher-Smith broke her foot in a training accident, but still managed to secure fourth place in the women's 200 m and a silver medal as part of the Great Britain 4 × 100 m relay later that year at the IAAF World Championships in London.


title: Dina Asher-Smith

text: In 2018, she went to Australia early to train and get used to the conditions prior to the Commonwealth Games scheduled to take place in Gold Coast, Queensland in that country. She qualified for the final, and came away with a Commonwealth bronze medal with a time off 22.29 seconds. England ladies, including Asher-Smith, qualified for the 4x100 m relay final, where they won gold in a time of 42.46 seconds, beating one of the favorites, Jamaica. At the 2018 European Championships in Berlin, Asher-Smith won both the 100 m and 200m metres titles, improving her British records to 10.85 and 21.89 seconds respectively, becoming the first British woman in history to run below 22 seconds for 200 metres, and moving to 22nd on the 200 metres world all-time list (35th at 100 m). She won a third gold medal in the 4 × 100 m relay. Asher-Smith was named women's European Athlete of the Year for her success in October. She was later hailed by IAAF president Sebastian Coe as the next sprint sensation in athletics.


title: Dina Asher-Smith

text: Asher-Smith won the silver medal in the 100 m at the 2019 IAAF World Championships in a new British record of 10.83 seconds, finishing second behind only Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce. She was the first female British sprinter to win, over 100 m or 200 m, an individual medal in the world championships since Kathy Cook in 1983. On 2 October, she became the World Champion in the 200 m, setting a personal best and new British record of 21.88 seconds.


title: Dina Asher-Smith

text: Going into the 2021 season, Asher-Smith was a strong medal favourite for the short sprints at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. Her season was off to a promising start in May when she won the women's 100 m final at the Gateshead Diamond League against a world class field, besting athletes such as Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Blessing Okagbare, Marie-Josée Ta Lou and Sha'Carri Richardson. She followed this up in late June when she won the 100 m final at the 2021 British Athletics Championships in a time of 10.97 seconds. The clock had originally reported 10.71 seconds, which would have been a substantial national record, however this was corrected a few minutes later. She came into the Olympics having gained selection in the 100 m, 200 m and 4 x 100 m relay, however failed to qualify for the 100 m final after placing third in her semifinal in a time of 11.05 seconds, which was not enough to gain a fastest non-automatic qualifying spot. Subsequently, she revealed in an emotional interview that she had actually sustained a hamstring injury during the finals of the British championships, and that she would be pulling out of the 200 m. Nevertheless, she managed to return to contribute to the 4 x 100 m relay, aiding Great Britain in setting a new national record of 41.55 seconds in their heat, followed by a bronze medal in the final behind Jamaica and the United States. She later bounced back to end her 2021 campaign with season's bests of 10.87 seconds and 22.04 seconds towards the end of the Diamond League circuit, the 200 m in Brussels and 100 m at the final in Zurich.


title: Dina Asher-Smith

text: Asher-Smith has modelled for Louis Vuitton, Valentino and Off-White, and in 2019 had a Barbie created in her likeness. The same year, she made a cameo appearance in the music video for the single "Black" by Dave.


title: Lord William Bentinck

text: Lieutenant General Lord William Henry Cavendish-Bentinck (14 September 177417 June 1839), known as Lord William Bentinck, was a British soldier and statesman who served as the Governor of Fort William (Bengal) from 1828 to 1834 and the First Governor-General of India from 1834 to 1835. He has been credited for significant social and educational reforms in India, including abolishing sati, forbidding women to witness the cremations on the ghats of Varanasi, suppressing female infanticide and human sacrifice. Bentinck said that "the dreadful responsibility hanging over his head in this world and the next, if… he was to consent to the continuance of this practice (sati) one moment longer." Bentinck after consultation with the army and officials passed the Bengal Sati Regulation, 1829. The challenge came from the Dharma Sabha which appealed in the Privy Council, however the ban on Sati was upheld. He reduced lawlessness by eliminating thuggee – which had existed for over 450 years – with the aid of his chief captain, William Henry Sleeman. Along with Thomas Babington Macaulay he introduced English as the language of instruction in India.


title: Lord William Bentinck

text: Bentinck was born in Buckinghamshire, the second son of Prime Minister William Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland, and Lady Dorothy (née Cavendish), only daughter of William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire. On the marriage the family name became "Cavendish-Bentinck".


title: Lord William Bentinck

text: Bentinck joined the Coldstream Guards on 28 January 1791 at the age of 16, purchasing an ensign's commission. He was promoted to captain-lieutenant (lieutenant) in the 2nd Regiment of Dragoons on 4 August 1792, and to captain in the 11th Regiment of Light Dragoons on 6 April 1793. He was promoted to major in the 28th Foot on 29 March 1794 and to lieutenant-colonel in the 24th Dragoons that July. On 9 January 1798, Bentinck was promoted to colonel. In 1803 he was, to some surprise, appointed Governor of Madras, and was promoted to major-general on 1 January 1805. Although his tenure was moderately successful, it was brought to an end by the Vellore Mutiny in 1806, prompted by Bentinck's order that the native troops be forbidden to wear their traditional attire. Only after serious violence was order restored and the offending policy rescinded, and Bentinck was recalled in 1807.


title: Lord William Bentinck

text: After service in the Peninsular War, including as a brigade commander at the Battle of Corunna, Bentinck was appointed commander of British troops in Sicily. He was brevetted to lieutenant-general on 3 March 1811. A Whig, Bentinck used this position to meddle in internal Sicilian affairs, effecting the withdrawal from government of Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies in favour of his son, Francis I of the Two Sicilies, the reactionary Queen's disgrace, and an attempt to devise a constitutional government for the troubled island, all of which ultimately ended in failure. In 1814, Bentinck landed with British and Sicilian troops at Genoa, and commenced to make liberal proclamations of a new order in Italy which embarrassed the British government (which intended to give much of Italy to Austria), and led, once again, to his recall in 1815.


title: Lord William Bentinck

text: As conditions in Sicily began to deteriorate at the beginning of the 19th century, England began worrying about its interests in the Mediterranean. Internal dissensions in the Sicilian government and an ever-increasing suspicion that Queen Maria Carolina was in correspondence with the French Occupation of Sicily as its object led to the appointment of Bentinck as British representative to the Court of Palermo in July 1811. At the beginning of his time at the head of Sicilian affairs, politicians in London opposed the Bourbon rule and appealed for Sicilian annexation. Bentinck was sympathetic to the cause and plight of the Sicilians and "was quickly convinced of the need for Britain to intervene in Sicilian affairs, not so much for Britain's sake as for the well-being of the Sicilians." He was also one of the first of the dreamers to see a vision of a unified Italy.


title: Lord William Bentinck

text: The English, however, were content to support the Bourbons if they were willing to give the Sicilians more governmental control and a greater respect of their rights. Bentinck saw this as the perfect opportunity to insert his ideas of a Sicilian constitution. Opposition to the establishment of a constitution continued to surface, Maria Carolina proving to be one of the toughest. Her relationship with Bentinck can be summed up in the nickname that she gave him: "La bestia feroce" (the ferocious beast). Bentinck, however, was determined to see the establishment of a Sicilian Constitution and shortly thereafter exiled Maria Carolina from Palermo. On 18 June 1812 the Parliament assembled in Palermo and, about a month later, on 20 July 1812 the constitution was accepted and written on the basis of 15 articles, on the drafts prepared by Prince Belmonte and other Sicilian noblemen. With the establishment of the constitution the Sicilians had now gained an autonomy they had never experienced before. The constitution set up the separation of the legislative and executive powers and abolished the feudalistic practices that had been established and recognised for the past 700 years.


title: Lord William Bentinck

text: Bentinck's success in establishing a Sicilian constitution lasted only a few years. On 8 December 1816, a year after Ferdinand IV returned to the throne of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the constitution was abolished and Sicily was reunited with Naples. The constitutional experiment was deemed a failure although it cannot be said to be his alone. The Sicilian nobles were inexperienced and in the face of the difficulties of 1814 and 1815 could not sustain a constitution without British support, which was withdrawn in the wake of the end of the Napoleonic wars. The British no longer had an invested interest in the internal affairs of Sicily now that the threat of French invasion had been removed. The establishment of a Sicilian constitution that was facilitated by Bentinck was not to be soon forgotten. The ideas found therein and the small taste of freedom lingered in the memories of the Sicilians and had an influence on the desire for autonomy that was at the base of the Sicilian revolutions of 1820 and 1848.


title: Lord William Bentinck

text: Sailing from Sicily on 30 January 1814, Bentinck first made for Naples. There he reluctantly signed an armistice with Joachim Murat; whom he personally detested as being a man whose "whole life had been a crime," yet whom Britain found it expedient to detach from his brother-in-law, Napoleon, by guaranteeing his Kingdom of Naples in return for an alliance. Having instructed the forces under his command in Sicily to make a landing at Livorno, Bentinck then travelled north, with a day's stop in Rome, to join them.


title: Lord William Bentinck

text: Napoleon's sister Elisa, though having now abandoned her Grand Duchy of Tuscany, had nevertheless not given up completely in attempting to salvage something out of the collapse of her brother's Empire. Having obtained from Murat - husband of her sister Caroline - the guarantee that he would obtain the consent of the Coalition he had just joined to her retention of the Principality of Lucca and Piombino in return for having rendered up Tuscany without a fight, she had, by the time of Bentinck's appearance at Livorno, retired to Lucca. Upon hearing of his landing, she sent a delegation to gain assurances that Murat's pact would be respected. Bentinck replied that it would not. If she did not depart immediately, he said, she would arrested. With 2,000 British troops dispatched towards the city to carry out this threat, the heavily pregnant Elisa had no choice but to abandon the last of her territories and flee north, where she eventually fell into allied hands at Bologna.


title: Lord William Bentinck

text: Elisa quit Lucca on 13 March. The next day, Bentinck issued a proclamation from Livorno calling on the Italian nation to rise in a movement of liberation. ""Italians!"" he declared, ""Great Britain has landed her troops on your shores; she holds out her hand to you to free you from the iron yoke of Buonaparte...hesitate no longer...assert your rights and your liberty. Call us, and we will hasten to you, and then, our forces joined, will effect that Italy may become what in the best times she was"". In thus attempting to bring about his long-nurtured dream of an independent Italian nation-state in the north and centre (he did not consider the Neapolitans and Sicilians 'Italians'),


title: Lord William Bentinck

text: Ordering his troops north to besiege Genoa, Bentinck himself now headed to Reggio Emilia for a conference with Murat. At this conference on the 15th, he brazenly demanded that Tuscany be handed over to himself and evacuated by the Neapolitan forces then in possession of it. It was necessary, he argued, that Tuscany be under British jurisdiction, as otherwise he would have no logistical base from which to conduct future operations - to which Murat replied that it was the same argument on his side which dictated his own necessary possession of it. Suddenly threatening to turn his forces against Naples itself and restore the rightful Ferdinand IV if Murat did not give way, Bentinck was quickly reprimanded in a firm note from Castlereagh reminding him that he was instructed to co-operate in every way with Murat and Austria. At which he reluctantly withdrew his bid for Tuscany - which he had likely been hoping to turn into the nucleus of a free Italian state under his own aegis - and left for Genoa. There had, in any case, been no discernable response from the Tuscans to Bentinck's proclamation, while in Genoa he would find a welcoming audience at last.


title: Lord William Bentinck

text: Bentinck had been ordered to take and occupy Genoa in the name of the King of Sardinia. But when the city surrendered to him on 18 April 1814, he instead proclaimed - contrary to the intentions of the Coalition - the restoration of the Republic of Genoa and the repeal of all laws passed since 1797, much to the enthusiasm of the Genoese. At the same time, he dispatched an expeditionary force to Corsica to attempt to revive the Anglo-Corsican Kingdom of 1794–1796 and gain for Britain another useful base in the Mediterranean. In Genoa meanwhile, on the 24th, he received representations from the provisional government in Milan beseeching Britain's support for the maintenance of an independent Kingdom of Italy rather than the restoration of Austria's rule over Lombardy. With Napoleon's abdication of both the French and Italian thrones on 11 April, the government in Milan was in search of a new sovereign who would better bolster their chances of survival and, in seeking to bind Britain to their cause, the suggestion was put to Bentinck that Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge, the seventh son of George III, would be a welcome candidate. Though Bentinck recommended they might look to Archduke Francis of Este as a more realistic candidate in order to mollify the Austrians.


title: Lord William Bentinck

text: With Napoleon's double abdication on 11 April however - though the news took time to cross the Alps - Bentinck's capacity to influence events on the ground while, with the war against the Emperor still raging, all was still to a great extent up in the air, largely came to an end. As did his Government's motive for toleration. His erratic behaviour over the recent months had led the Prime Minister Lord Liverpool to brand him simply "mad", and his scope of authority was sharply reduced; though he was not finally dismissed from his grand post as Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean until April the following year.


title: Lord William Bentinck

text: Lord William Bentinck was the first governor general of British-occupied India. Everyone else before him was the Governor of Bengal (Fort William). On his return to England, Bentinck served in the House of Commons for some years before being appointed Governor-General of Bengal in 1828. His principal concern was to turn around the loss-making East India Company, to ensure that its charter would be renewed by the British government.


title: Lord William Bentinck

text: Bentinck engaged in an extensive range of cost-cutting measures, earning the lasting enmity of many military men whose wages were cut. Although historians emphasise his more efficient financial management, his modernising projects also included a policy of westernisation, influenced by the Utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham and James Mill, which was more controversial. He reformed the court system


title: Lord William Bentinck

text: Bentinck made English the medium of instruction after passing the English Education Act 1835. English replaced Persian as the language of the higher courts. He founded the Calcutta Medical college after the committee appointed by him found that "The Native Medical Institution established in 1822 , The Committee headed by Dr John Grant as president and J C C Sutherland, C E Trevelyan, Thomas Spens, Ram Comul Sen and M J Bramley as members found the education, examination system, training and lack of practical anatomy clearly below standards" and recommended its closure, which Bentinck accepted and he opened the Calcutta Medical college which offered western medical education and opening of this college is seen as Introduction of Western Science into India.It was the first western medical college in Asia and it was open to all without discrimination of caste or creed. James Ranald Martin compares the foundation of this college to Bentinck's other acclaimed act of abolishing Sati


title: Lord William Bentinck

text: Bentinck decided to put an immediate end to "Sati" immediately upon his arrival in Calcutta. Ram Mohan Roy warned Bentinck against abruptly ending "Sati". However, after observing that the judges in the courts were unanimously in favor of the ban, Bentinck proceeded to lay the draft before his council. Charles Metcalfe, the Governor's most prominent counselor, expressed apprehension that the banning of "Sati" might be "used by the disaffected and designing" as "an engine to produce insurrection." However these concerns did not deter him from upholding the Governor's decision "in the suppression of the horrible custom by which so many lives are cruelly sacrificed."


title: Lord William Bentinck

text: Thus on Sunday morning of 4 December 1829 Lord Bentinck issued Regulation XVII declaring "Sati" to be illegal and punishable in criminal courts. It was presented to William Carey for translation. His response is recorded as follows: "Springing to his feet and throwing off his black coat he cried, 'No church for me to-day... If I delay an hour to translate and publish this, many a widow's life may be sacrificed,' he said. By evening the task was finished."


title: Lord William Bentinck

text: On 2 February 1830 this law was extended to Madras and Bombay. The ban was challenged by a petition signed by "several thousand… Hindoo inhabitants of Bihar, Bengal, Orissa etc" and the matter went to the Privy Council in London. Along with British supporters, Ram Mohan Roy presented counter-petitions to parliament in support of ending Sati. The Privy Council rejected the petition in 1832, and the ban on "Sati" was upheld.


title: Lord William Bentinck

text: Bentinck prohibited female infanticide and the custom of certain of newly born girls to be killed and against human sacrifices.


title: Lord William Bentinck

text: Although his reforms met little resistance among native Indians at the time, Indian enemies repeated a story to the effect that he had once planned to demolish the Taj Mahal and sell off the marble. According to Bentinck's biographer John Rosselli, the story arose from Bentinck's fund-raising sale of discarded marble from Agra Fort and of the metal from the Great Agra Gun, the largest cannon ever cast, a historical artefact which dated to the reign of Akbar the Great.


title: Lord William Bentinck

text: The Saint Helena Act 1833, also called the Charter Act of 1833, was passed during Bentinck's tenure and, accordingly, the monopoly of the East India Company was abolished. The Governor-General of Bengal became the Governor-General of India. This Act added a law member to the executive council of the governor general. Bishops of Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta were to be appointed for the benefit of the Christians in India.


title: Lord William Bentinck

text: Bentinck returned to the UK in 1835 and refused a peerage, partly because he had no children and partly because he wanted to stand for Parliament again. He again entered the House of Commons as a Member for Glasgow.


title: Lord William Bentinck

text: In August 1791, Bentinck played in a non-first-class cricket match for Marylebone Cricket Club against Nottingham Cricket Club at King's Meadow, Nottingham.


title: Lord William Bentinck

text: Bentinck married Lady Mary, daughter of Arthur Acheson, 1st Earl of Gosford, on 18 February 1803. The marriage was childless. He died in Paris on 17 June 1839, aged 64. Mary died in May 1843. They are buried together in the Bentinck family vault in St Marylebone Parish Church, London.


title: Lord William Bentinck

text: Explorer Matthew Flinders, who in 1802 charted the South Wellesley Islands in the Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia (now part of the state of Queensland), assigned the name Bentinck Island in honour of Lord Bentinck, and the island group (Wellesley) and the largest island (Mornington Island) in honour of Richard Wellesley, 2nd Earl of Mornington. In 1803, the two men had acted as interceded on Flinders' behalf to persuade the French to release Flinders after he had been imprisoned by them on Mauritius.


title: General Motors streetcar conspiracy

text: The General Motors streetcar conspiracy refers to the convictions of General Motors (GM) and related companies that were involved in the monopolizing of the sale of buses and supplies to National City Lines (NCL) and subsidiaries, as well as to the allegations that the defendants conspired to own or control transit systems, in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act. This suit created lingering suspicions that the defendants had in fact plotted to dismantle streetcar systems in many cities in the United States as an attempt to monopolize surface transportation.


title: General Motors streetcar conspiracy

text: Between 1938 and 1950, National City Lines and its subsidiaries, American City Lines and Pacific City Lines—with investment from GM, Firestone Tire, Standard Oil of California (through a subsidiary), Federal Engineering, Phillips Petroleum, and Mack Trucks—gained control of additional transit systems in about 25 cities. Systems included St. Louis, Baltimore, Los Angeles, and Oakland. NCL often converted streetcars to bus operations in that period, although electric traction was preserved or expanded in some locations. Other systems, such as San Diego's, were converted by outgrowths of the City Lines. Most of the companies involved were convicted in 1949 of conspiracy to monopolize interstate commerce in the sale of buses, fuel, and supplies to NCL subsidiaries, but were acquitted of conspiring to monopolize the transit industry.


title: General Motors streetcar conspiracy

text: The story as an urban legend has been written about by Martha Bianco, Scott Bottles, Sy Adler, Jonathan Richmond, Cliff Slater and Robert Post. It has been explored several times in print, film, and other media, notably in the fictional film "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", documentary films such as "Taken for a Ride" and "The End of Suburbia" and the book "Internal Combustion".


title: General Motors streetcar conspiracy

text: Only a handful of U.S. cities, including San Francisco, New Orleans, Newark, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Boston, have surviving legacy rail urban transport systems based on streetcars, although their systems are significantly smaller than they once were. Other cities are re-introducing streetcars. In some cases, the streetcars do not actually ride on the street. Boston had all of its downtown lines elevated or buried by the mid-1920s, and most of the surviving lines at grade operate on their own right of way. However, San Francisco's and Philadelphia's lines do have large portions of the route that ride on the street as well as using tunnels.


title: General Motors streetcar conspiracy

text: In the latter half of the 19th century, transit systems were generally rail, first horse-drawn streetcars, and later electric powered streetcars and cable cars. Rail was more comfortable and had less rolling resistance than street traffic on granite block or macadam and horse-drawn streetcars were generally a step up from the horsebus. Electric traction was faster, more sanitary, and cheaper to run; with the cost, excreta, epizootic risk, and carcass disposal of horses eliminated entirely. Streetcars were later seen as obstructions to traffic, but for nearly 20 years they had the highest power-to-weight ratio of anything commonly found on the road, and the lowest rolling resistance.


title: General Motors streetcar conspiracy

text: Streetcars paid ordinary business and property taxes, but also generally paid franchise fees, maintained at least the shared right-of-way, and provided street sweeping and snow clearance. They were also required to maintain minimal service levels. Many franchise fees were fixed or based on gross (v. net); such arrangements, when combined with fixed fares, created gradual impossible financial pressures. Early electric cars generally had a two-man crew, a holdover from horsecar days, which created financial problems in later years as salaries outpaced revenues.


title: General Motors streetcar conspiracy

text: Many electric lines—especially in the West—were tied into other real estate or transportation enterprises. The Pacific Electric and the Los Angeles Railway were especially so, in essence loss leaders for property development and long haul shipping.


title: General Motors streetcar conspiracy

text: John D. Hertz, better remembered for his car rental business, was also an early motorbus manufacturer and operator. In 1917 he founded the Chicago Motor Coach Company, which operated buses in Chicago, and in 1923, he founded the Yellow Coach Manufacturing Company, a manufacturer of buses. He then formed The Omnibus Corporation in 1926 with "plans embracing the extension of motor coach operation to urban and rural communities in every part of the United States" that then purchased the Fifth Avenue Coach Company in New York. The same year, the Fifth Avenue Coach Company acquired a majority of the stock in the struggling New York Railways Corporation (which had been bankrupted and reorganized at least twice). In 1927, General Motors acquired a controlling share of the Yellow Coach Manufacturing Company and appointed Hertz as a main board director. Hertz's bus lines, however, were not in direct competition with any streetcars, and his core business was the higher-priced "motor coach".


title: General Motors streetcar conspiracy

text: By 1930, most streetcar systems were aging and losing money. Service to the public was suffering; the Great Depression compounded this. Yellow Coach tried to persuade transit companies to replace streetcars with buses, but could not persuade the power companies that owned the streetcar operations to motorize. GM decided to form a new subsidiary—United Cities Motor Transport (UCMT)—to finance the conversion of streetcar systems to buses in small cities. The new subsidiary made investments in small transit systems in Kalamazoo and Saginaw, Michigan, and in Springfield, Ohio, where they were successful in conversion to buses. UCMT then approached the Portland, Oregon, system with a similar proposal. It was censured by the American Transit Association and dissolved in 1935.


title: General Motors streetcar conspiracy

text: The New York Railways Corporation began conversion to buses in 1935, with the new bus services being operated by the New York City Omnibus Corporation, which shared management with The Omnibus Corporation. During this period GM worked with Public Service Transportation in New Jersey to develop the "All-Service Vehicle", a bus also capable of working as a trackless trolley, allowing off-wire passenger collection in areas too lightly populated to pay for wire infrastructure.


title: General Motors streetcar conspiracy

text: Opposition to traction interests and their influence on politicians was growing. For example, in 1922, New York Supreme Court Justice John Ford came out in favor of William Randolph Hearst, a newspaper magnate, for mayor of New York, complaining that Al Smith was too close to the 'traction interests'. In 1925, Hearst complained about Smith in a similar way. In the 1941 film "Citizen Kane", the lead character, who was loosely based on Hearst and Samuel Insull, complains about the influence of the 'traction interests'.


title: General Motors streetcar conspiracy

text: The Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, which made it illegal for a single private business to both provide public transport and supply electricity to other parties, forced electricity generator companies to divest from trolley, streetcar, electric suburban and interurban transit operators which they used to cross-subsidize in order to increase the basis of their limited return on investment.


title: General Motors streetcar conspiracy

text: In 1936 National City Lines, which had been started in 1920 as a minor bus operation by E. Roy Fitzgerald and his brother, was reorganized "for the purpose of taking over the controlling interest in certain operating companies engaged in city bus transportation and overland bus transportation" with loans from the suppliers and manufacturers. In 1939, Roy Fitzgerald, president of NCL, approached Yellow Coach Manufacturing, requesting additional financing for expansion. In the 1940s, NCL raised funds for expansion from Firestone Tire, Federal Engineering, a subsidiary of Standard Oil of California (now Chevron Corporation), Phillips Petroleum (now part of ConocoPhillips), GM, and Mack Trucks (now a subsidiary of Volvo). Pacific City Lines (PCL), formed as a subsidiary of NCL in 1938, was to purchase streetcar systems in the western United States. PCL merged with NCL in 1948. American City Lines (ACL), which had been organized to acquire local transportation systems in the larger metropolitan areas in various parts of the country in 1943, was merged with NCL in 1946. The federal government investigated some aspects of NCL's financial arrangements in 1941 (which calls into question the conspiracy myths' centrality of Quinby's 1946 letter.) By 1947, NCL owned or controlled 46 systems in 45 cities in 16 states.


title: General Motors streetcar conspiracy

text: From 1939 through 1940, NCL or PCL attempted a hostile takeover of the Key System, which operated electric trains and streetcars in Oakland, California. The attempt was temporarily blocked by a syndicate of Key System insiders, with controlling interest secured on Jan 8, 1941. By 1946, PCL had acquired 64% of the stock in the Key System.


title: General Motors streetcar conspiracy

text: In 1945, NCL acquired the Los Angeles Railway (also known as the "Yellow Cars"), which had been in financial trouble for some time. The new owner slowed the closure of streetcar lines and converted others to trackless trolleys, some of which used equipment initially intended for Oakland, others being purchased specifically in 1948. The LATL also bought new PCCs in one of the last major purchases of new streetcars.


title: General Motors streetcar conspiracy

text: In 1946, Edwin Jenyss Quinby, an activated reserve commander, founder of the Electric Railroaders' Association in 1934 (which lobbied on behalf of rail users and services), and former employee of North Jersey Rapid Transit (which operated into New York State), published a 24-page "expose" on the ownership of National City Lines addressed to "The Mayors; The City Manager; The City Transit Engineer; The members of The Committee on Mass-Transportation and The Tax-Payers and The Riding Citizens of Your Community". It began, "This is an urgent warning to each and every one of you that there is a careful, deliberately planned campaign to swindle you out of your most important and valuable public utilities–your Electric Railway System". His activism may have led Federal authorities to prosecute GM and the other companies.


title: General Motors streetcar conspiracy

text: He also questioned who was behind the creation of the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, which had caused such difficulty for streetcar operations, He was later to write a history of North Jersey Rapid Transit.


title: General Motors streetcar conspiracy

text: On April 9, 1947, nine corporations and seven individuals (officers and directors of certain of the corporate defendants) were indicted in the Federal District Court of Southern California on counts of "conspiring to acquire control of a number of transit companies, forming a transportation monopoly" and "conspiring to monopolize sales of buses and supplies to companies owned by National City Lines" In 1948, the venue was changed from the Federal District Court of Southern California to the Federal District Court in Northern Illinois following an appeal to the United States Supreme Court (in "United States v. National City Lines Inc.") which felt that there was evidence of conspiracy to monopolize the supply of buses and supplies.


title: General Motors streetcar conspiracy

text: In 1949, Firestone Tire, Standard Oil of California, Phillips Petroleum, GM, and Mack Trucks were convicted of conspiring to monopolize the sale of buses and related products to local transit companies controlled by NCL; they were acquitted of conspiring to monopolize the ownership of these companies. The verdicts were upheld on appeal in 1951. GM was fined and GM treasurer H.C. Grossman was fined $1. The trial judge said "I am very frank to admit to counsel that after a very exhaustive review of the entire transcript in this case, and of the exhibits that were offered and received in evidence, that I might not have come to the same conclusion as the jury came to were I trying this case without a jury," explicitly noting that he might not himself have convicted in a bench trial.


title: General Motors streetcar conspiracy

text: The San Diego Electric Railway was sold to Western Transit Company, which was in turn owned by J. L. Haugh in 1948 for $5.5 million. Haugh was also president of the Key System, and later was involved in Metropolitan Coach Line's purchase of the passenger operations of the Pacific Electric Railway. The last San Diego streetcars were converted to buses by 1949. Haugh sold the bus-based San Diego system to the city in 1966.


title: General Motors streetcar conspiracy

text: The Baltimore Streetcar system operated by the Baltimore Transit Company was purchased by NCL in 1948 and started converting the system to buses. Overall Baltimore Transit ridership then plummeted by double digits in each of the following three years. The Pacific Electric Railway's struggling passenger operations were purchased by Metropolitan Coach Lines in 1953 and were taken into public ownership in 1958 after which the last routes were converted to bus operation.


title: General Motors streetcar conspiracy

text: The Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964 (UMTA) created the Urban Mass Transit Administration with a remit to "conserve and enhance values in existing urban areas" noting that "our national welfare therefore requires the provision of good urban transportation, with the properly balanced use of private vehicles and modern mass transport to help shape as well as serve urban growth". Funding for transit was increased with the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1970 and further extended by the National Mass Transportation Assistance Act (1974) which allowed funds to support transit operating costs as well as capital construction costs.


title: General Motors streetcar conspiracy

text: In 1970, Harvard Law student Robert Eldridge Hicks began working on the Ralph Nader Study Group Report on Land Use in California, alleging a wider conspiracy to dismantle U.S. streetcar systems, first published in "Politics of Land: Ralph Nader's Study Group Report on Land Use in California".


title: General Motors streetcar conspiracy

text: In 1972, Senator Philip Hart introduced into congress the 'Industrial Reorganization Act', with an intention to restructure the U.S. economy to restore competition and address antitrust concern.


title: General Motors streetcar conspiracy

text: During 1973, Bradford Snell, an attorney with Pillsbury, Madison and Sutro and formerly, for a brief time, a scholar with the Brookings Institution, prepared a controversial and disputed paper titled "American ground transport: a proposal for restructuring the automobile, truck, bus, and rail industries." The paper, which was funded by the Stern Fund, was later described as the centerpiece of the hearings. In it, Snell said that General Motors was "a sovereign economic state" and said that the company played a major role in the displacement of rail and bus transportation by buses and trucks.


title: General Motors streetcar conspiracy

text: This paper was distributed in Senate binding together with an accompanying statement in February 1974, implying that the contents were the considered views of the Senate. The chair of the committee later apologized for this error. Adding to the confusion, Snell had already joined the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly as a staff member.


title: General Motors streetcar conspiracy

text: At the hearings in April 1974, San Francisco mayor and antitrust attorney Joseph Alioto testified that "General Motors and the automobile industry generally exhibit a kind of "monopoly evil"", adding that GM "has carried on a deliberate concerted action with the oil companies and tire companies...for the purpose of destroying a vital form of competition; namely, electric rapid transit". Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley also testified, saying that GM, through its subsidiaries (namely PCL), "scrapped the Pacific Electric and Los Angeles streetcar systems leaving the electric train system totally destroyed". Neither mayor, nor Snell himself, pointed out that the two cities were major parties to a lawsuit against GM which Snell himself had been "instrumental in bringing"; all had a direct or indirect financial interest. (The lawsuit was eventually dropped, the plaintiffs conceding they had no chance of winning.)


title: General Motors streetcar conspiracy

text: However, George Hilton, a professor of economics at UCLA and noted transit scholar rejected Snell's view, stating, "I would argue that these [Snell's] interpretations are not correct, and, further, that they couldn't possibly be correct, because major conversions in society of this character—from rail to free wheel urban transportation, and from steam to diesel railroad propulsion—are the sort of conversions which could come about only as a result of public preferences, technological change, the relative abundance of natural resources, and other impersonal phenomena or influence, rather than the machinations of a monopolist."


title: General Motors streetcar conspiracy

text: GM published a rebuttal the same year titled "The Truth About American Ground Transport". The Senate subcommittee printed GM's work in tandem with Snell's as an appendix to the hearings transcript. GM explicitly did not address the specific allegations that were "sub judice".


title: General Motors streetcar conspiracy

text: Quinby and Snell held that the destruction of streetcar systems was integral to a larger strategy to push the United States into automobile dependency. Most transit scholars disagree, suggesting that transit system changes were brought about by other factors; economic, social, and political factors such as unrealistic capitalization, fixed fares during inflation, changes in paving and automotive technology, the Great Depression, antitrust action, the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, labor unrest, market forces including declining industries' difficulty in attracting capital, rapidly increasing traffic congestion, the Good Roads Movement, urban sprawl, tax policies favoring private vehicle ownership, taxation of fixed infrastructure, franchise repair costs for co-located property, wide diffusion of driving skills, automatic transmission buses, and general enthusiasm for the automobile.


title: General Motors streetcar conspiracy

text: The accuracy of significant elements of Snell's 1974 testimony was challenged in an article published in "Transportation Quarterly" in 1997 by Cliff Slater.


title: General Motors streetcar conspiracy

text: Recent journalistic revisitings question the idea that GM had a significant impact on the decline of streetcars, suggesting rather that they were setting themselves up to take advantage of the decline as it occurred. Guy Span suggested that Snell and others fell into simplistic conspiracy theory thinking, bordering on paranoid delusions stating,


title: General Motors streetcar conspiracy

text: Other factors have been cited as reasons for the decline of streetcars and public transport generally in the United States. Robert Post notes that the ultimate reach of GM's alleged conspiracy extended to only about 10% of American transit systems. Guy Span says that actions and inaction by government was one of many contributing factors in the elimination of electric traction. Cliff Slater suggested that the regulatory framework in the US actually protected the electric streetcars for longer than would have been the case if there was less regulation.


title: Live Is Life

text: "Live Is Life" is a 1984 song by Austrian pop rock band Opus. It was released as the first single from their first live album, "Live Is Life" (1984), and was also included on the US version of their fourth studio album, "Up and Down" (1984). The song was a European number-one hit in the summer of 1985, and also reached number one in Canada and the top 40 in the US in 1986. It has been covered by many artists.


title: Live Is Life

text: After having released several singles, "Live Is Life" achieved huge success in 1985, topping the charts of many countries, including Austria (eight weeks), West Germany, France (seven weeks) and Sweden (four weeks).


title: Live Is Life

text: The song was created during a concert in Oberwart, on 2 September 1984, while the group celebrated its eleventh anniversary. It was recorded in a live version with the audience singing along in the verses. In the lyrics, the song expresses "the enthusiastic attachment of the group to the stage". The song was performed during the 1985 charity campaign, "Austria für Afrika".


title: Live Is Life

text: In 1994, on the occasion of the 1994 FIFA World Cup, Opus released another version of "Live Is Life", which made it again into the top ten in Austria. The song was re-recorded once more by the group in 2008, both in a solo version and featuring Jerry.


title: Live Is Life

text: On 19 April 1989, during the warming up in Munich before the UEFA Cup semi-final return between FC Bayern Munich and S.S.C. Napoli, Diego Maradona did a keepie uppie exhibition, to the rhythm of the song, while the song was heard on the stadium's loudspeakers.


title: Live Is Life

text: Some confusion persists by those who dispute that it took place in Munich. Among others, Jürgen Klinsmann claimed that it happened during the final in Stuttgart:


title: Live Is Life

text: There were 70,000 people in the stadium and Maradona went on the field. We’re on the other side of the field, warming up like Germans: seriously, focused. There's music playing, the song "Live is Life", and to the rhythm of the song Maradona started juggling the ball. So we stopped our warm-up. What's this guy doing? He's juggling off his shoulders. And we couldn't warm up anymore because we had to watch this guy.


title: Live Is Life

text: Belgian sports anchor Frank Raes, who edited the video and distributed it via YouTube, has asserted that this warm up took place just before the semifinal in Munich. By 2013, Raes' video clip had garnered almost two million views on YouTube. The 25th anniversary of Maradona's warming up was noted internationally, with newspapers commenting on his skills and on the transformative effect he had on Napoli and southern Italy.


title: Live Is Life

text: The Hermes House Band and DJ Ötzi released a version of the song in 2002. The single had its highest peak position in France, where it reached number two for five weeks. The song was used as a soundtrack for the German youth film "Das Jahr der ersten Küsse". As of August 2014, the song was the 23rd best-selling single of the 21st century in France, with 537,000 units sold.


title: Live Is Life

text: The song was covered by Stargo, whose version reached number 10 in France in 1985. Sofia Carson's "Love Is the Name" features an interpolation of "Live Is Life".


title: I Am Weasel

text: I Am Weasel is an American animated television series created by David Feiss for Cartoon Network and produced at Hanna-Barbera. It is the fourth of the network's Cartoon Cartoons. The series centers on I. M. Weasel (voiced by Michael Dorn), a smart, noble, and successful weasel, I. R. Baboon (voiced by Charlie Adler), an unintelligent and rude baboon who is envious of Weasel and acts as both his rival and friend, and the mischievous Red Guy (also voiced by Adler), who often antagonizes the two.


title: I Am Weasel

text: "I Am Weasel" originally aired as a segment of "Cow and Chicken" from 1997 to 1999, often airing as the third of three segments in an episode. "I Am Weasel" was eventually spun off into its own series. A fifth season with 27 new episodes aired from June 10, 1999, to 2000 and joined the original 52 which were previously part of "Cow and Chicken". The entire series includes 79 episodes overall.


title: I Am Weasel

text: The series chronicles the random adventures of two animal frenemies: I.M. Weasel (Michael Dorn) and I.R. Baboon (Charlie Adler). The first one is a famous, heroic, eloquent, highly intelligent and very talented least weasel who always tries to help people out and is thus adored by everybody, constantly shouting his catchphrase "I am Weasel!" while pointing high in the air before going after help. The latter is his foil, an ugly and idiotic hamadryas baboon who is envious of Weasel's success and constantly tries to do better than he does (also doing a victory dance to express his joy when thinking he is doing so), and failing miserably after all due to his total stupidity.


title: I Am Weasel

text: Starting from season two, the Red Guy (Charlie Adler), a main character in "Cow and Chicken", also gets that role in "I Am Weasel", where he is also referred to as "I.B. Red Guy", an allusion to Weasel's and Baboon's names. His addition to the series makes him gradually take the role of villain from I.R., who becomes more friendly to Weasel, despite still despising him.


title: I Am Weasel

text: As the series progresses, I.M. Weasel, initially showed as an invincible hero, gradually loses the focus to I.R. Baboon, because people are shown to get gradually dumber, sometimes being manipulated by the Red Guy into doing that. In the series finale, I.R. is finally presented as the true star of the show instead of him.


title: I Am Weasel

text: Supporting characters include Loulabelle (Susanne Blakeslee, Teresa Ganzel), Jolly Roger (Dee Bradley Baker) and Admiral Bullets (Jess Harnell, Michael Gough). Many characters from "Cow and Chicken" make cameo appearances in "I Am Weasel" from season two, these include: Cow, Chicken (Charlie Adler), Mom, Teacher (Candi Milo), Dad (Dee Bradley Baker), Flem (Howard Morris), and Earl (Dan Castellaneta).


title: I Am Weasel

text: While season one does not have any link to "Cow and Chicken" universe, from season two, "I Am Weasel" usually happens in the same universe of that show, as its characters (mainly the Red Guy) usually appear, but, most of the time, in different places. David Feiss, in fact, cross-populated both series as it made the work easier and he felt it was always the same universe. An episode, though, does present "I Am Weasel" as a TV show airing in "Cow and Chicken" world, suggesting another universe, but Weasel and I.R. are both taken out of TV after all. The same occurs in another episode, but with the characters in the same universe.


title: I Am Weasel

text: "Cow and Chicken" started out as the pilot episode "No Smoking" on "What a Cartoon!" in 1995, and was greenlit to become a series. Cartoon Network demanded a second cartoon to join "Cow and Chicken" in its half-hour time slot, so David Feiss came up with "I Am Weasel", loosely based upon the novel "I Am Legend", one of his favorite books as a teenager. "I was doodling one day, and drew a weasel, with the title 'I Am Weasel', off of one of my favorite books as a teenager, Richard Matheson's "I Am Legend". I thought against type, that instead of a weasel who was a weasel, this guy would be smart and heroic".


title: I Am Weasel

text: According to Feiss, the idea for creating the show began as a single drawing of I.M. Weasel with the caption "I Am Weasel" and that suggested many stories to him. The concept for the rivalry between a weasel and a baboon came up from the classic nursery rhyme "Pop Goes the Weasel", where a monkey is said to be chasing a weasel. Also, the fact that the Red Guy does not wear pants was controversial for many people, as he said: "The thing that I never thought that I'd get approval for was the Red Guy. The mere fact that he didn't wear pants was a challenge for a lot of people and I am glad Cartoon Network let it go - he's my favorite character".


title: I Am Weasel

text: Production began around April 1996 and the show was inserted as a series of segments in "Cow and Chicken" until mid 1999. Right after the end of that show, it was spun-off into a new separated series produced until September 16, 1999, with all the previous episodes incorporated and removed from "Cow and Chicken".


title: I Am Weasel

text: General production took place at the studio of Hanna-Barbera, in Los Angeles, with the series being labeled as part of both the collection of cartoons of that company and Cartoon Network's Cartoon Cartoons. Animation production was made overseas by Rough Draft Korea, in Seoul.


title: I Am Weasel

text: From season two onward, the show's story, recurring characters and art style underwent significant changes. I.R. Baboon went on to become gradually more friendly to Weasel and less seen as antagonist, as that role was taken over by the Red Guy. Supporting characters from seasons one to three, such as Loulabelle and Admiral Bullets, became less and less seen, completely being absent in seasons four and five. Many characters from "Cow and Chicken" were added as supporting or recurring characters. That was explained by Feiss: "There was a lot of pressure to complete "Cow and Chicken" quickly, and I felt that I couldn't dedicate enough time to the second show. But Cartoon Network wanted to spin off "Weasel", so we did. I don't really remember asking if I could or could not cross populate the two shows--I just did it because it felt like the same universe, plus I thought it was funny to have the Red Guy in "I Am Weasel"".


title: I Am Weasel

text: The story started to show more of Weasel's shortcomings and at times allowed him to lapse into a wise fool, suffering similar gags as I.R., as opposed of the invincible folk hero role he played on season one. I.R. Baboon started to become more like a hero than a villain, also taking that role from Weasel in some episodes of season five, leading to the finale. The show never truly dropped its premise of Weasel serving to contrast Baboon's stupidity and failures (the very thing that allowed Baboon to usurp him in the final episode as the key piece of the entertainment) and that Weasel retained more than enough intelligence and morality to serve as his defining characteristics, among the cast.


title: I Am Weasel

text: The exact same art style of "Cow and Chicken" is used starting from season two. Season one is a bit different, including the title cards for episodes, which feature animation and Weasel saying the name of the episode with additional commentary and/or events, contrasting with the style also used for "Cow and Chicken", with static image.


title: I Am Weasel

text: Humor relies on slapstick comedy and moderate off-color humor, as typical of many 1990s cartoons, and is based on the existent gap between the central characters, with I.R. Baboon being the center of most running jokes, which are mostly about his stupidity and big red butt, though some episodes show I.M. Weasel or the Red Guy also taking this role. Butt jokes are also more frequent when the Red Guy is around and parodies of popular culture and other shows and crossovers also take place in some episodes. Despite all the comedic style, important and meaningful messages about friendship, social differences and general lessons for life are given to children through stories or when I.M. Weasel directly talks to the audience.


title: I Am Weasel

text: Season one shows Weasel as a "perfect" character, not leaving a single shortcoming, and Baboon as exact opposite to this, but that gradually changes throughout the series, with Weasel later starting to show some misbehavior and inefficiency, mostly because he notices people around him are getting dumber, and thus I.R. even being dimwitted gets a hero status. From season two onward, the Red Guy incorporates the style of humor found in "Cow and Chicken", taking the role of villain, but also appearing as a third wheel. In season five, Jolly Roger also starts to fill both roles.


title: I Am Weasel

text: Episodes usually reference the show name and I.M. Weasel with titles in first person, and a great number of them also make fun of I.R. Baboon's misspelling, with grammatically incorrect names such as "I Big Star", "I Good Salesmans" and "I Artiste".


title: I Am Weasel

text: The fourth wall is often broken, mostly at the end of episodes. The characters do it to make some ending commentaries, give advice to spectators or just call for the end of the episode.


title: I Am Weasel

text: The title sequence features I.M. Weasel constantly saying his catchphrase "I am Weasel!" and I.R. Baboon doing his trademarked victory dance. The series ending credits were only created in 1999, with the separation; it credits all involved in the three years of production and the theme song is played instrumentally in a pop rock style, with additional arrangement.


title: I Am Weasel

text: The theme song was composed by Bill Fulton, written by Richard Pursel, and sung by April March. It is a humorous take on the well-known version of "Pop Goes the Weasel".


title: I Am Weasel

text: Michael Dorn provided voice for I.M. Weasel and Charlie Adler did both voices of I.R. Baboon and the Red Guy. Loulabelle was voiced by Susanne Blakeslee in season two and Teresa Ganzel in season three, Jolly Roger by Dee Bradley Baker, and Admiral Bullets by Jess Harnell in season one and Michael Gough in season two. Feiss originally considered James Earl Jones for the role of I.M. Weasel since he was the announcer of Cartoon Network's sister channel CNN, but Dorn was recommended to him by his friend and "Johnny Bravo" creator Van Partible.


title: I Am Weasel

text: Additional characters were voiced by the before-mentioned along Candi Milo, Howard Morris, Dan Castellaneta, Frank Welker, Dom DeLuise, Carlos Alazraqui, Tom Kenny, among others.


title: I Am Weasel

text: A sneak peek for the series was aired on July 15, 1997 with the eleventh episode, "Law of Gravity", and then it started its original run from July 22, 1997 with the second episode, "I.R. on Sun", all yet as a series of segments on "Cow and Chicken". After four seasons, it was separated and premiered as a half-hour show on June 10, 1999, and the 52 episodes originally aired on "Cow and Chicken" began to air on the show's own time slot, being either in or outside the "Cartoon Cartoon Fridays" programming block, and getting joined by 27 new episodes, totaling 79. The original run ended in early 2000.


title: I Am Weasel

text: Reruns aired prominently from early 2000 to 2002, including on "Cartoon Cartoon Fridays". From September 2005 to June 2006, it returned sporadically as segments on "The Cartoon Cartoon Show", along with other Cartoon Cartoons from that era. On April 13, 2012, the series returned on "Cartoon Planet" before being removed in 2013. It was also aired on Boomerang, but only with seasons 1 to 4 along the "Cow and Chicken" segments, and on Cartoon Network Too in the United Kingdom. Some episodes were also made available on Cartoon Network Video in the early 2010s. From June 25, 2017, season one was made available on Netflix in Australia, along "Cow and Chicken".


title: I Am Weasel

text: In Brazil, an animated miniseries named "Terra à Vista" (""Land in Sight"") was produced in 2000 for Cartoon Network, and tells the story of the Portuguese arriving at Brazil with a humorous take, using characters from Cartoon Cartoons, including I.M. Weasel, I.R. Baboon and the Red Guy. It was broadcast on Cartoon Network Brazil from March 6 to April 22, 2000 and has 8 episodes. This series was also the first-ever Cartoon Network production exclusively made for Brazil.


title: I Am Weasel

text: The series consists of five seasons and 79 episodes. The first four seasons contain the segments that originally aired during broadcasts of "Cow and Chicken", while the fifth contains a further 27 episodes produced independently of that show. They were all eventually mend up into the whole "I Am Weasel" series, although they still air sometimes within "Cow and Chicken" timeslots.


title: I Am Weasel

text: There was a small case of censorship in the episode "I.R. Mommy", in which the letter "N", present on an American football helmet used by I.R. Baboon (a reference to the Nebraska Cornhuskers), had to be digitally removed in 1999 after Cartoon Network was sued by the University of Nebraska, who alleged the reference was derogatory for their institution. No other episode suffered censorship so far.


title: I Am Weasel

text: It became one of the most successful Cartoon Network original series of its time, usually being remembered along other major Cartoon Cartoons and recording high ratings for the network in both incarnations of season one and seasons two to five.


title: I Am Weasel

text: The premiere of season five on June 10, 1999 reached 1.8 million viewers in households, acquiring 4.4 with kids 2-11 and 4.6 with kids 6-11. It was also the fifth most watched show on Cartoon Network in 2000, with an average rating of 1.8 million viewers, only and not far behind "The Powerpuff Girls" (1.9), "Tom and Jerry" (2.0), "Courage the Cowardly Dog" (2.1) and "Dexter's Laboratory" (2.3).


title: I Am Weasel

text: Back in 1997 and 1998, "I Am Weasel" along "Cow and Chicken", "Johnny Bravo" and "Dexter's Laboratory", were responsible for increasing Cartoon Network's average ratings.


title: I Am Weasel

text: Both VHS and DVD releases have been produced for the series. Although no official media containing complete seasons has been released in the United States as of 2022, a "Cartoon Cartoons" VHS from 1998 dedicated to the show contains the episodes "My Friend, the Smart Banana", "I.R. Pixie Fairie" and "I.R. in Wrong Cartoon", and a "Cartoon Cartoon Fridays" VHS in 1999 includes episodes alongside other series. Cartoon Network has released special Halloween and Christmas holiday DVDs in 2004 and 2005, distributed by Warner Home Video, containing one or two episodes. In the United Kingdom, a compilation DVD of Cartoon Network shows containing one episode of the series was released.


title: I Am Weasel

text: In Thailand, volumes have been released on DVD since 2009 by MVD Company; a single-disc volume titled "Season One" with a runtime of 99 minutes was released on December 23, 2009. In Australia and New Zealand, a two-disc "Collection 1" DVD was launched in 2011, distributed by Madman Entertainment. This release includes all episodes from the episode's single standalone season.


title: I Am Weasel

text: The show also has two audio tracks featured in Cartoon Medley, a compilation album made by Kid Rhino for Cartoon Network, containing tracks from many animated series from the network and others. It was released on July 6, 1999, in CD and cassette releases, and contains the show's audio tracks "I Am Weasel", which is the theme song, and "I.M. Weasel's Poem", an oral text spoken by I.M. Weasel.


title: I Am Weasel

text: From 1999 to 2005, "I Am Weasel" had stories featured on three collective comic series published by DC Comics: "Cartoon Network Starring" (1999–2000), "Cartoon Cartoons" (2001–2004; having lead stories on issues #5 and #19) and "Cartoon Network Block Party!" (2004–2009). It was presented along stories from many Cartoon Network original series, such as "Dexter's Laboratory", "Johnny Bravo", "Cow and Chicken", "Ed, Edd n Eddy", "Courage the Cowardly Dog", "The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy", "Sheep in the Big City", among others. The characters also appeared in the crossover comic series "The Powerpuff Girls: Super Smash-Up!".


title: I Am Weasel

text: An "I Am Weasel"-themed checkers set was part of a promotion made by Cartoon Network in the late 1990s/early 2000s.


title: I Am Weasel

text: On the kart racing video game, "Cartoon Network Racing", available for PlayStation 2 and Nintendo DS, I.M. Weasel is a playable character, while I.R. Baboon and the Red Guy must be unlocked to play with, but the first is available in the DS version only. Also, only in the PS2 version, the episodes "Enemy Camp" and "My Friend, the Smart Banana" are available as extras which can be unlocked by winning the "UR Challenged Cup" and "I.M. Weasel Super Tournament" modes, respectively.


title: I Am Weasel

text: In the MMO game, "", there was an item named "I.R. Baboon shorts", which were player-wearable shorts based upon I.R. Baboon's buttocks.


title: Gel

text: A gel is a semi-solid that can have properties ranging from soft and weak to hard and tough. Gels are defined as a substantially dilute cross-linked system, which exhibits no flow when in the steady-state, although the liquid phase may still diffuse through this system. A gel has been defined phenomenologically as a soft, solid or solid-like material consisting of two or more components, one of which is a liquid, present in substantial quantity.


title: Gel

text: By weight, gels are mostly liquid, yet they behave like solids because of a three-dimensional cross-linked network within the liquid. It is the crosslinking within the fluid that gives a gel its structure (hardness) and contributes to the adhesive stick (tack). In this way, gels are a dispersion of molecules of a liquid within a solid medium. The word "gel" was coined by 19th-century Scottish chemist Thomas Graham by clipping from "gelatine".


title: Gel

text: Gels consist of a solid three-dimensional network that spans the volume of a liquid medium and ensnares it through surface tension effects. This internal network structure may result from physical bonds (physical gels) or chemical bonds (chemical gels), as well as crystallites or other junctions that remain intact within the extending fluid. Virtually any fluid can be used as an extender including water (hydrogels), oil, and air (aerogel). Both by weight and volume, gels are mostly fluid in composition and thus exhibit densities similar to those of their constituent liquids. Edible jelly is a common example of a hydrogel and has approximately the density of water.


title: Gel

text: Polyionic polymers are polymers with an ionic functional group. The ionic charges prevent the formation of tightly coiled polymer chains. This allows them to contribute more to viscosity in their stretched state, because the stretched-out polymer takes up more space. This is also the reason gel hardens. See polyelectrolyte for more information.


title: Gel

text: A colloidal gel consists of a percolated network of particles in a fluid medium, providing mechanical properties. The particles can show attractive interactions through osmotic depletion or through polymeric links. Colloidal gels have three phases in their lifespan: gelation, aging and collapse. The gel is initially formed by the assembly of particles into a space-spanning network, leading to a phase arrest. In the aging phase, the particles slowly rearrange to form thicker strands, increasing the elasticity of the material. Gels can also be collapsed and separated by external fields such as gravity. Colloidal gels show linear response rheology at low amplitudes. These materials have been explored as candidates for a drug release matrix.


title: Gel

text: A hydrogel is a network of polymer chains that are hydrophilic, sometimes found as a colloidal gel in which water is the dispersion medium. A three-dimensional solid results from the hydrophilic polymer chains being held together by cross-links. Because of the inherent cross-links, the structural integrity of the hydrogel network does not dissolve from the high concentration of water. Hydrogels are highly absorbent (they can contain over 90% water) natural or synthetic polymeric networks.


title: Gel

text: Hydrogels also possess a degree of flexibility very similar to natural tissue, due to their significant water content. As responsive "smart materials," hydrogels can encapsulate chemical systems which upon stimulation by external factors such as a change of pH may cause specific compounds such as glucose to be liberated to the environment, in most cases by a gel-sol transition to the liquid state. Chemomechanical polymers are mostly also hydrogels, which upon stimulation change their volume and can serve as actuators or sensors. The first appearance of the term 'hydrogel' in the literature was in 1894.


title: Gel

text: An organogel is a non-crystalline, non-glassy thermoreversible (thermoplastic) solid material composed of a liquid organic phase entrapped in a three-dimensionally cross-linked network. The liquid can be, for example, an organic solvent, mineral oil, or vegetable oil. The solubility and particle dimensions of the structurant are important characteristics for the elastic properties and firmness of the organogel. Often, these systems are based on self-assembly of the structurant molecules. (An example of formation of an undesired thermoreversible network is the occurrence of wax crystallization in petroleum.)


title: Gel

text: Organogels have potential for use in a number of applications, such as in pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, art conservation, and food.


title: Gel

text: A xerogel is a solid formed from a gel by drying with unhindered shrinkage. Xerogels usually retain high porosity (15–50%) and enormous surface area (150–900 m/g), along with very small pore size (1–10 nm). When solvent removal occurs under supercritical conditions, the network does not shrink and a highly porous, low-density material known as an "aerogel" is produced. Heat treatment of a xerogel at elevated temperature produces viscous sintering (shrinkage of the xerogel due to a small amount of viscous flow) which results in a denser and more robust solid, the density and porosity achieved depend on the sintering conditions.