title: Myanmar kyat

text: On 1 October 2009, Ks. 5,000/- banknotes were issued measuring 150 x 70 mm. Along the top front is written Central Bank of Myanmar in Burmese, and in the centre is a white elephant. On the back is a picture of Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (Assembly of the Union) legislature buildings, the Central Bank of Myanmar with "FIVE THOUSAND KYATS 5000" written in English. This new denomination is five times larger than the previous largest denomination. Public response has been mixed, with some welcoming a higher value note reducing the number of banknotes which need to be carried. Other responses have suggested a widespread fear that this will simply fuel the current rate of inflation, which was supported by a jump in the black market exchange rates following the public announcement of this change. The Central Bank of Myanmar introduced new Ks. 5,000/- banknotes on 1 October 2014 to prevent counterfeiting, it reported on 18 September. The revised notes are varnished and have enhancements made to the printing, watermarks, and security thread and is the same size, colour and design as the 2009 issue, which continues to be used.


title: Myanmar kyat

text: The new notes will last longer and be cleaner, the central bank said. The announcement followed recent media reports that counterfeit Ks. 5,000/- and Ks. 10,000/- banknotes were circulating widely. Police seized eight counterfeit Ks. 10,000/- notes and a printer allegedly used to make them on 12 September in Yangon's Tamwe Township.


title: Myanmar kyat

text: On 9 June 2012, the Central Bank announced that Ks. 10,000/- notes would be introduced into circulation to better facilitate financial transactions in a largely cash-oriented economy. They were issued on 15 June 2012.


title: Myanmar kyat

text: In 2019, the Central Bank of Myanmar issued a new series of banknotes that feature a portrait of its national hero Aung San after being absent 30 years after the Central Bank of Myanmar issued its current series of banknotes that featured images of the Chinthe and elephants. The first denomination issued for this new series was the Ks. 1,000/- banknote, which was issued into circulation on 4 January 2020, followed by the Ks. 500/- banknote on 19 July 2020.


title: Myanmar kyat

text: Ever since the Third Kyat was introduced, the Myanmar currency has no indication of the date in which the note came into circulation nor the signature of the issuing authority.


title: Myanmar kyat

text: In 1993, Myanmar began issuing foreign exchange certificates (FEC) denominated in US dollars in denominations of $1, $5, $10, and $20. These were exchanged on a parity ratio with and were valued separately from the regular kyat. Conversion of foreign currency into kyats was made illegal as exchange rates were set artificially high. During much of this period, two valuations of the Myanmar kyat emerged; The official rate which averaged around Ks. 6/- = US$1, and the black market rate which averaged tens of times higher. Foreign visitors to Myanmar could only transact currency in FEC's or could only obtain kyats at the artificially high official rates. Illegal peddlers often had to be sought out to exchange currency.


title: Myanmar kyat

text: On 1 April 2012, the Government of Myanmar began allowing for a managed float of the kyat and legalised the use and exchange of foreign currencies in Myanmar to better reflect the global exchange rates, attract investment, and to weaken the black markets. On 20 March 2013, the government announced the discontinuation and gradual withdrawal of FEC's.


title: Myanmar kyat

text: Following the removal of General Aung San's portraits from the banknotes of the Myanmar kyat in 1987, there have been calls by both the public and opposition politicians to reinstate them, as well as criticizing the use of animals on banknotes in circulation. Writer Nyi Maung notes that foreign countries use portraits of their national leaders and heroes on their banknotes, such as Thailand, and encourages the reinstatement of General Aung San's portrait on the kyat to remember his legacy. In October 2017, a proposal was submitted by National League for Democracy MP Aung Khin Win to debate the issue in the Pyithu Hluttaw.


title: Myanmar kyat

text: While the Central Bank of Myanmar argues that the cost of reprinting new notes bearing the General's portrait would be monumental considering Myanmar's current economic situation, Aung Khin Win stated that new notes would only be reprinted to replace damaged notes or in the release of new denominations or size of kyat banknotes.


title: Myanmar kyat

text: The debate on this issue took place in the Pyithu Hluttaw on 17 November 2017. The proposal was wholly rejected by the military bloc, but it was passed with 286 votes for, and 109 against.


title: Myanmar kyat

text: On 21 December 2019, the Central Bank of Myanmar announced that in conjunction with the 72nd anniversary of Myanmar's independence, it would begin circulating Ks. 1,000/- notes bearing the portrait of General Aung San. The bank notes were released to the public on 4 January 2020, marking the return of the national icon's image to the country's currency for the first time in thirty years.


title: Myanmar kyat

text: On 18 June 2020, the Central Bank of Myanmar announced that it would begin circulating Ks. 500/- notes bearing the portrait of General Aung San on 19 July 2020, in conjunction with the 73rd anniversary of Martyr's Day.


title: Myanmar kyat

text: Both the Ks. 500/- and Ks. 1,000/- banknotes bearing Aung San's portrait, are in concurrent circulation with the existing chinthe portrait bank notes, which will continue to remain in legal tender.


title: Travis Lane Stork

text: Travis Lane Stork (born March 9, 1972) is an American television personality, emergency physician, and author best known for appearing on "The Bachelor" and as the host of the syndicated daytime talk show "The Doctors" from 2008 to 2020.


title: Travis Lane Stork

text: Stork graduated "magna cum laude" as a member of Phi Beta Kappa Society from Duke University, and earned his medical degree with honors from the University of Virginia, where he was a member of Alpha Omega Alpha. He thereafter began an emergency medicine residency at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee.


title: Travis Lane Stork

text: During his residency, Stork appeared on Season 8 of "The Bachelor". During the season finale of the show, Stork chose schoolteacher Sarah Stone, who coincidentally lived only a few blocks away from his Nashville residence. However, only one week after the show's pre-taped finale aired, the couple announced that their relationship was already over. He completed his residency, then practiced medicine in the emergency departments at Vanderbilt and a hospital in Colorado.


title: Travis Lane Stork

text: Stork was a host on "The Doctors", a Los Angeles-based daytime medical/talk show, beginning with its debut in September 2008 and continuing until September 2020 when the show switched to a single-host format. On the show, Stork led a panel of three other physicians from different fields (pediatrics, plastic surgery and obstetrics/gynecology) who discussed health issues and answered audience questions. The idea came from a series of segments that were featured on "Dr. Phil", to which Stork was also a frequent contributor.


title: Travis Lane Stork

text: A 2014 study in the "British Medical Journal" determined that "evidence supported 63%, contradicted 14%, and was not found for 24%" of recommendations made by the panel of doctors, and that "the public should be skeptical about recommendations made on medical talk shows."


title: Travis Lane Stork

text: In October 2013, Stork joined telehealth company MDLIVE as chairman of its Medical Advisory Board. As of March 2015, he was no longer affiliated with the company.


title: Travis Lane Stork

text: Stork has published several books for the general public about health, which includes "The Lean Belly Prescription" and "The Doctor's Diet", and both had made the New York Times Best Seller list in the "Advice, How-to & Miscellaneous" category.


title: Travis Lane Stork

text: Stork grew up in Missouri and attended Parkway West High School in Ballwin, Missouri. In an interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, he said that his parents were Midwestern farmers and that he was the first doctor in his family. He married pediatrician Charlotte Brown on 30 June 2012. They divorced on 25 March 2015. He then married his girlfriend of three years, Parris Bell, on 3 August 2019. On 17 June 2020, Stork and Bell welcomed their first child together, a son.


title: Guy Picciotto

text: Guy Charles Picciotto ( ) (born September 17, 1965) is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, musician, and producer from Washington, DC.


title: Guy Picciotto

text: Picciotto's career as a guitarist and vocalist began in 1984, with the group Rites of Spring. A part of the D.C. post-hardcore scene, Rites of Spring increased the frenetic violence and visceral passion of hardcore while simultaneously experimenting with its compositional rules. Picciotto, as the band's lyricist, as well as singer and guitarist, shifted hardcore into intensely personal realms and, in doing so, is generally credited with creating emo.


title: Guy Picciotto

text: Picciotto's early musical resume includes the bands Insurrection (1982) where he only played guitar, One Last Wish (1986), Happy Go Licky (1987–1988), Brief Weeds (EPs released circa 1991–1992), and The Black Light Panthers (ongoing sporadic project since 1982), the last two bands both being projects with Brendan Canty. He created a record label called Peterbilt Records, which released limited-quantity vinyl record albums for the bands Rain, Happy Go Licky, and Deadline, then years later was involved in releasing the album "1986" by One Last Wish, along with Dischord Records.


title: Guy Picciotto

text: Though not in the original lineup of Fugazi, Picciotto joined very early in the group's career, singing with them by their second show and appearing on all the band's studio recordings.


title: Guy Picciotto

text: From the "Repeater" album on, he took up second guitar duties, playing characteristically trebly Rickenbacker guitars. After seven albums and several tours, Fugazi went on "indefinite hiatus" in 2003.


title: Guy Picciotto

text: Picciotto has collaborated and performed with Mats Gustafsson, Vic Chesnutt, and members of the Ex among others. He has produced numerous albums including the Gossip's breakthrough record "Standing in the Way of Control" as well as Blonde Redhead's "Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons" (2000) and "Misery Is a Butterfly" (2004), The Blood Brothers final album, "Young Machetes," and Downtown Boys' "Cost of Living" (2017) as well as two records for The Casual Dots, their self-titled debut album and the follow-up Sanguine Truth 2022. Additionally, Picciotto has produced four albums by the duo Xylouris White: "Goats" (2014), "Black Peak" (2016), "Mother" (2018), and "The Sisypheans" (2019)


title: Guy Picciotto

text: Picciotto played on the Vic Chesnutt albums "North Star Deserter" (2007) and "At the Cut" (2009), and accompanied him on tours of Europe and North America. He co-produced the films "Chain" and "Museum Hours" with Jem Cohen (who made the Fugazi film "Instrument").


title: Guy Picciotto

text: In 2012, Picciotto was interviewed on stage at the Pop Montreal festival by Howard Bilerman about his experiences in the music industry. On January 24, 2020, Guy appeared on an episode of Live From the Barrage for a wide-ranging discussion that was his first long form interview in quite some time.


title: Guy Picciotto

text: Picciotto was born to an American mother and an Italian father. He holds a BA degree in English from Georgetown University and is a graduate of the Washington, D.C. private school, the Georgetown Day School.


title: Guy Picciotto

text: Picciotto married musician Kathi Wilcox from the band Bikini Kill and the Frumpies; as of September 2020 the two were living in Brooklyn with their teenage son.


title: Copenhagen criteria

text: The Copenhagen criteria are the rules that define whether a country is eligible to join the European Union. The criteria require that a state has the institutions to preserve democratic governance and human rights, has a functioning market economy, and accepts the obligations and intent of the European Union.


title: Copenhagen criteria

text: These membership criteria were laid down at the June 1993 European Council in Copenhagen, Denmark, from which they take their name. Excerpt from the Copenhagen Presidency conclusions:


title: Copenhagen criteria

text: Most of these elements have been clarified over the last decade by legislation and other decisions of the European Council, the European Commission and the European Parliament, as well as by the case law of the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights. However, there are sometimes conflicting interpretations in current member states, especially regarding what is meant by "the rule of law".


title: Copenhagen criteria

text: During the negotiations with each candidate country, progress towards meeting the Copenhagen criteria is regularly monitored. On the basis of this, decisions are made as to whether and when a particular country should join, or what actions need to be taken before joining is possible.


title: Copenhagen criteria

text: When agreed in 1993, there was no mechanism for ensuring that any country which was already an EU member state was in compliance with these criteria. However, arrangements have now been put in place to police compliance with these criteria, following the "sanctions" imposed against the Austrian government of Wolfgang Schüssel in early 2000 by the other 14 Member States' governments. These arrangements came into effect on 1 February 2003 under the provisions of the Treaty of Nice.


title: Copenhagen criteria

text: Article 49 (formerly Article O) of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) or Maastricht Treaty states that any European country that respects the principles of the EU may apply to join. Countries' classification as European is "subject to political assessment" by the Commission and more importantly—the European Council.


title: Copenhagen criteria

text: In 1987, Morocco applied to join the European Communities (the precursor to the European Union). The application was rejected on the grounds that Morocco was not considered to be a "European country" and hence could not join.


title: Copenhagen criteria

text: Although non-European states are not considered eligible to be members, they may enjoy varying degrees of integration with the EU, set out by international agreements. The general capacity of the community and the member states to conclude association agreements with third countries is being developed. Moreover, specific frameworks for integration with third countries are emerging—including most prominently the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). This notably replaces the Barcelona process which previously provided the framework for the EU's relations with its Mediterranean neighbours in North Africa and Western Asia.


title: Copenhagen criteria

text: The ENP should not be confused with the Stabilisation and Association Process in the Western Balkans or the European Economic Area. Russia does not fall within the scope of the ENP, but is subject to a separate framework. The European Neighbourhood Policy can be interpreted as the drawing up of the Union's borders for the foreseeable future. Another way the EU is integrating with neighbouring countries is through the Union for the Mediterranean, made up of EU countries and others bordering the Mediterranean sea.


title: Copenhagen criteria

text: Functional democratic governance requires that all citizens of the country should be able to participate, on an equal basis, in the political decision making at every single governing level, from local municipalities up to the highest, national, level. This also requires free elections with a secret ballot, the right to establish political parties without any hindrance from the state, fair and equal access to a free press, free trade union organisations, freedom of personal opinion, and executive powers restricted by laws and allowing free access to judges independent of the executive.


title: Copenhagen criteria

text: The rule of law implies that government authority may only be exercised in accordance with documented laws, which were adopted through an established procedure. The principle is intended to be a safeguard against arbitrary rulings in individual cases.


title: Copenhagen criteria

text: Human rights are those rights which every person holds because of their quality as a human being; human rights are inalienable and belonging to all humans. If a right is inalienable, that means it cannot be bestowed, granted, limited, bartered away, or sold away (e.g. one cannot sell oneself into slavery). These include the right to life, the right to be prosecuted only according to the laws that are in existence at the time of the offence, the right to be free from slavery, and the right to be free from torture.


title: Copenhagen criteria

text: The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights is considered the most authoritative formulation of human rights, although it lacks the more effective enforcement mechanism of the European Convention on Human Rights. The requirement to fall in line with this formulation forced several nations that recently joined the EU to implement major changes in their legislation, public services and judiciary. Many of the changes involved the treatment of ethnic and religious minorities, or removal of disparities of treatment between different political factions.


title: Copenhagen criteria

text: Members of such national minorities should be able to maintain their distinctive culture and practices, including their language (as far as not contrary to the human rights of other people, nor to democratic procedures and rule of law), without suffering any discrimination. A Council of Europe convention, the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (treaty No. 157) reflected this principle. But the Convention did not include a clear definition of what constituted a national minority. As a result, some signatory states added official declarations on the matter:


title: Copenhagen criteria

text: A consensus was reached (among other legal experts, the so-called groups of Venice) that this convention refers to any ethnic, linguistic or religious people that defines itself as a distinctive group, that forms the historic population or a significant historic and current minority in a well-defined area, and that maintains stable and friendly relations with the state in which it lives. Some experts and countries wanted to go further. Nevertheless, recent minorities, such as immigrant populations, have nowhere been listed by signatory countries as minorities concerned by this convention.


title: Copenhagen criteria

text: The economic criteria, broadly speaking, require that candidate countries have a functioning market economy and that their producers have the capability to cope with competitive pressure and market forces within the Union. The Euro convergence criteria and


title: Copenhagen criteria

text: European Exchange Rate Mechanism have been used to prepare countries for joining the Eurozone, both founding and later members.


title: Copenhagen criteria

text: Finally, and technically outside the Copenhagen criteria, comes the further requirement that all prospective members must enact legislation to bring their laws into line with the body of European law built up over the history of the Union, known as the "acquis communautaire". In preparing for each admission, the acquis is divided into separate chapters, each dealing with different policy areas. For the process of the fifth enlargement that concluded with the admission of Bulgaria and Romania in 2007, there were 31 chapters. For the talks with Croatia, Turkey and Iceland the acquis has been split further into 35 chapters.


title: Kimberlin Brown

text: Kimberlin Ann Brown Pelzer (born June 29, 1961) is an American television actress, best known for her role as Sheila Carter in the CBS daytime soap operas "The Young and the Restless" and "The Bold and the Beautiful" from 1990.


title: Kimberlin Brown

text: Brown began her career as a model, jetting to Paris, Tokyo and Milan. Later she returned to Los Angeles and made her television debut in an episode of ABC series "Fantasy Island". Brown later appeared in films "Back to School" (1986), "Eye of the Tiger" (1986), "Who's That Girl" (1987) and "18 Again!" (1988), and well as made her soap opera debut in "Capitol" in 1987. Later she played Candace Durrell/Danielle Steele in "Santa Barbara".


title: Kimberlin Brown

text: In 1990, Brown began starring in the CBS soap opera "The Young and the Restless" (after originally auditioning for the role of Cassandra Rawlins) and moved to "The Bold and the Beautiful" in 1992 playing Sheila on both soaps. While she left "The Bold and the Beautiful" in 1998, she continues to make special guest appearances. In 1993 and 1995, she won Soap Opera Digest Award for Outstanding Villainess in a Drama Series – Daytime and in 1993 received Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series nomination.


title: Kimberlin Brown

text: Brown portrayed Rachel Locke, mother of Livvie Locke (Kelly Monaco) on the ABC soap opera "Port Charles" from 1999 to 2001. In late 2004, Brown debuted in the recurring role of Dr. Paige Miller on the ABC soap opera "One Life to Live". She exited the soap in 2005 when the soap could not match the salary "The Young and the Restless" was offering in order for her to stay. She was replaced by Cady Huffman and Alexandra Neil. In 2005, Brown returned to the role of Sheila on "The Young and the Restless" after a long absence from the show. In early 2006, she was released from her contract on "The Young and the Restless", though her character was still mentioned, from time to time. When her character returned to "The Young and the Restless" later that year, however, she was not played by Brown.


title: Kimberlin Brown

text: Brown had been asked to return to "The Young and the Restless" early in 2010 for a storyline that was subsequently dropped. She took on a short-term role as a judge on "All My Children" in October 2010. In 2011, Brown appeared in Gregori J. Martin's web-series "The Bay". She portrays Dr. Grace Drum, a psychiatrist. Brown first appeared in a summer special "Far From The Bay", and continued on in the series' second season.


title: Kimberlin Brown

text: Brown and her husband, Gary Pelzer, are small-business owners; they own and run an avocado farm in California.


title: Kimberlin Brown

text: Brown is a Republican. In 2016, Brown was a speaker at the 2016 Republican National Convention on the night Donald Trump was officially nominated as the party's candidate for President of the United States. After her speech, Brown got extremely emotional to Fox Business Network over what her vocal support for Donald Trump and his policies might do to her career and the treatment she had received since it was announced she would be a speaker at the convention.


title: Kimberlin Brown

text: In October 2017, Brown formally announced her candidacy as a Republican for California's 36th congressional district, challenging Democrat Raul Ruiz in the November 2018 election. She lost the election, receiving 40.98% of the vote to Ruiz's 59.2%.


title: Kimberlin Brown

text: Brown was born in Hayward, California, and raised in San Diego. She has been married to Gary Pelzer since May 1991. They have two children, Alexes Marie and Nicholas.


title: Tullimonstrum

text: Tullimonstrum, colloquially known as the Tully monster or sometimes Tully's monster, is an extinct genus of soft-bodied bilaterian animal that lived in shallow tropical coastal waters of muddy estuaries during the Pennsylvanian geological period, about 300 million years ago. A single species, T. gregarium, is known. Examples of "Tullimonstrum" have been found only in the Essex biota, a smaller section of the Mazon Creek fossil beds of Illinois, United States. Its classification has been the subject of controversy, and interpretations of the fossil have likened it to molluscs, arthropods, conodonts, worms, tunicates, and vertebrates. This creature had a mostly cigar shaped body, with a triangular tail fin, two long stalked eyes, and a proboscis tipped with a mouth-like appendage. Based on the fossils, it seems this creature was a nektonic carnivore that hunted in the ocean’s water column. When "Tullimonstrum" was alive, Illinois was a mixture of ecosystems like muddy estuaries, marine environments, and rivers and lakes. Fossils of other organisms like crustacean "Belotelson", the cnidarian "Essexella", and the elasmobranch fish "Bandringa" have been found alongside "Tullimonstrum."


title: Tullimonstrum

text: "Tullimonstrum" had a pair of vertical, ventral fins (though the fidelity of preservation of fossils of its soft body makes this difficult to determine) situated at the tail end of its body, and typically featured a long proboscis with up to eight small sharp teeth on each "jaw", with which it may have actively probed for small creatures and edible detritus in the muddy bottom. It was part of the ecological community represented in the unusually rich group of soft-bodied organisms found among the assemblage called the Mazon Creek fossils from their site in Grundy County, Illinois.


title: Tullimonstrum

text: The absence of a hard part in the fossil implies that the animal did not possess organs composed of bone, chitin or calcium carbonate. There is evidence of serially repeated internal structures. Its head is poorly differentiated. A transverse bar-shaped structure, which was either dorsal or ventral, terminates in two round organs which are associated with dark material which have been identified as melanosomes (containing the pigment melanin). Their form and structure is suggestive of a camera-type eye. "Tullimonstrum" possessed structures which have been interpreted as gills, and a possible notochord or rudimentary spinal cord.


title: Tullimonstrum

text: Amateur collector Francis Tully found the first of these fossils in 1955 in a fossil bed known as the Mazon Creek formation. He took the strange creature to the Field Museum of Natural History, but paleontologists were stumped as to which phylum "Tullimonstrum" belonged. The species "Tullimonstrum gregarium" ("Tully's common monster"), as these fossils later were named, takes its genus name from Tully, whereas the species name, "gregarium", means "common", and reflects its abundance. The term "monstrum" ("monster") relates to the creature's outlandish appearance and strange body plan.


title: Tullimonstrum

text: The fossil remains "a puzzle", and interpretations liken it to a worm, a mollusc, an arthropod, a conodont, or a vertebrate. Since it appears to lack characteristics of the well-known modern phyla, some speculate that it was representative of a stem group to one of the many phyla of worms that are poorly represented today. Similarities with Cambrian fossil organisms were noted. Chen "et al". suggested similarities to "Nectocaris pteryx". Others pointed to a general resemblance between "Tullimonstrum" and "Opabinia regalis", although Cave "et al". note that they were too morphologically dissimilar to be related.


title: Tullimonstrum

text: The classification of "Tullimonstrum" has been an ongoing debate since the creature was first described. With many scientists presenting evidence of a vertebrate affinity, and others of an invertebrate affinity.


title: Tullimonstrum

text: In 2016 a morphological study showed that "Tullimonstrum" may have been a basal vertebrate, and thus a member of the phylum Chordata, with one study suggesting "Tullimonstrum" may be closely related to modern lampreys. This affinity was attributed based on pronounced cartilaginous vertebral structures known as arcualia, a dorsal fin and asymmetric caudal fin, keratinous teeth, a single nostril, and tectal cartilages like in lampreys. McCoy "et al". raised the possibility that "Tullimonstrum" belongs to the ancestral group of lamprey, but it also has many features not found in Cyclostomes (lampreys and hagfishes).


title: Tullimonstrum

text: A second study found further evidence that "Tullimonstrum" was a stem vertebrate: a camera-like eye, with preserved lenses and the presence of cylindrical and spheroid melanosomes in the eye arranged in distinct layering. These ocular pigments and their unique structure was interpreted to be a retinal pigmented epithelium (RPE), indicating for the first time that the bar organs were indeed eyes. Furthermore, Clements, "et al". chemically confirmed the presence of fossil melanin as opposed to ommochromes or pterins (ocular pigments used by many invertebrate groups). Although the ocular pigments of many invertebrate groups have been poorly investigated, there is strong evidence that the dual melanosome morphology and presence of an RPE is a uniquely vertebrate trait.


title: Tullimonstrum

text: In 2020, McCoy, Wiemann and colleagues used Raman spectroscopy to identify the molecular bonds present in the organic material preserved with "Tullimonstrum". Based on samples from multiple points in the body, they identified the organic material as representing the decay products of chordate tissues as opposed to the polysaccharide-based chitin (as is seen in arthropods), offering independent and rather unambiguous evidence for the interpretation that "Tullimonstrum" is a chordate or vertebrate. In 2022, Wiemann and colleagues replicated these spectral signals in collaboration with independent laboratories using Fourier-Transform Infrared spectroscopy. Comparable tissue signatures have been detected in preserved carbonaceous remains of a diversity of other animals.


title: Tullimonstrum

text: In 2017 Sallan "et al". rejected the identification of the Tully monster as a vertebrate. Firstly, they noted that even the presence of the two melanosome types is variable among vertebrates; hagfish lack them altogether, and extant sharks as well as extinct forms found in the Mazon Creek area, such as "Bandringa", only have spheroid melanosomes. Additionally, the supposed notochord extends in front of the level of the eyes, which is not the case in any other vertebrate, although is seen in lancelets. Even if the structure was a notochord, the presence of notochords is not limited to vertebrates either.


title: Tullimonstrum

text: Further criticism was drawn towards the identification of the blocks of the body variously as gill pouches and muscle blocks (myomeres), despite the lack of differentiation in the structure of these blocks. In vertebrates, myomeres are also thinner, and extend along the whole length of the body rather than stopping short of the head. Meanwhile, the gill pouches of lampreys are paired extensions rather than segmented structures, and are usually embedded in a complex gill skeleton, neither of which is the case in "Tullimonstrum".


title: Tullimonstrum

text: Other identifications of soft-tissue structures were considered as being equally problematic. The supposed brain has no associated nervous tissue and is not connected to the eyes, and the purported liver was located under the gills as opposed to being further back as in other vertebrates. The "mouth" at the front of the proboscis was described as possessing gnathostome-like distinct tooth rows, despite lampreys having "tooth fields" on the interior of the mouth. This would necessitate the convergent re-evolution of grasping jaws.


title: Tullimonstrum

text: An additional difficulty is that the thin and jointed proboscis is inconsistent with the feeding methods typically used for open-water vertebrates: Either ram or suction feeding. The gill pouches would have obstructed the flow of water even further.


title: Tullimonstrum

text: Sallan "et al". note that stalked eyes, tail fins, and brains are also present in anomalocaridids, and that "Opabinia" also has a similar proboscis. Previously arthropod affinities were rejected under the presumption that other Mazon Creek arthropods are preserved in three-dimensions, with carbonization of the exoskeleton, but the arthropods are not actually preserved in that manner.


title: Tullimonstrum

text: Although arthropods do not have the melanosomes of vertebrates, some do have convergently evolved spheroid eye cells that may appear similar as fossils; however, their pigments (ommochromes and pterins) have unique chemical signatures which were not found in "Tullimonstrum" eye remains. Sallen, "et al". suggested that molluscs convergently evolved complex camera-like eyes containing melanosomes, but failed to note that no molluscs are known that have or had melanosomes in two distinct forms. Further similarities (such as the lobed brain, muscle bands, tail fin, proboscis, and "teeth") could support possible molluscan affinities.


title: Tullimonstrum

text: Even if the eye of "Tullimonstrum" is homologous with vertebrates, it could be a tunicate (the larvae of which have pigmented eyes and tail fins), a lancelet or an acorn worm (both of which have gill openings and axial support structures), or a vetulicolian.


title: Tullimonstrum

text: "Tullimonstrum" was probably a free-swimming carnivore that dwelt in open marine water, and was occasionally washed to the near-shore setting in which it was preserved. Meaning it swam freely in the water and not clamped to a hard surface or benthic environment.


title: Tullimonstrum

text: The formation of the Mazon Creek fossils is unusual. When the creatures died, they were rapidly buried in silty outwash. The bacteria that began to decompose the plant and animal remains in the mud produced carbon dioxide in the sediments around the remains. The carbonate combined with iron from the groundwater around the remains, forming encrusting nodules of siderite. The organism was entombed, retarding decay and allowing an impression or carbonaceous remains of the organism to be preserved. The first insights into the mechanisms of carbonaceous preservation in the Mazon Creek are provided as part of a large fossil data set, however, the details are still subject of ongoing research.


title: Tullimonstrum

text: The combination of rapid burial and rapid formation of siderite resulted in excellent preservation of the many animals and plants that were entombed in the mud. As a result, the Mazon Creek fossils are one of the world's major "Lagerstätten", or concentrated fossil assemblages. The rapid burial and compression often caused "Tullimonstrum" carcasses to fold and bend like other Mazon Creek animals.


title: Tullimonstrum

text: The proboscis is rarely preserved in its entirety; it is complete in around 3% of specimens. However, some part of the organ is preserved in about 50% of cases.


title: Tullimonstrum

text: Many unique fossils have been found alongside "Tullimonstrum" like the jellyfish "Essexella", the malacostracan "Belotelson", the eurypterid "Adelophthalmus mazonensis", horseshoe crabs, the elasmobranch fish "Bandringa", and the coleoid cephalopod "Jeletzkya."


title: Tullimonstrum

text: A 1966–1968 prank promulgated by paleontologist Bryan Patterson suggested that modern representatives could possibly be found in remote lakes of Kenya, known under the local name "Ekurut Loedonkakini". These "dancing worms of Turkana" could supposedly kill a man with a bite, produced some sort of milk, and were known even to school-age children.


title: Tullimonstrum

text: Patterson had several letters sent from Kenya under various aliases to Eugene Richardson, the Field Museum's curator of fossil invertebrates. Patterson had previously been the museum's curator of vertebrate paleontology and retained an accomplice there who was aware of the prank (and prevented it from going too far). A planned expedition was cancelled after the hoax was disclosed in a good-natured Christmas letter.


title: Tullimonstrum

text: Richardson later recounted the story and published the original letters, poems, and doctored photos in a book under the pseudonym E. Scumas Rory.


title: Tullimonstrum

text: In 1989, "Tullimonstrum gregarium" was officially designated the state fossil of Illinois. Artwork of it is featured on U-Haul rental vehicles from the state.


title: Calusa

text: The Calusa ( ) were a Native American people of Florida's southwest coast. Calusa society developed from that of archaic peoples of the Everglades region. Previous indigenous cultures had lived in the area for thousands of years.


title: Calusa

text: At the time of European contact in the 16th and 17th centuries, the historic Calusa were the people of the Caloosahatchee culture. They developed a complex culture based on estuarine fisheries rather than agriculture. Calusa territory reached from Charlotte Harbor to Cape Sable, all of present-day Charlotte, Lee, and Collier counties, and may have included the Florida Keys at times. They had the highest population density of South Florida; estimates of total population at the time of European contact range from 10,000 to several times that, but these are speculative.


title: Calusa

text: Calusa political influence and control also extended over other tribes in southern Florida, including the Mayaimi around Lake Okeechobee, and the Tequesta and Jaega on the southeast coast of the peninsula. Calusa influence may have also extended to the Ais tribe on the central east coast of Florida.


title: Calusa

text: Early Spanish and French sources referred to the tribe, its chief town, and its chief as "Calos", "Calus", "Caalus", and "Carlos". Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda, a Spaniard held captive by the Calusa in the 16th century, recorded that "Calusa" meant "fierce people" in their language. By the early 19th century, Anglo-Americans in the area used the term "Calusa" for the people. It is based on the Creek and Mikasuki (languages of the present-day Seminole and Miccosukee nations) ethnonym for the people who had lived around the Caloosahatchee River (also from the Creek language).


title: Calusa

text: Juan Rogel, a Jesuit missionary to the Calusa in the late 1560s, noted the chief's name as Carlos, but wrote that the name of the kingdom was Escampaba, with an alternate spelling of "Escampaha". Rogel also stated that the chief's name was "Caalus," and that the Spanish had changed it to "Carlos." Marquardt quotes a statement from the 1570s that "the Bay of Carlos ... in the Indian language is called Escampaba, for the cacique of this town, who afterward called himself Carlos in devotion to the Emperor" (Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor). "Escampaba" may be related to a place named "Stapaba," which was identified in the area on an early 16th-century map.


title: Calusa

text: Paleo-Indians entered what is now Florida at least 12,000 years ago. By around 5000 BC, people started living in villages near wetlands. Favored sites were likely occupied for multiple generations. Florida's climate had reached current conditions and the sea had risen close to its present level by about 3000 BC. People commonly occupied both fresh and saltwater wetlands. Because of their reliance on shellfish, they accumulated large shell middens during this period. Many people lived in large villages with purpose-built earthwork mounds, such as those at Horr's Island. People began creating fired pottery in Florida by 2000 BC.


title: Calusa

text: By about 500 BC, the Archaic culture, which had been fairly uniform across Florida, began to devolve into more distinct regional cultures. Some Archaic artifacts have been found in the region later occupied by the Calusa, including one site classified as early Archaic, and dated prior to 5000 BC. There is evidence that the people intensively exploited Charlotte Harbor aquatic resources before 3500 BC. Undecorated pottery belonging to the early Glades culture appeared in the region around 500 BC. Pottery distinct from the Glades tradition developed in the region around AD 500, marking the beginning of the Caloosahatchee culture. This lasted until about 1750, and included the historic Calusa people. By 880, a complex society had developed with high population densities. Later periods in the Caloosahatchee culture are defined in the archaeological record by the appearance of pottery from other traditions.


title: Calusa

text: The Caloosahatchee culture inhabited the Florida west coast from Estero Bay to Charlotte Harbor and inland about halfway to Lake Okeechobee, approximately covering what are now Charlotte and Lee counties. At the time of first European contact, the Caloosahatchee culture region formed the core of the Calusa domain. Artifacts related to fishing changed slowly over this period, with no obvious breaks in tradition that might indicate a replacement of the population.


title: Calusa

text: Between 500 and 1000, the undecorated, sand-tempered pottery that had been common in the area was replaced by "Belle Glade Plain" pottery. This was made with clay containing spicules from freshwater sponges ("Spongilla"), and it first appeared inland in sites around Lake Okeechobee. This change may have resulted from the people's migration from the interior to the coastal region, or may reflect trade and cultural influences. There was little change in the pottery tradition after this. The Calusa were descended from people who had lived in the area for at least 1,000 years prior to European contact, and possibly for much longer than that.


title: Calusa

text: The Calusa had a stratified society, consisting of "commoners" and "nobles" in Spanish terms. While there is no evidence that the Calusa had institutionalized slavery, studies show they would use captives for work or even sacrifice. A few leaders governed the tribe. They were supported by the labor of the majority of the Calusa. The leaders included the paramount chief, or "king"; a military leader ("capitán general" in Spanish); and a chief priest. The capital of the Calusa, and where the rulers administered from, was Mound Key, near present day Estero, Florida. There is an eyewitness account from 1566 of a "king's house" on Mound Key that was large enough for "2,000 people to stand inside." In 1564, according to a Spanish source, the priest was the chief's father, and the military leader was his cousin. The Spanish documented four cases of known succession to the position of paramount chief, recording most names in Spanish form. Senquene succeeded his brother (name unknown), and was in turn succeeded by his son Carlos. Carlos was succeeded by his cousin (and brother-in-law) Felipe, who was in turn succeeded by another cousin of Carlos, Pedro. The Spanish reported that the chief was expected to take his sister as one of his wives. The contemporary archeologists MacMahon and Marquardt suggest this statement may have been a misunderstanding of a requirement to marry a "clan-sister". The chief also married women from subject towns and allied tribes. This use of marriages to secure alliances was demonstrated when Carlos offered his sister Antonia in marriage to the Spanish explorer Pedro Menéndez de Avilés in 1566.


title: Calusa

text: The Calusa diet at settlements along the coast and estuaries consisted primarily of fish, in particular pinfish ("Lagodon rhomboides"), pigfish (redmouth grunt), ("Orthopristis chrysoptera") and hardhead catfish ("Ariopsis felis"). These small fish were supplemented by larger bony fish, sharks and rays, mollusks, crustaceans, ducks, sea turtles and land turtles, and land animals. When Pedro Menéndez de Avilés visited in 1566, the Calusa served only fish and oysters to the Spanish. An analysis of faunal remains at one coastal habitation site, the Wightman site (on Sanibel Island), showed that more than 93 percent of the energy from animals in the diet came from fish and shellfish, less than 6 percent of the energy came from mammals, and less than 1 percent came from birds and reptiles. By contrast, at an inland site, Platt Island, mammals (primarily deer) accounted for more than 60 percent of the energy from animal meat, while fish provided just under 20 percent.


title: Calusa

text: Some authors have argued that the Calusa cultivated maize and "Zamia integrifolia" (coontie) for food. But Widmer argues that the evidence for maize cultivation by the Calusa depends on the proposition that the Narváez and de Soto expeditions landed in Charlotte Harbor rather than Tampa Bay, which is now generally discounted. No "Zamia" pollen has been found at any site associated with the Calusas, nor does "Zamia" grow in the wetlands that made up most of the Calusa environment. Marquardt notes that the Calusa turned down the offer of agricultural tools from the Spanish, saying that they had no need for them. The Calusa gathered a variety of wild berries, fruits, nuts, roots and other plant parts. Widmer cites George Murdock's estimate that only some 20 percent of the Calusa diet consisted of wild plants that they gathered. However, no evidence of plant food was found at the Wightman site. However, archeological digs on Sanibel Island and Useppa Island have revealed evidence that the Calusa did in fact consume wild plants such as cabbage palm, prickly pear, hog plum, acorns, wild papaya, and chili peppers. There is also evidence that as early as 2,000 years ago, the Calusa cultivated a gourd of the species "Cucurbita pepo" and the bottle gourd, which were used for net floats and dippers.


title: Calusa

text: The Calusa caught most of their fish with nets. Nets were woven with a standard mesh size; nets with different mesh sizes were used seasonally to catch the most abundant and useful fish available. The Calusa made bone and shell gauges that they used in net weaving. Cultivated gourds were used as net floats, and sinkers and net weights were made from mollusk shells. The Calusa also used spears, hooks, and throat gorges to catch fish. Well-preserved nets, net floats, and hooks were found at Key Marco, in the territory of the neighboring Muspa tribe.


title: Calusa

text: Mollusk shells and wood were used to make hammering and pounding tools. Mollusk shells and shark teeth were used for grating, cutting, carving and engraving. The Calusa wove nets from palm-fiber cord. Cord was also made from cabbage palm leaves, saw palmetto trunks, Spanish moss, false sisal ("Agave decipiens") and the bark of cypress and willow trees. The Calusa also made fish traps, weirs, and fish corrals from wood and cord. Artifacts of wood that have been found include bowls, ear ornaments, masks, plaques, "ornamental standards", and a finely carved deer head. The plaques and other objects were often painted. To date no one has found a Calusa dugout canoe, but it is speculated that such vessels would have been constructed from cypress or pine, as used by other Florida tribes. The process of shaping the boat was achieved by burning the middle and subsequently chopping and removing the charred center, using robust shell tools. In 1954 a dugout canoe was found during excavation for a middle school in Marathon, Florida. It was not conserved and is in poor shape, but it is displayed at the nature center in Marathon. It has been speculatively identified as Calusa in origin.


title: Calusa

text: The Calusa lived in large, communal houses which were two stories high. When Pedro Menéndez de Avilés visited the capital in 1566, he described the chief's house as large enough to hold 2,000 without crowding, indicating it also served as the council house. When the chief formally received Menéndez in his house, the chief sat on a raised seat surrounded by 500 of his principal men, while his sister-wife sat on another raised seat surrounded by 500 women. The chief's house was described as having two big windows, suggesting that it had walls. Five friars who stayed in the chief's house in 1697 complained that the roof let in the rain, sun and dew. The chief's house, and possibly the other houses at Calos, were built on top of earthen mounds. In a report from 1697, the Spanish noted 16 houses in the Calusa capital of "Calos," which had 1,000 residents.


title: Calusa

text: The Calusa wore little clothing. The men wore deerskin breechcloths. The Spanish left less description on what the Calusa women wore. Among most tribes in Florida for which there is documentation, the women wore skirts made of what was later called Spanish moss. The Calusa painted their bodies on a regular basis, but there was no report of tattooing among them. The men wore their hair long. The missionaries recognized that having a Calusa man cut his hair upon converting to Christianity (and European style) would be a great sacrifice. Little was recorded of jewelry or other ornamentation among the Calusa. During Menéndez de Avilés's visit in 1566, the chief's wife was described as wearing pearls, precious stones and gold beads around her neck. The heir of the chief wore gold in an ornament on his forehead and beads on his legs.


title: Calusa

text: Ceremonial or otherwise artistic masks have been discovered and were previously described by the Spanish who first encountered the Calusa. Some of these masks had moving parts that used pull strings and hinges so that a person could alter the look of a mask while wearing it.


title: Calusa

text: The Calusa believed that three supernatural people ruled the world, that people had three souls, and that souls migrated to animals after death. The most powerful ruler governed the physical world, the second most powerful ruled human governments, and the last helped in wars, choosing which side would win. The Calusa believed that the three souls were the pupil of a person's eye, his shadow, and his reflection. The soul in the eye's pupil stayed with the body after death, and the Calusa would consult with that soul at the graveside. The other two souls left the body after death and entered into an animal. If a Calusa killed such an animal, the soul would migrate to a lesser animal and eventually be reduced to nothing.


title: Calusa

text: Calusa ceremonies included processions of priests and singing women. The priests wore carved masks, which were at other times hung on the walls inside a temple. Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda, an early chronicler of the Calusa, described "sorcerers in the shape of the devil, with some horns on their heads," who ran through the town yelling like animals for four months at a time.


title: Calusa

text: The Calusa remained committed to their belief system despite Spanish attempts to convert them to Catholicism. The "nobles" resisted conversion in part because their power and position were intimately tied to the belief system; they were intermediaries between the gods and the people. Conversion would have destroyed the source of their authority and legitimacy. The Calusa resisted physical encroachment and spiritual conversion by the Spanish and their missionaries for almost 200 years. After suffering decimation by disease, the tribe was destroyed by Creek and Yamasee raiders early in the 18th century.


title: Calusa

text: Little is known of the language of the Calusa. A dozen words for which translations were recorded and 50 or 60 place names form the entire known corpus of the language. Circumstantial evidence, primarily from Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda, suggests that all of the peoples of southern Florida and the Tampa Bay area, including the Tequesta, Mayaimi, and Tocobaga, as well as the Calusa, spoke dialects of a common language. This language was distinct from the languages of the Apalachee, Timucua, Mayaca, and Ais people in central and northern Florida. Julian Granberry has suggested that the Calusa language was related to the Tunica language of the lower Mississippi River Valley.


title: Calusa

text: The first recorded contact between the Calusa and Europeans was in 1513, when Juan Ponce de León landed on the west coast of Florida in May, probably at the mouth of the Caloosahatchee River, after his earlier discovery of Florida in April. The Calusa knew of the Spanish before this landing, however, as they had taken in Native American refugees from the Spanish subjugation of Cuba. The Spanish careened one of their ships, and Calusas offered to trade with them. After ten days a man who spoke Spanish approached Ponce de León's ships with a request to wait for the arrival of the Calusa chief. Soon 20 war canoes attacked the Spanish, who drove off the Calusa, killing or capturing several of them. The next day 80 "shielded" canoes attacked the Spanish ships, but the battle was inconclusive. The Spanish departed and returned to Puerto Rico. In 1517 Francisco Hernández de Córdoba landed in southwest Florida on his return voyage from discovering the Yucatán. He was also attacked by the Calusa. In 1521 Ponce de León returned to southwest Florida to plant a colony, but the Calusa drove the Spanish out, mortally wounding Ponce de León.


title: Calusa

text: The Pánfilo de Narváez expedition of 1528 and the Hernando de Soto expedition of 1539 both landed in the vicinity of Tampa Bay, north of the Calusa domain. Dominican missionaries reached the Calusa domain in 1549 but withdrew because of the hostility of the tribe. Salvaged goods and survivors from wrecked Spanish ships reached the Calusa during the 1540s and 1550s. The best information about the Calusa comes from the "Memoir" of Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda, one of these survivors. Fontaneda was shipwrecked on the east coast of Florida, likely in the Florida Keys, about 1550, when he was thirteen years old. Although many others survived the shipwreck, only Fontaneda was spared by the tribe in whose territory they landed. Warriors killed all the adult men. Fontaneda lived with various tribes in southern Florida for the next seventeen years before being found by the Menendez de Avilés expedition.


title: Calusa

text: In 1566 Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, founder of St. Augustine, made contact with the Calusa. He struck an uneasy peace with their leader Caluus, or Carlos. Menéndez married Carlos' sister, who took the baptismal name Doña Antonia at conversion. Menéndez left a garrison of soldiers and a Jesuit mission, "San Antón de Carlos," at the Calusa capital. Hostilities erupted, and the Spanish soldiers killed Carlos, his successor Felipe, and several of the "nobles" before they abandoned their fort and mission in 1569.


title: Calusa

text: For more than a century after the Avilés adventure, there was little contact between the Spanish and Calusa. Re-entering the area in 1614, Spanish forces attacked the Calusa as part of a war between the Calusa and Spanish-allied tribes around Tampa Bay. A Spanish expedition to ransom some captives held by the Calusa in 1680 was forced to turn back; neighboring tribes refused to guide the Spanish, for fear of retaliation by the Calusa. In 1697 Franciscan missionaries established a mission to the Calusa but left after a few months.


title: Calusa

text: After the outbreak of war between Spain and England in 1702, slaving raids by Uchise Creek and Yamasee Indians allied with the Province of Carolina began reaching far down the Florida peninsula. The Carolinan colonists supplied firearms to the Creek and Yemasee, but the Calusa, who had isolated themselves from Europeans, had none. Ravaged by new infectious diseases introduced to the Americas by European contact and by the slaving raids, the surviving Calusa retreated south and east.


title: Calusa

text: In 1711, the Spanish helped evacuate 270 Indians, including many Calusa, from the Florida Keys to Cuba (where almost 200 soon died). They left 1,700 behind. The Spanish founded a mission on Biscayne Bay in 1743 to serve survivors from several tribes, including the Calusa, who had gathered there and in the Florida Keys. The mission was closed after only a few months.


title: Calusa

text: When Spain ceded Florida to the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1763, the Spanish removed the last remnants of the tribes of south Florida to Cuba. While a few Calusa individuals may have stayed behind and been absorbed into the Seminole, no documentation supports that. Cuban fishing camps ("ranchos") operated along the southwest Florida coast from the 18th century into the middle of the 19th century. Some of the "Spanish Indians" (often of mixed Spanish-Indian heritage) who worked at the fishing camps likely were descended from Calusa.


title: Powder Blue (film)

text: Powder Blue is a 2009 American drama film with an ensemble cast featuring several interconnected story arcs. It was written and directed by Timothy Linh Bui, and features Patrick Swayze's last film role before his death in September that same year. The film saw only limited theatrical release in the United States and was ultimately released principally on DVD in May 2009. The film was subsequently released in Kazakhstan and Russia and on US cable television premium movie channels in late 2009.


title: Powder Blue (film)

text: Several Los Angeles residents meet on Christmas Eve through chance, tragedy, loss and divine intervention.


title: Powder Blue (film)

text: Velvet Larry is the head of a corporate crime organization. He owns a sleazy strip club where Rose-Johnny, a single mother whose young son is in a coma, dances. Qwerty Doolittle is a young mortician who falls in love with her. Velvet Larry tries to convince Jack Doheny, his former employee, not to seek vengeance on his co-workers. Doheny later reveals to Rose-Johnny that he is her father. Charlie is a suicidal ex-priest. Lexus is a pre-op trans woman prostitute who shares an unexpected emotional bond with the priest.


title: Powder Blue (film)

text: According to "Variety" magazine, "the heartstring-pulling contrivances of the film, set during Christmastime, go way over the top... Biel often overacts even more than her role requires". The magazine calls director Bui's "trumpeting of the power of love in the city of lonely hearts ... both ear-splittingly loud and tone-deaf at the same time" with "Jonathan Sela's color palette of nightmarish reds and blues and blinding whites, simply enforc[ing] the pic's borderline hysteria".


title: Powder Blue (film)

text: Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 25% rating from eight critic reviews with an average rating of 3.7 out of 10."


title: John E. Mack

text: John Edward Mack (October 4, 1929 – September 27, 2004) was an American psychiatrist, writer, and professor and the head of the department of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. In 1977, Mack won the Pulitzer Prize for his book "A Prince of Our Disorder" on T.E. Lawrence.


title: John E. Mack

text: As the head of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, Mack's clinical expertise was in child psychology, adolescent psychology, and the psychology of religion. He was also known as a leading researcher on the psychology of teenage suicide and drug addiction, and he later became a researcher in the psychology of alien abduction experiences.


title: John E. Mack

text: Mack was born in New York City, to an academic, German Jewish family. His father, the historian Edward Clarence Mack (1904–1973), was a professor at CUNY, while his mother Eleanor Liebmann Mack (1905–1930) died while John was an infant. After his mother died, his father remarried the economist Ruth P. Mack, through which he had a half-sister, Mary Lee Ingbar, a pioneer of computer analysis who became a professor at Dartmouth College and University of Massachusetts Medical School. Growing up, his father would read the Bible to John and his sister, but as a work of culture or literature. Mack graduated from the Horace Mann-Lincoln School in 1947 and Phi Beta Kappa from Oberlin in 1951, and received his medical doctorate degree "cum laude" from Harvard Medical School in 1955. Mack subsequently interned at the Massachusetts General Hospital and trained as a psychiatrist at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center.


title: John E. Mack

text: In 1959, Mack joined the United States Air Force, serving as a medic in Japan, where he rose to the rank of captain. In 1961 he returned from military service in Japan, continuing at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center and Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute receiving certification in child and adult psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. From 1964 Mack returned to Harvard Medical School, becoming a full professor at Harvard in 1972. In 1977, he became the Head of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, which position he occupied until his death in 2004.


title: John E. Mack

text: Mack published over 150 scientific articles and eleven books in his career. As department head at Harvard Medical School, he worked primarily in the field of child and adolescent psychology. He worked on treating suicidal patients, and published research on heroin addiction. The dominant theme of his life's work at Harvard had been the exploration of how one's perceptions of the world affect one's relationships. He addressed this issue of "world view" on the individual level in his early clinical explorations of dreams, nightmares and teen suicide, and in "A Prince of Our Disorder", his biographical study of the life of British officer T. E. Lawrence, for which he received the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 1977.


title: John E. Mack

text: In the 1980s, Mack interviewed many international political figures as part of his research into the root causes of the Cold War, including former United States President Jimmy Carter and the "father of the hydrogen bomb", Edward Teller.


title: John E. Mack

text: Mack, together with astrophysicist Carl Sagan and other Physicians for Social Responsibility (the United States affiliate of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War) promoted the elimination of nuclear weapons and an end to the simmering conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. Emboldened by the organization's receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985, Mack, Sagan, and 700 other academics walked upon the grounds of the Nevada Test Site in the summer of 1986, setting a civil disobedience record for that nuclear weapons testing facility.


title: John E. Mack

text: In the early 1990s, Mack commenced a decade-plus psychological study of 200 men and women who reported recurrent alien encounter experiences. Such encounters had seen some limited attention from academic figures, R. Leo Sprinkle perhaps being the earliest, in the 1960s. Mack, however, remains probably the most esteemed academic to have studied the subject.


title: John E. Mack

text: He initially suspected that such persons were suffering from mental illness, but when no obvious pathologies were present in the persons he interviewed, his interest was piqued. Following encouragement from longtime friend Thomas Kuhn, who predicted that the subject might be controversial, but urged Mack to collect data and ignore prevailing materialist, dualist and "either/or" analysis, Mack began concerted study and interviews. Many of those he interviewed reported that their encounters had affected the way they regarded the world, including producing a heightened sense of spirituality and environmental concern.


title: John E. Mack

text: Mack was somewhat more guarded in his investigations and interpretations of the abduction phenomenon than were earlier researchers. Literature professor Terry Matheson writes that "On balance, Mack does present as fair-minded an account as has been encountered to date, at least as these abduction narratives go." In a 1994 interview, Jeffrey Mishlove stated that Mack seemed "inclined to take these [abduction] reports at face value". Mack replied by saying "Face value I wouldn't say. I take them seriously. I don't have a way to account for them." In a 1996 interview with PBS he stated <nowiki>"</nowiki> There are aspects of this which I believe we are justified in taking quite literally. That is, UFOs are in fact observed, filmed on camera at the same time that people are having their abduction experiences...It's both literally, physically happening to a degree; and it's also some kind of psychological, spiritual experience occurring and originating perhaps in another dimension.<nowiki>"</nowiki> The BBC quoted Mack as saying, "I would never say, yes, there are aliens taking people. [But] I would say there is a compelling powerful phenomenon here that I can't account for in any other way, that's mysterious. Yet I can't know what it is but it seems to me that it invites a deeper, further inquiry."


title: John E. Mack

text: Mack noted that there was a worldwide history of visionary experiences, especially in pre-industrial societies. One example is the vision quest common to some Native American cultures. Only fairly recently in Western culture, notes Mack, have such visionary events been interpreted as aberrations or as mental illness. Mack suggested that abduction accounts might best be considered as part of this larger tradition of visionary encounters.


title: John E. Mack

text: His interest in the spiritual or transformational aspects of people's alien encounters, and his suggestion that the experience of alien contact itself may be more transcendent than physical in natureyet nonetheless realset him apart from many of his contemporaries, such as Budd Hopkins, who advocated the physical reality of aliens.


title: John E. Mack

text: His later research broadened into the general consideration of the merits of an expanded notion of reality, one which allows for experiences that may not fit the Western materialist paradigm, yet deeply affect people's lives. His second (and final) book on the alien encounter experience, "Passport to the Cosmos: Human Transformation and Alien Encounters" (1999), was as much a philosophical treatise connecting the themes of spirituality and modern world-views as it was the culmination of his work with the "experiencers" of alien encounters, to whom the book is dedicated.


title: John E. Mack

text: In November 1994 Mack travelled to Ruwa, Zimbabwe to interview children at the Ariel School who claimed that they had seen a UFO land near their school and aliens exit the craft.


title: John E. Mack

text: In May 1994, the Dean of Harvard Medical School, Daniel C. Tosteson, appointed a committee of peers to confidentially review Mack's clinical care and clinical investigation of the people who had shared their alien encounters with him (some of their cases were written of in Mack's 1994 book "Abduction"). Angela Hind wrote, "It was the first time in Harvard's history that a tenured professor was subjected to such an investigation."


title: John E. Mack

text: The committee chairman was Arnold "Budd" Relman, M.D., a Professor of Medicine and of Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School who served as editor of "The New England Journal of Medicine". According to Daniel P. Sheehan, one of Mack's attorneys, the committee's draft report suggested that "To communicate, in any way whatsoever, to a person who has reported a ‘close encounter’ with an extraterrestrial life form that this experience might well have been real ... is professionally irresponsible.”


title: John E. Mack

text: Upon the public revelation of the existence of the committee (inadvertently revealed during the solicitation of witnesses for Mack's defense, ten months into the process), questions arose from the academic community (including Harvard Professor of Law Alan Dershowitz) regarding the validity of an investigation of a tenured professor who was not suspected of ethics violations or professional misconduct. Concluding the fourteen-month investigation, Harvard then issued a statement stating that the Dean had "reaffirmed Dr. Mack's academic freedom to study what he wishes and to state his opinions without impediment," concluding "Dr. Mack remains a member in good standing of the Harvard Faculty of Medicine." (Mack was censured in the committee's report for what they believed were methodological errors, but Dean Tosteson took no action based on the committee's assessment.) He had received legal help from Roderick MacLeish and Daniel Sheehan (of the Pentagon Papers case), and the support of Laurance Rockefeller, who also funded Mack's non-profit organization for four consecutive years at $250,000 per year.


title: John E. Mack

text: On Monday, September 27, 2004, while in London to lecture at a T. E. Lawrence Society-sponsored conference, Mack was killed by a drunken driver heading west on Totteridge Lane. He was walking home alone, after a dinner with friends, when he was struck at 11:25 p.m. near the junction of Totteridge Lane and Longland Drive. He lost consciousness at the scene of the accident and was pronounced dead shortly thereafter. The driver, Raymond Czechowski, an IT manager, was arrested at the scene, and later entered a plea of guilty by careless driving while under the influence of alcohol. Mack's family requested leniency for the driver in a letter to the Wood Green Crown Court. "Although this was a tragic event for our family," the letter reads, "we feel [the accused's] behavior was neither malicious nor intentional, and we have no ill will toward him since we learned of the circumstances of the collision." The driver, Ray Czechowski served 6 months and was disqualified from driving for 3 years.


title: John E. Mack

text: He also wrote the foreword to "Paths Beyond Ego: The Transpersonal Vision" (1993), the introductions to "The PK Man: A True Story of Mind Over Matter" (2000) by Jeffrey Mishlove and "Secret Life" (1992) by David M. Jacobs, and he contributed chapters to several books including "The Long Darkness: Psychological and Moral Perspectives on Nuclear Winter" (1986), "The Psychology of Terrorism Vol. 1: A Public Understanding" (2002), and "The Psychospiritual Clinician's Handbook" (2005).


title: Alexamenos graffito

text: The Alexamenos graffito (also known as the "graffito blasfemo", or blasphemous graffito) is a piece of Roman graffito scratched in plaster on the wall of a room near the Palatine Hill in Rome, Italy, which has now been removed and is in the Palatine Museum. It may be meant to depict Jesus; if so, it competes with an engraved gem held in the British Museum as the earliest known pictorial representation of the Crucifixion of Jesus. It is hard to date, but has been estimated to have been made at around the year 200. The image seems to show a young man worshipping a crucified, donkey-headed figure. The Greek inscription approximately translates to "Alexamenos worships [his] god," indicating that the graffito was apparently meant to mock a Christian named Alexamenos.


title: Alexamenos graffito

text: The image depicts a human-like figure affixed to a cross and possessing the head of a donkey or mule. In the top right of the image is what has been interpreted as either the Greek letter upsilon or a tau cross. To the left of the image is a young manapparently intended to represent Alexamenosas a Roman soldier or guard, raising one hand in a gesture possibly suggesting worship. The name Alexamenos (and its Latinate variant "Alexamenus") is also attested in the instances of Alexamenus of Teos, student of Socrates, and the general,


title: Alexamenos graffito

text: Alexamenus of Aetolia (2nd century BC), being composed of the common Greek compound elements of ("alexo", "I defend, help") and ("menos", "strength, bravery, power, etc."). Or, it may just be derived from Greek ἀλεξάμενος (alexamenos), which is the participle of the Greek verb ἀλέξω (alexo) meaning "to defend" as well as "to help" Beneath the cross is a caption written in crude , "ALE XAMENOS SEBETE THEON". "ϹΕΒΕΤΕ" can be understood as a variant spelling (possibly a phonetic misspelling) of Standard Greek "ϹΕΒΕΤΑΙ", which means "worships". The full inscription would then be read as Ᾰλεξᾰ́μενος σέβεται θεόν, "Alexamenos worships [his] God". Several other sources suggest "Alexamenos worshiping a god", or similar variants, as the intended translation. In the next chamber, another inscription in a different hand reads ("Alexamenos "), Latin for "Alexamenos is faithful" or "Alexamenos the faithful". This may be a retort by an unknown party to the mockery of Alexamenos represented in the graffito.


title: Alexamenos graffito

text: No clear consensus has been reached on when the image was made. Dates ranging from the late 1st to the late 3rd century have been suggested, with the beginning of the 3rd century thought to be the most likely.


title: Alexamenos graffito

text: The graffito was discovered in 1857 when a building called the "domus Gelotiana" was unearthed on the Palatine Hill. The emperor Caligula had acquired the house for the imperial palace, which, after Caligula died, became used as a "Paedagogium" (boarding school) for imperial page boys. Later, the street on which the house sat was walled off to give support to extensions to the buildings above, and it thus remained sealed for centuries.


title: Alexamenos graffito

text: The inscription is usually taken to be a mocking depiction of a Christian in the act of worship. At the time, pagans derided Christians for worshipping a man who had been crucified. The donkey's head and crucifixion would both have been considered insulting depictions by contemporary Roman society. Crucifixion continued to be used as an execution method for the worst criminals until its abolition by the emperor Constantine in the 4th century, and the impact of seeing a figure on a cross is comparable to the impact today of portraying a man with a hangman's noose around his neck or seated in an electric chair.


title: Alexamenos graffito

text: It seems to have been commonly believed at the time that Christians practiced "onolatry" (donkey-worship). That was based on the misconception that Jews worshipped a god in the form of a donkey, a claim made by Apion (30-20 BC – c. AD 45-48) and denied by Josephus in his aptly-titled work "Against Apion".


title: Alexamenos graffito

text: Origen reports in his treatise "Contra Celsum" that the pagan philosopher Celsus made the same claim against Christians and Jews.


title: Alexamenos graffito

text: Tertullian, writing in the late 2nd or early 3rd century, reports that Christians, along with Jews, were accused of worshipping such a deity. He also mentions an apostate Jew who carried around Carthage a caricature of a Christian with ass's ears and hooves, labeled "Deus Christianorum" ("The God of the Christians conceived of an ass.").


title: Alexamenos graffito

text: It has also been suggested that both the graffito and the roughly contemporary gems with Crucifixion images are related to heretical groups outside the Church.


title: Alexamenos graffito

text: In the image, Alexamenos is portrayed venerating an image of the crucifix, a detail that Peter Maser believed to represent actual Christian practice of veneration of icons. This practice, however, was not known to be a part of Christian worship until the 4th or 5th century.


title: Inherent Resolve Campaign Medal

text: The Inherent Resolve Campaign Medal is a United States Department of Defense service award and campaign medal. The medal was established by Executive Order on 30 March 2016 by U.S. President Barack Obama. The medal may be awarded to members of the U.S. Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard, for service in Iraq, Syria, or contiguous waters or airspace retroactively from 15 June 2014 to a date yet to be determined. Service members who were awarded the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal for service that is now covered by the Inherent Resolve Campaign Medal may make application to be awarded the Inherent Resolve Campaign Medal in lieu of the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal. No service member will be entitled to the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal and Inherent Resolve Campaign Medal for the same action, time period, or service.


title: Inherent Resolve Campaign Medal

text: According to the United States Army Institute of Heraldry's website, the medal's mailed fist and dagger represent "strength and courage in the defense of liberty and freedom". The scorpion being impaled was chosen because, "The scorpion, symbolic for treachery and destruction, is found on most major land masses."


title: Inherent Resolve Campaign Medal

text: The center of the ribbon is orange in color, surrounded by tan and blue, deriving its hues from the Ishtar Gate and the color of Southwestern Eurasian topography, which is primarily sand.


title: Inherent Resolve Campaign Medal

text: To qualify for the Inherent Resolve Campaign Medal, personnel must have been attached to a unit based in Syria, fly missions, and/or serve in contiguous waters for 30 days consecutive, or non-consecutive. Service members who were killed or were medically evacuated from those countries due to wounds or injuries immediately qualify for the award, as do members who engaged in combat. Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force personnel qualify for the Inherent Resolve Campaign Medal only after 30 qualifying days consecutive or non-consecutive.


title: Inherent Resolve Campaign Medal

text: Eligible personnel will be awarded one medal with campaign star upon meeting the initial criteria for the award. Service in subsequent campaign phases qualifies personnel for additional campaign stars.


title: Inherent Resolve Campaign Medal

text: The following are the approved campaign phases and respective inclusive dates for the Inherent Resolve Campaign Medal:


title: Roger Kibbe

text: Roger Reece Kibbe (May 21, 1939 – February 28, 2021) was an American serial killer and rapist known as the "I-5 Strangler".


title: Roger Kibbe

text: Kibbe found all but one of his victims on freeways around Sacramento, California. In 1991 he was sentenced to 25 years to life imprisonment for the death of Darcie Frackenpohl.


title: Roger Kibbe

text: Kibbe was arrested in 1988 for murdering Darcie Frackenpohl the previous year. He was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. In 2003, he accompanied prosecutors and detectives to a dry creek he remembered to try to find the body of Lou Ellen Burleigh, whom he had killed in 1977. In 2007 a detective searched the area again. In 2009, Kibbe again returned to the site with detectives. Burleigh's body was not found, and a grand jury was convened.


title: Roger Kibbe

text: After a plea bargain to avoid the death penalty, on November 5, 2009, Kibbe was sentenced to an additional six life sentences, this time for the deaths of the remaining.


title: Roger Kibbe

text: In 2011, a detective returned to the Burleigh dump site on his own and found a bone in the creek. DNA testing proved it to be Burleigh's. Burleigh had left her Walnut Creek, California, home in 1977 for a job interview, but never returned.


title: Roger Kibbe

text: Kibbe kidnapped his victims, tied them up with parachute rigging cord and silenced them with duct tape. He then proceeded to cut open their clothes in irregular shapes with scissors that had belonged to his mother. Sometimes he garroted his victims with the parachute cord with which he skydived. Then, he raped them and strangled them to death. Kibbe also cut off most of the hair of his victims to remove the duct tape before leaving the scene of the crime.


title: Roger Kibbe

text: An officer made the discovery; Jason Budrow (cellmate), 40, was present at the scene. Budrow, a self-avowed Satanist who was serving a life sentence for strangling a woman to death in 2010, claimed he had murdered Kibbe to avenge his victims. He has been charged with first degree murder with special circumstances for killing Kibbe, albeit prosecutors said they will not seek a death sentence against him.


title: Roger Kibbe

text: On March 3, the Amador County Sheriff's Office released the results of Kibbe's autopsy report, showing that he had died from manual strangulation.


title: Roger Kibbe

text: Kibbe's forensic evidence used in his conviction is reported on an episode of the series "Forensic Files," ""Knot for Everyone"" (aired: October 1998).


title: Roger Kibbe

text: Discovery channel tv show "The New Detectives" covered the murder of Darcie Frackenpohl in the episode titled "Scattered Clues" (aired on October 19, 1999)


title: Roger Kibbe

text: MSNBC released the documentary "Profiling Evil" where forensic psychiatrist Park Dietz interviews Kibbe in prison (aired: November 18, 2012). The interview was part of Kibbe's plea deal to avoid a death penalty.


title: Roger Kibbe

text: The series "On the Case with Paula Zahn" dedicated an episode on Kibbe's crimes titled ""Deadly Offer"". The episode aired on May 8, 2016. Series host Paula Zahn interviewed family members of the victims, detectives, criminalist, the prosecutor, and a forensic pathologist.


title: Roger Kibbe

text: Australian tv program "35 Serial Killers the World Wants to Forget" also look into the case of Kibbe by the perspective of lead detective Ray Biondi (aired on March 6, 2020)


title: Roger Kibbe

text: Oxygen Network aired "The Mark of a Killer: Pattern of Murder" about the Kibbe case on February 17, 2019.


title: Ducati 1199

text: The Ducati 1199 Panigale was a Ducati sport bike introduced at the 2011 Milan Motorcycle Show. The motorcycle is named after the small manufacturing town of Borgo Panigale. Ducati had announced a larger displacement 1299 Panigale for the 2015 model year.


title: Ducati 1199

text: At the time of its release Ducati claimed that the 1199 Panigale was the world's most powerful production twin-cylinder engine motorcycle, with at 10,750 rpm, and torque at 9000 rpm on an engine test stand. With a claimed dry weight of and a curb weight of . Ducati said the 1199 had the highest power-to-weight and torque-to-weight ratios of production motorcycles.


title: Ducati 1199

text: "Motorcycle Consumer News" tested the 2012 Panigale S at and torque at the rear wheel, with a wet weight . They measured a time of 2.98 seconds, a time of 9.91 seconds at , and a top speed to . Braking performance was in and average fuel economy was . "Motorcycle Consumer News" ranked the 2012 Panigale S with the best rear wheel horsepower to wet weight ratio, 1:2.47, of any bike the magazine had ever tested, as well as the 5th highest rear wheel horsepower, and the 10th highest top speed.


title: Ducati 1199

text: The new "Superquadro" engine is exceptionally oversquare, with a bore:stroke ratio of 1.84:1. Whereas previous Ducatis had belt-driven overhead cams, this engine's valvetrain uses gears and chain. The engine serves as a stressed member, making the Panigale smaller and lighter than a conventionally framed motorcycle.


title: Ducati 1199

text: The 1199 is also one of the first production sports motorcycles to feature electronically adjustable suspension. Rebound and compression damping is adjusted electronically while pre-load is still adjusted manually.


title: Ducati 1199

text: The 1199's exhaust system and mufflers are underneath the engine, and not beneath the seat as on previous models, such as the 1198 and 1098.


title: Ducati 1199

text: In 2012, Ducati added the Panigale R World Superbike homologation model for the 2013 model year. It has lightened engine internals, including titanium connecting rods, and carbon fiber external parts, raising power to and with the track only exhaust and reducing weight to .


title: Ducati 1199

text: The top speed of the Panigale R was estimated by "Road & Track" to be with the track only Termignoni exhaust system it ships with, which they apparently derived from the speed at which the bike hits the rev limiter, assuming nominal gearing and wheel size.


title: Ducati 1199

text: In 2013, Ducati again released a variant of their top of the range sportbike - this time the 1199 Panigale S Senna - dedicated to Formula 1 World Champion, Ayrton Senna. The predecessor was based on the 916 released in 1994; in both instances, net proceeds were donated to the Instituto Ayrton Senna charity.


title: Ducati 1199

text: In 2014, Ducati launched the 1199 Superleggera (). The philosophy behind this motorcycle was the largest reduction of weight possible, achieved through the use of exotic materials such as magnesium (particularly the monocoque frame), carbon and titanium. This resulted in a dry weight of , and a wet weight of . Only 500 were produced.


title: Ducati 1199

text: In the September 2012 Le Mans 24-Hours Motorcycle Endurance Race, a Team Scuderia Zone Rouge Ducati 1199 Panigale won the Open category, finishing 32nd overall. The riders were Stéphane Pagani, Phillipe Teissier and Hervé Royer.


title: Ducati 1199

text: Ducati finished second in the 2015 Superbike World Championship season, with Chaz Davies having 5 wins and finished second in the 2017 championship. Leandro Mercado won the riders title during the 2014 FIM Superstock 1000 Cup season. Ducati later took the manufacture title in 2016 and the rider title in 2017 with rider Michael Ruben Rinaldi.


title: Ducati 1199

text: Ducati won the British Superbike Championship in 2016 and 2017 with rider Shane "Shakey" Byrne, who rode for the factory supported PBM Be Wiser Ducati Team.


title: Ducati 1199

text: In road racing, Glen Irwin took his Panigale R to victory in 2017 at the North West 200 using the PBM Be Wiser Ducati.


title: Technocracy movement

text: The technocracy movement was a social movement active in the United States and Canada in the 1930s which favored technocracy as a system of government over representative democracy and concomitant partisan politics. Historians associate the movement with engineer Howard Scott's Technical Alliance and Technocracy Incorporated, prior to the internal factionalism that dissolved the latter organization during the Second World War. Technocracy was ultimately overshadowed by other proposals for dealing with the crisis of the Great Depression. The technocracy movement proposed replacing partisan politicians and business people with scientists and engineers who had the technical expertise to manage the economy. But the movement did not fully aspire to scientocracy.


title: Technocracy movement

text: The movement was committed to abstaining from all partisan politics and communist revolution. It gained strength in the 1930s but in 1940, due to opposition to the Second World War, was banned in Canada. The ban was lifted in 1943 when it was apparent that 'Technocracy Inc. was committed to the war effort, proposing a program of total conscription.' The movement continued to expand during the remainder of the war and new sections were formed in Ontario and the Maritime Provinces.


title: Technocracy movement

text: The Technocracy movement survives into the present day and , was continuing to publish a newsletter, maintain a website, and hold member meetings. Smaller groups included the Technical Alliance, The New Machine and the Utopian Society of America.


title: Technocracy movement

text: Technocracy advocates contended that price system-based forms of government and economy are structurally incapable of effective action, and promoted a society headed by technical experts, which they argued would be more rational and productive.


title: Technocracy movement

text: The coming of the Great Depression ushered in radically different ideas of social engineering, culminating in reforms introduced by the New Deal. By late 1932, various groups across the United States were calling themselves "technocrats" and proposing reforms.


title: Technocracy movement

text: By the mid-1930s, interest in the technocracy movement was declining. Some historians have attributed the decline of the technocracy movement to the rise of Roosevelt's New Deal. Historian William E. Akin rejects the conclusion that Technocracy ideas declined because of the attractiveness of Roosevelt and the New Deal. Instead Akin argues that the movement declined in the mid-1930s as a result of the technocrats' failure to devise a 'viable political theory for achieving change' (p. 111 "Technocracy and the American Dream: The Technocrat Movement, 1900–1941" by William E. Akin). Akin postulates that many technocrats remained vocal and dissatisfied and often sympathetic to anti-New Deal third party efforts.


title: Technocracy movement

text: One of the most widely circulated images in Technocracy Inc.’s promotional materials, for instance, used the example of a streetcar to argue that design solutions will always succeed where legislation or fines fail. If passengers insist on riding on the car’s dangerous outer platform, leaders need only design cars without platforms. Problem solved.<ref name="washingtonpost/outlook/2018/Wythoff"></ref>


title: Technocracy movement

text: The technocratic movement has its origins with the progressive engineers of the early twentieth century and the writings of Edward Bellamy, along with some of the later works of Thorstein Veblen such as "Engineers And The Price System" written in 1921. William H. Smyth, a California engineer, invented the word "technocracy" in 1919 to describe "the rule of the people made effective through the agency of their servants, the scientists and engineers", and in the 1920s it was used to describe the works of Thorstein Veblen.


title: Technocracy movement

text: Early technocratic organisations formed after the First World War. These included Henry Gantt’s "The New Machine" and Veblen’s "Soviet of Technicians". These organisations folded after a short time. Writers such as Henry Gantt, Thorstein Veblen, and Howard Scott suggested that businesspeople were incapable of reforming their industries in the public interest and that control of industry should thus be given to engineers.


title: Technocracy movement

text: Howard Scott has been called the "founder of the technocracy movement" and he started the Technical Alliance in New York near the end of 1919. Members of the Alliance were mostly scientists and engineers. The Technical Alliance started an "Energy Survey of North America", which aimed to provide a scientific background from which ideas about a new social structure could be developed. However the group broke up in 1921 before the survey was completed.


title: Technocracy movement

text: In 1932, Scott and others interested in the problems of technological growth and economic change began meeting in New York City. Their ideas gained national attention and the "Committee on Technocracy" was formed at Columbia University, by Howard Scott and Walter Rautenstrauch. However, the group was short-lived and in January 1933 splintered into two other groups, the "Continental Committee on Technocracy" (led by Harold Loeb) and "Technocracy Incorporated" (led by Scott). Smaller groups included the Technical Alliance, The New Machine and the Utopian Society of America, though Bellamy had the most success due to his nationalistic stances, and Veblen's rhetoric, removing the current pricing system and his blueprint for a national directorate to reorganize all produced goods and supply, and ultimately to radically increase all industrial output.


title: Technocracy movement

text: At the core of Scott's vision was "an energy theory of value". Since the basic measure common to the production of all goods and services was energy, he reasoned "that the sole scientific foundation for the monetary system was also energy", and that by using an energy metric instead of a monetary metric (energy certificates or 'energy accounting') a more efficient design of society could be made. Technocracy Inc. officials wore a uniform, consisting of a "well-tailored double-breasted suit, gray shirt, and blue necktie, with a monad insignia on the lapel", and its members saluted Scott in public.


title: Technocracy movement

text: Technocracy's heyday lasted only from June 16, 1932, when the "New York Times" became the first influential press organ to report its activities, until January 13, 1933, when Scott, attempting to silence his critics, delivered what some critics called a confusing, and uninspiring address on a well-publicized nationwide radio hookup.


title: Technocracy movement

text: Following Scott's radio address (Hotel Pierre Address), the condemnation of both him and technocracy in general reached a peak. The press and businesspeople reacted with ridicule and almost unanimous hostility. The American Engineering Council charged the technocrats with "unprofessional activity, questionable data, and drawing unwarranted conclusions".


title: Technocracy movement

text: The technocrats made a believable case for a kind of technological utopia, but their asking price was too high. The idea of political democracy still represented a stronger ideal than technological elitism. In the end, critics believed that the socially desirable goals that technology made possible could be achieved without the sacrifice of existing institutions and values and without incurring the apocalypse that technocracy predicted.


title: Technocracy movement

text: The faction-ridden Continental Committee on Technocracy collapsed in October 1936. However, Technocracy Incorporated continued.


title: Technocracy movement

text: On the 8th of October 1940 the arrests have been made by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The charges were for being a member of an illegal organisation Technocracy Incorporated. One of the arrested was Joshua Norman Haldeman, an amateur archaeologist, a former Regina chiropractor and former director of "Technocracy Incorporated", the grandfather of Elon Musk.


title: Technocracy movement

text: There were some speaking tours of the US and Canada in 1946 and 1947, and a motorcade from Los Angeles to Vancouver:


title: Technocracy movement

text: Hundreds of cars, trucks, and trailers, all regulation grey, from all over the Pacific Northwest, participated. An old school bus, repainted and retrofitted with sleeping and office facilities, a two-way radio, and a public address system, impressed observers. A huge war surplus searchlight mounted on a truck bed was included, and grey-painted motorcycles acted as parade marshals. A small grey aircraft, with a Monad symbol on its wings, flew overhead. All this was recorded by the Technocrats on 16-mm 900-foot colour film.


title: Technocracy movement

text: 1948 saw a decline in activity and considerable internal dissent. One central factor contributing to this dissent was that "the Price System had not collapsed, and predictions about the expected demise were becoming more and more vague". Some quite specific predictions about the price system collapse were made during the Great Depression, the first giving 1937 as the date, and the second forecasting the collapse as occurring "prior to 1940".


title: Technocracy movement

text: Membership and activity declined steadily in the years after 1948, but some activity persisted, mostly around Vancouver in Canada and on the West Coast of the United States. Technocracy Incorporated currently maintains a website and distributes a monthly newsletter and holds membership meetings.


title: Technocracy movement

text: In a publication from 1938 Technocracy Inc. the main organization made the following statement in defining their proposal.


title: Technocracy movement

text: The Technocratic movement planned to reform the work schedule, to achieve the goal of uninterrupted production, maximizing the efficiency and profitability of resources, transport and entertainment facilities, avoiding the "weekend effect".


title: Technocracy movement

text: According to the movement's calculations, it would be enough that every citizen worked a cycle of four consecutive days, four hours a day, followed by three days off. By "tiling" the days and working hours of seven groups, industry and services could be operated 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This system would include holiday periods allocated to each citizen.


title: Technocracy movement

text: In Germany before the Second World War, a technocratic movement based on the American model introduced by Technocracy Incorporated existed but ran afoul of the political system there.


title: Technocracy movement

text: There was also a Russian movement whose early history resembled the North American movement. The concept of Tectology developed by Alexander Bogdanov, perhaps the most important of the non-Leninist Bolsheviks, bears some semblance to technocratic ideas. Both Bogdanov's fiction and his political writings as presented by Zenovia Sochor, imply that he expected a coming revolution against capitalism to lead to a technocratic society.


title: Viking metal

text: Viking metal is a subgenre of heavy metal music characterized by a lyrical and thematic focus on Norse mythology, Norse paganism, and the Viking Age. Viking metal is quite diverse as a musical style, to the point where some consider it more a cross-genre term than a genre, but it is typically seen as black metal with influences from Nordic folk music. Common traits include a slow-paced and heavy riffing style, anthemic choruses, use of both sung and harsh vocals, a reliance on folk instrumentation, and often the use of keyboards for atmospheric effect.


title: Viking metal

text: Viking metal emerged from black metal during the late 1980s and early 1990s, sharing with black metal an opposition to Christianity, but rejecting Satanism and occult themes in favor of the Vikings and paganism. It is similar, in lyrics, sound, and thematic imagery, to pagan metal, but pagan metal has a broader mythological focus and uses folk instrumentation more extensively. Most Viking metal bands originate from the Nordic countries, and nearly all bands claim that their members descend, directly or indirectly, from Vikings. Many scholars view Viking metal and the related black, pagan, and folk metal genres as part of the broader modern Pagan movements, as well as part of a global movement of renewed interest in, and celebration of, local and regional ethnicities.


title: Viking metal

text: Though artists such as Led Zeppelin, Yngwie Malmsteen, Heavy Load, and Manowar had previously dealt with Viking themes, Bathory from Sweden is generally credited with pioneering the style with its albums "Blood Fire Death" (1988) and "Hammerheart" (1990), which launched a renewed interest in the Viking Age among heavy metal musicians. Enslaved, from Norway, followed up on this burgeoning Viking trend with "Hordanes Land" (1993) and "Vikingligr Veldi" (1994). Burzum, Emperor, Einherjer, and Helheim, among others, helped further develop the genre in the early and mid-1990s. As early as 1989 with the founding of the German band Falkenbach, Viking metal began spreading from the Nordic countries to other nations with Viking history or an even broader Germanic heritage, and has since influenced musicians across the globe. The death metal bands Unleashed, Amon Amarth, and Ensiferum, which emerged in the early 1990s, also adopted Viking themes, broadening the style from its primarily black metal origin.