Birth and early life.

Kunti was the biological daughter of Shurasena, a Yadava chief. Her birth name was "Pritha". Kunti was the sister of Vasudeva, the father of Krishna and shared a close relationship with Krishna. Her father gave Kunti to his childless cousin Kuntibhoja.  Once Rishi Durvasa visited Kuntibhoja. Being extremely pleased by the all comforts, patience, and devotion offered by Kunti, he offered her a mantra that would invoke any god of her choice and he would bless her with children.  Out of impetuous curiosity, Kunti invoked the god Surya. Bound by the power of the mantra, Surya begot a child on her, and restored her virginity. To her surprise, the child was born with his sacred armor on. Out of fear of the public, Kunti abandoned the child, who later became famous as Karna.

Marriage to Pandu.

Kuntibhoja organized Kunti's swayamvara. Kunti chose King Pandu of Hastinapur, making her the Queen of Hastinapur.  Soon after, during his mission to expand his empire, Pandu married Madri, a princess of Madra in order to secure the vassalage of Madra. Madri was of the view that Kunti was inferior by birth to her because Yadavas were cattle herders while she was a princess. Kunti was disturbed by her husband's act, but eventually reconciled with him.  Pandu, while hunting in a forest, mistakenly shot and killed Rishi Kindama and his wife as they had taken the form of deer to mate. The dying sage placed a curse on Pandu since he had not only killed them in the midst of lovemaking but was not remorseful for his action. King Pandu argued with sage Kindama by misquoting sage Agastya's ruling on the right of Kshatriyas on hunting. Sage Kindama then decided to curse him to die if he ever should become intimate with his wife. Pandu renounced the kingdom and went into exile with Kunti and Madri.  Pandu could not make love with his wives due to the curse by sage Kindama. A remorseful Pandu renounced the kingdom and went into exile with Kunti and Madri. He met some sages and asked them a way for the heaven and salvation. They said, without children, one can never aspire for heaven. When Pandu expressed to Kunti his despair at the prospect of dying childless, she mentioned the boon granted to her. He advised her to beget children by suitable, illustrious men. Thus, Kunti used the boon granted to her by Sage Durvasa (which she had used to bear Karna) to bear three sons—Yudhishthira by Dharma - god of Justice; Bhima by Vayu - god of wind, and Arjuna by Indra - the king of Svarga (Heaven). She also invoked Ashvins for Madri on her behest and Madri gave birth to twin sons, Nakula and Sahadeva.  One day, Pandu, forgetting his curse, attempted to make love with his wife Madri. But, as a result of Kindama's curse, he died. Madri committed sati as she was the cause of his death. Kunti was left helpless in the forest with her children.  After the death of Pandu and Madri, Kunti took care of all five Pandava children taking them back to Hastinapur. As the rivalry culminated between Pandavas and Kauravas, she decided to go back to Kunti Bhoja. But her attempt was stopped by Bhishma.

Return and game of dice.

The Pandavas and Kunti are invited back to the kingdom and the kingdom is shared with Kauravas. When the Pandavas lose the kingdom in a dice game and are forced to go into exile for thirteen years, Kunti is forced by King Dhritarashtra to remain in the capital thereby separating the sons from the mother. She chose to stay in Vidura's house rather than the royal palace.

Portrayal in the "Mahabharata".

In most tellings of the Mahabharata, Kunti is depicted as a mild mannered woman with high moral and social values. She constantly guides her sons on their actions and keeps the family bound as one, never to have them fight among each other. She is said to have a great amount of respect for her brother-in-law Dhritarashtra and Vidura and for Dhritarashtra's wife Gandhari. She is also said to have an affectionate relationship with her daughter-in-law Draupadi.  However, several versions of the Mahabharata depict her to be shrewd and calculative. Early in her life she rejects her son born out of wedlock (Karna) in societal fear, only to confess to him several years later, in solitude, that she birthed him. She tries to have him shift parties out of fear of losing her five sons. In exile with her husband Pandu, she shares her boon with his second wife Madri reluctantly and is always in fear of being out-shadowed. It is said that Kunti did not share the boon for a second time with Madri, in the fear that Madri's children would outnumber her own.

Kurukshetra war.

As war approached, Kunti met Karna and in desperation to keep her children alive, asked Karna to join the Pandavas. Karna denied the offer, as he could not betray his friend. However, he promised Kunti that he would not kill any of his brothers except Arjuna, thus following both Mitra dharma and Putra dharma. Kunti also asked Karna further promises, such as he should not use the same weapon twice against Arjuna, which were granted by Karna. In return, Karna requested his mother to keep their relationship a secret until the end of the war. He also promised that at the end of the war she would still have five sons, the fifth one be either Arjuna or Karna himself. Despite supporting her children, Kunti stayed in the Kaurava camp along with her sister-in-law Gandhari. After the war, Kunti disclosed the secret of Karna's birth to Pandavas and others.All were shocked to learn the fact they committed fratricide. The Pandavas were furious with Kunti, especially Yudhisthira, who cursed Kunti and women of the world that they shall be unable to keep any secret anymore. If Kunti hadn't kept it a secret, the war would've been averted and millions of lives would've been spared.

Death.

After the Kurukshetra war, Kunti moved to a forest near the Himalayas with her brothers-in-law Vidura and Dhritarashtra and sister-in-law Gandhari, where all four of them later perished in a forest fire, attaining heaven.

In television.

Various actresses portrayed the role in various films and TV serials.

In Mahabharata, Kunti (, ) or Pritha (, ) was the daughter of Shurasena, and the foster daughter of his cousin Kuntibhoja. She is the aunt of Krishna. She was married to King Pandu of Hastinapur and was the mother of Karna and the Pandavas Yudhishthira, Bhima, Arjuna. She was the paternal aunt of Krishna, Balarama, and Subhadra. She was the foster mother of Nakula and Sahadeva. She was very beautiful and intelligent. She is often regarded as one of the protagonists of the Mahabharata.


Dartington Hall estate.

The Dartington Hall Trust is based on an historic estate near Dartington in south Devon. It was held by the Martin family between the early 12th and mid 14th centuries but on the death of William Martin in 1326, the feudal barony of Dartington escheated to the crown and in 1384 was granted by King Richard II to his half brother John Holland, 1st Duke of Exeter (c.1352-1400), created in 1388 Earl of Huntingdon and in 1397 Duke of Exeter.  The 1st Duke built the mediaeval hall between 1388 and his death in 1400 and the sculpted arms of Richard II survive on ribbed vault of the Porch. The 1st Duke was beheaded by King Henry IV who had deposed Richard II, however Dartington continued as the seat of his son John Holland, 2nd Duke of Exeter (1395-1447) and grandson Henry Holland, 3rd Duke of Exeter (1430-1475) successively. On the death of the 3rd Duke in 1475 without issue, supposedly drowned at sea on the orders of King Edward IV, Dartington again escheated to the crown. In 1559 it was acquired by Sir Arthur Champernowne, Vice-Admiral of the West under Elizabeth I, whose descendants in a direct male line lived in the Hall for 366 years until 1925.  The hall was mostly derelict by the time it was bought in 1925 by the British-American millionaire couple Leonard Elmhirst (orig. from Yorkshire) and his wife Dorothy (née Whitney) from New York. They commissioned architect William Weir to renovate the buildings and restored the Great Hall's hammerbeam roof. Inspired by a long association with Rabindranath Tagore's Shantiniketan, where Tagore was trying to introduce progressive education and rural reconstruction into a tribal community, they set out on a similar goal for the depressed agricultural economy in rural England.  In 1928, Elmirst began collaborating with Alice Blinn, who worked for Delineator Home Institute and magazine of the same name, to create a home economics training center and design a system to modernize domestic activities of the village. Blinn prepared a report giving an overview of initiatives including education, apprenticeship programs, a laboratory, as well as a modern kitchen, cafeteria, laundry, and lavatories, with modern equipment and plumbing, based on what was available in a modern American home. Unable to persuade her to move from the United States to England and operate a training center, Elmhirst abandoned the plan of a demonstration kitchen. Blinn's recommended kitchen equipment was installed, but arranged in a typical English fashion, because the wife of the headmaster, did not like the efficient kitchen design. In 1935, the Dartington Hall Trust, a registered charity, was set up in order to run the estate.  The estate comprises various schools, colleges and charitable and commercial organisations, including Schumacher College, the Arts at Dartington, the Dartington International Summer School of music, Research in Practice, Dartington School for Social Entrepreneurs and the Shops at Dartington (formerly the Cider Press Centre). In North Devon, the Beaford Centre, set up as an arts centre by the Trust in the 1960s to bring employment and culture to a rurally depressed area, continues to thrive. Until June 2010, prior to the college's contentious merger with University College Falmouth, the estate was also home to Dartington College of Arts.  The Hall and mediaeval courtyard functions in part as a conference centre and wedding venue and provides bed and breakfast accommodation for people attending courses and for casual visitors. The Barn Cinema and the White Hart Bar and Restaurant are used by estate dwellers, residents from the surrounding countryside, and visitors alike.  High Cross House was built in 1932 as a home for the headmaster of Dartington Hall school, by art patrons Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst. It was designed by Swiss-American architect William Lescaze and is now regarded as an important modernist building. It is a Grade II* listed building.  In May 2010, Sotheby's sold a group of 12 paintings by Rabindranath Tagore, which had been given by Tagore to his friend Leonard Elmhirst. In Autumn 2011, The Trust proposed the sale of additional artworks by Ben Nicholson, Christopher Wood, Alfred Wallis and others, again at Sotheby's. The sale generated some criticism from local people, who voiced concerns about deaccessioning of the Trust's art assets. The Trust argued that the founders went to considerable lengths to make clear that art works and other assets could and should be used and sold at the discretion of the Trustees to support the activities of the Trust.

Dartington International Summer School.

Dartington International Summer School is a department of The Dartington Hall Trust. The Summer School is both a festival and a music school. Participants, both amateur musicians and advanced students, spend the daytime studying a variety of different musical courses, and the evenings attending (or performing in) concerts. In addition to instrumental and vocal masterclasses, there are courses at various levels on subjects such as composition, opera, chamber music, conducting and improvisation. Courses include choirs, orchestras, individual masterclasses, and non classical music such as Jazz, Salsa and Gamelan. Composition teachers have included Luciano Berio, Luigi Nono, Bruno Maderna, Harrison Birtwistle, Peter Maxwell Davies, Brian Ferneyhough, Witold Lutosławski and Elliott Carter.

Dartington Gardens.

The gardens were created by Dorothy Elmhirst with the involvement of major landscape designers Beatrix Farrand and Percy Cane and feature a tiltyard (thought actually to be the remains of an Elizabethan water garden) and major sculptures, including examples by Henry Moore, Willi Soukop and Peter Randall-Page. There is an ancient yew tree ("Taxus baccata") reputed to be nearly 2000 years old and rumour has it that Knights Templar are buried in the graveyard there, although there is no evidence to substantiate this.

Former activities.

Dartington Hall School.

Dartington Hall School, founded in 1926, offered a progressive coeducational boarding life. When it started there was a minimum of formal classroom activity and the children learned by involvement in estate activities. It was to have “no corporal punishment, indeed no punishment at all; no prefects; no uniforms; no Officers’ Training Corps; no segregation of the sexes; no compulsory games, compulsory religion or compulsory anything else, no more Latin, no more Greek; no competition; no jingoism.”  With time more academic rigour was imposed, but it remained progressive and had mixed success educating the children, sometimes the more wayward ones, of the fee-paying parents. A noted alumnus was Lord Young, a founder of "Which?" and the Open University. Lucian Freud attended the school for two years and his brother Clement Freud was also a pupil there. Other noted alumni include Oliver Postgate, Martin Bernal, Max Fordham, Ivan Moffat, Eva Ibbotson, Matthew Huxley, Richard Leacock, Lionel Grigson, songwriter Kit Hain and the sculptor Sokari Douglas Camp.  W. B. Curry was headmaster of the school from 1931 to 1957, and wrote two books about it, "The School", published by The Bodley Head in 1934, and "Education for Sanity", published by Heinemann in 1947.  The author Dennis Wheatley novelised the activities of some people based at the school in his 1947 book "The Haunting of Toby Jugg". This was a supernatural thriller which sensationalised some real-life events before the war, setting them at a fictional school called "Weylands". Years later, it was revealed that these events had attracted the attention of MI5 in a declassified report called "The Case Against Dartington Hall".  At its peak, the school had some 300 pupils. However, with the advent of state-based progressive education, the death of its founders, and the appointment of a new headmaster in whose time the school attracted considerable negative publicity - not least owing to his calling the police to the school to combat alcohol and drug abuse taking place, the death by drowning of a student, and his wife's modelling for pornographic photographs - the school suffered a dramatic drop in recruitment. The school was forced to close in 1987. After the school's closure, a number of staff and students set up Sands School which still carries some of the principles that Dartington once had.  It has been suggested that the school 'Knotshead' in the novel A Private Place by Amanda Craig was based upon Dartington Hall school, as the events in the book are similar to those that occurred within the final years of Dartington Hall.  Literary editor Miriam Gross wrote an account of her time at the school for the May 2011 edition of "Standpoint" magazine.

Dartington College of Arts.

Dartington College of Arts was a specialist arts institution based at the hall from 1961 to 2010, with an international reputation for excellence, focusing mainly on the performance arts. In 2008, it became part of University College Falmouth and subsequently relocated to Falmouth, Cornwall.

Dartington Hall in Dartington, near Totnes, Devon, England, is a country estate that is the headquarters of the Dartington Hall Trust, a charity specialising in the arts, social justice and sustainability. The estate dates from medieval times.


Plot.

In 1970s Tokyo, Saya is a 400-year-old half human-half vampire who hunts vampires. Raised by a man named Kato, she works loosely with an organisation known as "The Council", a secret society that has been hunting vampires for centuries. Saya's motivation goes beyond duty; she wants revenge; Onigen, the oldest of the vampires, murdered her father. For her next mission, she goes undercover as a student at Kanto High School on an American air base near Fussa.  When she is introduced in her class, Saya's appearance quickly attracts the negative attention of a female classmate, Sharon. The daughter of the base's general, Alice McKee, is also bothered with the attention. At her school, she finds herself being mocked. Alice is asked by her Kendo instructor Powell to stay for the Kendo practice due to her poor performance. As soon as the teacher leaves, she finds herself at the mercy of Sharon and her sidekick friend who wield sharp bladed katanas to taunt and torment her. Saya shows up just in time to stop Sharon from slashing Alice's throat. Despite Saya's effort to disguise her activity, Alice sees Sharon and her friend being butchered. However it is soon revealed that Sharon and her friend are vampires in disguise.  Because "The Council" cleans up the bodies of the demons, Alice's father does not believe her story. Determined to make her own investigation, Alice goes to the bar where her Kendo instructor usually hangs out. To her horror her instructor, as well as the rest of the people in the bar, turn out to be vampires. Once again Saya comes to her rescue and has to fight off hordes of vampires surrounding them.  General McKee investigates "The Council", who disguise themselves as CIA. Alice arrives just in time to witness her father's death. Her dying father gives her Saya's address. With nowhere else to go, Alice decides to seek Saya's help. Fortunately Saya has never sworn loyalty to "The Council" and protects Alice instead. The two of them flee the area and go off to the mountains to find and slay Onigen.  In their pursuit, Alice and Saya are run off the side of the road by an attacking demon and they fall into a ravine. When Alice and Saya awaken they are in Ancient Japan where Saya was raised. Onigen appears, reveals her true identity as Saya's mother, and fights Saya. Saya slays Onigen. Alice, who is injured during the fighting, wakes up to find herself at the wreckage of the truck and being carried into an ambulance. Later she is interviewed about the events surrounding her father's death, but her interviewer does not believe her story about the vampires or the Council. When asked about where Saya is, Alice answers that she is "searching for a way back from the other side of the looking glass".

Production.

In May 2006, Bill Kong announced that he was producing a live-action film adaptation of "Blood: The Last Vampire," directed by Ronny Yu. Like the source anime, it would be primarily filmed in English rather than Japanese. Kong and Yu originally planned to finance the project themselves, but in November 2006, Production I.G officially consented to the film and began offering financial support. Rather than being paid a straight license, Production I.G will receive a percentage of all revenues generated by the film. Through ties to Manga Entertainment, the French company Pathé became the film's co-production company, joining the Hong Kong-based Edko. Yu was retained as its producer, but Chris Nahon took over as the film's director.  South Korean actress Jun Ji-hyun, who adopted the English screen name Gianna Jun for the release, plays the role of Saya.  In early announcements, it was stated that the film would be set in 1948 at a United States Army camp in Tokyo, shortly after the conclusion of World War II during the American occupation of Japan. During production, the film was shifted to be set in the 1970s instead (the original setting for the anime).

Release.

Originally slated to be released worldwide in spring 2008, the film premiered in Japan on 29 May 2009, and was released in the United Kingdom on 26 June 2009. Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group licensed the film for release in North America, where it was released to theatres by Samuel Goldwyn Films on 10 July 2009.

Box office.

The film grossed US$473,992 in Japan, and had a worldwide gross of US$5,731,143. On the opening weekend of its limited release to twenty theatres in the United States, the film grossed $103,000.

Reception.

Cathy Rose A. Garcia of "The Korea Times" regarded Jun as being "probably the only bright spot in this film", criticising the "convoluted plot... cheesy special effects and overacting from the supporting cast". She dismissed much of the film's violence as "gratuitous" and noted that although the stunts were "impressive" they also lacked originality, while the climactic showdown showed an absence of "any real excitement".  The film received negative reviews from American critics. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 25%, based on 53 reviews, with an average rating of 3.73/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Based on a classic anime series, "Blood: The Last Vampire" is a tedious, shoddily acted, amateurish picture that loses all charm in the transition to live-action." Metacritic gave the film a score of 28 out of 100 based on 13 critical reviews, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".  "Variety"s Peter Debruge was critical of editor Marco Cave for "reducing all but one of the fight scenes into a flurry of cuts", and described the CG effects as "herky-jerky". Commenting on the direction, he said, "Nahon privileges surface appeal and kinetic energy over narrative logic, and finesses the footage with an unpleasant yellow tinge that gives everything a vintage chopsocky feel". Felix Vasquez, Jr. of "Cinema Crazed" praised the film as "blockbuster material", finding the film's special effects to be "top notch" and Nahon's direction as "often times beautiful as he convinces us successfully that we're watching a vampire period piece". Conversely, he felt the film lacked a real story, focusing mostly on sword-fights, and that the character of Alice was "dead weight" and a token character added to avoid the film being completely Asian.  "The Hollywood Reporter"s Maggie Lee praised Jun's performance as Saya, feeling that she "displays ample aptitude for being an action heroine, doing most of her own tendon-twisting martial arts stunts and looking utterly fetching in a sailor suit that could turn any guy into a uniform-fetishist". However, she felt the direction and screenplay lacked "freshness" and "nuance", the special effects and choreography "cool" but unimpressive, and the ending predictable. Roger Ebert rated the film three out of four stars, stating that it was "surprisingly entertaining" and a "CGI fantasy". He found the plot to be "inconsequential" to the action sequences. While he felt that Gianna was "never really convincing as a martial artist", he praised her for her "sympathetic performance" which he felt held the film together. As a whole, he found the movie to be "sincere as an entertainment" that "looks good" and is "atmospheric", and notes that he will be watching for Gianna in future films.

Blood: The Last Vampire, released in Japan as, is a 2009 action horror film directed by Chris Nahon, produced by Ronny Yu, and starring Jun Ji-Hyun, Allison Miller, Liam Cunningham, Masiela Lusha, and Koyuki.


Race report.

The old Nürburgring was considered to be the most challenging and demanding purpose-built circuit in the world. Measuring at 14.2 miles (22.8 km), it was by far the longest circuit on the calendar and because it was built in the Eifel mountains it had over 1,000 feet (300 m) of elevation change. Although it had been slightly remodeled in 1971, it still retained much of the character that led three-time world champion Jackie Stewart to nickname it "The Green Hell". The circuit's extraordinary size meant that it needed at least five times the number of marshals and medical support as almost any other Grand Prix to properly maintain it, something the German organizers were unable to provide. Additionally, by its very nature it was impossible to upgrade it to the increased safety standards of the 1970s. It was narrow, had very few run-off areas, and numerous sections were nearly inaccessible to fire marshals. It was also very bumpy—indeed, at a number of points, including the Flugplatz and Pflanzgarten, the cars could actually become airborne. The sheer size of the circuit also meant that weather and track conditions around it could vary wildly with some sections dry and others wet, making a safe choice of tyres difficult or impossible. Two weeks previously, a fatal crash at Flugplatz had occurred during practice for a Formula Super-Vee race which, according to "Autosport", was the 131st fatality at the Nürburgring over its 49-year history. It was also unsuitable for television; its sheer size made it all but impossible to adequately cover a race there. For these reasons, it had been decided even before the 1976 race that after nearly half a century, it would be the last German Grand Prix held on the old Nürburgring and the last on the Nordschleife section.  Defending world champion Niki Lauda, who was also the current season's points leader, was not impressed with safety conditions on the leviathan German circuit, especially since the forecast called for rain. He attempted to arrange a boycott of the race, but the other drivers voted against it by just one vote, and the race went ahead.  The race weekend began with some changes to the drivers' lineup: Jacky Ickx was fired from the Walter Wolf Racing team and was replaced by Arturo Merzario, and a new team was present, Scuderia Rondini, which bought an old Tyrrell 007 for Alessandro Pesenti-Rossi. RAM was going to run Rolf Stommelen in one of its ex-works Brabham BT44s, but in the middle of the practice session, the local police impounded the cars (because of a legal action by former driver Loris Kessel), and as a result, Stommelen transferred to the works Brabham team to drive a spare Alfa-Romeo-powered BT45.  In 1975, Lauda had been the first and only driver to break the seven-minute mark. Fans were looking forward to whether he or others could repeat this after the technical rules had been changed, with the disappearance of the high air boxes being the most visible difference.  Due to wet conditions on Saturday, the grid was already determined in Friday qualifying, with 7:06-plus lap times similar to those of 1972. James Hunt took the pole with Niki Lauda second, while Patrick Depailler lined up third in the six-wheeled Tyrrell P34. Hans-Joachim Stuck was fourth in his March ahead of Clay Regazzoni, Jacques Laffite, Carlos Pace, Jody Scheckter, Jochen Mass, and Carlos Reutemann.

Race.

The weather turned to wet before the race, so most drivers started the race on wet tyres, except Jochen Mass, who, having lots of experience at the Nürburgring and expecting a change for better weather, decided to use dry weather tyres. At the start, Regazzoni took the lead while both Hunt and Lauda fell back. Hunt took second, third was a fast-starting Mass, fourth was Laffite who took advantage from the fact that Stuck's car had been pushed off the grid with a clutch problem (although the German started at the back of the field). In the course of the first lap, Regazzoni spun and dropped to fourth. At the end of the lap, the weather changed back to dry and most drivers pitted for dry tyres, leaving Mass with the second place behind Peterson, who decided to go on wet tyres for another lap. At the end of lap two, Mass was in front, with Gunnar Nilsson (who had not stopped) in second place and Hunt third.  Lauda had also changed his tyres after lap one and was trying hard to make up for the lost time. Just after the fast left kink before the Bergwerk right hand curve, his Ferrari 312T2 snapped to the right and spun through the fencing into an earth bank. The car bounced back onto the track, enveloped in flames. Guy Edwards managed to avoid the Ferrari, but Harald Ertl and Brett Lunger both hit it. All three drivers stopped and tried to get Lauda out of the flames and they were joined by Merzario, who stopped his Wolf Williams after seeing the wreck. Lauda had suffered serious burns and was rushed by helicopter to the "Bundeswehr" hospital in Koblenz; from there he was flown to the Trauma Clinic in Ludwigshafen, home to Germany's most advanced burn ward at the time, where he fought for his life for the next few days.  Most cars had assembled at the crash site, being unable to pass by on the narrow track. The race had been stopped after the accident, and at the restart only 20 of the 24 starters remained, although Chris Amon decided not to start the race again. The rain had gone and Hunt passed Regazzoni, Scheckter, Depailler, and Pace to take the lead for good. At the Flugplatz, Peterson lost control of his March and crashed heavily, while Regazzoni had another spin and Depailler went off, avoiding the Ferrari. Pace overtook Scheckter and ended the first lap in second place. On the second lap, Scheckter passed Pace and the Brazilian fell behind Regazzoni on the third lap, during which sixth-placed Vittorio Brambilla crashed at Adenau Bridge because of a brake failure on his March. Mass took advantage of it and overtook Gunnar Nilsson on the fifth lap and Pace on lap 10. On the 12th lap, Regazzoni spun again and Mass moved to third with Pace fourth, Nilsson fifth, and Stommelen sixth.  Lauda's accident proved why the old Nürburgring had become too dangerous and too difficult to manage satisfactorily for Formula One. The organizers just did not have the resources to manage such a long circuit, even though the "ONS-Staffel" was equipped with a Porsche 911 rescue car. Had it not been for the efforts of his fellow drivers, Lauda would have likely died before rescue crews arrived. After the new Nürburgring was rebuilt with the Nordschleife being bypassed, Formula One would return to the new 2.8-mile circuit for the European Grand Prix in 1984, and the German Grand Prix in 1985.  Chris Amon decided to end his career immediately after Lauda's accident, but returned for the 1976 Canadian Grand Prix, driving a Williams-Ford for Walter Wolf Racing.

The 1976 German Grand Prix (formally the XXXVIII Großer Preis von Deutschland) was a Formula One motor race held at the Nürburgring on 1 August 1976. It was the scene of reigning world champion Niki Lauda's near fatal accident, and the last Formula One race to be held on the Nordschleife section of the track. The 14-lap race was the tenth round of the 1976 Formula One season and was won by James Hunt.


Orbit and classification.

"Nonna" is a member of the Vesta family (). Vestian asteroids have a composition akin to cumulate eucrites (HED meteorites) and are thought to have originated deep within 4 Vesta's crust, possibly from the Rheasilvia crater, a large impact crater on its southern hemisphere near the South pole, formed as a result of a subcatastrophic collision. Vesta is the main belt's second-largest and second-most-massive body after Ceres.  It orbits the Sun in the inner main-belt at a distance of 2.1–2.7 AU once every 3 years and 7 months (1,323 days; semi-major axis of 2.36 AU). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.13 and an inclination of 5° with respect to the ecliptic. The asteroid was first observed at Goethe Link Observatory in October 1952. The body's observation arc begins with its observation as at Crimea-Nauchnij in August 1966, more than 15 years prior to its official discovery observation.

Physical characteristics.

"Nonna" has been characterized as a Q- and V-type asteroid by Pan-STARRS photometric survey, while the "Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link" (CALL) assumes it to be a common S-type asteroid. The overall spectral type of Vestian asteroids is typically that of a V-type.

Rotation period.

Since 2006, several rotational lightcurves of "Nonna" have been obtained from photometric observations at Modra Observatory by astronomers Adrián Galád and Petr Pravec. Analysis of the best-rated lightcurve from September 2006 gave a rotation period of 2.5877 hours with a brightness variation of 0.077 magnitude (). A measurement by French amateur astronomer René Roy gave a similar result of 2.62 hours, after using an alternative period solution. All lightcurves showed an unusually low amplitude which is indicative for a spheroidal shape. The asteroid's short period is close to that of a fast rotator.

Diameter and albedo.

According to the survey carried out by the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, "Nonna" measures 3.67 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an exceptionally high albedo of 0.907. Conversely, CALL assumes a standard stony albedo of 0.20 and calculates a much larger diameter of 7.13 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 13.1.

Naming.

This minor planet was named after Soviet cinema actress Nonna Mordyukova (1925–2008), a celebrated People's Artist of the USSR. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 25 August 1991 ().

4022 Nonna, provisional designation, is a Vestian asteroid from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 8 October 1981, by Soviet–Russian astronomer Lyudmila Chernykh at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory. The asteroid was named after Soviet actress Nonna Mordyukova. The nearly fast rotator has an exceptionally low lightcurve-amplitude indicating a nearly spherical shape.


Early life.

Florence Laura Goodenough was born to Alice and Linus Goodenough on August 6, 1886, in Honesdale, Pennsylvania and was the youngest of nine children. She was home-schooled and received the equivalent of a high school diploma

Academic career.

In 1908 Goodenough graduated with a Bachelor of Pedagogy (B.Pd.) from Millersville, Pennsylvania Normal School, although there is not much documentation of her time at Millersville, she spent almost a decade teaching at rural schools in Pennsylvania before going further with her education. She then went on to earn her bachelor's (B.S.) from Columbia University in 1920, and only a year later, she received her M.A. under advisor Leta Hollingworth, at Columbia as well. From 1920-1921, she also served as the director of research for the Rutherford & Perth Amboy public schools in the state of New Jersey. It was during her time in public schools when she actually conducted a majority of her data.  It was not until 1921 when Goodenough started working with Lewis Terman at Stanford University. Terman was establishing a study on gifted children and was selecting potential researchers for his work. She was chosen, and contributed throughout the project, serving as chief field psychologist and chief research psychologist. She was listed as a contributor to Terman's book "Genetic Studies of Genius," which was a rare deal for females during the time. She received her Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1924, at the age of 35. Soon after, in 1925, she joined the Institute of Child Welfare at the University of Minnesota as an Assistant Professor under John E. Anderson. She became a full-time professor in 1931 and worked until she retired in 1947. Anderson and Goodenough were noted as offering some of the first undergraduate and graduate courses in developmental psychology.  During her time at the University of Minnesota, Goodenough created the Draw-a-Man test (Goodenough-Harris Draw-A-Person Test), which could measure intelligence in children. She published the test in "Measurement of Intelligence" (1926) by drawing, which included detailed accounts of procedures, scoring, and examples. After her publication of the Draw-a-Man test, Goodenough expanded the Stanford Binet scale for children into the Minnesota Preschool Scale in 1932. Goodenough’s most significant contribution to psychology was her advancement of sampling in 1928, which would become to be known as event and time sampling, a method still in extensive use to this day.  It is in one of her most underrated contributions, in which Goodenough actually conducted her time sampling, in her publication "Anger in Young Children" (1931), which analyzed the methods used in evaluating children. It was critiqued primarily because many questioned the use of mothers as research participants, with many doubting that nonscientists would successfully record observations for a study. Goodenough’s objective was to analyze John B. Watson's assertion that newborns were primarily only capable of three different emotions; these included rage, fear, and love. She gathered forty-one participants ranging from infancy through seven years old and trained the parents to use event sampling and track the outbursts of anger they saw in their children. It was through this experiment that she suggested that children who were less than one year old, had the most notable triggers of anger due to repetitive child care, minimal physical irritations, and limitations of physical movement. However, Goodenough’s research findings indicated that by the time the child reached the age of four, social interactions became the most significant basis of anger. Goodenough’s findings led her to theorize that it was not the environment that was most influential in emotional development, but actually maturation in young children.  Overall, Goodenough's publication led to a crucial descriptive awareness for parents and professionals to help acknowledge diverse emotional inclinations in child development. This ultimately led her to continue with several more publications on child development, maturation, and emotion. Many researchers still appreciate Goodenough's publication on emotional development because of its descriptive and detailed use of the methodology used. Goodenough’s experiment represented one of the first few large scale analyses done through observations, and research is still considered one of the most detailed analyses of emotional development in children.  Goodenough was never married.  During World War II, she developed for the Women's Army Corps a projective test using free association with words having several meanings. She developed keys for masculinity-femininity and leadership but retired before she completed work on the test.  During her late career, Goodenough still published a variety of topics and important contributions. She also was known as a great educator, as one of her students who she instructed was Ruth Howard, the 1stAfrican-American female, to receive a Ph.D. in psychology. However, due to a degenerative disease, she was forced to retire early and moved to New-Hampshire, where she eventually went blind. Despite the illness which induced a loss in sight and hearing, Goodenough published three more books after learning braille; "Mental Testing: Its History, Principles, and Applications" in 1949, "Exceptional Children" in 1954, and the third edition of "Developmental Psychology" in 1959. Altogether, Goodenough published 10 texts and 26 research articles. She died of a stroke in Florida on April 4, 1959.

IQ testing.

Goodenough revised and invented tests for children. Studying exceptional children, child psychology in general, and anger and fear specifically were all points of experimentation for Goodenough’s career. She published her first book: The Measurement of Intelligence by Drawings in 1926 which introduced her thoughts and ideas of children’s I.Q. testing. In this book, Goodenough presented her I.Q. test for preschoolers called the Draw-A-Man Test. Goodenough drew much recognition due to her Draw-A-Man Test, a nonverbal measure of intelligence. The test was known to be very reliable due to her extremely strict criteria for rating each drawing because it was well correlated with written I.Q. tests. This test was initially geared towards children ages two through 13. The Draw-A-Man test eventually developed into a Draw-A-Woman Test due to critics believing many females would not necessarily be able to identify with a male.

Academic Work & Contributions.

Director of research for the Rutherford & Perth Amboy public schools (1920-1921)  Research assistant in Psychology under Lewis Terman, Stanford University (1921-1925).  Assistant Professor under John E. Anderson (1925-1930)  Published her first book- "The Measurement of Intelligence by Drawings"(1926)  Published the "Draw-a-Man test" (1926)  Published "Anger in Young Children" and the "Measurement of Mental Growth"(1931)  Published "Minnesota Preschool Scale" (1932)  Full time professor at the University of Minnesota (1931-1947)  President of the National Counsel of Women Psychologists (1942)  President of the Society for Research in Child Development (1946-1947).

Timeline.

1886: Born in Honesdale, Pennsylvania 1908: Bachelor of Pedogogy (B.Pd.) earned from Normal School in Millersville, Pennsylvania. 1920: B.S. from Columbia University under Leta Hollingsworth. ----Director of Research in the Rutherford and Perth Amboy New Jersey public schools. ----Began to document the effects of environment on intelligence test scores. 1921: M.A. earned from Columbia University under Leta Hollingsworth. ---- First began working with Lewis Terman at Stanford University. 1923: Published The Stanford Achievement Test. 1924: PhD Philosophy earned from Stanford University under Lewis Terman. ---- Worked at Minneapolis Child Guidance Clinic. 1925: Appointed assistant professor in the Institute of Child Welfare at the University of Minnesota. 1926: Published her first book: "The Measurement of Intelligence by Drawings" (Introduction to Draw-A-Man test). 1931: Published "The Measurement of Mental Growth". ---- Published "Anger in Young Children".  Goodenough set out to evaluate J. B. Watson's claim that newborns were initially only capable of three emotions: rage, fear and love, by comparing children's anger in infancy and in childhood. The book reported findings that children show anger at bath time, physical discomfort, and by age four, social relations were the greatest source of anger. ---- Promoted to full professor in the Institute of Child Welfare at the University of Minnesota. 1933: Published "Handbook of Child Psychology". 1938: Served as president of the National Council of Women Psychologists. 1940: Goodenough–Harris drawing test established, as revised by Florence Goodenough and Dale Harris. 1947: Retired early from the University of Minnesota due to physical illness. ----1942: the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps’s (WAAC) solicited Goodenough’s professional opinion in selection of tests to be given to Officer Candidates and Basics. Goodenough recommended the Goodenough Speed-of-Association Test. The test used free association to determine ratings of masculinity–femininity and leadership. Results from Candidates and Basics were used as norming data as the test was under construction. She was particularly interested in how results differed between women who were married, divorced, or single. She found that divorced women were more masculine and offered a greater percentage of rare responses compared to either of the two other groups. Early retirement cut short her work on this test and it was never completed. 1947 Appointed Professor Emeritus until her death in 1959. 1949: Published "Mental Testing: Its History, Principles, and Applications". 1956: Published Exceptional Children. ----Died from a stroke at the age of 73.

Florence Laura Goodenough (August 6, 1886 – April 4, 1959) was an American psychologist and professor at the University of Minnesota who studied child intelligence and various problems in the field of child development. She was president of the Society for Research in Child Development from 1946-1947. She is best known for published book "The Measurement of Intelligence," where she introduced the "Goodenough Draw-A-Man test (now the Draw-A-Person Test)" to assess intelligence in young children through nonverbal measurement. She is noted for developing the Minnesota Preschool Scale. In 1931 she published two notable books titled (with John E. Anderson) and Anger in Young Children which analyzed the methods used in evaluating children. She wrote the "Handbook of Child Psychology" in 1933, becoming the first known psychologist to critique ratio I.Q.


Early life.

Gallie was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire and was educated at Dunfermline High School in Fife. He trained as an electrical fitter before joining the CEGB as a planning engineer. He rose to be a station manager before entering politics. His political career began with being elected as a local councillor on Cunninghame district council, which covered northern Ayrshire and the Isle of Bute.

Parliamentary career.

Gallie did not find success in his first two candidacies for Parliament. In 1983 he was beaten by Labour's David Lambie, and in 1987 he was defeated by Dick Douglas. He was elected as Member of Parliament at Westminster for the Ayr constituency in the 1992 general election. He lost his seat, along with all other Conservatives in Scotland, at the 1997 general election.  A vice-chairman of the Scottish Conservative Party, he was elected to the Scottish Parliament in 1999. Gallie was elected to represent the South of Scotland area as a list member, having narrowly failed to win the Ayr constituency seat by 25 votes. Gallie again stood unsuccessfully for the Ayr Westminster seat in 2001, but was re-elected in the 2003 Scottish Parliament election, again as a list member.  He later stood for the leadership of the Conservative group in the Scottish Parliament, but lost to David McLetchie, and instead became the Scottish Conservative's spokesman on constitutional affairs. He did not stand for re-election in 2007, intending to focus on his ambition of becoming a Member of the European Parliament.  Gallie was initially selected to contest the 2010 United Kingdom general election in the Central Ayrshire constituency, but Maurice Golden was eventually chosen as the election was not held until May 2010. Gallie was still active in politics when he unexpectedly died at his home in Ayr in January 2011, aged 71.

Philip Roy Gallie (3 June 1939 – 24 January 2011) was a British politician who served as a Conservative Member of Parliament for Ayr from 1992 to 1997 and Member of the Scottish Parliament for the South of Scotland region from 1999 to 2007. He was also held prominent offices within the Scottish Conservative Party.


Plot.

Police Lt. Leonard Diamond is on a personal crusade to bring down the sadistic gangster Mr. Brown. He is also dangerously obsessed with Brown's girlfriend, the suicidal Susan Lowell. His main objective as a detective is to uncover what happened to a woman called "Alicia" from the crime boss's past.  Mr. Brown, his second-in-command McClure and thugs Fante and Mingo kidnap and torture the lieutenant, then pour a bottle of alcohol-based hair tonic down his throat before letting him go. Diamond eventually learns through one of Brown's past accomplices that Alicia was actually Brown's wife. The accomplice suspects that Alicia was sent away to Sicily with former mob boss Grazzi, then murdered, tied to the boat's anchor and permanently submerged. Diamond questions a Swede named Dreyer, who was the skipper of that boat but now operates an antiques store as a front, bankrolled by Brown. Dreyer denies involvement and does not want to disclose anything to Diamond, but is nonetheless murdered by McClure shortly after leaving his shop later that day.  Diamond tries to persuade Susan to leave Brown and admits he might be in love with her. He shows her a photo of Brown, Alicia and Grazzi together on the boat. Susan finally confronts Brown about his wife and is told she is still alive in Sicily, Italy, living with Grazzi.  Brown next orders a hit on Diamond. However, when his gunmen Fante and Mingo go to Diamond's apartment, they mistakenly shoot and kill Diamond's burlesque dancer girlfriend Rita instead. Diamond sees an up-to-date photo of Alicia but realizes it wasn't taken in Sicily (since there's snow on the ground). This leads Diamond to suspect Brown did not kill Alicia but his boss Grazzi instead. Diamond is able to track Alicia to a sanitarium, where she is staying under another name. He asks for her help.  Meanwhile, Brown's right-hand man, McClure, wants to take over. He plots with Fante and Mingo to ambush Mr. Brown, but they betray and murder him.  At police headquarters, Brown shows up with a writ of "habeas corpus", effectively preventing Alicia testifying against her husband. Brown also takes a big stash of "money" to Fante and Mingo while they are hiding out from the police, but the box turns out to contain a bomb that apparently kills both of them.  Brown shoots Diamond's partner, Sam, and kidnaps Susan, planning to fly away to safety. However, Mingo survived the assassination attempt by Brown, so he confesses to Diamond that Brown was behind all the murders while sobbing over the body of his cohort. Alicia is able to help Diamond figure out that Brown took Susan to a private airport where he intends to board his getaway plane.  However, Brown's plane does not show up and the film climaxes in a foggy airplane hangar shootout. Susan shines the fog lamp from Brown's own car in his eyes, effectively blinding him, so the lieutenant is able to arrest him. The last scene shows the silhouetted figures of Diamond and Susan in the fog, considered to be one of the iconic images of film noir.

Production.

The film was initially called "The Hoodlum" based on a story by Philip Yordan. It was originally going to be directed by Hugo Frugonese for producer Milton Sperling. Sperling tried to cast Spencer Tracy for the lead. The script was reportedly in great demand with Yordan apparently turning down offers of $75,000.  Eventually the film was a co production between Theodora, the production company of Cornel Wilde and Jean Wallace, and Security, a company of Phil Yordan and Sidney Harmon. Wilde changed the title to "The Big Combination" and Jean Wallace suggested it be shortened to "The Big Combo".  Jack Palance was originally cast opposite Wilde. Filming was brought forward to start September 7, because of studio space availability. Palance dropped out of the film, claiming he wanted a week off after finishing "The Silver Chalice" (1954). Another source says he was unhappy his wife was not cast in the second female lead. He was replaced by Richard Conte. Conte's casting meant the start date for another film "Cry Vengeance" had to be pushed back.  The film was shot in 26 days.

Reception.

Critical response.

Reviews of the movie today are mostly positive. Chris Dashiell on the website "CineScene" finds the dialogue "run of the mill" but praises the film's director, writing that "Lewis had a remarkable ability to infuse poetry into the most banal material, and "The Big Combo" is one of his best efforts... it's not as startlingly inventive as Lewis's best film, "Gun Crazy" (1949), but it's a quality B-film, satisfying and dark."  The staff at "Variety" magazine liked the film's direction, music and photography, despite "a rambling, not-too-credible plot." They wrote, "Performances are in keeping with the bare-knuckle direction by Joseph Lewis and, on that score, are good. Low-key photography by John Alton, one of his best, and a jazz-derived score by David Raksin with solo piano by Jacob Gimpel are in keeping with the film's tough mood."  Film critic Ed Gonzalez lauded the film in his review, writing, "Shadows and lies are the stars of "The Big Combo," a spellbinding black-and-white chiaroscuro with the segmented texture of a spider's web... John Alton's lush camera work is so dominant here you wouldn't know Joseph H. Lewis was also behind the camera. The story doesn't have any of the he-she psychosexual politicking that juices the director's "Gun Crazy", but that's no loss given this film's richer returns. The set-pieces are fierce, as is the "Casablanca" tweak of the last shot, and Wallace's performance—a sad spectacle of a hurting creature caught between light and dark, good and evil—is one of noir's great unheralded triumphs."  Critics have compared the quality of "The Big Combo" to Fritz Lang's "The Big Heat" as one of the great film noir detective classics in terms of style.  The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 92% of critics gave the film a positive review, based on 13 reviews, with a weighted average of 7.04/10.

Release on home video.

The film was released on Blu-ray in a new HD restoration in 2019 by Arrow Films in the UK and Eire.

Soundtrack.

Most film noir movies feature scores that are orchestral (strings). In contrast, "The Big Combo" is one of few that has a brass (trumpets, etc.) and woodwinds (saxophones, etc.) score.

The Big Combo is a 1955 American film noir crime film directed by Joseph H. Lewis and photographed by cinematographer John Alton, with music by David Raksin.


Biography.

Jackson was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He went to school at the Western University of Pennsylvania (now the University of Pittsburgh) from 1879 to 1883, and received his MD from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. He also studied laryngology in England.  His work reduced the risks involved in a tracheotomy. He essentially invented the modern science of endoscopy of the upper airway and esophagus, using hollow tubes with illumination (esophagoscopes and bronchoscopes). He developed methods for removing foreign bodies from the esophagus and the airway with great safety — a huge advance for a condition that previously had often been a death sentence, with a high mortality from the object itself or from complications of chest surgery in the 19th century.  Jackson campaigned to put labels on all poisonous or corrosive substances to prevent ingestion accidents. Accordingly, the US Congress passed the Federal Caustic Poison Act of 1927, which has saved countless children from serious injury and death. He was awarded the Franklin Institute's Elliott Cresson Medal in 1929. Jackson authored four monographs, twelve textbooks, and over 400 medical articles. Jackson was a professor at six different schools, including the University of Pittsburgh, Jefferson Medical College, Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania (now Drexel University College of Medicine) and Temple University.  Jackson married in 1899 and had a son, Chevalier Lawrence Jackson, known informally as "C.L.," who went on to become a professor at Temple University. He resided at Sunrise Mill.  When Jackson died in Philadelphia, his obituary referred to him as "one of the greatest, if not the greatest laryngologists of all time." He is buried in West Laurel Hill Cemetery, Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania.

Chevalier Quixote Jackson (November 4, 1865 – August 16, 1958) was an American pioneer in laryngology. He is sometimes known as the "father of endoscopy", although Philipp Bozzini (1773–1809) is also often given this sobriquet. Chevalier Q. Jackson extracted over 2000 swallowed foreign bodies from patients. The collection is currently on display at the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia.


Early life and education.

Zagari was born in Milano on 14 September 1913. He held a law degree, which he received from the University of Milan. He attended courses of political economy at the University of Berlin.  During World War II, he was an anti-Nazi resistance militant.

Career.

After the war Zagari began his political activity. He was leader of the anti-Stalinist group, called Iniziativa Socialista. He became a member of the Socialist Party on 18 July 1952. He remained as a member of the party until 24 July 1989. He served as the undersecretary at the ministry of foreign affairs for three times (specifically, from 23 February 1966 to 5 June 1968, from 22 July 1964 to 21 January 1966 and from 12 December 1968 to 5 July 1969).  At the beginning of the 1970s Zagari served as the minister of commerce and led the first Italian commercial delegation to China in 1971. He was the justice minister from 7 July 1973 to 23 November 1974. Then he became one of twelve vice president of the European parliament on 27 October 1976 and held the post until 18 January 1982. He was part of the socialist group in the parliament. He ran for the presidency of the parliament in the elections held in July 1979, but lost the election. In addition, he served at different commissions and delegations of the parliament from 14 March 1978 to 24 July 1989.

Controversy.

After leaving office as justice minister Zagari was charged with abusing official acts, and making them public. The inquiry committee of the parliament, whose twenty members had been selected in proportion to the membership of the parties, rejected the case with a majority vote.

Death and legacy.

Zagari died in Rome on 29 February 1996. He was buried in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome. On the tenth anniversary of his death a book by him and Giuseppe Muzzi was republished in 2006.

Mario Zagari (14 September 1913 – 29 February 1996) was an Italian socialist politician, who served in the Italian parliament and in the European parliament as well as in the Italian governments in various capacities.


Ownership.

The company began operating in 1980 as the Gateway Bridge Company.  On 2 June 2009, the Queensland Government announced the 'Renewing Queensland Plan' that would sell assets to raise $15 billion, and avoid a further $12 billion required in future capital investment. Queensland Motorways was included in this process.  In 2011, the Queensland Government transferred ownership of Queensland Motorways to the Queensland Government’s Defined Benefit Fund (a superannuation scheme for Queensland public servants) managed by the Queensland Investment Corporation (QIC). Queensland Motorways now operates under a 40–year Road Franchise Agreement with the state. This transfer set out that the Queensland Government would continue to own the road and bridge infrastructure on the Gateway and Logan Motorways, while QIC would own the QML business and the right to toll the motorways. It also limited toll increases to not exceed CPI increases.  On 12 December 2013, QIC announced that Queensland Motorways, with an estimated value of more than $5 billion, would be auctioned off. It was claimed that a change of ownership would not have any impact on existing tolls. Indicative bids will be made by the end of January, and then shortlisted bidders will then be requested submit binding bids, with the process scheduled for completion in April 2014. On 2 July 2014 a consortium comprising Transurban, AustralianSuper and Tawreed Investments completed financial close on the acquisition of Queensland Motorways for $7 billion.  In late January 2015 the Queensland Motorways corporate brand was replaced by the Transurban brand and logo.

Tolling system.

Queensland Motorways launched its toll payment brand, "go via" (now known as Linkt) in 2009 to support the introduction of a non-stop, electronic tolling system on its toll road network and on other Australian toll roads.  Vehicles are detected as they travel through a toll point and tolled in two ways. Firstly, with an in-vehicle tag device. Alternatively with video sensors identify the vehicle and registration plate number as it passes through a toll point. Motorists have three days to pay their tolls. If tolls are not paid within that time, offending motorists will receive toll notices, which will include an administration fee, in addition to the toll charge. If payment is still not made upon receipt of the toll notice, a motorist may be issued with a Penalty Infringement Notice.

Acquisitions.

In December 2013 Queensland Motorways acquired the rights to manage and toll the CLEM7 tunnel in a $618 million deal with RiverCity Motorway's receivers.

Queensland Motorways manages the 70 kilometre long Linkt (formerly "go via") network of tolled roads in Brisbane which includes the: Clem Jones Tunnel (CLEM7), Go Between Bridge, Gateway Motorway and Sir Leo Hielscher Bridges; the Gateway Extension, Logan Motorway and Legacy Way.


Biography.

Born 15 December 1792, at Gundenham, near Wellington, England, Haviland was apprenticed in 1811 to a London architect. In 1815 he unsuccessfully pursued an appointment to the Russian Imperial Corps of Engineers. In Russia, however, he met George von Sonntag and John Quincy Adams, who encouraged him to work in the United States. He arrived in Philadelphia in 1816, and soon established himself as one of the few professional architects in the city. By 1818, Haviland produced a book, "The Builder's Assistant", which appeared in three volumes over several years. This publication was one of the earliest architectural pattern books written and published in North America, and likely the first to include Greek and Roman classical orders.  In part due to "The Builder's Assistant", Haviland began to secure what would be his most important commissions in Philadelphia: the Eastern State Penitentiary, the Pennsylvania Institution for the Deaf and Dumb (now Dorrance Hamilton Hall, University of the Arts), and the original Franklin Institute building (now home to the Atwater Kent Museum).  During this time, Haviland unwisely speculated in his own projects, including commercial arcades in Philadelphia and New York, as well as an amusement park. He was eventually forced into bankruptcy, tarnishing his professional reputation in Philadelphia. Elsewhere, however, Haviland's reputation as a designer of prisons brought him important commissions, including the New Jersey Penitentiary, The Tombs in New York City, and prisons in Missouri, Rhode Island, and Arkansas.  Haviland was an Honorary and Corresponding Member of the Royal Institute of British Architects. In 1827, he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Honorary Academician.

Personal life.

On July 2, 1819, Haviland was married to Mary Wright von Sonntag by the Right Rev. William White, Bishop of Pennsylvania. She was the sister of George von Sonntag and the daughter of Captain William Ludwig von Sonntag of the French Army. Together, they had a son:  He died March 28, 1852 in Philadelphia and was buried in the family vault at St. Andrews Church (designed by Haviland) in Philadelphia (now the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of St. George).

John Haviland (15 December 1792 – 28 March 1852) was an English-born architect who was a major figure in American Neo-Classical architecture, and one of the most notable architects working from Philadelphia in the 19th century.


History.

The group consisted of Gene Puerling (bass-baritone or fourth voice, arranger, leader, and occasional soloist), Bob Strasen (baritone or third voice), Bob Morse (baritone or second voice and frequent soloist) and Clark Burroughs (tenor or first voice/lead). In 1959, Bob Strasen left the group after he began losing his voice to unknown causes. After Strasen's departure, Bob Morse switched to the Baritone or third part, and tenor Don Shelton sang the second part.  They were occasionally supported by Frank Sinatra. Clare Fischer was their pianist for years and occasionally wrote arrangements for the group.  The Hi-Lo's recorded the theme song to the 1956 television series "Noah's Ark". They were also featured on the soundtrack of the motion picture "Everything's Ducky" (1961), contributing three songs: "Everything's Ducky," "Moonlight Music" and "The Scuttlebutt Walk." They also made numerous appearances on television and had many live performances. The first group that had the Hi-Lo's name was a Barbershop quartet out of Wisconsin. None of those original members were in Gene Puerling's group which started some years later, Barbershop Harmony Society.

Individual group members.

In 1966, Puerling and Shelton along with Bonnie Herman and Len Dressler, formed another vocal group, The Singers Unlimited. This group gave a wide range for Puerling's arrangements, for the four singers multi-tracked as many as 16 voices. For that reason The Singers Unlimited were exclusively a recording group.  Bob Strasen died February 28, 1994, and Bob Morse on April 27, 2001. Afterward, Puerling, Shelton and Burroughs still appeared very occasionally as the Hi-Lo's in and around Southern California. Shelton is an accomplished reed player and has played in Clare Fischer's bands. Clark Burroughs is semi-retired and can sometimes be heard on film soundtracks.  On March 25, 2008, Gene Puerling died just before his 79th birthday.

Legacy.

The Hi-Lo's and especially their innovative use of vocal harmony, were an influence on the groups and musicians Take 6, The King's Singers, The Manhattan Transfer, Chanticleer, The Free Design, Herbie Hancock, and Brian Wilson.

Further reading.

Books.

Warner, Jay. "The 1950s". "American Singing Groups: From 1940 to Today". Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard Corporation. 2006. p. 224.

The Hi-Lo's were a vocal quartet formed in 1953, who achieved their greatest fame in the late 1950s and 1960s. The group's name is a reference to their extreme vocal and physical ranges (Bob Strasen and Bob Morse were tall, Gene Puerling and Clark Burroughs were short).


Biography.

Henrik August Flindt was born on 22 March 1822 in Aarhus to Brigadier General C.L.H. Flindt. He received his training as a gardener at Fredensborg Palace and Rosenborg Castle between 1839 and 1844 and was then employed as an assistant gardener at Bregentved Manor. In 1846 he embarked on a journey to Hamburg, Scotland and England. On his return to Denmark in 1851, he set up a private practice and over the following decades designed a vast number of parks and gardens, especially at manor houses around the country.  In 1877, he assumed a position as inspector at the royal gardens. From 1872 to 1889, he was active in the Royal Danish Horticultural Society and designed its new garden when it was moved to the former nursery and vegetable garden of Frederiksberg Palace in 1884. He is buried in Solbjerg Park Cemetery.

Works.

He designed the current University of Copenhagen Botanical Garden as well as Ørstedsparken and Østre Anlæg in Copenhagen's Fortification Ring, the former grounds of the city's old fortification ring which was abandoned in 1980. In 1884, he sat on a commission to make a 20-year plan for Jægersborg Dyrehave and Charlottenlund Palace gardens.  His specialty was the design of parks at manor houses, often redesigning their old Baroque gardens into English landscape gardens. Over the course of his career, he was responsible for about 200 park designs at manor houses in Denmark and abroad.  The manor houses he worked at include:

Henrik (Henry) August Flindt (24 April 1822 – 19 January 1901) was a Danish gardener and landscape architect. His specialty was manor house gardens, of which he designed around 200 in Denmark and abroad. He also designed the current University of Copenhagen Botanical Garden as well as Ørstedsparken and Østre Anlæg in Copenhagen's Fortification Ring, the former grounds of the city's old fortification ring which was abandoned in 1990


Plot.

Cheung plays Emily Wang, a former video jockey, who has been in a tempestuous relationship for several years with Lee Hauser (played by James Johnston of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds), a rock musician. Lee's friends feel that Emily is bad for him, describing her as a junkie. Their young son, Jay, is living in Vancouver with Lee's parents.  As the film opens, the pair have arrived in Hamilton, Canada, to see Metric perform. Following an argument in their motel room, Emily walks out and, after taking heroin, falls asleep in her car. When she returns the following morning, she finds that Lee has died of a drug overdose, and the Ontario Provincial Police are investigating. As Emily attempts to force her way into the room, the Police find heroin in her bag and she is arrested.  Emily spends six months in jail and, upon release, discovers that custody of her son has been awarded to Lee's parents. She resolves to return to Paris, where she used to live. Before leaving, she briefly meets Albrecht, Lee's father (played by Nick Nolte), who tells her that he would prefer that she not see Jay for a few years.  In Paris, Emily begins work in a Chinese restaurant owned by relatives but does not enjoy it. She has become addicted to methadone and relies on her friends for prescriptions. Meanwhile, Lee's mother, Rosemary (played by Martha Henry) falls ill and she and Albrecht travel to London with Jay for medical treatment. While they are there, Albrecht decides to take Jay to meet Emily, but the boy has been told by his grandmother that Emily was responsible for his father's death and does not want to see her.  Emily eventually decides that she must get clean in order to be able to spend time with her son. She stops taking methadone and prepares for Jay's arrival. When the boy eventually meets her, she takes him to a zoo and explains her relationship with his father and why they took drugs. Emily also has become a singer; when she is given the opportunity arising from meeting a fellow musician in prison, she must make some serious decisions about her life.

Cast.

Assayas and Cheung met during the making of "Irma Vep" in 1996. They married in 1998 and divorced in 2001. "Clean" was their first collaboration since the divorce.

Music.

The songs that Maggie Cheung performs in the film were written and produced by David Roback of Mazzy Star. The soundtrack also features songs by Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois, Emily Haines, Metric, The Notwist, Britta Phillips and Tricky.

Critical response.

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 72% based on 65 reviews and an average rating of 6.6/10. The consensus statement reads, "In one of her best roles, Cheung gives a believable and arresting performance as a recovering addict." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 75 out of 100 based on 28 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Clean is a 2004 drama film directed by French director Olivier Assayas, starring Maggie Cheung and Nick Nolte. It was jointly funded by Canada, France, and United Kingdom sources. It was released in the United States in 2006.


Background.

South Africa, rich in natural resources and fertile lands, has many areas that are ideal for agricultural production. However, the steep mountainous terrain between the resource rich areas in the high veld and the coastal ports presented a transport challenge.  Before well maintained and reliable access roads had been developed, narrow gauge railways were used extensively by South African farmers to move produce from their large farms to central sorting and packing points on their own land. As a result, entrepreneurial business people created linking railways to transport the produce from the sorting and packing points to the coastal ports. Their choice of gauge was determined by the gauge that was being used in each local area and varied between the early to the later Cape gauge of.

Original operations.

Designed as part of the Natal Government Railways' (NGR) project to transport sugar cane and bananas grown in the agricultural Harding district to Port Shepstone, the NGR commissioned Stoke-on-Trent based Kerr Stuart to build seven Class NG4 4-6-2T tank locomotives, based on the 1907 Class NG3 4-6-2T.  The route of the Alfred County Railway had some curves of, but with gradients of up to 3 in 100 / 3% (ruling grade of 1 in 37 / 2.7% for after leaving the coast ), the NG4s and their replacements were often double-headed to haul the diverse freight traffic of wood, sugar cane and bananas to Port Shepstone. The line's management decided against purchasing more powerful articulated Garratt locomotives, because their longer wheelbase would make access to the sugar cane fields more difficult.  From the mid-1970s, steam was replaced by Class 91-000 diesel-electric locomotives on the SAR's longer routes, which were more powerful. Also, being shorter in chassis length, these diesel-electric locomotives were able to access the growers' farms. Therefore, the SAR decided to transfer the NG G13 and NG G16 Garratts to the Alfred County Railway in Natal.  Due to underinvestment, the Alfred County Railway became increasingly unreliable, and was closed to operations by the SAR in 1986.

Port Shepstone and Alfred County Railway.

As South Africa's farmers re-entered the global markets in the late 1980s, the quality of produce going to markets became increasingly important. As handling is a key issue in the retail quality of bananas in particular, the farmers were in favour of reviving the Alfred County Railway, to reduce the amount of handling from banana plantation to port.  To raise funds and reduce government expenditure, the Government of South Africa announced it would gradually put into private hands its huge state-owned corporations, including the state electricity corporation, Eskom, and SA Transport Services which owned SAR. The Alfred County Railway was hence chosen as the pilot railway privatisation project.  In reality, SAR/Transnet still owned the line, infrastructure and the stock as a nationally strategic asset; while the new Port Shepstone and Alfred County Railway (PSACR) was granted an operational and maintenance lease for a period of 199 years. The company inherited 25 steam locomotives - of which only one, an NG G16, was operational - plus rolling stock. The company announced a business plan expected to win back lucrative business from farmers and timber growers. In March 1988, the PSACR raised funds by offering 1.8 million shares for sale at one rand each.

Class NG G16A.

As part of their development to keep the railway competitive, the PSACR upgraded two of their existing Class NG G16 locomotives. The engineers incorporated developments proposed by L.D. Porta, including GPCS, Lempor exhaust, an improved spark arrestor, lightweight multi-ring articulated piston valves, improved valve events and improved mechanical lubrication. Two locomotives were modified: No. 141 in 1989 and No. 155 in 1990, and reclassified to Class NG G16A. In comparative testing No. 141 gave a fuel saving of 25% compared to a standard SAR Class NG G16 Garratt, and was easily maintained in regular service.

Demise to road transport.

Initially, the venture lost money heavily, but after making profits from year three, the venture decided to try to return to an all-steam powered railway. The tourism based passenger train, the Banana Express, had always been steam powered, while the advantages of power and a short wheelbase meant that PSACR decided to lease SAR 91 Class diesels to provide hauling for commercial freight services.  The revived PSACR became Spoornet’s second largest customer at Port Shepstone. This was driven by the operations of Kulu Lime and the Natal Portland Cement, plus pulpwood, poplar logs (for matchwood), creosoted telegraph poles, and manufactured wooden items from Harding. North bound inland traffic was general cargo for the farmers, such as maize, fertilizer, salt, cement, farm implements and water tanks and small parcels. The company also revived the Banana Express.  In 1991 Spoornet acquired one-million shares in PSACR, equivalent to a 28% shareholding, which gave users greater confidence in the PSACR service. The "Narrow Arrow" piggyback train was introduced for supply to the Port Shepstone pulp mill, where an entire train of 26 narrow gauge wagons was ramped onto a Spoornet train consisting of 13 wagons, having flexible connecting bridges. This eliminated the trans-shipping of timber at Port Shepstone and reduced transfer time from 14 hours to two hours. A further endeavour was the "Timbertainer," an intermodal system where pulpwood could be loaded into an open container at a plantation and taken through to the mill. Plans were in place for a similar initiative for sugar cane shipments.  However, by the mid-1990s the effects of transport deregulation began to impact of the profitability of the PSACR as larger, often overloaded, road trucks becoming ever more competitive. Although Spoornet made representations to the government, transport regulations were further relaxed to allow a higher gross vehicle mass (GVM) of, a higher axle load from, together with a 5% overload tolerance: the highest heavy vehicle mass with unlimited access to the roads of any country in the world.  As a result, Spoornet began to lose general freight traffic, and PSACR's reliance on trans-shipment increased transport times and costs. The railway began a gradual decline, eventually failing in 2001 when it lost the key Port Shepstone "Narrow Arrow" wood pulping contract, due to unreliability problems resulting from labour relation issues at Spoornet.  Suspending freight operations, the line continued to operate the Banana Express, but accumulated huge debts to Spoornet. As a result of these increasing debts, Transnet decided to legally force the venture into bankruptcy in 2004.

Banana Express.

After the termination of the PSACR lease, Patons Country Narrow Gauge Railway (PCNGR) was granted a temporary permit to continue running the Banana Express, from Port Shepstone to Paddock. The company had three locomotives available to it: NGG16 Nos.151 and 127; plus an ex-sugar estate 0-4-0T, SAR NG UVE2.  With a 6-hour journey totally devoted to tourism and enabling access to local attractions and businesses, it again became very popular with tourists because of both the scenery and the access to local businesses.  Before reaching Shelley Beach the railway traversed several river bridges along the Hibiscus Coast. The train then veered inland and chugged up through banana plantations and cane fields towards Izotsha, passed through lush sub-tropical native forests and rondavel-dotted hillsides, before stopping in Paddock for lunch and then the direct return journey.  Although PCNGR had proposals to reopen the line to Harding, in December 2005 Transnet shut the Banana Express, after they decreed a lease did not exist between SAR and PCNGR.  On 18 June 2008 a huge storm hit the coast, which resulted in large amounts of flash flooding. This damaged many of the railway's bridges along the Hibiscus Coast so that they were considered to be beyond economic repair, and washed most of the Izotsha rail bridges away.  Several steam locomotives and several carriages that were used on the Banana Express are stored at Paddock  Hamba Wehelle Express  In 2015 a short section of the railway line - between Paddock and Plains - was in use and a limited tourist service was being provided using a light weight carriage and an industrial Hunslet diesel locomotive  The service is known as the Hamba Wehelle Express (or Humba Weheli Express) and was operated in conjunction with the Gorgez View Bed and Breakfast/Conference Centre/Coffee Shop at Paddock however by 2016 the service was suspended

Alfred County Railway is an abandoned narrow gauge railway in South Africa, which runs from the southern transport hub of Port Shepstone on the Indian Ocean, via Izotsha and Paddock for to Harding, KwaZulu-Natal.


Overview.

The accident occurred at the same time as a short cut of the rival Great Western Railway was opening, and it was claimed that the driver of the crashed train was trying to show that his railway was capable of competitive speeds. It was also rumoured that passengers – mostly rich New Yorkers travelling to London from the transatlantic port at Plymouth – had bribed the driver to run the train as fast as possible, but there was not any evidence of this, and if anything the train had lost time earlier. Conversely, it was stated that drivers often ran through Salisbury very fast on these trains to "get a run" at the following hill. The engine was a new LSWR L12 class 4-4-0 with a higher centre of gravity than the earlier T9 class. The most likely cause of the accident is that the driver simply did not realise the level of risk he was running, particularly as this was the first occasion on which he had taken a non-stopping train through Salisbury. Also, steam locomotives at this time, and for half a century afterwards, were not fitted with speedometers.  As a result of the crash, all trains were required to stop at Salisbury station from that point onwards (the boat train at the time had no passenger stops from Plymouth to London Waterloo, although locomotives were changed at Templecombe). The speed limit on the curve east of Salisbury was also reduced to, a limit still in effect today.  There is a memorial tablet to the 28 dead (including the driver, two firemen and the guard) in Salisbury Cathedral.  The accident was the second in a series of three derailments due to excessive speed at night in a 16-month period. The others were at Grantham 1906 and Shrewsbury 1907. All three resulted in deaths, including the footplate crews; the cause in each case was recorded as Driver Error but there has been much speculation since.  In 2006, historian Frogg Moody organised a memorial service at Salisbury Railway Station.

In the Salisbury rail crash of 1 July 1906, a LSWR boat train from Plymouth's Friary railway station to London Waterloo station failed to navigate a very sharp curve at the eastern end of Salisbury railway station. The curve had a maximum permitted speed of, but the express had been travelling at more than. The train was completely derailed, and smashed into a milk train and a light engine, killing 28 people.


Early life.

Helgart Riedel was born in 1935 to Elizabeth and Harry Riedel in Beuthen, in German Silesia, which was ceded to Poland at the end of World War II. During the War her father served in the German army, while her mother left Beuthen with Riedel and her four brothers trying to find a way into West Germany. After more than a year of constant movement they finally settled in Wiedenbrück in 1947. These early years as a war refugee would have a profound impact on her artwork.  Her father, who survived the war, was able to join the family in Wiedenbrück, where he reestablished his jewelry trade, building a goldsmith studio at their house and opening a jewelry store in town. Riedel became an apprentice in her father’s workshop. Assigned the task of drawing one flower every day, she began to develop her artistic skills and passion.

Southern Germany and Italy.

In 1956, at age twenty-one, Riedel hitchhiked to southern Germany, where her brother was studying design at the art academy in Pforzheim. She enrolled in painting and drawing classes there and met her future husband, Curt Rothe, a painting professor and post-impressionist artist.  Riedel became increasingly interested in this bohemian counterculture and in the estate’s atmosphere of freedom. In 1958 Riedel married Rothe, with an agreement that she could continue to pursue her career as an artist. Their son Peter was born in 1959. While caring for her child and the estate, she developed a body of work that explored the intimacies of bodies and what she called “anatomy landscapes.” She received her first solo show in 1967, exhibiting paintings of eccentric humanoid forms depicted inside boxes.  In 1968 she was awarded the Villa Romana Prize for emerging German artists and traveled with her son to Florence. For the next year, she was provided with all the materials she needed, allowing her to develop her technique and artistic language, as well as her professional independence.

Travels to South America.

During her stay in Florence, Rothe had a series of shows in Spain facilitated by a gallery owner and curator who eventually became her lover. They traveled from Barcelona to Montevideo on a cruise ship, leaving Rothe's son with his father at the estate in southern Germany. The couple then traveled in a van around South America for nine months, but Rothe’s lover fell ill and had to go back to Europe for treatment for his alcoholism.

New York City.

Rothe left Montevideo in 1971, following advice of an artist friend who suggested she moved to New York City. Rothe began painting landscapes and skylines, and kept exploring her interest in bodies. In her early paintings in New York she began her explorations with layering, creating compositional narratives out of her experiences in the city. She started attending the ballet and expanded her interest in the body into studies of dancers in movement.  A gallery owner and friend suggested that, if she wanted to earn a living from her artwork, it might be more efficient to create prints than paintings. As she delved into different printmaking techniques, Rothe became intrigued by mezzotint, which, while requiring a high level of skill and patience working by hand directly on the copper, permits the nuance of every line and detail to be seen. Combining the knowledge from her studies in anatomy, art history, goldsmithing, and drawing, she arrived at an original process that allowed her to achieve detailed transparencies with mezzotint. Another innovation was a method of applying and hand-wiping all colors on the same plate. Her first mezzotints with transparencies were completed in 1972 and soon garnered a lot of attention.  A good friend in New York gave her the name Gatja, which she adopted in signing most of her work. Believing that people might taker her more seriously if they assumed she was a man, she then decided to use the initials G. H. and her last name.  In 1973 her husband died and her son Peter moved in with her. At the time she was designing jewelry for Tiffany’s and other jewelers. In 1976 Rothe signed a contract with Hammer Galleries in New York. She worked in a studio at 193 Second Avenue in Lower Manhattan. In 1978 she was listed in both Who’s Who in American Art and Who’s Who in America.

California and the Peak of Rothe’s Artistic Career (1978–2000).

In 1978 Rothe traveled to Los Angeles to visit her lover Maurie Symonds, who owned several galleries in California showing her work. Rothe became fascinated with Carmel-by-the-Sea, California and decided to move there, buying a house by in Carmel-by-the-Sea, although she kept a storage space and a studio in New York.  The open and rural California landscapes influenced her new mezzotints, in which she included mountains, horses and other scenes. In 1982 her son Peter bought her contract from Hammer Galleries, which no longer wanted to carry prints. The scandal caused by Salvador Dalí’s pre-signed papers had adversely affected the entire graphics industry, devaluing the worth of copies in editions. Rothe survived this issue because not only did she limit her editions to 150, but also each print was unique, since she mixed all the colors on the plate by hand. Peter became the mediator between Rothe and the art market, giving her the space to further develop her technique.  Throughout most of the 1980s and 90s, Rothe had about ten large shows each year in different US cities, and Peter regularly showed her work at the Basel Art Fair. Every month or two, she created a new edition for galleries to buy. She made all of her work with the help of one assistant. Rothe also did paintings for private commissions, but she rarely kept track of these sales. Sylvester Stallone and Clint Eastwood, who were her neighbors in Carmel, both own some of her paintings. She painted a large outdoor mural in the Hog’s Breath Inn, Clint Eastwood’s former restaurant in Carmel.  In 1987 Peter sold Rothe's art business to Paul Zueger from American Design. A year after in 1986, her brother opened Riedel Art Gallery to represent her work in Germany, and Rothe moved her New York studio from Manhattan to Brooklyn in order to have more space. She began exploring large pastel paintings and creating frescoes at her own home. Later, after a drawn-out lawsuit with Zueger, Rothe finalized her contract with them and opened her own gallery in Carmel in 1991. In 1988 and 1992 she was nominated to represent the United States as an artist at the Olympic Games in Seoul and Barcelona.

Later years and death.

In 2000, after some tiresome lawsuits had finally been settled, Rothe decided to move to Geneva, Switzerland, fulfilling a desire to return to Europe. Here, she lived off the sale of her house in Carmel. In Geneva Rothe painted mountain landscapes, massive horse paintings, portraits, and other scenes inspired by her surroundings. In 2003 Rothe was diagnosed with breast cancer, but it was a heart problem that led to her death on August 3, 2007.

Work.

Early drawings.

During her early artistic work at the Pforzheim Academy, Rothe completed a series of small, highly detailed monotypes, etchings, and drawings. These works, which she sometimes referred to as “body landscapes,” explored her own sexuality, representing nude bodies from different angles and perspectives. Her depictions of nudes in strange positions were sometimes accompanied by surreal imagery of isolated body parts such as eyes or muscles.

Mezzotints.

Rothe's highly detailed mezzotints focused on surreal landscapes, intricately rendered horses, and graceful dancers. Rothe started all her prints by sketching a simple drawing directly onto the plate with a drypoint tool. She used a rocker to develop the background, rolling and rocking it side to side and piercing the plate with tiny holes for the ink. Using a drypoint tool she further developed the fine details and figures of the drawing. Rothe spent approximately 500 hours working on each plate.  Rothe expanded the technique's possibilities to achieve transparencies and an extensive variety of tonalities. By discovering a way to mix all colors in the same plate, from the darkest to the lightest, and hand-wiping them into one another, she was able to create highlights, hues, and tones impossible to get when inking each color separately.

Paintings.

Rothe did not keep track of most of the paintings she sold, but the ones that are known show her interest in transparencies. Through allowing layers of paint to dry and using different types of strokes to achieve slight shifts in tones and hues, most of her city and nature landscapes, as well as portraits, display an intricate layering.

"Gerotica".

Completed in 1987 but never shown during her lifetime, Rothe’s tempera works are depictions of sex and intimacy between aging couples, revealing Rothe's typical layering of paint. Rothe’s son Peter discovered these erotic scenes with geriatric bodies (“gerotica”) paintings and other artworks years after her death. In November 2015 the gerotica became the center for the exhibition "Seven Drawings" at the Walter and McBean Galleries of the San Francisco Art Institute.

Graffiti doors.

Rothe was interested in the graffiti on boarded-up windows and doors she saw in New York City while she lived there in the 1970s and during her visits to her studio in Manhattan and later in Brooklyn. She sometimes negotiated with the owners to take the boards and replace them with new ones. She then intervened on these boards with painting and gold leaf. Most of these pieces went unsold. She shipped the graffiti works to Carmel for an exhibition, and eventually they were sent to Germany for an exhibition at the Riedel Art Gallery, where they have remained.

Gatja Helgart Rothe (also known as G.H. Rothe; (née Helgart Riedel) (March 15, 1935 – August 3, 2007), was a German-American artist known for her printmaking, especially mezzotint. She was also a draftswoman and painter. After living and working in Europe, she briefly traveled through South America before moving to New York City in the 1970s and later, California. Her commercial success was primarily based on mezzotints and paintings commissioned and handled by galleries, dealers, and private collectors in the United States, Europe and Japan.


Early life.

Schäuble grew up in the Southwest of Germany. He studied Political Science in Haifa in Israel, Birzeit in Palestine, as well as Berlin. He obtained his PhD in Political Science from the Freie Universität Berlin, exploring the life of two jihadists. Before his studies he worked for a German daily as a journalist.

Work.

Novels.

Schäuble has visited numerous crisis regions, interviewing and researching the plight of many refugees. His novel Endland (Carl Hanser Publishers) asks what would it look like if a nationalistic right-wing party came to govern in a modern democratic country such as Germany. The Audiobook was released simultaneously.  The novel has been adapted into a play by the Schauspiel Hannover.  With his pen name Robert M. Sonntag, he wrote the novel Die Scanner (S. Fischer Publishers). It is a dystopia from the year 2035 as told by a 25 year old Robert M. Sonntag. The book details the lives of its main characters as they negotiate modern life in a fully digitized environment. All literature has been scanned, digitized and censored while all humans are monitored by the same monolithic mega-corporation. The book is to be continued in 2019.

Non-fiction.

Schäuble`s non-fiction books focus on the intersection of politics, culture, and religion.  The book "User’s Guide for Israel and Palestine" (Piper Publishing house) is a manual for culturally sensitive travelers. "Between Borders: Walking and hitchhiking through the Middle-East conflict" (Carl Hanser publishers) is a travelogue. "Black Box Jihad: Daniel and Sa‘ed on their way to Paradise" (Carl Hanser Publishers) is the biography of two Jihadis – one Palestinian, one German. "The History of the Israelis and Palestinians" (Carl Hanser publishers) is based on eye-witness accounts reporting on the issue from both sides. The co-editor was Noah Flug.

Bibliography.

Non-fiction.

"Gebrauchsanweisung für Israel und Palästina" (2016)  "Zwischen den Grenzen. Zu Fuß durch Israel und Palästina" (2013)  "Dschihadisten. Feldforschung in den Milieus" (2011)  "Black Box Dschihad" (2011)  "Die Geschichte der Israelis und Palästinenser" (2007)

Novels.

"Endland" Carl Hanser Verlag (2017)  "Die Scanner" (Robert M. Sonntag) S. Fischer Verlag (2013)

Key awards.

2018: Nomination for the Hansjörg Martin prize for Endland  2016: Author in residence at the Goethe Institute in Moscow ("literarische Leuchttürme" in Moskau (Goethe-Institut)  2013: Stuttgart Business Club Literature House prize (Preis des Wirtschaftsclubs im Literaturhaus Stuttgart) for Die Scanner  2012: Highly commended by „Evangelischer Buchpreis“ for Black Box Dschihad  2008: Nominated for „The best Junior Scientific book of the year“ in Austria (Nominierung für „Das beste Junior-Wissenschaftsbuch des Jahres“ (Österreich)) for Die Geschichte der Israelis und Palästinenser  2007, 2011, 2013: The best 7 books for young readers (Deutschlandfunk, „Die besten 7 Bücher für junge Leser“) for DGIUP, BLACK BOX, Scanner  2000: Catholic Prize for young journalists (Katholischer Nachwuchsjournalistenpreis)

Martin Schäuble (born December 1978) is a German novelist, journalist and writer of non-fiction books. His pen name is Robert M. Sonntag. His works have been translated into several languages.


Early life and education.

Zhang was born in Jilin City, Jilin Province on 7 November 1961, but is considered a native of his ancestral home of Laoting County, Hebei province by Chinese convention. His family later moved to Tangshan, Hebei.  Zhang studied at the aircraft department of Northwestern Polytechnical University (NPU) in Xi'an from September 1978 to August 1982, majoring in aircraft design. After graduation, he was assigned to No. 603 Research Institute of the Ministry of Aerospace Industry, designing aircraft tails. Within three years he became the leader of a team that developed the FBC-1 fighter-bomber that is still in use by the People's Liberation Army Air Force.  In 1985 Zhang returned to NPU to continue his studies, and received a Master of Engineering degree in aircraft control in 1988.

Aerospace industry.

In 1988 Zhang returned to work for the Ministry of Aerospace Industry and later joined China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT), the birthplace of China's Long March rocket. He showed exceptional talent at CALT and was credited with the 1990 launch of the AsiaSat 1 satellite for the American company Hughes Satellite Systems. It marked the first time for the Long March rocket to successfully launch a foreign satellite.  After the success with AsiaSat 1, Zhang was tasked with developing the Long March 2 rocket for China's human spaceflight program (later called the Shenzhou program). He became the deputy director of CALT in 1996, and the vice-manager of the newly established China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) in 1999. In 2001 he was appointed president of CASC, and starting in February 2002 he concurrently served as deputy chief commander of the Shenzhou program. In October 2003 Shenzhou 5 completed China's first ever human spaceflight mission, and two years later two more astronauts safely returned to earth after a five-day spaceflight on Shenzhou 6.  In August 2007 Zhang was appointed chairman of the Commission for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (COSTIND), becoming one of the youngest persons to hold a minister-level post in China. He guided the merger of COSTIND with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in 2008. He also concurrently served as head of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program.  In 2008 Zhang was appointed chairman of the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac), a state-owned enterprise that was newly established to develop China's own jumbo jets. In 2009, he drew international attention after being named one of China's 40 most powerful people by "BusinessWeek".

Political career.

Zhang joined the Communist Party of China (CPC) in December 1992. In 2002, less than ten years after he joined the party, he was appointed to the 16th Central Committee of the CPC, the party's top authority. At age 41 he was the youngest full member of the committee. He has subsequently been elected to full memberships of the 17th and 18th Central Committees.  In August 2011 Zhang left Comac and was appointed acting governor of Hebei Province, replacing Chen Quanguo, who had been promoted to Party Secretary of Tibet Autonomous Region. In January 2012 he was officially elected by the Hebei Provincial Congress as governor, and reelected in January 2013. Zhang was one of the earliest examples of rocket scientists taking on major political posts in China, a trend that intensified following Xi Jinping's ascension to the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China in 2012, with many "space alumni" joining government ranks thereafter. Zhang was transferred to Heilongjiang to serve as party secretary in April 2017, becoming the fourth official born after 1960 to assume a provincial party secretary post.

Zhang Qingwei (; born 7 November 1961) is a Chinese politician, business executive, and aerospace engineer. He is the Communist Party Secretary of Heilongjiang, former Governor of Hebei, and former chairman of the Commission for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (COSTIND). Prior to his government career he was president of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) and chairman of Comac, an aerospace manufacturer.