Oninagi

 is a Japanese manga written by Akira Ishida. It was originally published in Japan in 2007 by Houbunsha. It was announced at Yen Press' Comic-Con International panel in July 2008 that they acquired "Oninagi" for release in North America. The first volume was translated and published in April 2009. Akira Ishida is not to be confused with the voice actor of the same name.
Plot.
The story begins with Nanami Kushimiya, an average 15-year-old schoolgirl excited about starting the new school year in hopes of getting closer to her crush, Kazuto Sanjouin. On her way to school, she is confronted by a demon-slaying swordswoman, Tomotaka Onigoroshi, who claims that Nanami is a demon and vows to slay her then and there. When Nanami doesn't reveal a “true” form on the verge of being slain by Tomotaka's blade, Onigani, she believes she may have been wrong about her initial instincts. However, when they are attacked by a nearby tree demon, a mysterious supernatural power emerges from Nanami and she manages to defeat the demon by incinerating it completely.
The unconscious Nanami is taken back to her home by Tomotaka, and once she awakens, she and Tomotaka learn from her grandfather that her powers may have something to do with their family ancestry. In the distant past, one of their ancestors, a demon slayer, ended up marrying the powerful but beautiful demon he was ordered to slay. As a result, the demon lost her demonic powers and became a human woman, and it is believed that those powers may have somehow been passed down to her. With this revelation, Tomotaka decides that she will observe Nanami until she can understand her powers better, and if they prove to be dangerous, she will kill her.
Characters.
Nanami Kushimiya
A seemingly average schoolgirl, she learns after her encounters with Tomotaka and a tree demon that may possess demonic powers from her ancestors. She initially believes these claims to be crazy at first, but as more individuals come after her because of this power, she learns to accept this truth. Yet despite this knowledge, she still goes about living her life as a normal girl as best as she can.
Tomotaka Onigoroshi
The fifteenth generation heir to the Onigoroshi house and a member of the Divine Enforcers. She wields the sword Onigani, a powerful tool that resonates whenever it's around demonic taint and creates a powerful aura that can be used to destroy demons. She claims to have never been wrong about her instincts concerning demons. She is very serious about her duties and very possessive of her targets, to the point where she'll even attack her allies if it means slaying her quarry.
Kazuto Sanjouin
Chairman of the Regulatory Committee at the school, he is Nanami's crush since Junior High. However, he is also revealed to be a member of the Divine Enforces. He is a magic-wielder, able to make small needles by gathering demonic taint. With these, he is able to attack, lay barriers, and even purify those affected by taint in small doses. He generally appears to be very polite, well-mannered individual.
Aki-Chan
Nanami's best friend at school. She is the one that tries to convince Nanami to tell Sanjouin how she feels about him.
Tsurugi, Kusabi, and Mori
A group of demonic servants created by Princess Kinkan over 400 years ago. These creatures cannot exist without Kinkan, but while she did not die, they felt a large dip in her powers. So they decided to go into hibernation until they sensed her presence again. Now in the present, they come to Nanami's aid while under attack and pledge their loyalty to her, sensing Kinkan's presence within her. Each one can morph parts of their bodies into a weapon. In fact, their names represent that type of weapon they wield; Tsurugi (sword), Kusabi (wedge), and Mori (lance).
Hanged Man
A selfish demon who went chasing after the power within Nanami behind the backs of his comrades once alerted of its presence. His abilities include being able to control hordes of demonic spiders from a far distance. His demonic form is that of a giant Tsuchigumo.
Reception.
The manga has received a fair amount of praise and criticism amongst its reviewers. Joy Kim of Mangalife.com criticized Volume 1 for being a book that is "basically supernatural action by the numbers," and that "The story also suffers from a somewhat scattered focus." Matthew Alexander of Mania.com also remarked on the book's lack of unique elements, but felt that "there is a large enough cast of characters from enough camps to make the story interesting." He also added that it would "really only be of interest to fans of occult stories." Tiamat's Manga Reviews enjoyed the characters from the very start and praised the author, stating "Ishida's writing style is great, he manages to keep the reader wondering about the characters and organisations involved." Overall they felt that Volume 1 was "both an amazing volume, but also a terrible one."


Verity

Verity ("alias" Veretie, Verety, Verita, Veritie, etc.) is a female first name and a surname. As a first name it derives from the Latin feminine noun "veritas", meaning "truth". It is thus an equivalent of Alethea, a female first name first used in England "circa" 1585, derived from the ancient and modern Greek feminine noun "αλήθεια" (pronounced "al-ee-thia"), meaning "truth". It was adopted in England as a Puritan and Quaker virtue name, truthfulness being considered as a desirable attribute especially in a female, and following a new Protestant tradition of naming children after virtues instead of saints in order to avoid idolatry.
Verity is also a surname, which may have more ancient unrelated origins, possibly being a corruption of a similar word.


Angel of Ruin

Angel of Ruin (also known as "Fallen Angel") is a 2001 horror novel by Kim Wilkins. It follows the story of Sophie who sets out to author a story on the occult even though she is a skeptic on the topic. In pursuit of material, Sophie meets The Wanderer who presents her with a story about three sisters whose love for each other is torn apart by an angel.
Background.
"Angel of Ruin" was first published in Australia in 2001 by Voyager in trade paperback format. In 2002 it was released in the United Kingdom under the title "Fallen Angel" by Gollancz and in 2003 it was republished in Australia in mass market paperback format. "Angel of Ruin" won the 2001 Aurealis Award for best horror novel and was a nominee below cutoff for the 2002 Ditmar Award for best Australian novel.


Shairi

A shairi (, ), also known as Rustavelian quatrain, is a monorhymed quatrain used by Shota Rustaveli in "The Knight in the Panther's Skin".
It consists of four 16-syllable lines, with a caesura between syllables eight and nine. While there are stanzas with as many as five syllables rhyming, generally shairi uses either feminine or dactylic rhyme. It is worth noticing that despite the feminine and dactylic forms of rhyme, Georgian shairi’s stress is very weak due to the nature of the Georgian language, which is characterized by dynamic and very weak stress placed on antepenultimate syllable in words longer than two syllables and on penultimate in two-syllable words.
Types.
Two distinct forms of shairi exist: maghali (high) shairi and dabali (low) shairi. Rustaveli used both types in his poem.
Maghali shairi.
In maghali shairi (high "shairi"), lines are broken into four sections of four syllables, with a caesura after the second section: xxxx xxxx//xxxx xxxx.
Dabali shairi.
In dabali shairi (low "shairi"), each line is broken into four segments of five and three syllables: xxxxx xxx//xxxxx xxx.


Nancy Springer

Nancy Springer (born 5 July 1948) is an American author of fantasy, young adult literature, mystery, and science fiction. Her novel "Larque on the Wing" won the Tiptree Award in 1994. She also received the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for her novels "Toughing It" in 1995 and "Looking for Jamie Bridger" in 1996. Additionally, she received the Carolyn W. Field Award from the Pennsylvania Library Association in 1999 for her novel "I am Mordred". A prolific author, she has written more than fifty books over a career that has spanned nearly four decades.
She released her first Enola Holmes book in 2006, following which she published 6 sequels in the series. Her other series include "Book of Isle" (fantasy) and the "Tales of Rowan Hood". Her work, "The Enola Holmes Mysteries", was adapted in 2020 as a Netflix film, "Enola Holmes".
Biography.
Nancy Springer was born in Montclair, New Jersey to Harry E. and Helen Connor, moving to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania with her family when she was thirteen.
As a child, she read lots about King Arthur and his Round Table, Robin Hood and had often read and reread Sherlock Holmes. She was raised to "speak grammatically" and is well versed with Victorian literature. Her parents were born in 1906 and 1909. Her two older brothers had left the family for college by the time she hit puberty. Her mother was a professional artist, who painted oil portraits of pets. Springer was 14 when her mother's health began to deteriorate due to cancer, menopause and an early-onset form of Alzheimer's. Her parents had purchased a motel, which she helped work.
She remained in Pennsylvania for forty-six years, raising two children, Jonathan Paul (born in 1974) and Nora Lynn (born in 1978), by her first husband Joel Springer, a minister and fine art photographer. They were divorced in 1996. She met her second husband, Jaime Fernando Pinto, in 1999, while she was working in a no-kill animal shelter. They later moved to Bonifay, Florida, to a secluded part of the Florida panhandle in 2007, a place conducive to her hobbies of birdwatching, horseback riding and fishing, and his love of aviation.


Jean-Louis Baudry

Jean-Louis Baudry (March 2, 1930 – October 3, 2015) was a French novelist, "Tel Quel" literary editor, and psychoanalytic film theorist.
He is best known for "Ideological Effects of the Basic Cinematographic Apparatus" (1970) and "The Apparatus: Metapsychological Approaches to the Impression of Reality in Cinema" (1975), two essays which pioneered apparatus theory, a combination of Louis Althusser's concept of the Ideological State Apparatus and Jacques Lacan's theory of the mirror stage to analyse the cinema as an institution. His influential ideas were critiqued and developed by film semiotician Christian Metz and feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey in the mid-1970s.


The Body of Jonah Boyd

The Body of Jonah Boyd is a novel by David Leavitt, published in 2004, that depicts various consequences of the theft of a manuscript. It tells a story about the life of a common American family dealing with ethical principles, relationships and fairness (and unfairness) today.
The story is perceived through the eyes of Denny, the secretary and mistress of university professor Ernest Wright, who increasingly exerts influence on the life of the Wright family.
Plot introduction.
The crucial starting point of all following events is the Wrights’ annual Thanksgiving dinner in 1969, when author Jonah Boyd, the new husband of Mrs. Wright's friend Anne, accidentally loses his notebooks including his almost finished novel.
Plot summary.
Anne finds the manuscript and schemes against Boyd in order to teach him a lesson for his carelessness. She asks Ben Wright, the youngest son and amateur poet who was also present when Anne found the books again, to hide the novel until she would tell him to "surprisingly find" it. Jonah stops writing and changes his careless behaviour towards Anne. Since Anne very appreciates her kind of "new" husband and does not want him to get into his former rut again, she decides to leave the book in Ben's care instead of returning it to her husband. Jonah, who used to drink, again finds consolation in alcohol, which ultimately leads to his death through a car accident.
Years later, when almost nobody who knows about Boyd's novel is still alive, Ben finishes the book and publishes it under his name. Critics review Ben's ending as the best part of the novel. This way, Ben develops his own writing style and becomes a successful novelist.
When Denny finally discovers this "theft", she decides to confront Ben. Surprisingly he sees this situation as a possibility to confide with someone rather than a threat.
At last they marry and after Ben's death Denny even inherits the Wrights’ house, which plays a central part in the family's and Denny's lives and in which all the fatal events took their start.
Characters.
Judith "Denny" Denham: Ernest Wrights' secretary and Nancy Wrights' four-hand partner at playing the piano – secretly wants to be part of the Wright family. Although she describes herself as being "fat" and not at all beautiful, she never has any problems attracting men and has already had several affairs with married men. So, too, with Ernest Wright. Nevertheless, she comes over every Saturday to play the piano with Nancy, but in fact, she wants more. Despite Denny always claims that she does not want to marry as it is sufficient for her to have affairs with various married men, she collects every issue of "Modern Bride".
In the end, everything turns out well for Denny. She marries Ben Wright and therefore becomes part of the Wright family and even inherits the Wrights' house – which she has secretly longed for. Her inner wish to become a part of the Wright family, is quite understandable since she has never had a chance to experience a real family life: her father ran away and her mother died. This circumstance also explains why she so readily accepts Nancy's way of treating her, which is more like that of a mother than a friend.
Ernest Wright: He is married to Nancy Wright and the father of Mark, Daphne and Ben. Besides, he is a professor at the psych department, which focuses on Freudian psychology, at the university of Wellspring. Irrespective of his role as husband and father, he is having a secret affair with his secretary Judith "Denny" Denham. Phil Perry and Glenn Turner, Ernest's protégés, take also part in the story.
Nancy Wright: She is Ernest's wife. Although she knows about her husband's affair with Denny she pretends to be unsuspecting. At first, it seems that Nancy and Denny might become friends because Ernest's secretary is invited to the Wrights' place every weekend as Nancy's four-hand partner at playing the piano. But since the preparations for a Thanksgiving dinner in 1969, she starts to treat Denny more like a servant than a friend. Their relationship is described as "fractious and sometimes maudlin". In fact, Nancy uses Denny as a kind of substitute for her friend Anne. She actually does not look for a real friend, but someone whom she can "cultivate and nurture", as if Denny like Daphne was Nancy's daughter and not equal in age.
Ben Wright: At first sight, the 15-year-old amateur poet seems to be a minor character of the novel. But as the story develops the reader is granted a greater insight into Ben. For many years he has had a secret crush on Anne, an old friend of the family and Jonah Boyd's wife. Anne takes advantage of the situation and intrigues with Ben to steal Boyd's notebooks in order to teach her husband a lesson. 15-year-old Ben is confused by her behaviour, but accepts Anne's conditions. Decades later he publishes the stolen novel under his own name and becomes a famous writer. When Denny finds out about the theft, she conceals the truth and marries Ben.
Daphne Wright: The 17-year-old daughter of the Wrights' family, she experiences her first love affair with her father's protégé, Glenn Turner, which has to be kept secret.
Mark Wright: He is the 20-year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. Wright. In 1969 he went to Canada in order to avoid his military draft. Because of his physical absence the narration does not focus on Mark and he is only a minor character of the story.
Anne Boyd: In 1969 Anne, who is Nancy's former four-hand partner at playing the piano, has married the celebrated author Jonah Boyd. Her frustration with her unfulfilled love-life with Jonah Boyd triggers her decision to intrigue against him. Secretly, she has a pedophilic relationship with Ben during his adolescence.
Jonah Boyd: He is a celebrated author and a special guest at the Wrights' Thanksgiving dinner in 1969 where he "loses" his notebooks with his almost finished novel. Towards the end of the story, Jonah Boyd, being a former drinker, dies in a car accident. The "accident" is in fact suicide. Although the conspiracy of Ben and Anne is the reason for Boyd's death, neither the boy nor Anne feel guilty. Ben avails himself of the opportunity and publishes Boyd's novel under his name. Anne coldly informs the readership that she does acknowledge her crime, however, she does not want to spend the rest of her life doing penance for it. She adds: "What good could come of that? Two lives ruined, instead of just one."
Discussion.
The ambiguous title sets the reader on a wrong track until it is fully explained at the end of the story. Judging from the title "The Body of Jonah Boyd" the reader might assume that this novel is about the death of Jonah Boyd. However, the word 'body' refers to the written body of Jonah Boyd (his unfinished manuscript), rather than to his corpse.
With the episode of the theft of Boyd's manuscript, Leavitt wants to defend himself once again and claim his honesty against Spender's charges, who accused him, arguing that "While England Sleeps", Leavitt's novel about literary London in the 1930s, used substantial inattributed material from Spender's autobiography "World Within World".
Normally being a feature of most crime stories, this novel withholds important information for a long time to build up suspense. It is also striking that only at the end of the novel the real narrator is revealed. Although one is tricked into believing that the story has been written by Denny, it turns out that the writer of the story is Ben (Ben tells the story as if Denny narrated it).


Empty category principle

In linguistics, the empty category principle (ECP) was proposed in Noam Chomsky's syntactic framework of government and binding theory. The ECP is supposed to be a universal syntactic constraint that requires certain types of empty categories, namely traces, to be properly governed.
ECP is a principle of transformational grammar by which traces must be visible, i.e. they must be identifiable as empty positions in the surface structure, similar to the principle of reconstruction for deletion. Thus an empty category is in a position subcategorized for by a verb. In government and binding theory this is known as "proper government". Proper government occurs either if the empty position is governed by a lexical category (especially if it is not a subject) (theta-government) or if it is coindexed with a maximal projection which governs it (antecedent-government). The ECP has been revised many times and is now a central part of government and binding theory.
In spite of its name, the ECP applies to only two of the four types of null DPs. Specifically, it applies to DP- and Wh-traces, but not PRO and "pro". The chief function of the ECP is to place constraints on the movement of categories by the rule of move α; it effectively allows a tree structure to "remember" what has happened at earlier stages of a derivation, and it can be seen as GB's version of the older derivational constraints.
Formally, the ECP states that:
The ECP is a way of accounting for, among other things, the empirical fact that it is generally more difficult to move up a "wh"-word from a subject position than from an object position.
The intermediate traces must be deleted because they cannot be properly governed; theta-government is impossible because of the position they occupy, Spec-CP; the only possible antecedent-governor might be an overt NP (a wh-word), but the Minimality Condition would always be violated because of the tensed I (which must be present in all matrix clauses), the tensed I would c-command the intermediate trace but it would not c-command the wh-word. So we have to say that intermediate traces must be deleted at logical form so that they can avoid the ECP.
In the case of "object extraction" (the trace is a complement of VP), theta-government is the only possible option. In the case of subject extraction (the trace in Spec-IP), antecedent-government is the only possible option.
If the trace is in Spec-IP and we have an overt complementizer (such as "that"), the sentence is ungrammatical because the ECP is violated. The closest potential governor would be the complementizer, which cannot antecedent-govern the trace because it is not coindexed with it (and theta-government is impossible since trace is in Spec-IP).
For example, in the sentence "Who do you think (that) John will invite?" the ECP works in the following way (the structure is given for the embedded clause only):


Scale (descriptive set theory)

In the mathematical discipline of descriptive set theory, a scale is a certain kind of object defined on a set of points in some Polish space (for example, a scale might be defined on a set of real numbers). Scales were originally isolated as a concept in the theory of uniformization, but have found wide applicability in descriptive set theory, with applications such as establishing bounds on the possible lengths of wellorderings of a given complexity, and showing (under certain assumptions) that there are largest countable sets of certain complexities.
Formal definition.
Given a pointset "A" contained in some product space
where each "Xk" is either the Baire space or a countably infinite discrete set, we say that a "norm" on "A" is a map from "A" into the ordinal numbers. Each norm has an associated prewellordering, where one element of "A" precedes another element if the norm of the first is less than the norm of the second.
A "scale" on "A" is a countably infinite collection of norms
with the following properties:
By itself, at least granted the axiom of choice, the existence of a scale on a pointset is trivial, as "A" can be wellordered and each φ"n" can simply enumerate "A". To make the concept useful, a definability criterion must be imposed on the norms (individually and together). Here "definability" is understood in the usual sense of descriptive set theory; it need not be definability in an absolute sense, but rather indicates membership in some pointclass of sets of reals. The norms φ"n" themselves are not sets of reals, but the corresponding prewellorderings are (at least in essence).
The idea is that, for a given pointclass Γ, we want the prewellorderings below a given point in "A" to be uniformly represented both as a set in Γ and as one in the dual pointclass of Γ, relative to the "larger" point being an element of "A". Formally, we say that the φ"n" form a Γ-scale on "A" if they form a scale on "A" and there are ternary relations "S" and "T" such that, if "y" is an element of "A", then
where "S" is in Γ and "T" is in the dual pointclass of Γ (that is, the complement of "T" is in Γ). Note here that we think of φ"n"("x") as being ∞ whenever "x"∉"A"; thus the condition φ"n"("x")≤φ"n"("y"), for "y"∈"A", also implies "x"∈"A".
The definition does "not" imply that the collection of norms is in the intersection of Γ with the dual pointclass of Γ. This is because the three-way equivalence is conditional on "y" being an element of "A". For "y" not in "A", it might be the case that one or both of "S(n,x,y)" or "T(n,x,y)" fail to hold, even if "x" is in "A" (and therefore automatically φ"n"("x")≤φ"n"("y")=∞).
Scale property.
The scale property is a strengthening of the prewellordering property. For pointclasses of a certain form, it implies that relations in the given pointclass have a uniformization that is also in the pointclass.


Destination memory

Destination memory refers to the process of remembering to whom one has told information. When you are speaking to someone and forget whether or not you have previously told the person the information, you are experiencing an error in destination memory. The medial temporal lobe is critical for successful destination memory because it is this region of the brain that controls our episodic memory, which includes destination memory. The neurological processes responsible for destination memory are impaired by normal aging and are significantly affected by Alzheimer's disease. In addition to being an interesting neurological process, destination memory error can cause awkward social interactions and social embarrassment.
The discovery that older adults not only remembered fewer words, but also tended to repeat the same words more frequently prompted the first studies of destination memory. This experiment opened the door to investigating what we now call destination memory. Gopie & MacLeod are not only responsible for coining the term "destination memory", but for initiating the beginning of many research experiments to further our understanding of memory error.
Destination memory plays a critical role in our episodic memory. It is considered an autobiographical memory because the information is recollected and remembered regarding oneself as a participant in a specific situation. Because humans are social creatures, our ability to communicate efficiently and effectively is important; therefore, remembering to whom we have told information is an important skill for successful social interactions.
Neurological aspect.
The medial temporal lobe is critical for successful destination memory. fMRI scans have demonstrated that the medial temporal lobe is involved with recollection-based memory, which includes destination memory. Mugijura et al. conducted an experiment in which subjects were asked to memorize a short fact when it appeared on a computer screen and then tell it to either a man or a woman. Later the participants were asked to recall which fact they told to which person and how confident (either high or low) they were in their answer. The subjects participated in both a practice round and second round in which they were monitored by a fMRI. Due to the activity displayed on the fMRI scans in the medial temporal lobe of the brain, they concluded that this region is critical for remembering to whom you have told information.
Aging.
Older adults have disproportionately impaired destination memory when compared to younger adults, which is due to the process of normal aging. Gopie, Craik, and Hasher coined the term destination amnesia to refer to this deterioration in destination memory. It is unclear as to what is specifically responsible for destination amnesia during aging; however, it is speculated that it is due to the general decline in memory. One's theory of mind ability is a significant predictor of destination memory ability in aging adults, as they both are positively correlated and depend upon executive functioning. Little research has been conducted to understand why destination memory deteriorates or what could slow the demise; however, older adults demonstrate improved destination memory performance when relaying information to an emotional face rather than a neutral face. Emotion improves destination memory performance for older adults as they continue to age, with negative emotions providing a greater impact. More research must be conducted to better understand ways to improve this memory error in order to prevent deterioration from aging.
Alzheimer's disease.
Alzheimer's disease is a progressive condition in which brain cells degenerate and die, leading to a steady destruction of one's memory and important mental functions. Because Alzheimer's disease has been shown to significantly affect episodic memory, researchers sought to understand how Alzheimer's disease affects destination memory, since it plays a critical role in our episodic memory. El Haj, Gandolphe, Allain, Fasotti, and Antoine found that those with Alzheimer's demonstrated poor performance in destination memory due to their inability to suppress appropriate versus inappropriate information during the memory retrieval process of their experiment. In addition to studying episodic memory, El Haj, Gély-Nargeot and Raffard sought to investigate the relationship between destination memory in Alzheimer patients and theory of mind because both processes are cognitive abilities that support effective communication and are linked to episodic memory function. They found that Alzheimer patients demonstrated a decline in destination memory as well as 2nd order cognitive theory of mind (Mary thinks that John thinks that...), but not for 1st order cognitive theory of mind (John thinks that...). Just as destination memory ability declines with normal aging, it is also negatively affected by Alzheimer's disease.
Social consequences.
Destination memory is critical for social interactions. Remembering to whom one has told information is expected and necessary for successful social interactions. Destination memory error can lead to social embarrassment when repeating stories to someone who has already heard them. While the fleeting emotion of social embarrassment may not be viewed as a serious mistake; destination memory can pose more serious issues in society. Including times when a supervisor delegates a specific task to an employee or when a professor forgets to whom they have given a specific responsibility. Errors like these can result in a diffusion of responsibility or an inability to accomplish necessary daily activities. Additionally, destination memory error can result in problematic situations for liars, as the inability to remember to whom they have told a story could result in getting caught in telling incongruent stories. Destination memory is necessary for successful communication.


Andy Mangels

Andy Mangels (born December 2, 1966) is an American science fiction author who has written novels, comic books, and magazine articles, and produced DVD collections, mostly focusing on media in popular culture. As an openly gay man, he has been a longtime advocate for greater visibility of gay and lesbian characters in various media, especially comics, including the coordination and moderation of the annual "Gays in Comics" panel for Comic Con International since it was begun in 1988. He is the founder of an annual "Women of Wonder Day" event, which raised over $136,000 in funds for domestic violence shelters and related programs during its seven-year run. As of 2011 he has had three books on the "USA Today" "best-selling books" list.
Books.
Mangels has written a number of references for popular science fiction and pop culture media. These include "Star Wars: The Essential Guide to Characters" (published by Del Rey in 1995), which appeared on the "USA Today" "best-selling books" list; "Beyond Mulder and Scully: The Mysterious Characters of "The X-Files"" (Citadel Press, 1997); "Animation on DVD: The Ultimate Guide" (Stone Bridge Press, 2003); "From Scream To Dawson's Creek: The Phenomenal Career of Kevin Williamson" (Renaissance Publishing, 2000); "Iron Man: Beneath The Armor" (Random House, 2008); and "Lou Scheimer: Creating The Filmation Generation" (TwoMorrows, 2012). He contributed to "The Superhero Book: The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Comic Book Icons and Hollywood Heroes" (Visible Ink Press, 2004), and "The SuperVillain Book: The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Comic Book and Hollywood Masterminds, Megalomaniacs, and Menaces", (Visible Ink Press, 2006).
Much of Mangels' prose fiction has been related to media franchises begun in television. In collaboration with Michael A. Martin, he wrote a number of "Star Trek" novels, two of which appeared on the "USA Today" "best-selling books" list. One of them, ' ', was the first Star Trek property to feature gay lead characters. Mangels and Martin also co-wrote a series of novels serving as the official continuation of ' following the television series' cancellation. These include "Last Full Measure", "The Good That Men Do", and "Kobayashi Maru". They co-created the crew and wrote the first two novels of the ' series. Together they wrote the conclusion for the events of the cult-hit television series "Roswell" (which had ended with a cliffhanger) in the novels "Pursuit" and "Turnabout". Mangels and Martin also contributed a story to "Tales of Zorro", edited by Richard Dean Starr and published by Moonstone Books in 2008.
Comic books.
Since the 1990s Mangels has written comic book stories and text pieces for several major publishers. His work for DC Comics includes writing for "Justice League Quarterly", "Who's Who in the DC Universe", and "Wonder Woman '77". His Marvel Comics work includes issues of ', "Star Trek Unlimited", "Mad Dog", "Adventures of the X-Men", and "Adventures of Spider-Man". For Dark Horse he wrote "Boba Fett: Twin Engines of Destruction", and he scripted a story in Wildstorm's "Star Trek Special". Comics published by Image include the "Bloodwulf" mini-series, "Badrock & Company'," and "Troll Halloween Special". For Innovation he scripted several tie-ins to the Child's Play, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Quantum Leap franchises. For WaRP he contributed scripts for "Elfquest: Blood of Ten Chiefs". His Topps writing includes the comics adaptation of "". He scripted Platinum Studio' graphic novel "Super Larry, World's Toughest Man." For Microsoft he wrote the world's first interactive online comic series, "RE-Man".
Mangels served as editor of the anthology "Gay Comix" from 1991 to 1998, for issues #14-25 (plus one "special"). He also contributed stories, including creating an early openly gay superhero named Pride. Under his editorship, the series changed its name to "Gay Comics" (symbolically becoming a part of the mainstream instead of underground comix scene), published multiple issues per year, raised page and cover payment rates and instituted a reprint fee, enforced a gender-parity of 50% male and 50% female creators rule, and even occasionally brought in popular heterosexual creators to bump sales, such as George Pérez and Sam Kieth. A story that Mangels' commissioned for Gay Comics #19 from Alison Bechdel would later be expanded upon for Bechdel's "Fun Home" graphic novel, for which Bechdel thanked him during her keynote speech at the 2016 "Queers and Comics" symposium at City University of New York.
Mangels has written non-fiction articles and reviews – often about the intersection of comics and Hollywood – for magazines such as Amazing Heroes, Alter Ego/FCA, "Anime Invasion", "Cinescape", "Comics Buyer's Guide", "Comics Interview", "Comics Scene", "Overstreet's FAN Magazine", "Hero Illustrated", "Marvel Age", "Marvel Vision", "Sci-Fi Invasion", "Sci-Fi Universe", SFX, "Sketch", "Starlog", "Star Wars Galaxy Magazine, Star Wars Galaxy Collector", "Toons", "Wild Cartoon Ki"ngdom, , and others. He has written for international magazines such as "Dreamwatc"h (UK), "Edizione Star" (Italy), "Fantazia" (UK), "Farscape Magazine" (UK), "La Tomba Di Dracula" (Italy), "Star Trek Monthly" (UK), "Star Wars Magazine" (UK), and others. He writes regularly for TwoMorrows' magazine "Back Issue!".
In 2012, Mangels was awarded the Inkpot Award for Achievement in the Comic Arts at Comic-Con International. Mangels has presented panels at Comic-Con International since 1988.
In July 2016, "The New York Times" ran a story about Dynamite Entertainment, which revealed that Mangels was writing a new intercompany crossover mini-series for the company, in conjunction with DC Comics: "Wonder Woman '77 Meets The Bionic Woman", bringing together the Lynda Carter television character with Lindsay Wagner's fellow 1970s television super-heroine. The series was set to start in Fall 2016.
DVD features.
His DVD Special Features production work has primarily been collecting and restoring earlier children's television programs, and serving as host for the representations.
Mangels scripted and directed 16 half-hour documentaries for the various "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe" releases from BCI Eclipse/ Ink & Paint. He also provided Special Features content, including hosting commentary tracks, and other production work and writing for the sets. From 2006 to 2008, Mangels also directed and scripted documentaries and commentary tracks and providing Special Features content for almost forty BCI Eclipse/ Ink & Paint releases, including for ', "The Legend of Prince Valiant, Flash Gordon", "Blackstar", "Space Sentinels", "Freedom Force", "Groovie Goolies", "A Snow White Christmas", "Journey Back To OZ", "Defenders of the Earth", "Ghost Busters - The Animated Series", "Ark II", "Dungeons & Dragons", ', "Space Academy", "The Secret Lives of Waldo Kitty", "Fraidy Cat", "The New Adventures of Zorro", "The Lone Ranger", "The Legend of Bravestarr", "", "Jason of Star Command", "Hero High", "Ghost Busters" (live action), "Fabulous Funnies", and "The Secrets of Isis"
When BCI Eclipse closed in 2008, Mangels worked for two other companies, scripting and directing documentaries, and providing commentary tracks and production work. For Genius Products, he produced "The Archie Sho"w and "Archie's Funhouse". For Time Life, he produced a boxed set for "The Real Ghostbusters".
Mangels' work as a DVD producer won him significant critical acclaim. In addition to being a guest at DVD panels at San Diego's Comic-Con International, his work on "The Best of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe" won a "Best 1980s Series" from Home Media Retailing at their 2005 TVDVD Awards. The Digital Bits website noted in their 2006 Bitsy Awards that with "the hiring of DVD producer Andy Mangels to create extras, things turned around big time in 2006. BCI/Eclipse is now leading the pack with their top-notch releases of nostalgic Saturday morning TV favorites from the 70s and 80s, each one stuffed to the max with fantastic bonuses".
In addition to the above, Mangels has contributed liner notes and materials to multiple Anchor Bay DVDs – including "Beastmaster"", Highlander, , Plenty, Sleuth" and "Can't Stop The Mus"ic – and has aided Paramount and Warner Bros. with various DVD sets.
Performance.
Mangels performed onstage in Kalispell, Montana theatres, including roles in such shows as "Brigadoon", "A Christmas Carol", "Once Upon A Mattress" and Ira Levine's pscyho-thriller "Veronica's Room". He has also performed in Portland, Oregon with Stumptown Stages in "The Great American Trailer Park Christmas Musical", JANE Theatre in "Hullabaloo: The Little Frankenstein", Coho Theatre in "Mrs California" and "Steel Magnolias", and on the Lakewood Theatre stage in "The Secret Garden". Additionally, he has performed in fundraising events since the early 1990s in Portland.
In mid-2011, Mangels and fellow Portland performer Mark Brown founded the Broadway Bears singing group, as a way to address the inequality bearded and larger actors faced when being cast for roles. Advertising themselves as "Portland's Furriest Singers," the group of gay performers represented the bear subculture in cabaret concert performances, singing live songs from throughout the musical realm of stage and screen, representing male and female songs that ranged from comedy to pathos, and performing solos, duets, trios, and group numbers. The Broadway Bears has performed six long-form multi-night concert sets through summer 2016, as well as performing at local events, including the famous Peacock in the Park events.
As a screen actor, Mangels has had bit parts or extra roles in television series such as Leverage, The Librarians, and Grimm. He has appeared multiple times on Grimm, most recently in a two-episode arc in 2015 as a featured member of the "Wesenrein" group. He has also been in several films and telefilms, including Untraceable, , A Change of Heart, Total Reality, and others.
As a pop culture expert, he has been featured in numerous documentaries, including shows for PBS, E!, Warner Bros. and others. These include Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines, FANatical, E! True Hollywood Story, and documentaries for the Wonder Woman, , Batman (60s TV series), All-New Super Friends Hour, Wonder Woman (2009 film), "DC Super Heroes: The Filmation Adventures", , and .
Activism.
Mangels is active in the gay community, particularly in the leather and bear subcultures. He previously held the title of Mr. Oregon State Leather 2004. He has won multiple national Pantheon of Leather awards, specifically the "Northwest Regional Award" in 1995, 2005, and 2011.
He created, moderated, and ran the "Gays In Comics" panel at San Diego's Comic-Con International for 25 years, from 1988 to 2012. He is a founding member of the non-profit GLBTQI organization PRISM Comics, serving gay comic fans and professionals, and is a member of the group's Advisory Board.
As an ordained minister with the Universal Life Church, Mangels performed the Unity Wedding at Denver Comic Con in June 2016. The wedding featured ten couples – straight, gay, lesbian, and transgender – married in front of a large crowd.
In 2019, Mangels was the subject of state-wide and national attention when he and his husband were forced to find a new home following a 113% increase in their rent. The publicity surrounding this led to the passage of rent-control legislation in the state of Oregon, and Mangels was invited to attend the bill signing by Gov. Kate Brown.
Private life.
Mangels works as a home care worker for the State of Oregon, for elderly and disabled clients. He resides in Portland, Oregon, with his longtime partner and now husband, Donald Hood, and their dog Lucy.
Bibliography.
Solo books
Star Trek novels and stories co-written with Michael A. Martin
Other book work co-written with Michael A. Martin


Idris Foster

Sir Idris Llewelyn Foster (23 July 1911 – 18 June 1984) was a distinguished Welsh scholar, and was most notably Jesus Professor of Celtic at the University of Oxford from 1947 until 1978.
He was born in Carneddi, Bethesda, Caernarfonshire, Wales, and read Latin and Welsh at the University College of North Wales, Bangor. He was appointed Head of the Department of Celtic at the University of Liverpool in 1936. His academic career was interrupted by World War II, when he worked in Naval Intelligence, contributing to the Geographical Handbook Series. He was appointed as the third holder of the Oxford chair in Celtic (originally held by Sir John Rhys) in 1947 and became a Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford at the same time. He was knighted in 1977 and retired the following year back to his birthplace, where he died in 1984.
His most important work in the field of Celtic Studies was in Medieval Welsh and Irish, both poetry and prose. He made a particular contribution to the study of tale of Culhwch ac Olwen, and his edition of the tale was published in 1992, after his death, by the assistance of his friends Rachel Bromwich and .
He was actively involved in many leading Welsh organisations and societies, particularly the National Eisteddfod, where he was Chairman of the Council and President of the Court, the National Library of Wales (Treasurer and Vice-President), and the Church in Wales (member of the Governing Body). The National Library of Wales holds the archive of his papers.


Mrs. Soffel

Mrs. Soffel is a 1984 American drama film directed by Gillian Armstrong, starring Diane Keaton and Mel Gibson and based on the story of condemned brothers Jack and Ed Biddle, who escaped prison with the aid of the warden's wife, Kate Soffel.
It was filmed on location in and around the Serez family farm in Mulmur, Ontario, as well as Wisconsin (train sequences) and establishing shots in Pittsburgh. The jail sequences were filmed in both the Allegheny County Courthouse and old Allegheny County Jail. The film was entered in the 35th Berlin International Film Festival.
Plot.
Kate Soffel is the wife of a Pittsburgh prison warden in 1901. They have four children. After several months of being sick in bed for no discernible reason, she suddenly regains her strength. She visits inmates to read Bible scripture to them and meets Ed Biddle and his brother Jack, both of whom may be innocent of the crimes that brought them there.
Mrs. Soffel falls in love with Ed and enables him and Jack to escape, smuggling bar-cutting blades to him at the prison. They go on the run together, with tragic results.
Reception.
The film received lackluster reviews upon release and holds a 36% score on Rotten Tomatoes. Roger Ebert awarded the film two stars, calling it "an anemic Bonnie and Clyde" and concluding that the performances were unconvincing. Vincent Canby called it a "very strange and maddening movie", but praised the performances of Keaton and Gibson.


Sophie Piccard

Sophie Piccard (1904–1990) was a Russian-Swiss mathematician who became the first female full professor (professor ordinarius) in Switzerland. Her research concerned set theory, group theory, linear algebra, and the history of mathematics.
Early life and education.
Piccard was born on September 27, 1904 in Saint Petersburg, with a French Huguenot mother and a Swiss father. She earned a diploma in Smolensk in 1925, where her father, Eugène-Ferdinand Piccard, was a university professor and her mother a language teacher at the lycée. Soon afterwards she moved to Switzerland with her parents, escaping the unrest in Russia that her mother, Eulalie Piccard, would become known for writing about. Sophie Piccard's Russian degree was worthless in Switzerland, and she earned another from the University of Lausanne in 1927, going on to complete a doctorate there in 1929 under the supervision of Dmitry Mirimanoff.
Career and later life.
She worked outside of mathematics until 1936, when she began teaching part-time at the University of Neuchâtel as an assistant to Rudolf Gaberel. Gaberel died in 1938 and she inherited his position, becoming a professor extraordinarius (associate professor); she was promoted to professor ordinarius in 1943, as the chair of higher geometry and probability theory at Neuchâtel.
Piccard died on January 6, 1990 in Fribourg.
Contributions.
Piccard was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 1932 and again in 1936.
In 1939 she published the book "Sur les ensembles de distances des ensembles de points d'un espace Euclidean" ("Mémoires de L’Université de Neuchâtel" 13, Paris, France: Libraire Gauthier-Villars and Cie., 1939). Its subject was the sets of distances that a collection of points in a Euclidean space might determine.
This book included early research on Golomb rulers, finite sets of integer points in a one-dimensional space with the property that their distances are all distinct.
She published a theorem claiming that every two Golomb rulers with the same distance set must be congruent to each other; this turned out to be false for certain sets of six points, but true otherwise.


Harley Quinn (TV series)

Harley Quinn is an American adult animated television series based on the DC Comics character of the same name created by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm. The series is written and executive produced by Justin Halpern, Patrick Schumacker, and Dean Lorey and follows the misadventures of Harley Quinn and her friend Poison Ivy after leaving her boyfriend, the Joker. The show premiered on DC Universe to critical success on November 29, 2019, with critics praising its animation, humor, dark tone and voice acting.
The show's second season premiered on April 3, 2020. On September 18, 2020, the series was officially renewed for a third season, along with the announcement that the show would move to HBO Max, following the restructuring of DC Universe.
Overview.
The series follows Harley Quinn's misadventures after breaking up with the Joker upon the realization that he does not love her. The first season focuses on Harley's attempts to prove herself as a competent villain in order to join the Legion of Doom, starting with the formation of her own crew consisting of Poison Ivy, Clayface, Doctor Psycho, King Shark, and Sy Borgman. When she finally achieves this goal, however, she inadvertently distances herself from her newfound friends and continues to face problems from the Joker, who cannot stand the idea of Harley being a successful supervillain without him. In the season one finale, the Joker manages to take over Gotham City, only to be defeated by Harley and her crew. In a final act of retaliation, he destroys the entire city, resulting in his and Batman's apparent deaths.
In the second season, Gotham has , allowing the newly-formed Injustice League — consisting of the Penguin, the Riddler, Mr. Freeze, Two-Face, and Bane — to take over the city's ruins. After they refuse to let Harley join them, she works with her crew to take them down one by one in order to claim Gotham for herself; in the process unwittingly inspiring Barbara Gordon to become Batgirl. Meanwhile, both the Joker and Batman are revealed to be alive; albeit with the former now sane and with no memory of his old self while the latter, unable to fight crime due to his injuries, names Batgirl his temporary replacement as Gotham's defender until he recovers. Following the Injustice League's defeat, Commissioner Gordon restores order to Gotham while Harley begins to develop feelings for Ivy. Concurrently, Doctor Psycho leaves the crew to exact revenge on Harley for under-appreciating him, and manages to take over Gotham with a Parademon army he obtained from Darkseid. To stop him, Harley joins forces with the Justice League, Gordon, and the Joker; reluctantly restoring the latter back to his former self in the process. Although Psycho is defeated in the end, he retaliates by revealing Harley and Ivy had sex right before the latter's wedding with Kite Man. Though Ivy and Kite Man attempt to continue on, Gordon, annoyed that he did not receive any recognition for saving Gotham, attempts to bust their wedding. Amidst the chaos, Kite Man realizes Ivy does not love him and breaks up with her. While escaping from the police together, Ivy finally admits her feelings for Harley.
Episodes.
Season 3.
According to Screen Rant, season 3 will not premiere until late 2021. An interview from creators Halpern and Schumacker stated that they were "optimistic" despite the shift from DC Universe to HBO Max and estimated late 2021 for season 3. Schumacker stated it was more difficult to produce, but it will be much simpler not having to create two seasons back to back. Halpern has stated in an interview with "Entertainment Weekly" that season 3 will explore Harley's reaction to a half healthy relationship with Ivy as well as focusing more on Ivy's backstory as the previous two seasons were mainly focused on Harley. Schumacker said that new writers from the LGBTQ+ community have been hired because of the direction of season 2 and that it's a priority to diversify the staff for season 3. Schumacker also revealed that Dean Lorey would no longer be available to return as showrunner for season 3 and would be replaced by new co-showrunners Chrissy Pietrosh and Jessica Goldstein alongside him and Justin Halpern. Composer Jefferson Friedman rumored there would be a musical episode coming. Friedman also stated that he wanted to refresh the music to give identity for each character. During an interview with "Deadline Hollywood" Schumacker stated that his desire was to open season 3 on "an actual Zoom, where the GCPD is just being berated by the city of Gotham for their ineptitude". In February 2021, series creator Patrick Schumacker announced that they had begun recording season 3.
Production.
Development.
On November 20, 2017, it was announced that the then-unnamed DC Universe had ordered 26 episodes of "Harley Quinn", a half-hour adult animated action-comedy series created and written by Justin Halpern, Patrick Schumacker and Dean Lorey. Executive producers were set to include Halpern, Schumacker, Lorey, and Sam Register with Jennifer Coyle serving as a producer. Production companies involved in the series were slated to consist of Ehsugadee Productions and Warner Bros. Animation. The first season consists of 13 episodes of the initial 26-episode order. Animation work is provided by NE4U, Digital eMation and Maven Image Platform in South Korea.
In June 2018, it was announced that the series would premiere in 2019. In October, it was further mapped as an October 2019 premiere. It was also reported that Kaley Cuoco would also serve as an executive producer for the series through her production company Yes, Norman Productions.
It was revealed that a second season was produced and would be available to stream on April 3, 2020, consisting of another 13 episodes.
On September 18, 2020, three months after the second season finale, it was announced that the series had been renewed for a third season, and would move to HBO Max. In February 2021, series creator Patrick Schumacker announced that they had begun recording season 3. The third season will premiere in late 2021 or early 2022.
Casting.
Alongside the series order announcement, it was reported that the producers of the series were expected to approach Margot Robbie, who portrays the character in the DC Extended Universe, to reprise the role; but this was false. In an interview after the season 1 release, Halpern went on record saying Robbie was kept in the loop, but she was never interested in playing the role since she was filming and producing "Birds of Prey" at the time. Other characters expected to be featured in the series included the Joker, Poison Ivy, Sy Borgman, Doctor Psycho, Malice Vundabar, King Shark, and Clayface.
On October 3, 2018, it was announced that Cuoco would voice Harley Quinn and Lake Bell would voice Poison Ivy. Additional voice actors in the series include Alan Tudyk as Joker and Clayface, Ron Funches as King Shark, J. B. Smoove as Frank the Plant, Jason Alexander as Sy Borgman, Wanda Sykes as the Queen of Fables, Giancarlo Esposito as Lex Luthor, Natalie Morales as Lois Lane, Jim Rash as Riddler, Diedrich Bader reprising his role from ' as Batman himself, Tony Hale as Dr. Psycho and Christopher Meloni as James Gordon. Shortly after, Rahul Kohli revealed he would voice Scarecrow in the series. In June 2019, Sanaa Lathan was revealed to be voicing Catwoman, who was depicted as African-American. On July 24, 2019, Vanessa Marshall revealed to be reprising Wonder Woman from ' and "". While on the following day, "TV Guide" revealed that veteran voice actor Charlie Adler has been confirmed to serve as the series' additional voice director with Schumacker and Lorey serving as the voice directors. In February 2020, Alfred Molina was announced to be voicing Mr. Freeze. In April 2020, Schumacker confirmed that Michael Ironside would be reprising his role as Darkseid from both the DC Animated Universe and the "Lego DC Super-Villains" video game.
Music.
Jefferson Friedman composed the music for the series. WaterTower Music released the soundtrack album for season 1 on August 21, 2020. The season 2 album was released on the same day.
LGBTQ representation.
In the Batman Multiverse, Harley Quinn (Dr. Harleen Quinzel) and Poison Ivy (Dr. Pamela Isley) started as friends. In the comics, Harley and Ivy even referred to each other as "Pam-A-Lamb" affectionally which lead to the fandom shipping them together. The writers took notice giving them moments of birthday kisses and taken showers together making their friendship more intimate. Harley Quinn's and Poison Ivy's romance in the "Batman" universe began in "Harley Quinn #1" when Harley whispers into Ivy's ear that the reason she "saves her" from the Joker is due to her romantic feelings for her. However, it wasn't until in 2013 the Amanda Connor and Jimmy Palmiotti "Harley Quinn" comic series where they're shown in a romance couple instead of friendship. Harley refers to Ivy is her "hot girlfriend" and the two are in an open relationship where they can pursue other partners while still dedicated to each other. In other parts of the "Batman" universe Harley and Ivy even got married in "Injustice 2".
In the May 15, 2020 episode "There's No Place to Go But Down" Harley Quinn saved her partner-in-crime, Poison Ivy; both kissed each other after they escaped from prison. The critic who reviewed the episode stated that Harley and Ivy's romance was a "slow burn", adding that this love affair could turn into a "more realistic exploration of how it feels to fall in love with a friend or to have an awkward hookup with a workmate." Another reviewer, Sophie Perry, writing for a lesbian lifestyle magazine, "Curve", noted how queerbaiting has long endured in LGBTQ+ representation, noting how She-Ra and Harley Quinn both had same-sex kisses, happening within stories which could have turned out to be "typical queerbaiting" but did not. In another episode, Clayface, a member of Harley's villain crew, was revealed as a gay character who had a crush on a male student.
The series was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Comedy Series.
Release.
"Harley Quinn" premiered on DC Universe on November 29, 2019. On October 3, 2018, ahead of the annual New York Comic Con, a teaser trailer featuring Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy and Batman in Arkham was released. A full, uncensored trailer set to Joan Jett's cover of the theme song from "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" was released on July 20, 2019 to coincide with the panel at San Diego Comic-Con.
On December 8, 2019, the first episode was shown as a special presentation on TBS. Season 1 started airing on Syfy on May 3, 2020. The series airs on Adult Swim in Canada, with new episodes airing a week after their American premiere. The series started airing on E4 in the United Kingdom and Ireland on May 7, 2020. The series debuted on HBO Max on August 1, 2020.
An original short featuring Harley answering questions from fans was released online during DC FanDome in 2020.
Home media.
The first season was released on DVD on June 2, 2020 and the second season was released on February 16, 2021 by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment. The first two seasons were also released on Blu-ray in a box set by Warner Archive Collection on February 16, 2021.
Digitally, the first two seasons are also available for digital purchase on Prime Video and iTunes.
Reception.
On Rotten Tomatoes, season 1 has an approval rating of 88% based on 32 reviews, with an average rating of 8.25/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "A strong voice cast and an even stronger grasp of what makes its titular antiheroine so beloved make "Harley Quinn" a violently delightful—and surprisingly insightful—addition to the DC animated universe." Season 2 has an approval rating of 100% based on 20 reviews with an average rating of 9/10, and a critical consensus stating, ""Harley Quinn" maintains its frenetic energy and humor while doubling down on the shenanigans and giving its titular anti-heroine even more room to play." On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 82 out of 100, based on reviews from 7 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".
Caroline Framke of "Variety" wrote: "The animation feels like that of a typical Saturday morning cartoon, but its acidic scripts and shocking bursts of gore reminds you that "Harley Quinn" is taking full advantage of airing on a streaming service without censors. [...] Sharp voice performances across the board from actors clearly relishing the chance to play in this world also prove too fun to resist. [...] Most importantly, Harley gets to be an entire person all her own, as heartbreakingly naive as she is wickedly strange and funny."
Robyn Bahr of "The Hollywood Reporter" wrote: "It's one of the best surprises of the year. [...] 13 zippy, violent and irreverent half-hour episodes. [...] The writing is frequently uproarious, chock full of Millennial nostalgia and cerebral gallows humor (the former may be low-hanging, rapidly-perishable fruit, but at least the show knows how to embrace its audience)."


Morton Deutsch

Morton Deutsch (February 4, 1920 – March 13, 2017) was an American social psychologist and researcher in conflict resolution. Deutsch was one of the founding fathers of the field of conflict resolution. A "Review of General Psychology" survey, published in 2002, ranked Deutsch as the 63rd most cited psychologist of the 20th century.
Early life and education.
Morton Deutsch was born in 1920 in the Bronx, New York City into a family with three other children. By age 15 he was enrolled in university at the City College of New York. Deutsch started on a path into psychiatry, but switched to psychology after dissecting a guinea pig in a biology class. He received a B.S. from the City College of New York in 1939 and his M.A. in 1940 from the University of Pennsylvania. After his M.A. degree, Deutsch held a rotating internship that cycled between three New York State institutions: Letchworth Village (for the mentally incompetent), Warwick (for delinquent boys), and Rockland State Hospital (for mentally disturbed children and adults).
Deutsch joined the US Air Force after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, where he initially acted as a psychologist, then as a navigator flying in thirty bombing missions over Nazi Germany. During active combat Deutsch was honored with a Distinguished Flying Cross (and cluster) and an Air Medal (with three clusters). After his tour of duty was completed he served as a clinical psychologist in an Air Force convalescent hospital until his discharge. Subsequently, he studied at MIT under Kurt Lewin, where he was graduated with a Ph.D. in 1948. He wrote his dissertation comparing the psychological effects and productivity of cooperative groups and competitive groups. Deutsch worked as a part of Lewin's Research Center for Group Dynamics, and his early research was largely tinged by the growing global concern with nuclear weapons. He was also tasked with instructing introductory psychology classes to undergraduate students, in which he undertook an experiment comparing cooperative and competitive grading processes.
This led to the major theoretical contribution Deutsch made during his early career; the "Theory of Cooperation and Competition", which studies interdependence among goals (cooperative versus competitive) and types of actions taken (effective versus bungling). The study uses three concepts to develop their implications for the social processes and personal relations that occur in groups: substitutability (how a person's actions are able to satisfy the intentions of another), cathexis (an individual's disposition to evaluate themselves or their surroundings), and inducibility (the readiness of an individual to accept the influence of another person). The theory was first presented in a paper published in 1949.
While at MIT Deutsch also met his future wife Lydia Shapiro when he was assigned to supervise her work under Lewin. They married on June 1, 1947, a year and a half after they met, and have remained together ever since.
Early career.
One of the first projects of Deutsch's academic career was a study of group tension and racial attitudes as a part of the Commission on Community Interrelations of the American Jewish Congress. The goal of the Commission's work was to break through the apathy that the American society of the time had against religious or racial prejudice. In 1951, Deutsch and coauthor Mary Evans Collins, working out of the Research Center for Human Relations at NYU (where Deutsch had started working in 1949), produced a study comparing racially integrated housing in New York with racially segregated housing in Newark, New Jersey. Up until their study it was the norm for housing projects to follow a policy of segregation. The results of their study led to a reversal of policy in publicly held residential developments and to the belief that segregated housing was undemocratic. The study was published under the title "Interracial Housing" by the University of Minnesota Press in May of that year. In a 1951 newspaper interview with Louis Danzing, the Director for the segregated housing projects stated that, "The study has served as a catalyst to the re-examination of our basic interracial policies in housing and as a stimulus to their change. Many of us have long felt that artificial separation of colored and white families was an unwholesome procedure. However until the study of Dr. Deutsch and Mrs. Collins, we had no scientific evidence to substantiate our feelings." Modern commentators have accredited Deutsch's research as a valuable contribution to the end of segregation policies in the United States.
In 1951 Deutsch also published the textbook "Research Methods in Social Relations" with coauthors Marie Jahoda and Stuart W. Cook, a book that would go on to three editions over the following twenty-five years. In 1954, Deutsch began studying at the Postgraduate Center for Psychotherapy, where he graduated as a professionally trained psychoanalytic psychotherapist in 1957. In addition to his work as a social psychologist, he conducted a small practice as a psychotherapist until his retirement in the late 1980s. In 1956, he joined the staff of the Bell Telephone Laboratories, where he did research on interpersonal bargaining and small group processes. While at Bell one of the more prominent experiments he conducted was the Acme-Bolt Trucking game, which concluded that when an individual has the opportunity to apply threat to another in competition they will use it and that this threatening behavior does not lead to cooperation. Deutsch also co-edited the book "Preventing World War III" in 1962. This work continued from his initial concerns with nuclear warfare, including the idea of nuclear deterrence. As an expert in social psychology, he began appearing on television to discuss the developing field.
Career at Columbia University.
In 1963 he made what would be his final move between institutions, when he started at Teachers College, Columbia University after being invited to found a new social psychology doctoral program. The two major works that resulted of his studies during this period are considered to be "The Resolution of Conflict" (published in 1973) and "Distributive Justice" (published in 1985). However he also published the book "Theories in Social Psychology" (1965) and "Applying Social Psychology" (1975) during this same period. Deutsch was the first psychologist to use the Prisoner's Dilemma to study trust between small groups or pairings of individuals. During this period his work in conflict resolution continued to grow in influence, including his differentiation between constructive conflict and destructive conflict. The impact of his work was seen both in theory and in practice—for example, in 1989 both Janusz Grzelak (a leading figure of the Solidarity movement in Poland) and Janusz Reykowski (a leading figure of the Communist Party of Poland) cited Deutsch's work as part of the infrastructure for the peaceful transfer of power from the Communists to the people.
Deutsch was appointed Edward Lee Thorndike Professor of Psychology and Education in 1981, and delivered his inaugural address on April 22, 1982. Through his work during this phase of his career, he became known as an authority in the fields of conflict resolution, social justice, intergroup relations, and social psychology. In 1986 Deutsch founded the International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution (ICCCR) at Columbia. The goal of the Center was to integrate the theory of conflict resolution with its actual practice. For example, in 1987 the Center was involved in training teachers in Long Island and New Jersey to deal with inter-student and gang violence in lower-income communities.
His work in this period also revolved around the concept of "distributive justice", relating to the distribution of goods and conditions affecting the well-being of individuals in a group, as a separate concept from procedural justice. This research culminated in his 1985 book "Distributive Justice". Another major theme of his work was the concept of "Crude Law", which studied the relationships between attitudes, behavior, and relationships. Through his research Deutsch determined that the typical effects of a given relationship tend to induce that relationship. Thus, the typical effects of cooperation induce friendly, helpful behavior and friendly, helpful behavior will induce a cooperative relationship. His Crude Law as well as his research into distributive justice expanded the breadth of his body of work in the field of conflict resolution.
Late career.
Deutsch is also a founding member of the World Dignity University initiative and Global Advisory Board Member of the Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies organization. Variously Deutsch has also been President of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, the International Society of Political Psychology, several divisions of the American Psychological Association (APA), as well as the Eastern Psychological Association and New York State Psychological Association.
In 2005 the ICCCR inaugurated the annual Morton Deutsch Award, provided to both a scholar-practitioner in the field of social justice and also to the winner of a student paper competition. The ceremony for the awards is held each year in the month of April. The International Society for Justice Research also inaugurated a Morton Deutsch Award in 2004, for the best article published in Social Justice Research. The Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict, and Violence: Peace Psychology Division of APA also offers an annual Morton Deutsch Conflict Resolution Award funded by the royalties of Deutsch's book "Handbook of Conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice", given to a practitioner that contributes to the theory of the field of conflict resolution or vice versa.
Deutsch officially retired from teaching in 1990 but has authored more than 50 papers or book chapters between his retirement and 2007, as well as many more in recent years. Over his career he mentored nearly 70 PhD students, most of them at Teachers College. In 2005 author Erica Frydenberg wrote a biography on Deutsch entitled "Morton Deutsch: a Life and Legacy of Mediation and Conflict Resolution" and in 2011 Peter Coleman edited the book "Conflict, Interdependence, and Justice: The Intellectual Legacy of Morton Deutsch". Articles profiling his life were also written in 2006 by John Jost and in an issue dedicated to his life in the journal "Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology".
The Columbia University Libraries house the Morton Deutsch Collection, which consists of a print and online archive of his work. Since his retirement he has served at Columbia as E.L. Thorndike Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Education.
Awards.
In 1969 Deutsch was awarded the Kurt Lewin Memorial Award, named for his PhD mentor at MIT. He was awarded the 1993 and inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award given out every two years by the International Association for Conflict Management. His citation for the award stated that Deutsch had also won "the G. W. Allport Prize, the Carl Hovland Memorial Award, and the AAAS Socio-psychological Prize, to mention a few. Dr. Deutsch has received several lifetime achievement awards for his work on conflict management, cooperative learning, peace psychology, and the applications of psychology to social issues". Deutsch was the recipient of the Teachers College Medal for Distinguished Service to Education, Helsinki University Medal for his contributions to psychology, and an honorary doctorate from his alma mater CCNY. Deutsch received distinguished scientific contribution awards from three professional societies: the Society of Experimental Social Psychology in 1985; the American Psychological Association in 1987; and the William James Fellow Award of the Association for Psychological Science. He was the winner of the 1961 AAAS Prize for Behavioral Science Research. Deutsch was also awarded the 2006 James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award from the Association for Psychological Science.
In addition to receiving these awards, he has been honored by the establishment of the Morton Deutsch Conflict Resolution Award by the International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution.


A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake

A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake is a 1944 work of literary criticism by mythologist Joseph Campbell and Henry Morton Robinson. The work gives both a general critical overview of "Finnegans Wake" and a detailed exegetical outline of the text.
According to Campbell and Robinson, "Finnegans Wake" is best interpreted in light of Giambattista Vico's philosophy, which holds that history proceeds in cycles and fails to achieve meaningful progress over time.
Campbell and Robinson began their analysis of Joyce's work because they had recognized in "The Skin of Our Teeth" (1942), the popular play by Thornton Wilder, an appropriation from Joyce's novel not only of themes but of plot and language as well. They published a pair of reviews-cum-denunciations of "Skin of Our Teeth", both entitled "The Skin of "Whose" Teeth?" in "The Saturday Review".


Perfect set property

In descriptive set theory, a subset of a Polish space has the perfect set property if it is either countable or has a nonempty perfect subset (Kechris 1995, p. 150). Note that having the perfect set property is not the same as being a perfect set.
As nonempty perfect sets in a Polish space always have the cardinality of the continuum, and the reals form a Polish space, a set of reals with the perfect set property cannot be a counterexample to the continuum hypothesis, stated in the form that every uncountable set of reals has the cardinality of the continuum.
The Cantor–Bendixson theorem states that closed sets of a Polish space "X" have the perfect set property in a particularly strong form: any closed subset of "X" may be written uniquely as the disjoint union of a perfect set and a countable set. In particular, every uncountable Polish space has the perfect set property, and can be written as the disjoint union of a perfect set and a countable open set.
The axiom of choice implies the existence of sets of reals that do not have the perfect set property, such as Bernstein sets. However, in Solovay's model, which satisfies all axioms of ZF but not the axiom of choice, every set of reals has the perfect set property, so the use of the axiom of choice is necessary. Every analytic set has the perfect set property. It follows from the existence of sufficiently large cardinals that every projective set has the perfect set property.