Sanjay Singh Yadav

Sanjay Singh Yadav, also often styled simply as Sanjay Yadav, is an Indian author. He has written "The Environmental Crisis of Delhi", "The Invasion of Delhi", "Portraits of India" and a work in Hindi, "Dilli par Kabza". He is an internationally acclaimed lyricist – he has been a semi-finalist in the United Kingdom Song Writing Contest for two successive years, 2013 and 2014.
He has produced a documentary film entitled "The Return of Raja Bhoj" – in its Hindi version, "Raja Bhoj Ki Wapsi". He has also been a contributor to various academic journals in different countries of the world.
Yadav is the Founder and President of the Trumpist Party of India for Equality and Identity.
Education.
Yadav’s education is spread over several different countries and several notable institutions. He attended Scindia School, an elite boarding school in Gwalior. During 1967–68 he co-boarded with Mukesh Ambani at Siddharth House, a hostel of Scindia School. Later he attended University of Cambridge. Clare Hall, a Cambridge college, elected him a life-member in 1991. He was also a fellow of Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford. Yadav holds a doctorate in international politics.
Background.
Yadav belongs to southern Haryana. His grandfather was the nobleman Chaudhri Babu Ram Yadav, titled as "Rao Sahib" by Lord Willingdon, the Viceroy and Governor-General of India. His late father was one of the first members of the Indian Police Service from Haryana and served in Madhya Pradesh. One of his brothers, Ajay, was in the Indian Administrative Service, and another, Vijay, is in the Madhya Pradesh cadre of the Indian Police Service.
Work.
Yadav founded the Trumpist Party of India for Equality and Identity on 17 January 2017, at an event widely covered by the international media.
 The party seeks to build a collaborative partnership of the wealthy, on the one hand, and the excluded castes, on the other, through extensive rewards to both. It has been inspired by the life of Donald Trump.
Yadav was a speaker at the Delhi Literature Festival 2017.
Yadav's work as an author has been the subject of feature-reports in three principal newspapers of India, i.e. "The Times of India", "Hindustan Times" and "The Hindu". The United States' leading daily "The Wall Street Journal" in its India e-edition, India RealTime, has also commented on him.
The ideas developed in Yadav's first book, "The Invasion of Delhi", have been the subject of critical press comment. The author argues that the people of the Delhi-Yamuna basin constitute the indigenous people of the union territory of Delhi and their systematic exclusion from the city is fundamentally unfair. A population explosion caused by deliberately induced migration from far away is responsible for the environmental degradation of the entire middle Yamuna basin. It has been the subject of extensive international reporting. An international environment-related database, noting the relevance of the book to contemporary ecological issues, carries a biographical entry of the author of "The Invasion of Delhi". The "Environmental Crisis of Delhi" is Yadav's latest work. In this study the author categorises contemporary Delhi as an imperial city, similar to its Sultanate, Mogul and British predecessors when ethnic oligarchies with no local roots held sway. The singular objective of today's ruling oligarchies is the appropriation of the land of the middle Yamuna and its allocation to their kin from beyond the Delhi basin. This predatory design, argues Yadav, underlies the ecological threat confronting India's capital city. The Indian edition of the "Wall Street Journal", one of the leading newspapers in the world, has also done an extensive report on the environment book.
Yadav's third work, "Portraits of India", is a collection of poems. Extracts from this work received praise from Khushwant Singh, India's premier writer.
Writing in one of his regular weekly columns, Singh remarked that the couplet of one of the poems "sycophancy is a practice in which, modern-day India is very rich" was an accurate summation of the mental state of Indians and "deserved to be quoted". Khushwant Singh's acclamation proved prophetic and Yadav has begun to win international endorsement and recognition. He secured the rank of a semi-finalist in the United Kingdom's Song Writing Contest 2013 for his submission 'Never Love a Woman'.Following this success two of India's premier newspapers, The Hindustan Times and the Hindu, did feature reports on Yadav. His entry for the 2014 contest, 'To None Ever Bound', also secured a semi-finals position.
Yadav’s foray into film-making has yielded two documentaries, "The Return of Raja Bhoj", and its Hindi version, "Raja Bhoj Ki Wapasi". These films develop themes first argued in his writings, i.e. issues of external hegemony and indigenous subjugation. The setting for the films is Bhopal and the context a proposal to rename the city as 'Bhojpal'. The film-maker shows how the wealth of the city, indeed the entire state, is in the hands of people from far away. Therefore, the proposal to rename the city would be merely cosmetic, unless accompanied by steps to give the local populations a greater share in the wealth of the city and the state.
Both, Yadav's writings and films, are informed by a passionate concern for subject indigenous populations held in bondage by imperial communities of outside provenance. It is wrong to see this interpretation as some sort of diatribe against migrants. Instead, these works should be seen as a depiction of India as a rigidly hierarchical quasi-imperial arrangement where small groups of people from the presidency towns of the Raj-era rule and dominate vast swathes of territory. This is what empires are about; and this is why, he implies, the vast majority of India's population lives in utter destitution. The challenge before India is the transition of this structure to a more democratic system of local control. Essentially, therefore, Yadav's work should be seen as a moving affirmation of the principles of democracy, freedom and liberty.
As a researcher Yadav was associated with Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford. He wrote largely on South Asia, especially Afghanistan, where he has travelled in difficult and dangerous conditions of war. One of his papers on Afghanistan has become a landmark. Although written nearly 25 years ago, it continues to be cited and commented upon by strategists from Israel, the United Kingdom and USA. He contributed also to major Indian journals, The "Illustrated Weekly of India" and "The Hindu". Additionally he wrote on the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and this work was the subject of a lecture he delivered at University of Oxford’s South Asian Studies Centre at St Antony's College. Yadav has also made other seminar presentations at University of Oxford. One of these was on the anti-Mandal riots of the 1990s and another on inter-ethnic relations and hierarchies in Delhi. The former has been praised and extensively quoted by former Harvard professor, senator and diplomat Daniel Patrick Moynihan.


Harold Gilliam

Harold Gilliam (1918 – December 14, 2016) was a San Francisco-based writer, newspaperman and environmentalist, a columnist for the "San Francisco Chronicle" and "Examiner" newspapers. The Harold Gilliam Award for Excellence in Environmental Reporting, given by The Bay Institute, is named in his honor.
Early life and education.
Gilliam was born in Los Angeles and earned a bachelor's degree in political science from UCLA and a master's in economics from UC Berkeley; he later studied under Wallace Stegner at the Stanford Writing Program. He served in the 11th Armored Division in Europe in World War II.
Career.
Gilliam began his career in journalism as a copy boy at the "Chronicle", where he was soon made a reporter. In 1954 he became a freelancer, then in 1960 began an environmental column at the "Examiner"; the following year he returned to the "Chronicle", where he continued his column, called "This Land", until retiring in 1995.
"San Francisco Bay", his first book, was on "The New York Times" bestseller list for 19 weeks. It led to his being invited to be a founder member of Save the Bay.
Gilliam was one of the first environmentalist journalists, and helped mobilize public opinion to save many features of the San Francisco Bay Area. In the 1960s, through an article and personal contacts, he helped achieve a Marin County ordinance forestalling the bulldozing of archaeological sites. His article "The Destruction of Mono Lake Is on Schedule", which appeared in the "Examiner" in March 1979, was one of the first public accounts of the then ongoing destruction of Mono Lake; in 1993 he was the first recipient of the Defender of the Trust award from the Mono Lake Committee. The Bay Institute named its Harold Gilliam Award in his honor. The group also gave him its Bay Education Award in 1995.
Personal life.
Gilliam was married to Ann, with whom he co-wrote a book on Carmel, California; she died in 2001. They had one son. Gilliam died in San Francisco in 2016 at the age of 98.


Lawrence Joseph Henderson

Lawrence Joseph Henderson (June 3, 1878, Lynn, Massachusetts – February 10, 1942, Cambridge, Massachusetts) was a physiologist, chemist, biologist, philosopher, and sociologist. He became one of the leading biochemists of the early 20th century. His work contributed to the Henderson–Hasselbalch equation, used to calculate pH as a measure of acidity.
Biography.
Lawrence Henderson graduated from Harvard College in 1898 and from Harvard Medical School in 1902, receiving the M.D. (Medical Doctor) degree cum laude.
Then followed two years in chemical research at the University of Strasbourg with advanced scientific training in Franz Hofmeister's physiological laboratory. He became professor of biological chemistry, and later professor of chemistry, in Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was also introduced to philosophy and sociology by faculty members of Harvard University. He established some institutes in Harvard, especially the Harvard Fatigue Laboratory for physiological and sociological research on fatigue with the support of the Harvard Business School, and the Harvard Medical School, and he became the director. He served as the first president of the History of Science Society from 1924-5.
Henderson investigated acid-base regulation (1906–20). He found that acid-base balance is regulated by buffer systems of the blood in complex coordination with respiration, the lung, red blood cells, and with the kidneys. He wrote the Henderson equation in 1908 to describe the use of carbonic acid as a buffer solution. Karl Albert Hasselbalch later expressed the equation in logarithmic terms, creating the Henderson–Hasselbalch equation. In addition, he described blood gas transport and the general physiology of blood as physico-chemical system (1920–1932). He invented and constructed new charts, nomograms, with the help of Maurice d'Ocagne. He introduced nomograms into physiology and biology as well.
The consequential inter-relations of various factors were shown in his book "Blood" in more than one hundred nomograms.
In 1913, Henderson wrote "The Fitness of the Environment," one of the first books to explore concepts of fine tuning in the Universe. Henderson discusses the importance of water and the environment with respect to living things, pointing out that life depends entirely on the very specific environmental conditions on Earth, especially with regard to the prevalence and properties of water. In the book "The Fitness of the Environment" (1913) he wrote we find "an inquiry into the biological significance of the properties of matter" (Henderson). He saw the properties of matter and the course of cosmic evolution intimately related to the structure of the living being and to its activities. He concluded: "the whole evolutionary process, both cosmic and organic, is one, and the biologist may now rightly regard the universe in its very essence as biocentric".
As a sociologist (1932–42) he applied the functionalism of physiological regulation to the phenomena of social behavior basing on his concept of social systems. He described social systems with the help of the sociology of Vilfredo Pareto. In contrast to Pareto, Henderson applied the concept of social systems to all disciplines that study the meanings communicated in interactions between two or more persons acting in roles or role-sets. Henderson influenced many Harvard sociologists, especially Talcott Parsons, George C. Homans, Robert K. Merton, and Elton Mayo who all became pioneers in sociology or psychology. Henderson was instrumental in promoting Talcott Parsons career at Harvard despite Pitirim Sorokin's opposition. He also discussed intensively with Parsons the methodological chapters of Talcott Parsons "The Structure" of Social Action" (1937) at the time when Parsons was working on the raw manuscript.
Henderson's investigations had their inception and consummation in the philosopher's chair. In spite of his diversity of interests, his work exhibits in retrospect a fundamental unity; his career was largely devoted to the study of the organization of the organism, the universe, and society.
Henderson was an agnostic.


Philip Connors

Philip Connors is an American essayist and author. He was born in Iowa and raised in Minnesota. He studied journalism at the University of Montana. He interned at the "Nation" and subsequently worked at the "Wall Street Journal" for several years. He left New York City in 2002 and moved to New Mexico. He lived in Silver City, NM for several years before moving to El Paso, Texas.
Every year since 2002, Connors has worked for several months in the summer at the Gila National Forest as a US Forest Service fire lookout. His book based on these experiences "Fire Season: Field Notes From a Wilderness Lookout" was published in 2011 to widespread critical acclaim. It won the 2011 National Outdoor Book Award (Outdoor Literature) and the 2012 Banff Mountain Book Festival Grand Prize. It also won the 2012 Reading the West Book Award for best adult non-fiction, given by the Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers Association.
Connors' work has been published in "The Guardian", "Harper's Magazine", "Paris Review", "n+1", "Salon", and the "London Review of Books".


Georgia State Route 236

State Route 236 is a long state highway in Fulton County and DeKalb County, Georgia. The route begins at Piedmont Road (SR 237) in south Buckhead and ends at Stone Mountain Freeway (US 78/SR 10) exit 7 in Stone Mountain. It is signed as Lindbergh Drive in Fulton County, and LaVista Road and Hugh Howell Road in DeKalb County. It is also concurrent with US 29/SR 8 for less than a mile in DeKalb.
Route description.
SR 236 begins at an intersection with SR 237 (Piedmont Road) in Buckhead, Atlanta. The route heads east on Lindbergh Drive, a street which begins a mile to the west of SR 237 at US 19/SR 9. Midway between SR 237 and the Fulton-DeKalb County line, SR 236 passes under a large interchange connecting Interstate 85, SR 13, and SR 400 and connects to I-85 northbound HOV lane via an on-ramp located in the center of the interchange.
Past I-85, SR 236 curves to the southeast and crosses into DeKalb County, where Lindbergh Drive becomes LaVista Road at Cheshire Bridge Road. As LaVista Road, SR 236 is two lanes wide and has a 35 miles per hour speed limit. As the route heads east toward Tucker, SR 236 intersects a number of primary north–south arterials, including SR 42, US 23/SR 155, and Interstate 285 (at exit 37). SR 236 becomes 5 lanes wide about 1/2 mile before Northlake. Upon crossing Northlake Parkway, the speed limit increases to .
In Tucker, LaVista Road comes to an end at Lawrenceville Highway (US 29/SR 8); however, SR 236 turns right onto Lawrenceville Highway, joining US 29 and SR 8 for a short distance southward before separating at Hugh Howell Road, a roadway connecting Tucker to Stone Mountain Park. SR 236 follows Hugh Howell Road east, passing through largely industrial and business districts. After it crosses Mountain Industrial Boulevard, the surroundings along the road become largely residential as it heads southeast through a subdivision known as Smoke Rise.
SR 236, as well as Hugh Howell Road, comes to an end at an interchange with the Stone Mountain Freeway (US 78/SR 10) southeast of Smoke Rise and directly north of Stone Mountain Park.
History.
The segment of SR 236 east of Lawrenceville Highway was given its present name (Hugh Howell Road) during the 1960s. It was named after Hugh Howell (b. 1888), an Atlanta area attorney and developer. His career included, among other things, a stint as chair of the Democratic Party in Georgia during the 1930s. The road was previously known as Rosser Road and according to a 1948 map, carried State Road number 141.


Otherways

Otherways Management Association Club (OMAC) is a Paris-based organisation selling what the Center for Investigative Reporting and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) have called "meaningless international awards", and are more widely known as "vanity awards".
Otherways was founded in about 1996 by Lebanese businessman, Charbel S. Tabet, the president and CEO.
Otherways market a number of awards:


Bakr bin Laden

Bakr bin Mohammed bin 'Awad bin Laden (; born 1946) is the former chairman of the Jeddah-based Saudi Binladin Group and the former largest shareholder in the Group, with a 23.58% holding, and, according to some, was the "true ruler of Jeddah". He is the son of the family's patriarch − Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden − and a half-brother of Osama bin Laden.
Career.
Despite the region’s small construction sector, he has managed to expand the business. In March, the firm joined together with Qatari Diar to launch a joint venture holding company, which is expected to have a massive capital base. The new venture will have two umbrella firms, one of which will carry out mega contracting and construction works in Qatar and the rest of the world. It is also currently working on a $994.6m contract to design and build 30 parcels in King Abdullah Financial District, Saudi Arabia.
In April 2018, Bakr transferred his stake in the Saudi Binladin Group to the government of Saudi Arabia.
Arrest.
On 4 November 2017, Bakr bin Laden was arrested in Saudi Arabia in a "corruption crackdown" conducted by a new royal anti-corruption committee and detained without trial. Bakr was initially detained at The Ritz-Carlton, Riyadh and later held in a publicly-unknown location. The Saudi government also seized the deed to a villa owned by Bakr overlooking the Red Sea.
In January 2019 the kingdom quietly released Bakr bin Laden together with several other prominent detainees. Among those reportedly released were Mohammed al-Amoudi, a businessman who owns much of Ethiopia and Amr Dabbagh, a former government minister who once led the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority, which aims to attract foreign investment. The move came amid unprecedented global pressure of the kingdom and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman after the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents at the country’s consulate in Istanbul.
Education.
Bakr bin Laden attended college at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida, United States in 1979.


God, Honour, Fatherland

God, Honour, Fatherland or Honour and Fatherland (Polish: "Bóg, Honor, Ojczyzna" or "Honor i Ojczyzna") is one of the unofficial mottos of Poland. It is commonly seen as the motto of the military of Poland, and has been confirmed as such by several Polish legal decrees. It traces its history to the era of partitions of Poland and Polish service in Napoleonic army.
Etymology.
The noun "ojczyzna" is derived from "ojciec" (the Polish word for "father"), which is why "fatherland" is a common translation of the term. Sometimes it is interpreted as literally "land of the fathers". However, "ojczyzna" itself is feminine - just like "Polska" (the endonym for Poland) - so it can also be translated as "motherland" with a similar degree of accuracy. To avoid confusion and remain neutral, some people translate "ojczyzna" simply as "homeland" therefore avoiding the fatherland/motherland preference. Terms for "homeland" with similar spelling and pronunciation to "ojczyzna" appear in other Slavic languages as well, for example the Russian отчизна or Czech "otčina".
History.
The phrase "Honour and Fatherland" can be traced to the slogans and banners of Polish revolutionaries of the 19th century, fighting to regain Polish independence following the partitions of Poland. This is also the motto of the French Legion of Honour, instituted by Napoleon in 1802. It is likely that the phrase was brought to Poland by the soldiers of the Napoleonic-era Polish legions. It was introduced as phrase to be used on the banners of the newly reconstituted Polish military of the Second Polish Republic in 1919. The word God was officially added to the standards, preceding words Honour and Fatherland, by the decree of the Polish government-in-exile in 1943. This decree remained in force till it was changed by the communist government of the People's Republic of Poland in 1955 to "For Our Fatherland the People's Republic of Poland" ("Za naszą Ojczyznę Polską Rzeczpospolitą Ludową"). Following the fall of communism, the "God, Honour, Fatherland" phrase was restored by the government of the Third Polish Republic in 1993. Since 2018, the phrase appears on the Polish passport.
Significance.
The motto is interpreted as reconfirming the Constitution of Poland's clause about the citizen's duty to serve the Fatherland ("ojczyzna"), with the social contract allowing exceptions honour and faith ("Ojczyźnie wszystko, prócz miłości Boga najwyższego i Honoru"). It is one of the symbols connecting Polish patriotism to (Catholic) religiosity.


H. H. Holmes

Herman Webster Mudgett (May 16, 1861 – May 7, 1896), better known as Dr. Henry Howard Holmes or H. H. Holmes, was an American serial killer active from December 1891 to November 1894. Despite his confession of 27 murders while awaiting execution, Holmes was convicted and sentenced to death for only one murder, that of accomplice and business partner Benjamin Pitezel. Victims were killed in a mixed-use building which he owned in Chicago, located about west of the 1893 World's Fair: Columbian Exposition, supposedly called the World's Fair Hotel (informally called "The Murder Castle"), though evidence suggests the hotel portion was never truly open for business.
Besides being a serial killer, Holmes was also a con artist and a trigamist, the subject of more than 50 lawsuits in Chicago alone. Holmes was executed on May 7, 1896, nine days before his 35th birthday.
Early life.
Holmes was born as Herman Webster Mudgett in Gilmanton, New Hampshire, United States, on May 16, 1861, to Levi Horton Mudgett and Theodate Page Price, both of whom were descended from the first English immigrants in the area. Mudgett was his parents' third-born child; he had an older sister Ellen, an older brother Arthur, a younger brother Henry, and a younger sister Mary. Holmes' father was from a farming family, and at times he worked as a farmer, trader, and house painter; his parents were devout Methodists. Later attempts to fit Holmes into the patterns seen in modern serial killers have described him torturing animals and suffering from abuse at the hands of a violent father, but contemporary and eyewitness accounts of his childhood do not provide proof of either.
At the age of 16, Holmes graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy and took teaching jobs in Gilmanton and later in nearby Alton. On July 4, 1878, he married Clara Lovering in Alton; their son, Robert Lovering Mudgett, was born on February 3, 1880, in Loudon, New Hampshire. Robert became a certified public accountant and served as city manager of Orlando, Florida.
Holmes enrolled in the University of Vermont in Burlington at age 18 but was dissatisfied with the school and left after one year. In 1882, he entered the University of Michigan's Department of Medicine and Surgery and graduated in June 1884 after passing his exams. While enrolled, he worked in the anatomy lab under Professor Herdman, then the chief anatomy instructor. Holmes had apprenticed in New Hampshire under Nahum Wight, a noted advocate of human dissection. Years later, when Holmes was suspected of murder and claimed to be nothing but an insurance fraudster, he admitted to using cadavers to defraud life insurance companies several times in college.
Housemates described Holmes as treating Clara violently, and in 1884, before his graduation, she moved back to New Hampshire and later wrote she knew little of him afterwards. After he moved to Mooers Forks, New York, a rumor spread that Holmes had been seen with a little boy who later disappeared. Holmes claimed the boy went back to his home in Massachusetts. No investigation took place and Holmes quickly left town.
He later traveled to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and got a job as a keeper at Norristown State Hospital, but quit after a few days. He later took a position at a drugstore in Philadelphia, but while he was working there, a boy died after taking medicine that was purchased at the store. Holmes denied any involvement in the child's death and immediately left the city. Right before moving to Chicago, he changed his name to Henry Howard Holmes to avoid the possibility of being exposed by victims of his previous scams.
In his confession after his arrest, Holmes claimed he had killed his former medical school classmate, Robert Leacock, in 1886 for insurance money. Leacock, however, died in Watford, Ontario, in Canada on October 5, 1889.
In late 1886, while still married to Clara, Holmes married Myrta Belknap (b. October 1862 in Pennsylvania) in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He filed for divorce from Clara a few weeks after marrying Myrta, alleging infidelity on her part. The claims could not be proven and the suit went nowhere. Surviving paperwork indicated she probably was never even informed of the suit. In any case, the divorce was never finalized; it was dismissed June 4, 1891, on the grounds of "want of prosecution."
Holmes had a daughter with Myrta, Lucy Theodate Holmes, who was born on July 4, 1889, in Englewood, Chicago, Illinois. Lucy became a public schoolteacher. Holmes lived with Myrta and Lucy in Wilmette, Illinois, and spent most of his time in Chicago tending to business. Holmes married Georgiana Yoke on January 17, 1894, in Denver, Colorado, while still married to both Clara and Myrta.
Illinois and the "Murder Castle".
Holmes arrived in Chicago in August 1886, which is when he began using the name "H. H. Holmes". He came across Elizabeth S. Holton's drugstore at the northwest corner of South Wallace Avenue and West 63rd Street in Englewood. Holton gave Holmes a job, and he proved to be a hardworking employee, eventually buying the store. Although several books portray Holton's husband as an old man who quickly vanished along with his wife, Dr. Holton was a fellow Michigan alumnus, only a few years older than Holmes, and both Holtons remained in Englewood throughout Holmes' life and survived well into the 20th century; it is a myth that they were killed by Holmes. Likewise, Holmes did not kill alleged "Castle" victim Miss Kate Durkee, who turned out to be very much alive.
Holmes purchased an empty lot across from the drugstore, where construction began in 1887 for a two-story mixed-use building, with apartments on the second floor and retail spaces, including a new drugstore. A creditor of Holmes named John DeBrueil died of apoplexy on April 17, 1891, in the drugstore; it is unknown if Holmes was involved with his demise. When Holmes declined to pay the architects or the steel company, Aetna Iron and Steel, they sued in 1888. In 1892, he added a third floor, telling investors and suppliers he intended to use it as a hotel during the upcoming World's Columbian Exposition, though the hotel portion was never completed. In 1892, the hotel was somewhat completed, with three stories and a basement. The first floor was the storefront. The second story consisted of his elaborate torture rooms, which contained a chute that led to the basement. The third floor held more apartment rooms. There were soundproofed rooms and mazes of hallways, some of which seemed to go nowhere. Many of the rooms were outfitted with chutes that would drop straight down to the basement where Holmes had acid vats, quicklime and a crematorium to dispose of his victims' bodies. Furniture suppliers found Holmes was hiding their materials, for which he had never paid, in hidden rooms and passages throughout the building. Their search made the news, and investors for the planned hotel pulled out of the deal when a jeweler in the building showed them the articles.
In 1894, some police officers inspected the hotel while Holmes was out. During the inspection, they found rooms with hinged walls and false partitions, rooms linked with secret passageways, and even airtight rooms that were connected to pipelines filled with gas, which Holmes used as gas chambers. Holmes would use chutes to deliver the bodies to the basement, and once there, he made use of surgical tables and an array of medical tools to dissect them before selling their organs and bones on the black market and to medical institutions. The hotel was gutted by a fire started by an unknown arsonist shortly after Holmes was arrested but was largely rebuilt and used as a post office until 1938. Besides his infamous "Murder Castle" Holmes also had a one-story factory which he claimed was to be used for glass bending. It is unknown if the factory furnace was ever actually used for glass bending-or to cremate incriminating evidence of Holmes crimes.
First murders.
One of Holmes' early murder victims was his mistress, Julia Smythe. She was the wife of Ned (Icilius) Conner, who had moved into Holmes' building and began working at his pharmacy's jewelry counter. After Conner found out about Smythe's affair with Holmes, he quit his job and moved away, leaving Smythe and her daughter Pearl behind. Smythe gained custody of Pearl and remained at the hotel, continuing her relationship with Holmes.
Julia and Pearl disappeared on Christmas Eve of 1891, and Holmes later claimed she had died during an abortion, though what truly happened to the two was never confirmed. Another likely Holmes paramour, Emeline Cigrande, began working in the building in May 1892, and disappeared that December. Another woman who vanished, Edna Van Tassel, is also believed to have been among Holmes' victims. Holmes usual murder method was by suffocation of his victims including: an overdose of chloroform; overexposure to lighting gas fumes; trapped in an airless vault, to give some examples. Holmes also claimed to have used starvation and burning victims alive in his "castle"
While working in the Chemical Bank building on Dearborn Street, Holmes met and became close friends with Benjamin Pitezel, a carpenter with a criminal past who was exhibiting, in the same building, a coal bin he had invented. Holmes used Pitezel as his right-hand man for several criminal schemes; a district attorney later described Pitezel as "Holmes' tool ... his creature".
In early 1893, a one-time actress named Minnie Williams moved to Chicago. Holmes claimed to have met her in an employment office, though there were rumors he had met her in Boston years earlier. He offered her a job at the hotel as his personal stenographer and she accepted. Holmes persuaded Williams to transfer the deed to her property in Fort Worth, Texas, to a man named Alexander Bond (an alias of Holmes).
In April 1893, Williams transferred the deed, with Holmes serving as the notary (Holmes later signed the deed over to Pitezel, giving him the alias "Benton T. Lyman"). The next month, Holmes and Williams, presenting themselves as man and wife, rented an apartment in Chicago's Lincoln Park. Minnie's sister, Annie, came to visit, and in July, she wrote to her aunt that she planned to accompany "Brother Harry" to Europe. Neither Minnie nor Annie were seen alive after July 5, 1893.
Holmes had an entrepreneurial spirit. Based on his former medical education and his connections, he was able to sell skeletons to medical labs and schools. "He, and sometimes a hired assistant, were accused of stripping the flesh off the bodies, dissecting them, and preparing the viable skeletons. The rest of the remains would be tossed in pits of lime or acid, effectively breaking down the remaining evidence."
Capture and arrest.
With insurance companies pressing to prosecute him for arson, Holmes left Chicago in July 1894. He reappeared in Fort Worth, where he had inherited property from the Williams sisters, at the intersection of modern-day Commerce Street and 2nd Street. Here, he once again attempted to build an incomplete structure without paying his suppliers and contractors. This building, unlike the former of his properties, was not a site of any additional killings.
In July 1894, Holmes was arrested and briefly jailed for the first time, on the charge of selling mortgaged goods in St. Louis, Missouri. He was promptly bailed out, but while in jail he struck up a conversation with a convicted outlaw named Marion Hedgepeth, who was serving a 25-year sentence. Holmes had concocted a plan to swindle an insurance company out of $10,000 by taking out a policy on himself and then faking his death.
Holmes promised Hedgepeth a $500 commission in exchange for the name of a lawyer who could be trusted. Holmes was directed to a young St. Louis attorney named Jeptha Howe. Howe was in practice with his older brother, Alphonso Howe, who had no involvement with Holmes or Pitezel or their fraudulent activities. Jeptha Howe, however, found Holmes' scheme brilliant. Nevertheless, Holmes' plan to fake his own death failed when the insurance company became suspicious and refused to pay. Holmes did not press the claim; instead, he concocted a similar plan with Pitezel.
Pitezel agreed to fake his own death so that his wife could collect on a $10,000 life insurance policy, which she was to split with Holmes and Jeptha Howe. The scheme, which was to take place in Philadelphia, called for Pitezel to set himself up as an inventor under the name B. F. Perry, and then be killed and disfigured in a lab explosion. Holmes was to find an appropriate cadaver to play the role of Pitezel. Instead, Holmes killed Pitezel by knocking him unconscious with chloroform and setting his body on fire with the use of benzene. In his confession, Holmes implied Pitezel was still alive after he used the chloroform on him, before he set him on fire. However, forensic evidence presented at Holmes' later trial showed chloroform had been administered "after" Pitezel's death (a fact which the insurance company was unaware of), presumably to fake suicide to exonerate Holmes should he be charged with murder.
Holmes collected the insurance payout on the basis of the genuine Pitezel corpse. Holmes then went on to manipulate Pitezel's unsuspecting wife into allowing three of her five children (Alice, Nellie and Howard) to be placed in his custody. The eldest daughter and the baby remained with Mrs. Pitezel. Holmes and the three Pitezel children traveled throughout the northern United States and into Canada. Simultaneously, he escorted Mrs. Pitezel along a parallel route, all the while using various aliases and lying to Mrs. Pitezel concerning her husband's death (claiming Pitezel was hiding in London), as well as lying to her about the true whereabouts of her three missing children. In Detroit, just before entering Canada, they were only separated by a few blocks.
In an even more audacious move, Holmes was staying at another location with his wife, who was unaware of the whole affair. Holmes would later confess to murdering Alice and Nellie by forcing them into a large trunk and locking them inside. He drilled a hole in the lid of the trunk and put one end of a hose through the hole, attaching the other end to a gas line to asphyxiate the girls. Holmes buried their nude bodies in the cellar of his rental house at 16 St. Vincent Street in Toronto. This home and address no longer exist, St. Vincent Street having long since been realigned into a part of Bay Street.
Frank Geyer, a Philadelphia police detective assigned to investigate Holmes and find the three missing children, found the decomposed bodies of the two Pitezel girls in the cellar of the Toronto home. Detective Geyer wrote, "The deeper we dug, the more horrible the odor became, and when we reached the depth of three feet, we discovered what appeared to be the bone of the forearm of a human being." Geyer then went to Indianapolis, where Holmes had rented a cottage. Holmes was reported to have visited a local pharmacy to purchase the drugs which he used to kill young Howard Pitezel, and a repair shop to sharpen the knives he used to chop up the body before he burned it. The boy's teeth and bits of bone were discovered in the home's chimney.
Holmes' murder spree finally ended when he was arrested in Boston on November 17, 1894, after being tracked there from Philadelphia by the Pinkertons. He was held on an outstanding warrant for horse theft in Texas because the authorities had become more suspicious at this point and Holmes appeared poised to flee the country in the company of his unsuspecting third wife.
Following the discovery of Alice and Nellie's bodies, in July 1895, Chicago police and reporters began investigating Holmes' building in Englewood, now locally referred to as "The Castle". Though many sensational claims were made, no evidence was found which could have convicted Holmes in Chicago. According to Selzer, stories of torture equipment found in the building are 20th-century fiction.
In October 1895, Holmes was put on trial for the murder of Benjamin Pitezel, and was found guilty and sentenced to death. By then, it was evident Holmes had also murdered the three missing Pitezel children. Following his conviction, Holmes confessed to 27 murders in Chicago, Indianapolis, and Toronto (though some people he "confessed" to murdering were still alive), and six attempted murders. Holmes was paid $7,500 by the Hearst newspapers in exchange for his confession, which was quickly found to be mostly nonsense.
Holmes gave various contradictory accounts of his life, initially claiming innocence and later that he was possessed by Satan. His propensity for lying has made it difficult for researchers to ascertain the truth on the basis of his statements. While writing his confessions in prison, Holmes mentioned how drastically his facial appearance had changed since his imprisonment. He described his new, grim appearance as "gruesome and taking a Satanical Cast", and wrote he was now convinced that after everything that he had done, he was beginning to resemble the Devil.
On May 7, 1896, Holmes was hanged at Moyamensing Prison, also known as the Philadelphia County Prison, for the murder of Pitezel. Until the moment of his death, Holmes remained calm and amiable, showing very few signs of fear, anxiety, or depression. Despite this, he asked for his coffin to be contained in cement and buried 10 feet deep, because he was concerned grave robbers would steal his body and use it for dissection. Holmes' neck did not break; he instead strangled to death slowly, twitching for over 15 minutes before being pronounced dead 20 minutes after the trap had been sprung.
Upon his execution, Holmes’s body was interred in an unmarked grave at Holy Cross Cemetery, a Catholic cemetery in the Philadelphia Western suburb of Yeadon, Pennsylvania.
On New Year's Eve 1909, Hedgepeth, who had been pardoned for informing on Holmes, was shot and killed by police officer Edward Jaburek during a holdup at a Chicago saloon.
On March 7, 1914, the "Chicago Tribune" reported that, with the death of Patrick Quinlan, the former caretaker of the castle, "the mysteries of Holmes' castle" would remain unexplained. Quinlan had committed suicide by taking strychnine. His body was found in his bedroom with a note that read, "I couldn't sleep." Quinlan's surviving relatives claimed he had been "haunted" for several months and was suffering from hallucinations.
The castle itself was mysteriously gutted by fire in August 1895. According to a newspaper clipping from "The New York Times", two men were seen entering the back of the building between 8 and 9 p.m. About half an hour later, they were seen exiting the building and rapidly running away. Following several explosions, the castle went up in flames. Afterwards, investigators found a half-empty gas can underneath the back steps of the building. The building survived the fire and remained in use until it was torn down in 1938. The site is occupied by the Englewood branch of the United States Postal Service.
In 2017, amid allegations Holmes had in fact escaped execution, Holmes' body was exhumed for testing led by Janet Monge of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Due to his coffin being contained in cement, his body was found not to have decomposed normally. His clothes were almost perfectly preserved and his mustache was found to be intact. The body was positively identified by his teeth as being that of Holmes. Holmes was then reburied.
In popular culture.
The case was notorious in its time and received wide publicity in the international press. Interest in Holmes' crimes was revived in 2003 by Erik Larson's "The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America", a best-selling nonfiction book that juxtaposed an account of the planning and staging of the World's Fair with Holmes's story. His story had been chronicled in "The Torture Doctor" by David Franke (1975), "The Scarlet Mansion" by Allan W. Eckert (1985) and "Depraved: The Shocking True Story of America's First Serial Killer" by Harold Schechter (1994), as well as "The Monster of Sixty-Third Street" chapter in "Gem of the Prairie: An Informal History of the Chicago Underworld" by Herbert Asbury (1940, republished 1986).
The 1974 novel "American Gothic" by horror writer Robert Bloch was a fictionalized version of the story of H. H. Holmes.
Selzer's comprehensive 2017 biography, "H. H. Holmes: The True History of the White City Devil", attempted to separate fact from fiction, and to trace how the story grew.
In 2017, History aired an eight episode limited docuseries entitled "American Ripper", in which Holmes' great-great-grandson, Jeff Mudgett, along with former CIA analyst Amaryllis Fox, investigated clues to attempt to prove that Holmes was also the infamous London serial killer, Jack the Ripper.
In 2018, horror writer Sara Tantlinger published "The Devil's Dreamland: Poetry Inspired by H.H. Holmes" (Strangehouse Books) which won the 2018 Bram Stoker Award for Best Poetry Collection.
As of 2019, an adaptation of "The Devil in the White City" with Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio attached as executive producers is in development with Paramount TV and Hulu. Though it was initially reported in 2015 to be a feature film starring DiCaprio, once Hulu agreed to a partnership with Paramount, the project was announced as a series with no confirmation of whether Scorsese and DiCaprio would actually direct and star in it, respectively. As of 2021, production has yet to commence.


Jesus and no quarter


Tevir

Tevir (Hebrew: , with variant English spellings including "T'vir" and "Tebir") is a cantillation mark commonly found in the Torah, Haftarah, and other Hebrew biblical books. It can be found independently or it can follow any number of other cantillation marks, very commonly a Mercha or Darga.
The Hebrew word תְּבִ֛יר translates into English as "broken".
Melody.
The Tevir is sung on a low tone, going downward at the beginning and upward at the end.


Mathieu Flamini

Mathieu Pierre Flamini (born 7 March 1984) is a French former professional footballer and environmental entrepreneur. A midfielder, he has played for French side Marseille, English sides Arsenal and Crystal Palace, Italian side Milan and Spanish side Getafe. At international level, he has been capped by the France national team on three occasions.
Flamini is a co-founder of GF Biochemicals, the first company in the world able to mass-produce levulinic acid.
Club career.
Marseille.
Born in Marseille, Flamini was a youth team player for his local professional club Marseille. He made his debut for the senior team on 20 December 2003 in the 1–0 victory over Toulouse. He impressed the team as a hardworking midfield player and played 14 times for the club. However, it was his performances in Marseille’s UEFA Cup campaign that brought him to the attention of the football world, including the 2–0 semi-final victory over Newcastle United. He then started in the Final in Gothenburg, a match Spanish club Valencia won 2–0. Due to his age, however, Marseille was later unable to offer him a long-term professional contract.
Arsenal.
On 23 July 2004, Flamini signed a professional contract for English club Arsenal, rejecting Marseille's long-term senior contract offer to which he had already verbally agreed. Soon after the incident, then-Marseille manager José Anigo stated, "This is a beautiful treason. He used me." Arsenal were eventually ordered by The Dispute Resolution Chamber of FIFA to pay Marseille a compensation fee of €480 000 for Flamini.
Flamini made his Arsenal debut in the 1–4 win at Everton on 15 August 2004. In his first season, he was typically used as a utility player, starting only nine games but used as a substitute in 12. The following season saw him filling in for a number of injured players, but again unable to command a first team place in his favoured position. He scored his first Arsenal goal on 11 May 2005 in a 7–0 home win against Everton, scoring the seventh goal, the team's last-ever goal scored in their traditional red and white kit at Highbury.
In the 2006–07 season, Flamini scored the winning goal against Dinamo Zagreb in the qualifying stages of the UEFA Champions League. He also scored important goals against Chelsea, Blackburn Rovers and Liverpool in the Premier League. Despite these important goals, however, he remained unsatisfied with his "utility player" role at the club and in April 2007, he admitted that he would most likely be leaving Arsenal in the summer. Flamini, however, turned down a proposed £3m move to Birmingham City and remained with the team.
Flamini started in central midfield for Arsenal's first match of the 2007–08 Premier League season due to the absence of Gilberto Silva and Abou Diaby. During Arsenal's 2007–08 campaign, he struck up a strong partnership with Cesc Fàbregas, keeping Gilberto out of the starting XI with displays widely regarded by Arsenal fans as a vast improvement on those during his previous years at the club. Flamini enjoyed a generally good rapport with Arsenal's fans, who provided him with his own song, an adaptation of the theme tune to British television programme "The Sweeney". On 29 January 2008, he scored an extraordinary strike in Arsenal's 3–0 win over Newcastle United in the Premier League. He played on 8 April 2008, a UEFA Champions League match in which Arsenal were knocked out by English rival Liverpool. After the match, he was reported injured and it proved to be his last match for Arsenal. In April 2009, he stated in an interview that he is still an Arsenal fan and that he has no hard feelings towards the club: "Arsenal are in my heart and they will be in my heart for ever," he said. "I will always be an Arsenal fan and leaving was not easy."
Milan.
Flamini signed a contract with Italian club Milan on 5 May 2008. Flamini wore the number 84 on his shirt to represent his year of birth.
He made his Serie A debut on 30 August 2008 in a 2–1 loss to Bologna. Initially, Flamini did not enjoy the number of starts or appearances for the Italian team, and was regarded as a utility player at Milan. Nevertheless, injuries to other players and his consistent good form helped him to cement a starting place at San Siro. With Milan failing to find a stable defence and a lack of a fit, consistent and reliable right back, Gianluca Zambrotta was switched to the left flank to help Flamini develop as a tenacious right back. After stating that his preferred position is in the midfield, Milan re-deployed him as a defensive midfielder.
Flamini saw limited playing time towards the end of 2009–10 season due to the great form of club captain Massimo Ambrosini. In the following season, Flamini became an important asset of the team that would win its 18th "scudetto", playing many games as starter and scoring two goals against Bari and Bologna, respectively. After playing as a rotation role in the 2010–11 season, he injured himself in a pre-season training session, suffering a serious knee injury which required an operation. Flamini spent the entire 2011–12 season out.
On 20 June 2012, it was confirmed by the club that he had left following the expiration of his contract, as they had ended negotiations with the player, and so he became a free agent. Two weeks later, Flamini and Adriano Galliani reached a new agreement for a one-year contract, with the Frenchman taking a significant cut in his wages. On 7 April 2013, Flamini scored his first goal of the season, and Milan's second of the game, in a 2–2 draw against Fiorentina.
Return to Arsenal.
Flamini began training with Arsenal midway in early August, with the reason to "solely maintain fitness" with a view to signing for a club in England. Immediately it sparked media attention with claims rising that he would soon sign for Arsenal, but these reports were shunned by many journalists, pointing out that many other ex-Arsenal players had returned to train with Arsenal, including club legends Robert Pires and Thierry Henry.
Flamini, however, did indeed sign for Arsenal on 29 August 2013 and became Arsenal's second acquisition of the summer, after Yaya Sanogo. He made his returning debut on 1 September at Emirates Stadium against Tottenham Hotspur, coming on for Jack Wilshere and helping the team secure a 1–0 win. His performances after signing were lauded by both critics and fans alike, and had featured in all of Arsenal's Premier League, Football League Cup and European games since, with many seeing his signing, and his combative style of play, as one of the key reasons for Arsenal's excellent early season form. He scored his first goal in his second spell at Arsenal on 30 November, the second in a 0–3 away win at Cardiff City. He has also scored in a crucial 1–1 draw against Manchester City after a run of bad form from Arsenal, helping the club rejuvenate and achieve an eventual top four league finish. At the start of Arsenal's 2013–14 FA Cup run, Flamini expressed his desire to win the Cup, having been left out of the squad when Arsenal won the 2005 FA Cup Final. Arsenal went on to win the tournament, though Flamini was an unused substitute in the Final, also remaining on the substitutes' bench when Arsenal repeated the feat, becoming FA Cup champions again in 2015.
On 23 September 2015, Flamini earned his first start of the 2015–16 season in the Football League Cup third round tie against Tottenham Hotspur. He scored both of Arsenal's goals with a Man of the Match performance.
Crystal Palace.
Flamini signed as a free-agent for Crystal Palace on 8 September 2016. He was released by the club at the end of the 2016–17 season.
Getafe.
On 2 February 2018, Flamini signed for Getafe on a free transfer. He made eight appearances in La Liga before leaving the club at the end of the season.
On 18 December 2018, Flamini rejoined Getafe.
International career.
Flamini accepted his first call up to France by coach Raymond Domenech for a friendly against Argentina at the Stade de France on 7 February 2007 after Jérémy Toulalan was ruled out due to injury. He later made his international debut in a friendly against Morocco on 16 November 2007 as a substitute.
Style of play.
A combative, energetic, tactically intelligent, and tenacious midfielder, according to Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger, Flamini is a player with a fantastic work rate, good ball-winning ability and great mentality; he can play anywhere across midfield, in the centre as a box-to-box or defensive midfielder, or on either flank as a cover at full-back.
Business career.
Flamini is a partner of GF Biochemicals, a leading global producer of levulinic acid and derivatives. He has stated that “we founded GFBiochemicals with the ambition of finding sustainable alternatives to oil-based products”. Levulinic acid includes grass or woodchips, and can be used in plastics, solvents, fuels and the pharmaceutical industry. Levulinic acid has been identified by the U.S. Department of Energy as one of the 12 molecules that can help unlock a “greener” world.
In addition to GFBiochemicals’ established presence in the Netherlands and headquarters in Italy, Flamini has named China and Brazil as potential new markets for expansion.
In 2016, GFBiochemicals fully controls the Segetis, the leading producer of levulinic acid derivatives, in a move towards downstream integration. Segitis was previously owned by Sabic, DSM, and Kosla Ventures, among other entities, and has invested in R&D over the past decade. In 2017, GFBiochemicals announced that it will build a cellulosic biorefinery in the US, in partnership with biotech company American Process.
Flamini was also part of the team that created BIOCIRCE (Bioeconomy in the Circular economy), Europe’s first master's degree dedicated to promoting bioeconomy education. It was launched in collaboration with Italian bank Intesa Sanpaolo, Novamont (a producer of bioplastics), and the Universities of Naples, Torino, Milano Bicocca and Bologna.
In addition, Flamini co-founded The BioJournal the world’s first e-magazine devoted entirely to the bio world and eco-sustainability and managed by Italian environmental journalist Mario Bonaccorso.
Flamini is also part of the Environmental Excellence Committee for the candidature of Paris as the location for the 2024 Summer Olympics.
In 2015, Flamini was named one of People of the Year by the NME.
Honours.
Marseille
Arsenal
Milan


Maurice Rapf

Maurice Harry Rapf (May 19, 1914 – April 15, 2003) was an American screenwriter and professor of film studies. His work includes the screenplays for early Disney live-action features "Song of the South" (1946) and "So Dear to My Heart" (1949), uncredited work on the screenplay for the animated feature "Cinderella" (1950), and several films of the late 1930s. He was a co-founder of the Screen Writers Guild. He was blacklisted in 1947 due to his association with the Communist Party USA. He later taught film studies at Dartmouth College.
Personal life.
Rapf was Jewish, the son of Harry Rapf, an executive and film producer at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, and worked briefly for his father as a child actor. He had a brother Matthew Rapf, known for producing the TV series "Kojak" and other television and film work.
In 1934, while majoring in English at Dartmouth, Rapf visited the Soviet Union as an exchange student, where he was impressed by the presentation of Communism he was shown. Despite the danger to a Jew visiting Berlin at that time, he stopped there on the way home, an experience which he described in his autobiography as convincing him that Communism was the only thing capable of defeating Hitler, and greatly influenced his political views. He graduated in 1935, and moved to Hollywood.
In January 1939, he married actress Louise Seidel, a Catholic, over the objections of their parents. They had two daughters (Joanna and Geraldine) and a son (William).
Hollywood career.
In Hollywood, he joined the Communist Party USA, and remained active in the party even after other Jewish sympathizers became disillusioned with it over Moscow's attempted appeasement of Hitler before World War 2. He became an advocate for the rights of creative professionals, and helped found the Screen Writers Guild (one of the groups that formed into the Writers Guild of America, West).
He entered the "family business" of film-making, and co-wrote screenplays for "We Went to College" (1936), "They Gave Him a Gun" (1937), and "The Bad Man of Brimstone" (1937). He went on to work on action films such as "Sharpshooters" (1938) and "North of Shanghai" (1939). When F. Scott Fitzgerald became incapacitated by drinking, Rapf replaced him co-scripting "Winter Carnival" (1939), a film about the Dartmouth traditional event, which Rapf later described as a "clinker".
In 1944 Rapf was recruited by Walt Disney to work on the screenplay for "Song of the South" (1946), from a treatment by screenwriting newcomer Dalton Reymond. According to journalist Neal Gabler, one of the reasons Disney hired Rapf was to temper what Disney feared would be Reymond's white Southern slant:Rapf was a minority, a Jew, and an outspoken left-winger, and he himself feared that the film would inevitably be Uncle Tomish. "That's exactly why I want you to work on it," Walt told him, "because I know that you don't think I should make the movie. You're against Uncle Tomism, and you're a radical."Rapf initially hesitated to work on an animated film, but when he found out that most of the film would be live-action and was told that he could make extensive changes, he accepted the offer. Rapf worked on the project for about seven weeks, but when he got into a personal dispute with Reymond, he was taken off it, and assigned to work on the script for "Cinderella" (1950).
His version of Cinderella was written to be a less passive character than Snow White, and more rebellious against her stepfamily. Rapf explained, "My thinking was you can't have somebody who comes in and changes everything for you. You can't be delivered it on a platter. You've got to earn it. So in my version, the Fairy Godmother said, 'It's okay till midnight but from then on it's up to you.' I made her earn it, and what she had to do to achieve it was to rebel against her stepmother and stepsisters, to stop being a slave in her own home. So I had a scene where they're ordering her around and she throws the stuff back at them. She revolts, so they lock her up in the attic. I don't think anyone took (my idea) very seriously."
In July 1946, Rapf was one of several people listed in a column by "The Hollywood Reporter" publisher William Wilkerson, identifying them as Communists and sympathizers. "Billy's List" formed the basis for what became the Hollywood Blacklist, and while Rapf was excused from testifying to the House Unamerican Activities Committee due to illness, being summoned effectively ended his career in the industry. His work on "Cinderella", which he tried to imbue with a sense of the class struggle, was not credited. He did some further writing for film and television using "fronts" and pseudonyms, including "Father Brown" (aka, "The Detective", 1954) starring Alec Guinness.
After Hollywood.
In 1949, he moved with his family to Sergeantsville, New Jersey, and worked briefly in New York as an industrial film writer. In 1951 he moved to Norwich, Vermont (near Dartmouth College), where he helped establish the Dartmouth Film Society. In the early 1950s, he relocated to New York, where he pursued a career as a film critic (writing for "Life" and "Family Circle" magazines), and worked at Dynamic Films as a writer, director, and producer of commercial and industrial films.
In 1967, he returned to Dartmouth to teach film studies, becoming a full-time member of the faculty in 1976. He had one additional screenwriting credit in 1980: the 45-minute made-for-television animated film "Gnomes" which was nominated for an Emmy for "Outstanding Animated Program". Late in life he wrote an autobiography entitled "Back Lot: Growing Up With the Movies" (1999), and "All About the Movies: A Handbook for the Movie-Loving Layman" (2000).


ATML

Automatic Test Markup Language (ATML) is a collection of XML schemas that allows automatic test systems (ATS) to exchange test information in a common format adhering to the XML standard.
The purpose of ATML is to support test programs, test asset, and unit under test (UUT) interoperability within an automatic test environment. ATML accomplishes this through a standard medium for exchanging UUT, test, and
diagnostic information between the various components of the test system.
The family of standards are developed by IEEE Standards Coordinating Committee 20 (SCC20) and are composed of
Typically ATML information would be used in the following scenarios:
See also.
Test automation


Agents of Secret Stuff

Agents of Secret Stuff is a 2010 American action comedy short film created and co-directed by Wesley Chan, Ted Fu, and Philip Wang of Wong Fu Productions, and Ryan Higa. The film stars Ryan Higa, Arden Cho, and Dominic Sandoval, and also features cameos by several other YouTube users. The film had a theatrical debut in Los Angeles on November 23, 2010, and was released on YouTube on November 24. It has received over 36.2 million views on YouTube as of April 2021, and its trailer, bloopers, and behind the scenes videos have received 5.4 million, 4 million, and 2.2 million views respectively. The movie was eventually released on the iTunes Store as "Agents of Secret Stuff: Secret Edition", along with the "Agents of Secret Stuff Soundboard" and "Agents of Secret Stuff - Spy Catcher of Reasonable Effort" apps.
Background.
The film's production began as self-funded project, but in a deal brokered by YouTube executive George Strompolos was optioned by Digital Artists Studios in order that they might expand beyond YouTube and into mobile, television and film platforms. Strompolos reported that the film's $25,000 was recouped through YouTube advertising revenue and through the licensing of the film for other media.
Plot.
Teenager Aden (Higa) has been training as an agent with the "Agents of Secret Stuff" (A.S.S.), a secret society of spies, his whole life. To receive his "Honorary Operative License Entitlement" (H.O.L.E.), he must fulfill one more mission for A.S.S. operative Tracy. Aden is given the undercover mission to protect Taylor (Arden Cho), a high school student who, for unknown reasons, has been targeted by the opposing assassins group, the "Society Involving Not-So-Good Stuff" (S.I.N.S.).
At first Aden, under the false name Jose McDonald, has difficulty fitting in with the high school scene, and continuously attempts to protect Taylor from normal things that he perceives as threats, causing more harm than good. On the fourth time protecting Taylor, Aden eventually reveals that he is an A.S.S., and explains the backstory of the S.I.N.S. and the A.S.S. When Taylor tells him to leave, he is forced to explain his actions, and she sympathetically helps him learn how to be a normal teenager.
On the day of the school dance, Aden again tries to save Taylor's life from Melvin (D-Trix), angering Taylor. Aden leaves Taylor with Melvin, only to realize Melvin is actually the S.I.N.S. assassin, which eventually leads to a chase scene to a warehouse. At the warehouse, Melvin ties Taylor to a chair, and when Aden eventually reaches the building, Melvin reveals that Taylor is part of the A.S.S.'s plans, which eventually leads to a fight between Aden and Melvin, which tilts to Aden's favor, until Melvin resorts to attacking Aden with a mousetrap. After Aden falls to the ground, Melvin attempts to finish him off with an axe. However, Taylor is able to break free from the chair, leading to a fight between the two.
Melvin was later defeated by Taylor, but eventually leaps at Aden and Taylor, but was later attacked from behind by Tracy. Tracy eventually congratulates Aden for "bringing out Taylor's full potential". Eventually, two other A.S.S. agents arrive, consisting of Aden's step-step-brother-in-law, and X (the A.S.S. founder), who reveals to Taylor that he is her father. X then also congratulates Aden, and awards him the H.O.L.E., making him an official A.S.S. Aden then asks Taylor to go to the homecoming dance with him, but Taylor was able to beat him to it, but when the two reach the school, the dance has already ended. Aden eventually sets his watch to JR Aquino's "You and I", and asks Taylor to dance. While dancing, a bush starts making noise, startling the two. Before they go investigate, the two share a kiss, ending the movie.
Production.
According to Wong Fu's website, filming took place over the span of a week with a crew that is no bigger than 10. While the executive producers of the film were members of HigaTV and Wong Fu Productions, Chris Dinh received an assisted producer credit, and members of Corridor Digital and FreddieW, and Eric Lim provided visual effects and action coordination. The soundtrack consisted of "My Time With You" by David Choi and Kina Grannis, and "By Chance (You and I)" by JRA, the score was composed by George Shaw. The soundtrack of the film featured songs from other productions by Wong Fu (""Funemployed", "These Four Walls", "Technology Ruins Romance", "Up in Da Club", "Just a Nice Guy""). "Agents of Secret Stuff" was filmed in California, United States, and used Galt High School and Wilson High School as its school locations.
Reception.
"Gigaom" wrote that the production was a "slickly-produced spy comedy", that suffered from a lack of sophistication in its over-repeated use of jokes based upon the plot use of acronyms. They offered that animations within the project "played really well", and made special note of strong acting by Kassem Gharaibeh as a bitter teacher, and how Arden Cho "stands out as a performer in her own right".


Elektor - up-to-date electronics for lab and leisure


Lionel Stander

Lionel Jay Stander (January 11, 1908 – November 30, 1994) was an American actor in films, radio, theater and television. He is best remembered for his role as majordomo Max on the 1980s mystery television series "Hart to Hart".
Early life.
Lionel Stander was born in The Bronx, New York City, New York, to Russian-Jewish immigrants, the first of three children.
According to newspaper interviews with Stander, as a teenager he appeared in the silent film "Men of Steel" (1926), perhaps as an extra, since he is not listed in the credits.
During his one year at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he appeared in the student productions "The Muse of the Unpublished Writer", and "The Muse and the Movies: A Comedy of Greenwich Village".
Career.
Stander's acting career began in 1928, as Cop and First Fairy in "Him" by E. E. Cummings, at the Provincetown Playhouse. He claimed that he got the roles because one of them required shooting craps, which he did well, and a friend in the company volunteered him. He appeared in a series of short-lived plays through the early 1930s, including "The House Beautiful", which Dorothy Parker famously derided as "the play lousy".
Early film roles.
In 1932, Stander landed his first credited film role in the Warner-Vitaphone short feature "In the Dough" (1932), with Fatty Arbuckle and Shemp Howard. He made several other shorts, the last being "The Old Grey Mayor" (1935) with Bob Hope in 1935. That same year, he was cast in a feature, Ben Hecht's "The Scoundrel" (1935), with Noël Coward. He moved to Hollywood and signed a contract with Columbia Pictures. Stander was in a string of films over the next three years, appearing most notably in Frank Capra's "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" (1936) with Gary Cooper, "Meet Nero Wolfe" (1936) playing Archie Goodwin, "The League of Frightened Men" (1937), and "A Star Is Born" (1937) with Janet Gaynor and Fredric March.
Radio roles.
Stander's distinctive rumbling voice, tough-guy demeanor, and talent with accents made him a popular radio actor. In the 1930s and 1940s, he was on "The Eddie Cantor Show", Bing Crosby's KMH show, the "Lux Radio Theater" production of "A Star Is Born", "The Fred Allen Show", the "Mayor of the Town" series with Lionel Barrymore and Agnes Moorehead, "Kraft Music Hall" on NBC, "Stage Door Canteen" on CBS, the "Lincoln Highway Radio Show" on NBC, and "The Jack Paar Show", among others.
In 1941, he starred in a short-lived radio show called "The Life of Riley" on CBS (no relation to the radio, film, and television character later made famous by William Bendix). Stander played the role of Spider Schultz in both Harold Lloyd's film "The Milky Way" (1936) and its remake ten years later, "The Kid from Brooklyn" (1946), starring Danny Kaye. He was a regular on Danny Kaye's zany comedy-variety radio show on CBS (1946–1947), playing himself as "just the elevator operator" amidst the antics of Kaye, future "Our Miss Brooks" star Eve Arden, and bandleader Harry James.
Also during the 1940s, he played several characters on "The Woody Woodpecker" and "Andy Panda" animated theatrical shorts, produced by Walter Lantz Productions. For "Woody Woodpecker", he provided the voice of Buzz Buzzard, but was blacklisted from the Lantz studio in 1951 and was replaced by Dal McKennon.
Activism.
Strongly of communist ideology and pro-labor, Stander espoused a variety of social and political causes, and was a founding member of the Screen Actors Guild. At a SAG meeting held during a 1937 studio technicians' strike, he told the assemblage of 2000 members: "With the eyes of the whole world on this meeting, will it not give the Guild a black eye if its members continue to cross picket lines?" (The "NY Times" reported: "Cheers mingled with boos greeted the question.") Stander also supported the Conference of Studio Unions in its fight against the Mob-influenced International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE). Also in 1937, Ivan F. Cox, a deposed officer of the San Francisco longshoremen's union, sued Stander and a host of others, including union leader Harry Bridges, actors Fredric March, Franchot Tone, Mary Astor, James Cagney, Jean Muir, and director William Dieterle. The charge, according to "Time" magazine, was "conspiring to propagate Communism on the Pacific Coast, causing Mr. Cox to lose his job".
In 1938, Columbia Pictures head Harry Cohn allegedly called Stander "a Red son of a bitch" and threatened a US$100,000 fine against any studio that renewed his contract. Despite critical acclaim for his performances, Stander's film work dropped off drastically. After appearing in 15 films in 1935 and 1936, he was in only six in 1937 and 1938. This was followed by just six films from 1939 through 1943, none made by major studios, the most notable being "Guadalcanal Diary" (1943).
Stander and HUAC.
Stander was among the first group of Hollywood actors to be subpoenaed before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1940 for supposed Communist activities. At a grand jury hearing in Los Angeles in August 1940—the transcript of which was shortly released to the press—John R. Leech, the self-described former "chief functionary" of the Communist Party in Los Angeles, named Stander as a CP member, along with more than 15 other Hollywood notables, including Franchot Tone, Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Clifford Odets and Budd Schulberg. Stander subsequently forced himself into the grand jury hearing, and the district attorney cleared him of the allegations.
Stander appeared in few films in 1944 and 1945. Then, with HUAC's attentions focused elsewhere due to World War II, he played in a number of mostly second-rate pictures from independent studios through the late 1940s. These include Ben Hecht's "Specter of the Rose" (1946); the Preston Sturges comedy "The Sin of Harold Diddlebock" (1947) with Harold Lloyd; and "Trouble Makers" (1948) with The Bowery Boys. One classic emerged from this period of his career, the Preston Sturges comedy "Unfaithfully Yours" (1948) with Rex Harrison.
In 1947, HUAC turned its attention once again to Hollywood. That October, Howard Rushmore, who had belonged to the CPUSA in the 1930s and written film reviews for the "Daily Worker", testified that writer John Howard Lawson, whom he named as a Communist, had "referred to Lionel Stander as a perfect example of how a Communist should not act in Hollywood." Stander was again blacklisted from films, though he played on TV, radio, and in the theater.
In March 1951, actor Larry Parks, after pleading with HUAC investigators not to force him to "crawl through the mud" as an informer, named several people as Communists in a "closed-door session", which made the newspapers two days later. He testified that he knew Stander, but did not recall attending any CP meetings with him.
At a HUAC hearing in April 1951, actor Marc Lawrence named Stander as a member of his Hollywood Communist "cell", along with screenwriter Lester Cole and screenwriter Gordon Kahn. Lawrence testified that Stander "was the guy who introduced me to the party line", and that Stander said that by joining the CP, he would "get to know the dames more" — which Lawrence, who did not enjoy film-star looks, thought a good idea. Upon hearing of this, Stander shot off a telegram to HUAC chair John S. Wood, calling Lawrence's testimony that he was a Communist "ridiculous" and asking to appear before the Committee, so he could swear to that under oath. The telegram concluded: "I respectfully request an opportunity to appear before you at your earliest possible convenience. Be assured of my cooperation." Two days later, Stander sued Lawrence for $500,000 for slander. Lawrence left the country ("fled", according to Stander) for Europe.
After that, Stander was blacklisted from TV and radio. He continued to act in theater roles, and played Ludlow Lowell in the 1952-53 revival of "Pal Joey" on Broadway and on tour.
Blacklisting.
Two years passed before Stander was issued the requested subpoena. Finally, in May 1953, he testified at a HUAC hearing in New York, where he made front-page headlines nationwide by being uproariously uncooperative, memorialized in the Eric Bentley play, "Are You Now or Have You Ever Been". The "New York Times" headline was "Stander Lectures House Red Inquiry." In a dig at bandleader Artie Shaw, who had tearfully claimed in a Committee hearing that he had been "duped" by the Communist Party, Stander testified,
"I am not a dupe, or a dope, or a moe, or a schmoe... I was absolutely conscious of what I was doing, and I am not ashamed of anything I said in public or private."
 An excerpt from that statement was engraved in stone for "The First Amendment Blacklist Memorial" by Jenny Holzer at the University of Southern California.
Other notable statements during Stander's 1953 HUAC testimony:
Stander also denied having been a Communist "now or yesterday." But when asked if he had ever been a party member, he refused to answer, calling it "a trick question."
Stander was blacklisted from the late 1940s until 1965; perhaps the longest period.
Career in independent films in Europe.
After that, Stander's acting career went into a free fall. He worked as a stockbroker on Wall Street, a journeyman stage actor, a corporate spokesman—even a New Orleans Mardi Gras king. He didn't return to Broadway until 1961 (and then only briefly in a flop) and to film in 1963, in the low-budget "The Moving Finger" (although he did provide, uncredited, the voice-over narration for the 1961 film noir "Blast of Silence".)
Life improved for Stander when he moved to London in 1964 to act in Bertolt Brecht's "Saint Joan of the Stockyards", directed by Tony Richardson, for whom he'd acted on Broadway, along with Christopher Plummer, in a 1963 production of Brecht's "The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui". In 1965, he was featured in the film "Promise Her Anything". That same year Richardson cast him in the black comedy about the funeral industry, "The Loved One", based on the novel by Evelyn Waugh, with an all-star cast including Jonathan Winters, Robert Morse, Liberace, Rod Steiger, Paul Williams and many others. In 1966, Roman Polanski cast Stander in his only starring role, as the thug Dickie in "Cul-de-sac", opposite Françoise Dorléac and Donald Pleasence.
Stander stayed in Europe and eventually settled in Rome, where he appeared in many spaghetti Westerns, most notably playing a bartender named Max in Sergio Leone's "Once Upon a Time in the West." He played the role of the villainous mob boss in Fernando Di Leo's 1972 poliziottescho thriller "Caliber 9". In Rome he connected with Robert Wagner, who cast him in an episode of "It Takes a Thief" that was shot there. Stander's few English-language films in the 1970s include "The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight" with Robert De Niro and Jerry Orbach, Steven Spielberg's "1941", and Martin Scorsese's "New York, New York", which also starred De Niro and Liza Minnelli.
Stander played a supporting role in the TV film "Revenge Is My Destiny" with Chris Robinson. He played a lounge comic modeled after the real-life Las Vegas comic Joe E. Lewis, who used to begin his act by announcing "Post Time" as he sipped his ever-present drink.
"Hart to Hart" and other roles.
After 15 years abroad, Stander moved back to the U.S. for the role he is now most famous for: Max, the loyal butler, cook, and chauffeur to the wealthy, amateur detectives Jonathan and Jennifer Hart played by Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers on the 1979–1984 television series "Hart to Hart" (and a subsequent series of "Hart to Hart" made-for-television films). In 1982, Stander won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Film.
In 1986, he became the voice of Kup in "". In 1991 he was a guest star in the television series "Dream On", playing Uncle Pat in the episode "Toby or Not Toby". His final theatrical film role was as a dying hospital patient in "The Last Good Time" (1994), with Armin Mueller-Stahl and Olivia d'Abo, directed by Bob Balaban.
Personal life.
Stander was married six times, the first time in 1932 and the last in 1972. All but the last marriage ended in divorce. He fathered six daughters (one wife had no children, one had twins).
Stander died of lung cancer in Los Angeles, California, in 1994 at age 86. He was buried in Glendale's Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery.


Rural Press

Rural Press Limited is an Australian media company, trading as Australian Community Media, which owns approximately 170 newspaper and magazine titles, "The Canberra Times" being the most prominent. These are predominantly in rural Australia, though it also owns a number of agricultural publications in the United States and New Zealand. It also owned radio stations in regional South Australia and Queensland, a range of Australian classified advertising websites, and Australian commercial printing plants. It was formed in 1988 when Fairfax, then owned by Warwick Fairfax, sold some titles to Warwick's half brother John B. Fairfax.
On 6 December 2006 it was announced that Rural Press Limited and John Fairfax Holdings would merge to form a new company estimated in value at $12 billion. Under the deal, the family company of Rural Press chairman John B. Fairfax (who did not have an interest in the company bearing his family's name) would take a 13.5 per cent stake in the merged entity. This was just short of a controlling interest, but gave Fairfax a potential blocking stake if Publishing and Broadcasting Limited, News Corporation, the Seven Network or a private equity raider embarked on a hostile takeover, as had been widely anticipated following the Federal Parliament's passage of new media laws on 18 October 2006.
The merger with Fairfax was completed on 8 May 2007. The entity is generally known under the name Australian Community Media.
The Land.
"The Land" is an Australian rural newspaper, founded in 1911 and was also the original name of the Rural Press Limited until 1981.


Chithrakuzhal

Chithrakuzhal () is a 2010 Malayalam film directed by Majeed Gulistan. Chithrakuzhal (Binoculars) is a Children's film based on environmental issues and protection of the Nature. The title of the English version of the film is "The Bird Catcher".
Synopsis.
A Forest Ranger’s (Vijayaraghavan) school going kid Charu (Sidharth) happens to get lost in the forest by a trap laid by the poachers who had a grudge with his father. Caught and taken away by the poachers, the boy is spotted by a tribal boy Virundhan (Amal Ashok) who lives in the forest and who is incidentally his classmate too. In the school the tribal boy got a nickname ‘The Bird Catcher’ as he is believed to catch & take away the birds for cooking and eating.
The tribal boy, who was in the forest searching for some very rare herbal medicinal plants for his ailing mother, becomes the savior & guide to the forest officer’s son. The journey also reveals the many conditions, skills & qualities of the tribal boy Virundhan to Charu, who is of the modern upbringing.
Both of them chance to meet Amina (Meera Nair), a girl of their class, who also happened to be in the forest, running away for fear of police. In the daring journey of the three together, they deal the dangers and obstacles and also learn about the environment & the threats lurking in it.
The journey and its experience eventually transforms them to sharing and concerned human beings with better values.
Filming.
The film was set in the backdrop of the forests of the Western Ghats in South Kerala.
It was shot in the deep forests of Peppara, Neyyar, Agasthyarkoodam and Meenmutty.
The film was completed in 2009 and competed for the best Children's film in the Kerala state film awards and the National film awards.
Chithrakuzhal has the distinction of being the first Dolby Digital Children's film in Malayalam.
The film was premièred in Thiruvananthapuram on 6 October 2010 during an exhibition on wildlife, in the presence of the Minister of Forests Mr. Benoy Viswam
Accolades.
Chithrakuzhal was selected to the 2011 Lucknow International Children's Film festival.
The film was selected to the 34th Cairo International Film Festival.
Soundtrack.
The music of Chithrakuzhal was done by Ashwin Johnson. The lyrics are by renowned Malayalam poet Kavalam Narayana Panicker. The song "Thathindhaka theytharo" sung by Sri Devi, Jenny, Lekshmi and Kanchana is very popular among children.


Journal of the Polynesian Society


InfoWorld - The voice of personal computing in the enterprise


Ron Popeil

Ronald M. Popeil (; born May 3, 1935) is an American inventor and marketing personality, and founder of the direct response marketing company Ronco. He has made appearances in infomercials for the Showtime Rotisserie and coined the phrase "Set it, and forget it!" as well as popularizing the phrase, "But wait, there's more!" on television as early as the mid-1950s.
Personal life and career.
Popeil was born to a Jewish family in New York City in 1935. When he was six, his parents divorced and he and his brother went to live in Florida with their grandparents. At age 17 in 1952, he went with his grandparents to work for his father, Samuel Popeil, at his company's (Popeil Brothers) manufacturing facility in Chicago. His grandparents later returned to Florida and Ron Popeil remained with his father.
Popeil learned his trade from his father, who was also an inventor and salesman of numerous kitchen-related gadgets such as the Chop-O-Matic and the Veg-O-Matic to major department stores. The Chop-O-Matic retailed for US$3.98 and sold over two million units. It indirectly spurred Ron Popeil's move into television, as it was so efficient at chopping vegetables it was impractical for salesmen to carry all they needed for their pitches. The solution was to tape the demonstration.
Popeil initially operated as a distributor of his father's kitchen products and later formed his own company, Ronco, in 1964. He continued as a distributor for his father and added additional products from other manufacturers. Ron Popeil and his father became competitors in the 1970s for the same retail store business.
Popeil received the Ig Nobel Prize in Consumer Engineering in 1993. The awards committee described him as the "incessant inventor and perpetual pitchman of late night television" and awarded the prize in recognition of his "redefining the industrial revolution" with his devices. He is a past member of the board of directors Mirage Resorts where he served for 22 years under Steve Wynn as well as a past member of the board of directors of MGM Hotels for seven years under Kirk Kerkorian. He became the recipient of the Electronic Retail Association's Lifetime Achievement award in 2001 and he is listed in the Direct Response Hall of Fame.
He is currently a member of the advisory board for University of California Los Angeles' Business, Management and Legal Programs. In August 2005, he sold his company, Ronco, to Fi-Tek VII, a Denver holding company, for US$55 million, with plans to continue serving as the spokesman and inventor while being able to spend more time with his family.
In 1956, he married Marilyn Greene, with whom he had two daughters; they divorced in 1963. He married Lisa Boehne sometime after this and has one daughter with her. He and Boehne divorced sometime before 1995, when he married Robin Angers, with whom he has two more daughters.
As of 2006, he lived in Beverly Hills, California, with his wife, Robin Popeil, and two of his five daughters. Ashley Tisdale and Jennifer Tisdale are his cousins.
Inventions.
Popeil is noted for marketing and in some cases inventing a wide variety of products. Among the better known and more successful are the Chop-O-Matic hand food processor ("Ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to show you the greatest kitchen appliance ever made ... All your onions chopped to perfection without shedding a single tear."), the Dial-O-Matic successor to the Veg-O-Matic ("Slice a tomato so thin it only has one side."), and the Ronco Pocket Fisherman. Popeil is also well known for his housewares inventions like his Giant Dehydrator and Beef Jerky Machine, his Electric Pasta Maker and his Showtime Rotisserie & BBQ. His Showtime Rotisserie & BBQ sold over eight million units in the US alone, helping Ronco's housewares sales exceed $1 billion in profits. After retiring, Popeil continued to invent products including the 5in1 Turkey Fryer & Food Cooking System which he has been developing for over ten years.
Popular culture.
Popeil's success in infomercials, memorable marketing personality, and ubiquity on American television have allowed him and his products to appear in a variety of popular media environments including cameo appearances on television shows such as "The X-Files", "Futurama", "King of the Hill", "The Simpsons", "Sex and the City", "The Daily Show" and "The West Wing". Parodies of Popeil's infomercials were done on the comedy show "Saturday Night Live" by Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy and the "Veg-O-Matic" may have provided comedian Gallagher inspiration for the "Sledge-O-Matic" routine since the 1980s. The animated series "VeggieTales" once featured a parody of the "Veg-O-Matic" dubbed as the "Forgive-O-Matic". "Additionally, the professional wrestling tag team The Midnight Express dubbed their finishing move the Veg-O-Matic.
Popeil was voted by "Self" magazine readers as one of the 25 people who have changed the way we eat, drink and think about food.
Popeil has been referenced in the music of Alice Cooper, the Beastie Boys, and "Weird Al" Yankovic. Yankovic's song "Mr. Popeil" was a tribute to Popeil's father, Samuel (and featured his sister Lisa Popeil on backing vocals). Ron Popeil later used this song in some of his infomercials.
In Malcolm Gladwell's book "", Popeil is interviewed and many of his products, most notably the Veg-O-Matic and Showtime Rotisserie, are discussed. Malcolm Gladwell's New Yorker piece "The Pitchman" about Popeil won Gladwell the 2001 National Magazine award. The article was first published in "The New Yorker" in 2000.


Mystery House

Mystery House is an adventure game released by On-Line Systems in 1980. It was designed, written and illustrated by Roberta Williams, and programmed by Ken Williams for the Apple II. "Mystery House" is the first graphical adventure game ever and the first game produced by On-Line Systems, the company which would evolve into Sierra On-Line. It is one of the earliest horror video games.
Plot.
The game starts near an abandoned Victorian mansion. The player is soon locked inside the house with no other option than to explore. The mansion contains many interesting rooms and seven other people: Tom, a plumber; Sam, a mechanic; Sally, a seamstress; Dr. Green, a surgeon; Joe, a grave-digger; Bill, a butcher; and Daisy, a cook.
Initially, the player has to search the house in order to find a hidden cache of jewels. However, dead bodies (of the other people) begin appearing. It becomes obvious that there is a murderer on the loose in the house, and the player must discover who it is or become the next victim.
Development and release.
At the end of the 1970s, Ken Williams sought to set up a company for enterprise software for the market-dominating Apple II computer. One day, he took a teletype terminal to his house to work on the development of an accounting program. Looking through a catalogue, he found a game called "Colossal Cave Adventure". He bought the game and introduced it to his wife, Roberta, and they both played through it. They began to search for something similar but found the market underdeveloped. Roberta decided that she could write her own, and conceived of the plot for "Mystery House", taking inspiration from Agatha Christie's novel "And Then There Were None".
Recognizing that though she knew some programming, she needed someone else to code the game, she convinced her husband to help her. Ken agreed and borrowed his brother's Apple II computer to write the game on. Ken suggested that adding graphical scenes to the otherwise text-based game would make it more interesting for players, and the couple bought a VersaWriter machine, on which users can trace over a line drawing and convert it to a digital drawing. Roberta drew seventy scenes for the game. Ken found, however, that the resulting digital drawings were too large to fit into a 5¼-inch floppy disk, so he devised a way to convert the images into coordinates and instructions for the program to redraw the lines of the scenes rather than static images, as well as writing a better version of the VersaWriter scanning software. The resulting game is a text-based adventure with a depiction of the character's location displayed above the text. The game's code was completed in only a few days, and was finished on May 5, 1980. The couple took out an advertisement in "Micro" magazine as On-Line Systems, and mass-produced Ziploc bags containing a floppy disk and a sheet of instructions, to be sold at .
Reception and legacy.
To the Williams's surprise, what Roberta had initially considered a hobby project sold more than 10,000 copies through mail-order. Including its 1982 rerelease through the SierraVenture line, 80,000 units were eventually sold worldwide, making it one of the best-selling computer games at the time.
Mark Marlow reviewed "Mission: Asteroid", "Mystery House", and "The Wizard and the Princess" for "Computer Gaming World", and stated that ""Mystery House" is considerably more difficult and provides many traps for the unwary in a wonderfully Victorian setting."
"Computer Gaming World" in 1996 ranked it fourth on the magazine's list of the most innovative computer games. "GamePro" named "Mystery House" the 51st most important game of all time in 2007, for introducing a visual component to adventure games and for featuring graphics at a time when most computer games did not. Though the game is often considered the first adventure game to use graphics, dungeon crawl role-playing video games had already been using graphics prior to its release. Applying graphics to an adventure game, however, was unprecedented as previous story-based adventure games were entirely text-based.
"Mystery House"s success led the Williams to create the "Hi-Res Adventures" series, and note the game as "Hi-Res Adventure" #1. After the follow-on success of their next game, "Wizard and the Princess", the pair moved into game development full-time, and On-Line Systems was incorporated in 1980 as Sierra On-Line. The game was later released into the public domain in 1987 as part of Sierra's seventh anniversary celebration.
In Japan, several different adventure games under the title "Mystery House" were released. In 1982, MicroCabin released "Mystery House", which was unrelated to (but inspired by) the On-Line Systems game of the same name. The following year, the Japanese company Starcraft released an enhanced remake of On-Line Systems' "Mystery House" with more realistic art work and depiction of blood, for the NEC PC-6001 and PC-8801, while "Mystery House II" for the MSX was released as a sequel to MicroCabin's "Mystery House". The Japanese versions of "Mystery House" had sales of 50,000 units, including 30,000 copies on the MSX and 20,000 copies on the PC-6001, PC-8001, PC-8801, PC-9801, FM-7, and X1 computers.
"Mystery House" was satirized in the 1982 adventure game "Prisoner 2". One location from that game is a spooky house, where the player is told, "He's killed Ken!" and must seek absolution for murder. Elements from the game were later reintroduced in the Sierra On-Line game "The Colonel's Bequest" in 1989.


Elisabeth Tova Bailey

Elisabeth Tova Bailey is the author of "The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating" (2010, Algonquin Books, ) which won the 2010 John Burroughs Medal, the Natural History Literature category of the 2010 National Outdoor Book Award (joint award), and the non-fiction category of the 2012 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. In the book she describes her observations of an individual land snail in the species "Neohelix albolabris" which lived in a terrarium next to her while she was confined to bed through illness.
In her essay "A Green World Deep in Winter: The Bedside Terrarium", published in the "Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine", Bailey describes how Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward, inventor of the Wardian case, had published during the mid 19th century a report on the "Use of Closed Cases in Illness", explaining the benefit of a terrarium to bed-ridden patients in order to "beguile many a weary hour".