John David Roy Atchison

John David Roy Atchison (August 28, 1954 – October 5, 2007) was an assistant U.S. Attorney in Florida's northern district who gained notoriety when he was arrested for suspicion of soliciting for sex with a 5-year-old girl.
Early life and education.
Atchison was born in 1954 and held a bachelor's degree from the University of Florida and a law degree from Cumberland Law School at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama.
Career.
Atchison was admitted to the Florida Bar in June 1984 and the Georgia Bar in June 1985. He worked in the U.S. Attorney's office in Pensacola, Florida, working on tax and financial crime cases. he was a member of the Republican Party.
Legal issues and death.
On September 16, 2007, Atchison was arrested at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport in a sex crime sting operation undertaken by the FBI and Macomb County. He was charged with "enticement of a minor to engage in sexual activity using the Internet", "aggravated sexual abuse" and "traveling across state lines to have sex with someone under the age of 12". At the time of his arrest, he was carrying presents for his intended victim, including a doll and a pair of earrings. Also in his possession was a jar of petroleum jelly. Following his arrest, he tried to kill himself via hanging with a sheet in his jail cell on September 20, 2007. Atchison had been removed from a suicide watch the previous day after assuring his lawyer and a judge that he would not harm himself. He was not injured in the suicide attempt, which another inmate reported about 4 a.m.
On October 5, 2007, Atchison successfully committed suicide by hanging himself in his prison cell in Milan, Michigan.
Personal life.
Atchison was married and had three children that lived in Gulf Breeze, near Pensacola.


Abbess of Hawkenlye


Gordianus the Finder

Gordianus the Finder (c. 110 BC – ??) is the fictional protagonist of Steven Saylor's "Roma Sub Rosa" series of historical mystery novels set in Republican Rome. He lives by his wits, investigating crimes and other cases for Roman advocates such as Marcus Tullius Cicero. Initially, he lives in a rambling house on the Esquiline Hill in Rome with his family; but he later inherits a farm in Etruria, then exchanges it for a house on the Palatine Hill, giving his older house to his son Eco.
Gordianus shows not only the regular deductive and perceptive abilities of fellow detectives of all novels and ages, but a remarkable gift of inducing all kind of characters, sometimes without trying, to confide to him even their most hidden secrets, longings and intentions.
Gordianus interacts with non-fictional citizens including Sulla, Cicero, Marcus Crassus, Catullus, Catiline, Pompey, Julius Caesar, Quintus Sertorius, and Mark Antony.
The first Gordianus novel, Roman Blood, is based on an actual murder trial in which Marcus Tullius Cicero (aided by his slave Marcus Tullius Tiro) defended Sextus Roscius against the charge of parricide. The crime has a unique punishment, which Saylor describes in gruesome detail.
For an ancient Roman, Gordianus has an unconventional family. His wife, Bethesda, was his former Egyptian concubine, whom he had purchased as a slave in Alexandria. His eldest adopted son Eco was a former mute who followed in his father's footsteps as an investigator; another adopted son, Meto, estranged himself from his father by becoming a soldier and a spy, though they are later reconciled; while the youngest adopted son, Rupa, was the brother of Cassandra, an adulterous love of Gordianus. The only official child of his blood is his daughter Diana, an intellectual and headstrong young woman, who becomes pregnant by, and later marries, a slave called Davus. Gordianus and his family had a cat named Bast (after an Egyptian cat-deity), but Bast was killed in "Roman Blood," by one of Gordianus's enemies, who had been trying to kill Bethesda. Later on, Bethesda acquires other cats: usually, one is called Bast.
A pacifist, Gordianus shows a successive bitter criticism to the deeds of almost all historical characters shown in the series and their harsh and bloody consequences on ordinary Romans. He remains a republican at heart, despite witnessing the crumbling of the ancient state and the beginning of the soon-to-be Roman Empire.
Gordianus was thought to have died soon after the apparent death of his wife, while in Egypt, by drowning in the Nile ("The Judgment of Caesar"). However, he and his wife return very alive in another issue of the series ("The Triumph of Caesar"), and witnessed the death of Caesar (“The Throne of Caesar”), after which the character says he will finally retire..
Gordianus returns in a prequel published in 2012, "The Seven Wonders: A Novel of the Ancient World."


Charles Becker

Charles Becker (July 26, 1870 – July 30, 1915) was a lieutenant in the New York City Police Department between the 1890s and the 1910s. He is known for the scandal of being tried, convicted, and executed for the first-degree murder of the Manhattan gambler Herman Rosenthal in 1912 near Times Square.
Convicted in the Becker-Rosenthal trial, Becker may have been "the only police officer executed for crimes connected to his official performance." He appealed and was retried but was convicted again. The corruption scandal related to the case was one of the most important in Progressive Era New York City and the early part of the 20th century.
Early life.
Charles Becker was born in 1870 in the village of Callicoon Center, Sullivan County, New York. His parents were German-American immigrants from Bavaria. Becker moved to New York City as a young man in 1890 and went to work as a bouncer in a German beer hall just off the Bowery.
In November 1893, he joined the New York City Police Department. In the fall of 1896, Becker gained wide attention when he arrested Ruby Young (alias Dora Clark) on Broadway because the known prostitute was in the company of popular writer Stephen Crane, the author of "The Red Badge of Courage".
The next day at Ruby Young's hearing, Crane stepped forward and defended Young.
Crane's popularity carried weight in court at the sentencing of Young, and Magistrate Robert C. Cornell dismissed the case. Afterward Crane told reporters, "If the girl will have the officer prosecuted for perjury, I will gladly support her." Three weeks later, Young filed formal charges against Becker.
Feeling vulnerable, Becker gathered evidence, hired experienced defense counsel Louis Grant, and rallied the support of his colleagues. Becker made a powerful entrance to his trial on October 15, 1896, surrounded by a phalanx of policemen. Commissioner Frederick Dent Grant, son of Ulysses S. Grant, headed the proceeding. After almost five hours of examination, Becker was acquitted. He learned about the power of the badge and how he could call on his colleagues for help.
Marriage and family.
Becker married Letitia Stenson from Ontario, Canada. Their son, Howard P. Becker, was born in 1899. Six years later the couple divorced, and Howard grew up with his mother and stepfather in the West. His mother married Charles's brother Paul. Howard Becker completed a doctorate in sociology at the University of Chicago and later became a full professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Charles Becker married and divorced again. In 1905 he married a woman, Helen, a schoolteacher and later assistant principal. Their daughter, Charlotte Becker, died less than a day after her birth in 1913. Helen Becker always believed that her husband was wrongfully convicted of murder.
Reform movement.
In 1902 and 1903, Becker was one of the leaders of a patrolman's reform movement agitating for the introduction of the three-platoon system. It would have significantly reduced the number of hours that the beat police officer was expected to work. In 1906, he was seconded to a special unit working out of police headquarters to probe the alleged corruption of Police Inspector Max F. Schmittberger. The inspector had earned enmity among patrolmen for giving detailed testimony to the 1894 Lexow Committee investigating police corruption in New York. Partly because of Becker's work, Schmittberger was subsequently prosecuted. Deputy Police Commissioner Rhinelander Waldo was so satisfied with Becker's work that when he was appointed as New York City Police Commissioner in 1911, Waldo appointed Becker, now a lieutenant, as head of one of the city's three anti-vice squads.
Criminal activities.
Becker allegedly used his position to extort substantial sums, later shown to total in excess of $100,000, from Manhattan brothels and illegal gambling casinos in exchange for immunity from police interference. Percentages of the take were regularly delivered to politicians and other policemen. The area was under the patronage of Tammany Hall's leader, Big Tim Sullivan.
Herman Rosenthal, a flamboyant Estonian immigrant who ran several illegal casinos in what was known as the Tenderloin d
District, was irritated by a police raid led by Becker on one of his casinos and the damage they left. He complained to the press that Becker "collected 20 percent of the take" there. In July 1912, Becker was reported by the "New York World" as one of three senior police officials involved in extorting money from Rosenthal's casinos. The day that Rosenthal was due to testify to a grand jury, he was murdered at 2 am as he left the Hotel Metropole at 147 West 43rd Street, just off Times Square. Lefty Louie, Whitey Lewis, Dago Frank, and Gyp the Blood were seen to shoot him from their car, making no effort at disguise. They were separately tried, convicted, and sentenced to death and were ultimately executed.
Manhattan District Attorney Charles S. Whitman, who had made an appointment to interview Rosenthal before his death, alleged that the four gangsters had committed the murder at Becker's behest. Amid a major public outcry following the murder and extensive press coverage, Becker was transferred to the Bronx and assigned to desk duty.
Arrest, trial, and execution.
Whitman's office continued to investigate Becker. On July 29, 1912, Becker was arrested at the precinct's closing hour by special detectives from the District Attorney's Office. He was tried and convicted of first-degree murder that fall in a trial presided by John Goff, who was "intensely biased against Becker" and whose charge to the jury was slanted toward conviction. The verdict was overturned on appeal on the grounds that Goff had been biased and that there was no independent corroborating witness to testify to the events since all of them had been involved in the crimes.
The court ruled for a retrial, but in 1914, Becker was convicted again and sentenced to death. He was the first police officer in New York to receive that penalty.
Becker continued to profess his innocence. The day before his execution, Becker told the warden,
"Sure, I told them to put Rosenthal out of the way, but I didn't mean they should kill him. I wanted them to get him out of town so he wouldn't blab. Killing him was Rose's idea and the others. They wanted to save their own skins."
Jack Rose had served as a prosecution witness, as did Harry Vallon, Sam Schepps and Bridgey Webber. They were underworld criminal figures who were believed to be involved in the crime but were promised immunity by the district attorney's office in exchange for testifying against Becker.
Whitman, who was then governor of New York, signed Becker's death warrant in 1915 and attended the execution. Becker was executed by the electric chair in Sing Sing on July 30, 1915. The process took nine minutes, appearing to cause the man intense agony. For years afterward, it was described as "the clumsiest execution in the history of Sing Sing." Becker is the "only policeman to be executed for murder in the history of the United States."
Becker was interred at Woodlawn Cemetery, the Bronx, on August 2, 1915. He was buried next to his daughter.
Controversy.
Beginning with Henry Klein in 1927, a number of authors have suggested that Becker was wrongly convicted. Andy Logan wrote a thorough account of this position in her "Against the Evidence" (1970), as she became convinced of his innocence in the murder through her research. They suggest that Becker and his fellow officers had stood back and allowed "the street" to "take care of" Rosenthal since they knew that his co-operation with the district attorney's office would put a huge target on his back.
Three people have been identified as having a major stake of self-interest in Becker's prosecution for murder. Allegedly, District Attorney Whitman manipulated the evidence to implicate the corrupt Lieutenant. Becker was known to have assets that far exceeded his salary. However, for Whitman, gaining a guilty verdict for Becker in the sensational murder case would help his own political aspirations, and he is thought to have been elected as governor largely based on his success in that goal.
In addition, the reporter Herbert Bayard Swope publicized the case mercilessly in the press, representing the power of the "New York World". He devoted much space to the conduct of the trial and individuals' testimony. Later, he said his reporting on the trial catapulted his career. Lastly, as noted above, Judge John Goff showed his bias and played a major role in gaining a guilty verdict from the jury.
New York police historian Thomas A. Reppetto believes that Becker was guilty because of the testimony of people involved but also he had a strong motive and had shown reckless behavior. The consensus continues to favor Becker's active involvement in the murder.
The Becker-Rosenthal murder was explored by historian Mike Dash in his "Satan's Circus: Murder, Vice, Police Corruption and New York's Trial of the Century" (2007). He made no conclusion as to Becker's guilt in the murder.


Terry v. Ohio

Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in which the Court ruled that it is not unconstitutional for American police to "stop and frisk" a person they reasonably suspect to be armed and involved in a crime. Specifically, the decision held that it is not a violation of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution's prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures when a police officer stops a suspect on the street and questions him or her even without probable cause to arrest, so long as the police officer has a reasonable suspicion that the person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime. The Court also ruled that the police officer may perform a quick surface search of the person's outer clothing for weapons if they have reasonable suspicion that the person stopped is "armed and presently dangerous". This reasonable suspicion must be based on "specific and articulable facts", and not merely upon an officer's hunch.
This permitted police action has subsequently been referred to in short as a "stop and frisk", or simply a ""Terry" frisk". The "Terry" standard was later extended to temporary detentions of persons in vehicles, known as traffic stops; see Terry stop for a summary of subsequent jurisprudence. The rationale behind the Supreme Court decision revolves around the understanding that, as the opinion notes, "the exclusionary rule has its limitations." The meaning of the rule is to protect persons from unreasonable searches and seizures aimed at gathering evidence, not searches and seizures for other purposes (like prevention of crime or personal protection of police officers).
Background.
Legal history.
"Stop-and-frisk" is a police practice where a police officer stops a person suspected of involvement in a crime, briefly searches their clothing for weapons, and then questions them, all without requiring their consent and without enough grounds to arrest them. The "stop-and-frisk" practice has long been routinely employed by all major American police forces. It was traditionally viewed as a "low visibility" police procedure, and prior to 1960 was "largely ignored by commentators and dealt with ambiguously by most courts."
But in the early 1960s, several major changes in American criminal law raised the issue's importance. First, in its 1961 decision "Mapp v. Ohio", the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the exclusionary rule—which prevents the government from using evidence in criminal prosecutions if it was illegally obtained—applies to the U.S. states as well as the federal government. Then, in 1966, the Supreme Court ruled in "Miranda v. Arizona" that the Fifth Amendment requires courts to suppress confessions that law enforcement obtains without first giving certain specific legal warnings. The "stop-and-frisk" practice became a popular topic in law reviews, and a number of prominent articles were written on the subject. Several cases forced state supreme courts to address the practice more directly, such as the Supreme Court of California's 1963 decision in "People v. Mickelson". Finally, in 1968, the U.S. Supreme Court addressed the issue in "Terry".
Case history.
The "Terry" case involved an incident that took place on October 31, 1963, in Cleveland, Ohio. Police officer Martin McFadden was on duty in downtown Cleveland and noticed two men standing on a street corner. One of the men, John W. Terry, walked down the street, stopped in front of a certain store and looked through its window, then briefly continued on before turning around and returning to where he started, stopping on his way back to look in the store window again. Then the other man, Richard Chilton, did the same thing. McFadden watched the pair repeat this routine about a dozen times, then a third man joined them and the three walked up the street together toward the store. McFadden suspected that the men were "casing" the store in preparation for robbing it, so he followed and confronted them. He asked the men's names, and they gave noncommittal mumbling answers. McFadden then grabbed Terry and Chilton, spun them around, patted down their exterior clothing, and discovered that they both had pistols in their jacket pockets.
After discovering the pistols, McFadden arrested Terry and Chilton, and they were both charged with illegally carrying concealed weapons. At trial, Terry's lawyer made a motion to suppress the evidence of the discovered pistol, arguing that the "frisk" by which McFadden had discovered it was a violation of the Fourth Amendment, and therefore that the judge should exclude the pistol from evidence per the exclusionary rule. The trial judge denied his motion on the basis that the "stop-and-frisk" was generally presumed legal, and Terry was convicted. He appealed to the Ohio District Court of Appeals, which affirmed his conviction, then appealed to the Supreme Court of Ohio, which dismissed his appeal. He then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to hear his case and granted "certiorari".
Supreme Court decision.
On June 10, 1968, the Supreme Court issued an 8–1 decision against Terry that upheld the constitutionality of the "stop-and-frisk" procedure as long as the police officer performing it has a "reasonable suspicion" that the targeted person is about to commit a crime, has committed a crime, or is committing a crime, and may be "armed and presently dangerous".
Opinion of the Court.
Eight justices formed the majority and joined an opinion written by Chief Justice Earl Warren. The Court began by accepting Terry's arguments, which Ohio had disputed, that policeman McFadden's stopping, questioning, and frisking of Terry and Chilton constituted actual "searches" and "seizures" under the Fourth Amendment. However, the Court ruled that the Fourth Amendment "searches" and "seizures" that occurred during a "stop-and-frisk" were so "limited" and "brief" that they did not require the police to have probable cause beforehand. Reasoning that police officers' need to protect themselves outweighed the limited intrusions involved, the Court ruled that officers could "stop and frisk" a person if they had "reasonable suspicion" that crime was afoot, and did not need the higher level of "probable cause". The Court defined this new, lesser standard of "reasonable suspicion" as being less than "probable cause" but more than just a hunch, stating that "the police officer must be able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant [the] intrusion."
The Court held that this "reasonable suspicion" standard must apply to both the initial stop and the frisk. First, it said that a police officer must have reasonable suspicion to stop a suspect in the first place. Second, it held that an officer could then "frisk" a stopped suspect if he or she had reasonable suspicion that the suspect was armed and dangerous, or if, in the officer's experience, the suspected criminal activity was of a type that was "likely" to involve weapons. The officer's "frisk" could only be for the sole purpose of ensuring the suspect was not armed, and so had to be limited to a pat-down of the suspect's outer clothing.
The Court then applied these legal principles to McFadden's actions with Terry and found that they comported with the "reasonable suspicion" standard. McFadden had years of experience as a policeman, and was able to articulate the observations that led him to suspect that Terry and the other men were preparing to rob the store. Since McFadden reasonably suspected that the men were preparing for armed robbery, he reasonably suspected that Terry was armed, and so his frisk of Terry's clothing was permissible and did not violate Terry's Fourth Amendment rights.
The Court ended its opinion by framing the issue very narrowly, saying the question it was answering was "whether it is always unreasonable for a policeman to seize a person and subject him to a limited search for weapons unless there is probable cause for an arrest." In answer to this limited question, the Court said it was not. It ruled that when an American policeman observes "unusual conduct which leads him reasonably to conclude in light of his experience that criminal activity may be afoot and that the persons with whom he is dealing may be armed and presently dangerous", it is not a violation of the Fourth Amendment for the policeman to conduct a "stop-and-frisk" of the people he suspects.
Concurring opinion of Justice White.
Justice White joined the opinion of the Court but suggested that
There is nothing in the Constitution which prevents a policeman from addressing questions to anyone on the streets. Absent special circumstances, the person approached may not be detained or frisked but may refuse to cooperate and go on his way. However, given the proper circumstances, such as those in this case, it seems to me the person may be briefly detained against his will while pertinent questions are directed to him. Of course, the person stopped is not obliged to answer, answers may not be compelled, and refusal to answer furnishes no basis for an arrest, although it may alert the officer to the need for continued observation.
With regard to the lack of obligation to respond when detained under circumstances of "Terry", this opinion came to be regarded as persuasive authority in some jurisdictions, and the Court cited these remarks in dicta in "Berkemer v. McCarty", , at 439. However, in "Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada", , the Court held that neither of these remarks was controlling in a situation where a state law required a detained person to identify himself.
Dissenting opinion of Justice Douglas.
Justice Douglas strongly disagreed with permitting a stop and search absent probable cause:
We hold today that the police have greater authority to make a 'seizure' and conduct a 'search' than a judge has to authorize such action. We have said precisely the opposite over and over again.
To give the police greater power than a magistrate is to take a long step down the totalitarian path. Perhaps such a step is desirable to cope with modern forms of lawlessness. But if it is taken, it should be the deliberate choice of the people through a constitutional amendment.
Later Criticism.
"Terry" was criticized in 1997 for inaccurately summarizing the facts of the case itself. It was also criticized for "fail[ing] to strike a meaningful Fourth Amendment balance between effective law enforcement and individual freedom."
Subsequent jurisprudence.
"Terry" set precedent for a wide assortment of Fourth Amendment cases. The cases range from street stop-and-frisks to traffic stops in which pat-down searches could be conducted on the driver or passengers. In "Michigan v. Long", the Supreme Court ruled that car compartments could be constitutionally searched if an officer had reasonable suspicion that the suspect is armed and dangerous. Thus the compartments are viewed as an extension of the suspect's person. This is known as "frisking the lunge area," as an officer may protect himself by searching any areas from which the suspect could grab a weapon.
The "Terry" doctrine was markedly extended in the 2004 case of "Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada", , in which the Supreme Court held that a state law requiring the suspect to identify himself during a "Terry" stop did not necessarily violate the Fourth Amendment prohibitions of unreasonable searches and seizures or the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination (although potentially could if the citizen in question reasonably believed that such identification could be used to incriminate). The Court did not legalize this process in all states but instead left it up to the states to decide whether they would pass such laws. So far 24 states have passed such laws.
The Court most recently cited "Terry v. Ohio" in "Arizona v. Johnson". In that 2009 case, the Court ruled 9–0 in favor of further expanding "Terry," granting police the ability to frisk an individual in a stopped vehicle if there is reasonable suspicion to believe the individual is armed and dangerous. This fulfills only the second prong of "Terry" (the first prong—reasonable suspicion that a crime has, is, or will be committed—is fulfilled by whatever traffic violation prompted the pull-over). According to "Whren v. United States", any traffic violation, no matter how small, is a legitimate basis for a traffic stop.
In "Heien v. North Carolina", on an 8–1 decision in December 2014, the Supreme Court of the United States expanded the reasonable suspicion factor of the Terry stop to cover a police officer's reasonable mistake of law that gives rise to "reasonable suspicion" that justifies a traffic stop under the Fourth Amendment.


John P. McTighe

John P. McTighe (February 9, 1863- July 17, 1906) was a detective and politician in the state of Pennsylvania. After fourteen years as a detective in Pittsburgh, He served in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives from 1900 to 1902 before becoming the Superintendent of Police for the city of Pittsburgh, PA.
McTighe was born in the First Ward of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on February 9, 1863. He later moved to the Sixth Ward where by the time he was twenty-one he had already taken a keen interest in politics. He became a member of the police force serving as a Detective for the city police bureau of Pittsburgh for fourteen years. He was heavily involved in the case regarding the assassination attempt on Henry Clay Frick and even accompanied Frick on a trip out of the city to Castalia, Ohio in mid-August of that year, ostensibly following a number of threats against the life of Frick.
John P. McTighe never gave up his interest in politics. He served as a member of the Pittsburgh city bureau of education and, in 1900, was elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives where he served until 1902. He was notable for aiding in the passage of the "Ripper Bill", a bill that would remove the power to appoint the Director of Public Safety and the Director of Public Works from the Mayor of Philadelphia and assisting in electing Quayite to speakership
In 1902, McTighe left the Pennsylvania State House and became the Superintendent of Police for the city of Pittsburgh appointed by Pittsburgh Mayor Joseph O. Brown where he was replaced by Det. Alexander Wallace in 1904 not long after a very public conflict with Director of the Dept. of Public Safety Harry Moore
McTighe then went into real estate but was not long there before becoming ill with the disease that would eventually take his life. He suffered with the ailment for almost a year before seeming to rally. On a trip to Baltimore, Maryland a complication arose requiring surgery. He never recovered from the surgery, dying shortly after at 7am at the Mount Hope Retreat near Baltimore on July 17, 1906 His funeral was held in Pittsburgh a short time after.


Heracles Pontor


Iona II

The Iona II was a nineteenth-century American paddle steamer that sank off the English island of Lundy in 1864. The site was designated under the Protection of Wrecks Act on 6 December 1989. The wreck is a Protected Wreck managed by Historic England.
History.
"Iona II" was built in 1863 at Govan by James and George Thompson and was capable of 24 knots, having been fitted with a 2-cylinder oscillating engine fitted with tubular boilers and superheaters. She was built to work on the River Clyde between Glasgow and Ardrishaig and was fitted with luxury accommodation for passengers, including a 75 ft dining room and 180 ft saloon.
Within a year of service, "Iona II" was purchased by Charles Hopkins Boster of Virginia to be a Confederate blockade runner. She was travelling to Kingston from the Clyde when she took on water and foundered off Lundy Island, North Devon.
The wreck.
"Iona II" lies upright on the seabed. The forward and aft boilers, sections of a funnel, and the engine are all intact, as well as the hull up to the turn of the bilge. She is missing the majority of her funnels, the deckhouses, and the masts.
Discovery and investigation.
Salvage of the wreck was attempted shortly after the wrecking of the ship. The site was rediscovered during the search for the sunken MV "Robert" in 1976.
The site was assessed for designation by the Archaeological Diving Unit in 1989, and in 1990 Potters Bar Sub Aqua Club performed a photographic survey. The site was frequently surveyed between 1991 and 2012.
In 2002 Malvern Archaeological Diving Unit surveyed the site, and the Archaeological Diving Unit undertook a side-scan sonar survey.


Gary Aldrich

Gary Aldrich is a former FBI agent.
Career.
Gary Aldrich was a special agent with the FBI for 26 years investigating white-collar crime. He spent the latter part of his career working in the White House as a background investigator providing clearances to White House staff during the George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations. Aldrich retired from the Bureau in 1994. He wrote the 1996 book "Unlimited Access: An FBI Agent Inside the Clinton White House" (published by Regnery Publishing), which was highly critical of the Clinton administration.
Controversy.
As an agent who provided security to the White House, Aldrich gives much of the account in "Unlimited Access" from a first-hand perspective. He details the dismantling by the Clintons of normal security protocols that had been in place for six presidencies, something which permitted Clinton staffers of dubious background to enter sensitive areas. The book was published "to considerable controversy but great popularity." Aldrich acknowledged that "many events described in the book came to him second- and third-hand and that he had no evidence to corroborate them." The book's publication led to a response by Clinton White House officials, who "said the book was filled with demonstrably untrue information." The FBI's general counsel Howard Shapiro shared a copy of the manuscript with the Clinton administration while the FBI's review process was ongoing, which Aldrich interpreted as a political move designed to give the Clinton cohort time to form a public response. George Stephanopoulos, serving as White House communications director under the Clintons, was able to exert pressure on the media to ignore the book, and it received little attention from mainstream outlets despite the sensational contents and its popularity with the reading public. Though "Unlimited Access" relies on eyewitness testimony (Aldrich's own and that of other White House insiders), The "New York Times" opined that "in many ways the book is like the 'raw' F.B.I. reports in which agents collect unevaluated information." Aldrich was investigated by the FBI over his publication of the book without FBI authorization, but in 1997 the Department of Justice announced that no charges would be filed against him.
Advocacy.
In 1997, Aldrich formed a nonprofit organization, the Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty. He has made appearances on C-SPAN and published opinion columns at the conservative outlet Townhall.com.


Anthony Grey, Earl of Harold

Anthony Grey, 3rd Baron Lucas, styled Earl of Harold (21 February 1695 – 21 July 1723) was a British peer and courtier.
Grey was the eldest son of Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Kent, and his wife, Jemima Crew.
On 17 February 1718, Anthony married Lady Mary Tufton, a daughter and coheiress of Thomas Tufton, 6th Earl of Thanet, by his wife Lady Catharine Cavendish.
He was called to the House of Lords, by writ of acceleration in his father's barony of Lucas, on 8 November 1718.
Lord Harold was a Lord of the Bedchamber to George, Prince of Wales, later King George II, from 1720 until his death in 1723, aged 28, from choking on an ear of barley the beard of which stuck in his throat. He had no children, so his title reverted to his father and his wife later married John Leveson-Gower, 1st Earl Gower.


Hurt Hardy

Hurt Hardy, Jr. (November 4, 1904 – February 26, 1937) was one of the last people to be executed by hanging in Missouri. While his execution is often cited as "the last in the United States," that distinction actually went to Rainey Bethea, who was hanged in Kentucky on August 14, 1936.
Crime.
Hurt Hardy was convicted of the murder of Ethel Fahnestock, with whom he was "very much in love," according to one of his appeals after his death sentence. Fahnestock did not reciprocate his affections and wished to sever ties with Hardy, and Hardy refused to accept that Fahnestock was not interested in him, determining that "the only way out was to take [his] own life and take her with [him]". His motive was rooted in jealousy and possessiveness; he did not wish to see her with any other men, considering that she had rejected him.
Therefore, Hardy hatched a plan to lie in wait for Fahnestock. She had a morning chore of milking cows for her family, and Hardy waited several mornings for her to do so and to be alone so he could kill her. One morning, Hardy determined that Fahnestock was at too far of a distance for him to strike. The next morning, Fahnestock was accompanied by her younger brother, and Hardy did not wish to hurt Ethel in the presence of her brother. Finally, on September 28, 1935, Hardy found Fahnestock alone, sitting on a stool and milking the family cows. He approached her and shot her. The first shot did not seriously injure Fahnestock and she tried to escape, so he shot her twice more. The last two shots proved to be fatal.
Trial.
Hardy attempted to make a guilty plea to the crime of murder to avoid a trial by jury. The court rejected the plea and directed him to enter a plea of not guilty. This required him to have a jury trial.
At trial, medical testimony revealed that Hardy was suffering from a severe case of syphilis at the time that he murdered Ethel Fahnestock. He tried to use his sickness in his defense, arguing that he "wasn’t all there" because he suffered from the severest degree of the disease. The defense failed, and on November 8, 1935, Hardy was convicted of first-degree murder. Exactly one week later, on November 15, he was formally sentenced to death.
Execution.
After several failed appeals, Hurt Hardy's execution was scheduled for February 26, 1937. It ultimately took place on that date in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri. Hardy's execution is often cited as the "last public execution in the United States" since the execution that usually earns that distinction, that of Rainey Bethea in Owensboro, Kentucky, took place in August 1936. However, Hardy's execution was not actually public at all, as images of the hanging show that officials built a 16-foot tall wooden enclosure around the gallows on which Hardy was hanged. Public executions are those which can be viewed by anybody who wishes to do so. The purpose of the enclosure was to ensure that only those authorized to view the execution would be present.
Even though Hardy's execution was not formally public, between 200 and 400 people witnessed it anyway after gaining unauthorized access into the enclosure. There were a further 500 people crowded outside of the walled enclosure in which Hardy was executed who were not permitted entry, "barred from witnessing" the hanging. Presiding over the execution was renowned hangman G. Phil Hanna, who very frequently assisted with and supervised hangings, especially in the midwest, in the 1920s and 1930s. Interestingly, he had also been asked to supervise the hanging of Rainey Bethea.
By the time Hardy was executed, most states had moved away from executions being carried out in individual counties, and Missouri would very soon follow suit. Hurt Hardy was not the last person to be executed by hanging in an individual county in Missouri, however. Three more men would die on county gallows in the state - Fred Adams on April 2, 1937; Roscoe Jackson on May 21, 1937; and Dudley Barr on May 21, 1937 - before Missouri lawmakers would pass legislation in September of the same year to replace hanging with the gas chamber. The private gas chamber would be permanently housed in the Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City, and the state would use its gas chamber for all executions from 1938 to 1965.


Soraya Serajeddini

Soraya Serajeddini (March 23, 1960 – July 24, 2006), was a Kurdish-Iranian human rights activist. She was born in Tehran to a respected family of Naqshbandi Sufis. Her family fled Iran in 1980 and sought refuge in Sulaimaniya and Baghdad for two years, and then moved to the United States in 1982. She attended San Francisco State University and Northeastern University, and received her BS degree in Electrical Engineering in 1987.
Life.
She joined the "Kurdish National Congress" (KNC) in 1991 and was instrumental in publicizing Kurdish issues in the United States. Her last post was the Executive Vice President of the Kurdish National Congress of North America.
She organized a conference on the independence of Kurdistan in November 2005 in Iraqi Kurdistan. In March 2005, she and her husband (Thomas Ver Ploeg) were elected to the board of directors of KNC. In January 2006, she chaired the committee on "Democracy and Freedom for All Iranians and Kurdish Human & National Rights" and through her efforts the first conference of the committee was held in the US Senate building. She was also a moderator of a conference organized by "The Kurdish Front for Promoting Democracy and Freedom in Syria" in Washington in 2006. She died due to an asthma attack on July 24, 2006 in Millersville, Maryland. She is survived by her husband Tom Ver Ploeg and two sons, Aveen and Daryan.
Early life.
 Soraya was born on March 23, 1960 in Tehran, Iran to parents Abed Serajeddini and Zayneb Setoodeh. Dr. Abed Serajeddini was a well-respected political, artistic, and intellectual figure in Iran, while Zayneb was a member of the prominent Setoodeh family from the city of Senendaj.
 She grew up spending nine months per year in Tehran, and then spending summers in rural Kurdistan. This mix of urban and rural upbringing meant that she developed an early understanding of the rural and mountainous life that many Kurds live. This stood in stark contrast to the situations presented to her by her close relationship with her father, whose many dealings with important officials meant that Soraya had the opportunity to meet foreign dignitaries, government officials, and artists from a very early age.
 Her parents were also considered to be liberal for their time and culture. They would encourage philosophical and intellectual discussion at the dinner table, and Soraya in particular loved these conversations. Soraya was always close to her father, and was the only child who would go up into his private study to read books and satisfy her love for learning. According to her sister Shawnem, she always expressed strong willpower and an urge to inform herself on all issues.
 Both parents were very supportive and passionate about the education of their children. They decided to send Soraya and her siblings to an Armenian Christian school so that they could receive a more secular education, which at the time was a controversial act among their extended family. Dr. Abed was religious, but never imposed his faith upon anyone that he encountered. Both parents together, through exposure to both high political and artistic culture as well as rural summers in farming communities, strived to make sure that their children were graceful and confident in their interaction with any type of person. Soraya's mother once said, after hearing Soraya excitedly describe her meeting the daughter of a sheikh, that she should “be in awe of no one” because every person deserves respect equally, herself included.
 With this background and education, Soraya became politically active as a 17 year old in Tehran where she was involved in anti-shah movements as part of a quickly destabilizing Iran. Her parents were worried about this political affiliation, since protesting the government at this time was considered dangerous. It soon became clear that the government was building a case on Soraya.
 In the coming years, the situation would turn dangerous for the Nakshbandis, and for Soraya's family in particular. In 1977 the Iranian prime minister, fearing the inevitable revolution, warned the Serajeddinis that the new government, led by Ayatollah Khomeini, was watching them, and that protection was not guaranteed to their family in the case of revolution. Soraya and her family, faced with the possibility of persecution or worse as enemies of a new, oppressive state, began their plans for a stealthy exit from Iran.
Soraya fled Iran in 1980 traveling overland to Sulaymaniyah, Iraq. She spent the next two years in various parts of Iraq, including Baghdad and Sulaymaniyah. During this time, Soraya began to understand the reality of the Kurdish condition in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. This perspective, combined with the ambition and intelligence nurtured in her childhood, would become the foundation for her later career as an advocate for the Kurdish people.
Arrival to the USA.
Soraya was the first of her immediate family to leave Iraq and pursue an education in the West. She decided to move to San Francisco due to the amount of her extended family that was already living there. She moved there in 1982 to attend San Francisco State University where she lived for two years before transferring to Northeastern University of Boston in 1984, where in 1987 she graduated with a BS in Electrical Engineering. Her mother is quoted as saying, upon Soraya's graduation, that “now that you have a trade, you can begin your education”.
 During her time in San Francisco, she met Thomas Ver Ploeg. The two of them moved to Boston together, and were married in September 1987. Both of Soraya's parents insisted that she finish her education regardless of marital status, and also urged Thomas to travel to Istanbul to seek a blessing for the marriage from Sheikh Osman, which he did by himself shortly before their wedding.
 Once married, Thomas and Soraya spent several years in Boston before moving back to California in 1990, this time to the city of San Jose. Their first son, Aveen, was born on October 12, 1994. Their second son, Daryan, was born on July 11, 1996. The family lived in San Jose until 2004 when they moved to a home in Maryland, close to Washington DC, for political proximity.
Political Career and the KNC.
 Since she was 17, Soraya had been involved in political movements whenever they defended human rights. After experiencing the trauma of her family escaping prosecution in Iran, she began to understand the need for advocacy on behalf of the Kurds. In 1988, Saddam Hussein massacred the Kurdish village of Halabja, using chemical weapons to kill more than 5,000 civilians, including at least 30 of Soraya's relatives. Their only crime, according to Soraya, was “being born with the curse of Kurdish identity”. Having spent her entire life watching the persecution and marginalization of her people, Soraya and Thomas began their lives as advocates by attending the Kurdish National Congress beginning in 1990.
 Initially, both of them held relatively low-profile positions within the KNC, as Soraya did not want to draw unnecessary (and possibly dangerous) attention to herself or her family. However, both Thomas and Soraya began to become more involved in the early 2000s and by the time of her death Soraya served as the Executive Vice President of the organization.
 During this period of time, Soraya also became a more vocal advocate for her cause, often appearing on television news and other outlets as a speaker. By 2002, she was frequently meeting with various media sources to discuss Kurdish matters. She was known as an extremely eloquent speaker who would leave an impression on any audience, and so was often picked as a spokesperson for various KNC functions.
 In November 2005, Soraya traveled to Kurdistan of Iraq in order to chair a conference on the topic of Kurdish independence. She served as vice chair for the 4 day conference in which the North American KNC met with local politicians to discuss prospects for an independent Kurdistan. Then, in January 2006, she contributed to the creation of a committee entitled “Democracy and Freedom for All Iranian and Kurdish Human and National Rights”. Due to her efforts, this committee was able to hold its first meeting in the US Congress building. In March 2006, she was instrumental in organizing a conference entitled “Democracy and Freedom in Syria and Syrian Kurdish Human and National Rights”.
Legacy.
 On the 24th of July 2006, Soraya died suddenly of a severe asthma attack. At the time, the only one present was her sister Shawnem.
 On the 29th of July both a private, traditionally Islamic service in Falls Church, Virginia, and a memorial service in Millersville, Maryland were held. These services were attended by friends and family from all levels of society, and the procession included taxi drivers alongside presidential families. The funeral was accompanied by worldwide memorials, internet traffic, and Kurdish news coverage while constant phone calls from around the world rang at their Maryland home with messages of sympathy and condolences.
 In the words of a colleague of Soraya's, Professor Asad Khalainy, “the departure of Soraya is not only a great loss for her family, KNC, and Kurdish people but also for all peace-loving people, and all those seeking equal rights for women and justice, democracy, human rights, and national rights for all”.
 In a biography written by Thomas's sister, she writes that “Soraya’s greatest legacy is found in the love she leaves in the hearts of those whom she loved the most: her friends and her family. Soraya’s quiet generosity to countless persons in countless ways will never be forgotten”.


Nongae

Nongae or Joo Nongae (Hangul: 주논개, Hanja: 朱論介) (3 September 1574 – 1593) was a gisaeng of Jinju in the late 16th century, born in Jangsu, Jeolla province. She has been taught and celebrated as one of the examples of personal contributions made by Korean women.
Life.
Joo Nongae was born into the Sinan Joo clan to Joo Dal-mun (Hangul: 주달문, Hanja: 朱達文), who seems to have been a learned scholar, and Lady Park of the Miryang Park clan. Nongae was a late-born child to the couple, whose son, Joo Dae-ryeong (Hangul: 주대룡), died young at the age of 15. She was just 4, when her father died in 1578 and was entrusted to Joo Dal-mu (Hangul: 주달무), where her uncle plotted to take her, and tried to have her married to Kim Bu-ho (Hangul: 김부호, Hanja: 金富豪) for 50 sacks of rice. Her mother soon found out, stole her away, and both fled from the House of Ahn-hyeon, her uncle’s home, in Gyeongsang but was caught in 1579 and was prosecuted by her uncle. Her mother’s trial was overseen by province official Choi Gyeong-hwi of the Haeju Choi clan (Hangul: 최경회, Hanja: 崔慶會), who ruled on behalf of her innocence. Lady Park and Joo Nongae were later released and permitted to live at a residence in Hyeongam. When Nongae became 17, she was accepted to become his third wife in which she was given the title of “Lady Uiam of the Sinan Joo clan” (Hangul: 의암부인 신안 주씨, Hanja: 義巖夫人 新安 朱氏), and lived in his house where she birthed a son.
When the Imjin War broke out in 1592, Choi started to recruit and train soldiers in Udo, Jeolla, in which Nongae helped and supplemented him.
In 1593, Japanese forces invaded the Korean peninsula in the Imjin war, during which Official Choi, Nongae's husband, was assassinated in June. Afterwards, the Japanese eventually succeeded in their invasion of Suyeong Fortress (now near Jinju area). To celebrate the victory, soldiers forced all the kisaeng, female entertainers, to serve them at the Choseokru Pavilion on a cliff that overlooked the Nam River. Nongae was called to entertain the victorious Japanese generals alongside the other kisaeng. Nongae stood on the steep rock under Choseokru which caused all Japanese soldiers not daring to cross until the general came forward to her challenge. When the general met to her face to face, she smiled when he tried to lure her down from the rock, and eventually led the general Keyamura Rokusuke (毛谷村六助) to the cliffside, where she embraced him, clasped her fingers with rings that locked her around him, and cast herself along with the general into the river, killing them both. She died at the age of 20. It is said that she sacrificed herself not only in revenge for her husband's murder but also out of love for her country. However this story is highly dubious and it is most likely to have originated from Park Jonghwa‘s (Hangul: 박중화, Hanja: 朴鍾和) "Nongae and Gyewolhyang" (1962).
After death.
In 1625, 32 years after Nongae died, during King Injo’s 3rd year of reign, stories of her spread to the people of Jinju in which “Uiam” was carved on the rock in which she died on. During King Hyojong’s 2nd year of reign, a court official had come from the court to look for the disaster that happened in Gyeongsang-Udo, stopped by Jinju and saw the words “Uiam” engraved on the rock. In 1721 of King Gyeongjong’s first year of reign, a Gyeongsangwoo soldier, Choi Jin-han (Hangul: 최진한, Hanja: 崔鎭漢), built the Uiamsajeok monument right above the Uiam carving to honor Joo Nongae. In 1739, during the 16th year of King Yeongjo, another Gyeongsangwoo soldier, Nam Deok-ha (Hangul: 남덕하, Hanja: 南德夏), built Uigisa, a shrine dedicated to the patriotism of Nongae, next to Chokseokru in Jinju.
In 1846, Jong Joo-seok (Hangul: 중주석) of Jangsu Hyeongam built a memorial to honor the integrity of Nongae. It was designated as Local Monument No. 46 in 1955, and the birthplace of Nongae has been restored in Juchon Village, Daegok-ri, Janggye-myeon, Jangsu-gun, where Nongae was born.
The rock from which she leapt has come to be known as Uiam (Hangul: 의암, Hanja: 義巖), "the Rock of Righteousness."
During the mid 20th century, it was rumored that Nongae was a daughter and heir from a fallen yangban family, not known as a Gwangi, and was eventually promoted to be the Jeongsil (정실 부인), wife, of Choi after he died.
Memorial.
Memorials for Nongae seem to have started in 1868, during King Gojong’s 5th year of reign, on evidence for which is found in the record "Gyobang Gayo" written by a local official, Jeong Hyun-Seok (Hangul: 정현석, 鄭顯奭). It is said the festival called "Uiam Byeolje" took place every June to pay respects to her spirit. Currently, there is a shrine to the memory of Nongae near Chokseokru, in central Jinju. Around the fortress, the Nongae festival has been celebrated since 2002 every May to honor and preserve the memory of her patriotic spirit.
The portrait of Nongae painted by Kim Eun-ho had been kept in Jinju fortress, whereas his drawing was forcibly removed by a local civil group that argued Painter Kim was one of the renowned pro-Japanese artists during the Colonial Period. Following on the regional government's support, a newly executed painting was adopted in 2008.


Myron Donovan Crocker

Myron Donovan Crocker (September 4, 1915 – February 2, 2010) was a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of California and the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California.
Education and career.
Born in Pasadena, California, Crocker received an Artium Baccalaureus degree from Fresno State College (now California State University, Fresno) in 1937 and a Bachelor of Laws from the UC Berkeley School of Law in 1940. He was a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 1940 to 1946. He entered private practice in Chowchilla, California in 1946, and was an assistant district attorney of Madera County, California from 1946 to 1951. He was then a Judge of the Chowchilla Justice Court from 1952 to 1958, and on the Superior Court of Madera County from 1958 to 1959.
Federal judicial service.
Crocker was nominated by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on February 16, 1959, to a seat on the United States District Court for the Southern District of California vacated by Judge Gilbert H. Jertberg. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on September 14, 1959, and received his commission on September 21, 1959. Crocker was reassigned by operation of law on September 18, 1966, to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California, to a new seat authorized by 80 Stat. 75. He served as Chief Judge from 1966 to 1967. He assumed senior status on January 1, 1981. His service terminated on February 2, 2010, due to his death in Chowchilla.


Slights (novel)

Slights is a 2009 horror novel by Australian writer Kaaron Warren. It is her debut novel and is about a woman who withdraws from society and has near-death experiences in which she enters a dark room where she is tormented by people she had previously slighted. It was first published as a paperback original and e-book in the United Kingdom and Australia in July 2009 by Angry Robot, an offshoot of HarperCollins, and in the United States by Angry Robot in September 2010.
In general "Slights" was well received by critics, and went on to win the 2009 Australian Shadows Award for Best Long Fiction, and the 2010 Australian Ditmar Award for Best Novel.
Plot.
"Slights" is a first-person narrative by a troubled woman, Stevie, who lost her father when she was nine, and her mother when she was 18. Her father, a police officer, was killed during a mysterious shooting incident on the job, and her mother died when Stevie crashed their car while driving recklessly. The accident left Stevie badly injured and she had a near-death experience in which she found herself in a dark room filled with angry people threatening her. Usually nothing frightened Stevie, but that room terrified her, and she was relieved when she was revived in hospital.
From an early age Stevie was anti-social and soon earned herself a bad reputation. After her mother's death she had the house to herself and began digging in the backyard, an activity her father had often indulged in. She stopped cleaning the house, and herself, and berated and abused most people she encountered. Her indifference to herself and others led to a suicide attempt when she was 21. She returned to that dark room filled with angry people clawing and tearing at her, and she was very grateful when someone found her unconscious and took her to hospital. While the room frightened her, she was intrigued by it and realised that the people in it were those she had slighted at some point in her life. She wanted to find out what other people's rooms were like and took a job at a local hospice to be close to people near death, but was frustrated when she could not get the information she wanted. Then she resorted to picking up strangers and bringing them home. She would get them drunk or drug them, and start killing them, but revive them as they lost consciousness so she could interrogate them. She never got much out of them and they all died. She buried the bodies in the backyard amongst her father's secrets. Stevie's backyard excavations had uncovered toys and trinkets from her childhood, but also objects she had never seen before, and bones.
Indifferent to life and her fascination with death led to several more suicide attempts and trips to her dark room. Each time Stevie was discovered and revived. But when she was 35 she hung herself and no one found her in time to save her. She had learnt that her father had been under investigation for the deaths of several people, and with the reported disappearances of those she had murdered, it was only a matter of time before the police arrived at her house. For a very long time she lay in her dark room and endured the biting and scratching of those she had slighted. Then suddenly her tormentors were finished with her and left the room, and after a while Stevie heard her mother and father's voices and she began to rise along a "golden path".
Background.
Kaaron Warren is an Australian born author currently living in Fiji. She began her literary career writing short stories, and won several awards, including the Australian Ditmar and Aurealis Awards. Her short story collection, "The Grinding House" won the 2006 ACT Writing and Publishing Awards. Her first published story, "White Bed" was later dramatised for the stage, and the short film, "Patience" was based on her story, "A Positive".
Warren began "Slights" as a short story, but as the main character Stevie developed, she found herself writing a "far deeper story" than she had intended, and it grew into her first novel. Stevie was originally male (Steve) but Warren made him female when she realised she could make the character more believable as a woman. Warren said that she wanted to convey the possibility that each person creates their "own version of hell". As a child she had seen pictures of different hells, depending on your sin, in a Hare Krishna text book, and these images had remained with her ever since. While working on "Slights", she also wrote "The Speaker of Heaven", a short story about different versions of heaven.
Reception.
Martin Livings of the Australian Horror Writers Association wrote in his Long Fiction Report for the 2009 Australian Shadows Award that "Slights" is "an extraordinary achievement". He described the book as "an intimate portrait of an awful person", who after a broken childhood, never grows up and is unable to have meaningful relationships with others. Livings said it is "a punch in the face, a kick in the testicles" and will remain with you for a "long, long time".
"Publishers Weekly" selected "Slights" as its "Pick of the Week" in August 2009, and said that Warren "manipulates Stevie’s voice to create a portrait of horror that in no way reads like a first novel". Ariel Berg wrote in the "San Francisco Book Review" that while Stevie is an "antisocial ... sociopath" who is "virtually impossible to like", Warren does instil some sympathy for her protagonist by suggesting that Stevie cannot control or understand her actions. Berg felt that the book's plot is a little thin and that Stevie’s misfortunes tend to become repetitive, but added her ramblings do "crawl under your skin".
"Slights" won the 2009 Australian Shadows Award for Best Long Fiction, and the 2010 Australian Ditmar Award for Best Novel.


Akaroa (barque)

Akaroa was a Norwegian sailing ship that was torpedoed by the German submarine in the English Channel, 70 miles west off the Casquets, Guernsey while she was travelling from Philadelphia, United States to Rouen, France with a cargo of oil.
Construction.
"Akaroa" was constructed in 1881 with yard no. 53 at the Osbourne, Graham & Co. Ltd. shipyard in Sunderland, United Kingdom. She was completed in October 1881.
The ship was long, with a beam of . She had a depth of . The ship was assessed at . She had 3 masts and sailed the seas for almost 36 years.
Sinking.
On 1 September 1917, "Akaroa" was on a voyage from Philadelphia, United States, to Rouen, France. When she was suddenly struck by the torpedoes from the German submarine 70 miles west of the Casquets, Guernsey. While passing underneath the sinking "Akaroa", the submarine damaged its periscope. The crew all made it safely to the ship's two lifeboats and sailed and rowed to the French coast which they eventually reached 36 hours later. At the time of her sinking "Akaroa" was carrying a cargo of oil.
The ship sank to a depth of over , along with her cargo. There were no casualties reported.


Osmund Faremo

Osmund Faremo (23 November 1921 – 16 April 1999) was a Norwegian politician for the Labour Party.
He was born in Hylestad and was elected to the Norwegian Parliament from Aust-Agder in 1965, and was re-elected on four occasions. He had previously served as a deputy representative during the terms 1958–1961 and 1961–1965.
On the local level he was a member of Bygland municipal council from 1951 to 1975, serving as deputy mayor from 1962 to 1963 and mayor from 1958 to 1959 and 1963 to 1966. From 1958 to 1960 he was also a member of Aust-Agder county council. He chaired the local party chapter from 1951 to 1964, and from 1965 to 1966 he was a member of the Labour Party national board.
During the Occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany, Faremo was a member of the resistance group Milorg. He was captured on 5 February 1943 and imprisoned in German and Austrian Nacht und Nebel camps. He escaped in 1945, helped by the White Buses. Among his awards for war efforts were the "Honorary Medal of the German Democratic Republic", 1970.
Faremo was later a promoter of Norwegian-Yugoslav relations and a member of the council of the Norwegian branch of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights from 1985 to 1988. He was active in the Norwegian branch of the European Movement, in the Norwegian Defence Association, and founded a branch of Noregs Mållag intended for members of parliament, named "Løvebakken mållag". He chaired the latter group from 1978 to 1985.
He chaired the friendship association Friends of Israel in the Norwegian Labour Movement (Norwegian: Venner av Israel i Norsk Arbeiderbevegelse).
Other than his military training, Faremo was educated in the Norwegian State Railways and spent large parts of his professional career there. From 1964 he worked with promoting tourism in the Setesdal region.
Osmund Faremo was married to Tora, née Aamlid. One of their daughters Grete Faremo followed in his footsteps to become a politician for the Labour Party. Grete Faremo served as a member of parliament and government minister before turning to the private sector to become a CEO.


David Icove

David J. Icove (born May 14, 1949) is a former Federal Bureau of Investigation Criminal Profiler and FBI Academy Instructor in the elite Behavioral Analysis Unit. He was one of the FBI's first criminal profilers to specialize in the apprehension of serial arsonists and bombers. He is Fellow in the National Academy of Forensic Engineers and co-author of Kirk's Fire Investigation, the leading textbook in the field of fire investigation.
Early life and Education.
David Icove was born May 14, 1949 in Akron, Ohio and raised in Shaker Heights, Ohio. He graduated in 1967 from Shaker Heights High School and went to college at the University of Tennessee and the University of Maryland.
Career.
A leading authority in forensic engineering examinations of fires and explosions, he is co-author of "Kirk's Fire Investigation", "Combating Arson-for-Profit", and "Forensic Fire Scene Reconstruction", three of the leading expert treatises in the field. Paul Leland Kirk (1902–1970), the author of the original text "Fire Investigation" that was the basis for "Kirk's Fire Investigation".
Hired in 1984 by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, he developed for the FBI the first modern-day motive classification system for arson. He also developed at the FBI an Artificial Intelligence research project known as PROFILER PDF, a rule-based expert system programmed to detect and link serial violent crimes using data parsed from real-time news stories, the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, and other FBI databases.
Representing the FBI, he testified three times before key U.S. Congressional Committees seeking guidance on key legislative initiatives.
In 1993, he transferred to the U.S. Tennessee Valley Authority Police to eventually become the Assistant Chief of Police for Criminal Investigations. After the September 11 attacks, he represented TVA full-time as a Task Force Agent on the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force, until his retirement in 2005.
In May 2015, he joined a Board of Directors to form the Murder Accountability Project (MAP), a nonprofit organization that detects and disseminates information about homicides, especially unsolved killings and serial murders committed in the United States. MAP's Board consists of a group of retired detectives, investigative journalists, homicide scholars, and a forensic psychiatrist, who strive to use Artificial Intelligence to identify and link clusters of homicides based upon a combination of victim/offender relationships, manner of death, and geographic location.
As of 2019, David Icove is the UL (safety organization) Professor of Practice at The University of Tennessee in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, where he directs their Fire Protection Engineering Graduate Program.
Personal.
Dr. Icove currently resides in Knoxville, Tennessee, with his wife Sharon.


Ivan Pravilov

Ivan Pravilov (; January 22 1963 – February 10, 2012) was a Ukrainian ice hockey coach. Pravilov also trained a number of young players in the National Hockey League, including Dainius Zubrus and Andrei Zyuzin. He had coached a Ukrainian hockey school, Druzhba-78 before he moved to the United States in 2007.
Criminal allegations and death.
Pravilov was accused of fondling two 14-year-old Ukrainian players who he had invited to his home in Philadelphia. He was placed in a Federal Detention Center but was found to be unresponsive at around 3:00 am; by 3:45, he was pronounced dead at the hospital. Evidence suggested that he had committed suicide. This was confirmed by the city's medical examiners office on 23 February 2012.
A former student of Druzhba-78 had claimed in January 2012 that Pravilov had physically abused members of Druzhba-78. However, his claims are yet to be proven.


Dying Young

Dying Young is a 1991 American romance film directed by Joel Schumacher. It is based on a novel of the same name by Marti Leimbach, and stars Julia Roberts and Campbell Scott with Vincent D'Onofrio, Colleen Dewhurst, David Selby, and Ellen Burstyn. The original music score was composed by James Newton Howard, with the main song "Theme from Dying Young" performed by American saxophonist Kenny G.
Plot.
Hilary O'Neil (Julia Roberts) is a beautiful, outgoing yet cautious young woman who has had little luck in work or love. After recently parting ways with her boyfriend when she caught him cheating, Hilary finds herself living with her eccentric mother (Ellen Burstyn). One day, Hilary answers an ad in a newspaper for a nurse only to find herself being escorted out before the interview starts.
Victor Geddes (Campbell Scott) is a well-educated, rich, and shy 28-year-old. As the film progresses, Victor's health worsens progressively, due to leukemia. Despite his father's protests, Victor hires Hilary to be his live-in caretaker while he undergoes a traumatic course of chemotherapy. Hilary becomes insecure of her ability to care for Victor after her first exposure to the side effects of his chemotherapy treatment. She researches leukemia and stocks healthier food in the kitchen.
Victor is "finished" with his chemotherapy and suggests they take a vacation to the coast. They rent a house and Hilary begins to feel that she is no longer needed to care for him. They fall in love and continue living at the coast. Victor hides his use of morphine to kill the pain. During dinner with one of the friends they made at the coast, Victor starts acting aggressively and irrationally. He collapses and is helped to bed. Hilary searches the garbage and discovers his used syringes. She confronts him and he admits he was not finished with his chemotherapy. Victor explains that he wants quality in his life and Hilary says that he has been lying to her. She calls his father, who comes to take him home, but Victor wants to stay for one last Christmas party. Hilary and Victor reconnect at the party and he tells her that he is leaving with his father to go back to the hospital in the morning.
After speaking with Victor's father, who says Victor wants to spend one night alone before leaving, Hilary goes back to the house they rented only to find Victor packing clothes, ready to run away and not go with his father to the hospital. Hilary confronts him about running away and Victor admits that he is afraid of hoping. At this confession, Hilary finally tells Victor she loves him and they then decide to go back to the hospital, where he will fight for his life with Hilary. The last scene of the movie shows Victor and Hilary leaving the house, which has a small picture of Gustav Klimt's "Adam and Eve" (the first painting Victor shows Hilary) in the window.
Music.
The original music score was composed by James Newton Howard, with the main song "Theme from Dying Young" performed by American saxophonist Kenny G, it was nominated for a Best Pop Instrumental Performance. The soundtrack was released on July 2, 1991 by Arista Records.
Reception.
Prior to its original 1991 release, "Premiere" magazine predicted the film to be the highest-grossing movie that summer.
"Dying Young" grossed $33.6 million domestically and $48.6 million internationally, for a worldwide total of $82.2 million.
Critical response.
The film earned mainly negative reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 23% based on 39 reviews. Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade of "B+" on scale of A+ to F.
Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film 2/4 and wrote: "Dying Young is a long, slow slog of a movie, up to its knees in drippy self-pity as it marches wearily toward its inevitable ending."
"Variety magazine" wrote: "Julia's hot; Dying Young is lukewarm."
The film was nominated for 3 MTV Movie Awards at the 1992 MTV Movie Awards: 'Best Female Performance' and 'Most Desirable Female' for Julia Roberts, and 'Best Breakthrough Performance' for Campbell Scott.


John Frederick Parker

John Frederick Parker (May 19, 1830 – June 28, 1890) was an American police officer for the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia. Parker was one of four men detailed to act as United States President Abraham Lincoln's bodyguard on April 14, 1865, the night Lincoln was assassinated at Ford's Theatre.
Life.
Parker was born in 1830, in Virginia. No government or bible record regarding Parker's specific birth date or more specific birth location other than Virginia has been published in government records. By 1855, Parker had moved to Washington, District of Columbia, where he married Mary L.C. Maus on 16 Jul 1855. U.S. Census population schedules reflect that he lived in the District of Columbia in 1860, 1870, and 1880. U.S. Census Records for 1890, which began shortly before Parker's death, are incomplete, as a result of a fire, and he does not appear in remaining incomplete records.
Career.
He moved to Washington, D.C., where he worked as a carpenter. He became one of Washington's original police officers when the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia was created in 1861.
During his time as an officer, he was charged with dereliction of duty and conduct unbecoming an officer several times for being drunk on duty, sleeping on streetcars while at work, and visiting a brothel (Parker claimed the madam had sent for him). Parker was typically reprimanded for these acts but never fired.
Lincoln's assassination.
On April 14, 1865, President Lincoln, his wife Mary Todd Lincoln, Major Henry Rathbone and his fiancée Clara Harris were attending the play "Our American Cousin" at Ford's Theatre. Parker was assigned to guard the entrance to the President's box where the four were seated. He is known to have, at first, stayed at his assigned post, but he later told family members that he was then released by Lincoln until the end of the play. During the intermission, Parker went to a nearby tavern with Lincoln's valet and coachman.
It is unclear whether Parker ever returned to the theater, but he was not at his post when John Wilkes Booth shot the President. Parker was charged with neglect of duty and tried on May 3, 1865, but no transcripts of the case were kept. The complaint was dismissed on June 2, 1865. Despite leaving his post the night Lincoln was shot, Parker was still assigned to work security at the White House. Before Mary Todd Lincoln moved out of the White House following her husband's death, Parker was assigned as her bodyguard. Mrs. Lincoln's dressmaker Elizabeth Keckley overheard Mrs. Lincoln yell to Parker, "So you are on guard tonight, on guard in the White House after helping to murder the President." Parker attempted to defend himself stating that he "could never stoop to murder much less to the murder of so good and great a man as the President. I did wrong, I admit, and have bitterly repented." Mrs. Lincoln told Parker that she would always think he was responsible for the President's death and angrily dismissed him from the room.
Later years and death.
Parker remained on the police force until 1868 when he was fired for sleeping on duty. He later went back to work as a carpenter.
He died of pneumonia complicated by asthma and exhaustion in Washington, D.C., on June 28, 1890. He was buried in an unmarked grave at Glenwood Cemetery. His widow, Mary America Maus, was buried next to him upon her death in 1904 as were their three children. There are no known images of him.


Joanna Yeates


Ali Soufan

Ali H. Soufan (born 1971) is a Lebanese-American former FBI agent who was involved in a number of high-profile anti-terrorism cases both in the United States and around the world. A 2006 "New Yorker" article described Soufan as coming closer than anyone to preventing the September 11 attacks and implied that he would have succeeded had the CIA been willing to share information with him. He resigned from the FBI in 2005 after publicly chastising the CIA for not sharing intelligence with him which could have prevented the attacks.
In 2011, Soufan published a memoir which includes some historical background on al-Qaeda: "The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against al-Qaeda". In 2017, he published "Anatomy of Terror: From the Death of Bin Laden to the Rise of the Islamic State". He is the CEO of The Soufan Group and founder of The Soufan Center, "a nonprofit organization dedicated to serving as a resource and forum for research, analysis, and strategic dialogue related to global security issues and emergent threats." Soufan is a Phi Kappa Theta alumnus and winner of the Kennedy award in 2018.
Early years.
Soufan was born in Beirut, Lebanon in 1971. He comes from a Sunni Muslim family. He graduated from Mansfield University of Pennsylvania in 1995, receiving his B.A. in political science. He is an admirer of the poet Khalil Gibran.
FBI career.
In 1999, Soufan was called to Jordan to investigate the Jordan Millennium Bombing plot. Here he discovered a box of documents delivered by Jordanian intelligence officials prior to the investigation, sitting on the floor of the CIA station, which contained maps showing the bomb sites. His find "embarrassed the CIA", according to a 2006 "New Yorker" profile of him.
In 2000, he was made the lead investigator of the USS "Cole" bombing. When given a transcript of the interrogations of Fahd al-Quso, he noticed a reference to a one-legged Afghan named "Khallad", whom he remembered as a source identified years earlier as Walid bin 'Attash; this helped the FBI to track down Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.
Following the September 11th attacks, Soufan was one of only eight FBI agents in the entire country who spoke Arabic, and the only one in New York City. Colleagues reported that he would sit on the floor with suspects, offer them tea, and argue over religion and politics in fluent Arabic, while drawing out information. Soufan has been described as having had a close working relationship with FBI counter-terrorism agent John P. O'Neill, who was killed on September 11.
While in Yemen investigating the September 11th attacks, Soufan received intelligence that the CIA had been withholding for months. According to "The New Yorker", "Soufan received the fourth photograph of the Malaysia meeting—the picture of Khallad, the mastermind of the Cole operation. The two plots, Soufan instantly realized, were linked, and if the CIA had not withheld information from him he likely would have drawn the connection months before September 11th." He was tasked with the "intensive interrogation" of Abu Jandal over the course of five days in Yemen, during which time Jandal gave up the names of a number of members of al-Qaeda. It was his questioning of Mohammed al-Qahtani that led to the terrorism charges against Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri in Chicago, whom al-Qahtani had mentioned as being a relative.
In 2005, Soufan approached a Florida doctor, Rafiq Abdus Sabir, pretending to be an Islamist militant, and asked him whether he would provide medical treatment to wounded al-Qaeda fighters in the Iraq War. When Sabir agreed to provide medical treatment, he was arrested and sentenced to 25 years' imprisonment for supporting terrorism.
Role in Guantanamo military commissions.
Soufan obtained a confession from Salim Hamdan, accused of being a driver and bodyguard for Osama bin Laden. Soufan testified before his military tribunal that Hamdan was a hardened terrorist who had had advance knowledge of the September 11th attacks. He also obtained a confession from Ali al-Bahlul, an al-Qaeda propagandist and bin Laden media secretary accused of making a video celebrating the "Cole" attacks, and testified at his military tribunal as well.
Post-FBI career.
Soufan resigned from the FBI in 2005 and founded the Soufan Group. He continues to be frequently called upon to serve as an expert commentator. Soufan was a former member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council.
Senate testimony.
On May 14, 2009, Soufan testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee for its hearing on torture. The hearing followed President Barack Obama's declassification of what is known as the "torture memos".
Most notably, Soufan claimed in his testimony that his interrogation of Abu Zubaydah had resulted in actionable intelligence, such as the identity of convicted terrorist José Padilla; and that thereafter, when waterboarding was performed on Abu Zubaydah, the flow of intelligence stopped. Soufan's statement contradicts the one made in the "torture memos", which were intent on making a legal case in favor of—and justification for—the use of waterboarding and other so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" (EITs). Soufan re-stated his claims in an April 22, 2009, op-ed for "The New York Times" entitled "My Tortured Decision", which was published shortly after the memos were released, and similarly two months later.
According to one of President George W. Bush's speechwriters, Marc Thiessen, writing in the "National Review" in October 2009, both Soufan's testimony and his April 2009 op-ed in "The New York Times" are contradicted by CIA documents that state that Abu Zubaydah revealed the actionable intelligence only during the CIA's interrogation, which included rougher treatment than the FBI had used. However, in turn, Thiessen's argument is contradicted by the 2008 Department of Justice's Inspector General Report, which quotes FBI sources stating that "Zubaydah was responding to the FBI's rapport-based approach before the CIA assumed control over the interrogation, but became uncooperative after being subjected to the CIA's techniques."
Soufan's argument was also supported by the CIA Inspector General's 2004 Report into the program. After investigating claims about the effectiveness of enhanced interrogation techniques, the report stated that while the regular interrogation approach achieved many successes, "measuring the effectiveness of the EITs, however, is a more subjective process and not without some concern."
The Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility report, published July 29, 2009, states that "the CIA Effectiveness Memo provided inaccurate information about Abu Zubaydah's interrogation." The CIA memo stated that "Zubaydah's reporting led to the arrest of Padilla on his arrival in Chicago in May 2003." However, the OPR report states, "In fact Padilla was arrested in May 2002, not 2003," and so "the information 'leading to the arrest of Padilla' could not have been obtained through the authorized use of EITs."
Bloomberg op-ed criticizing Jose Rodriguez.
On May 8, 2012, "Bloomberg News" published an op-ed by Ali Soufan criticizing a book recently published by former CIA official Jose Rodriguez. Rodriguez's duties included supervising the CIA's enhanced interrogation program. Soufan strongly disputed Rodriguez's claims that the CIA's enhanced interrogation program was effective at securing reliable, useful information.
Soufan questioned whether the marked differences in Rodriguez's description of al-Nashiri's role in the USS "Cole" bombing from that of the prosecution would undermine the case against al-Nashiri. Soufan wrote that al-Nashiri was the bombing's mastermind; Rodriguez disputed that al-Nashiri was not intelligent enough to be a "mastermind".
Jamal Khashoggi Memorial.
Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist with "The Washington Post", and an expatriate from Saudi Arabia, who had stirred the ire of the Saudi government, was a friend of Soufan's. When Khashoggi was assassinated, Soufan helped erect a memorial to him in Washington DC.
Threats.
In May 2020, CIA officials contacted Soufan to inform him they were monitoring al Qaeda militants who were plotting against him. He also started to receive threatening messages via social media. Cybersecurity experts hired by the Soufan Group determined the social media threats were orchestrated not by al-Qaeda, as the CIA claimed, but by the same Saudi government officials who had targeted his friend Jamal Khashoggi, prior to assassinating him.
In popular culture.
In the Hulu miniseries "The Looming Tower" (2018), based on Soufan's time in the FBI, he is portrayed by actor Tahar Rahim. In the 2019 film "The Report", he is portrayed by Fajer Al-Kaisi.


Randolph W. Thrower

Randolph William Thrower (September 5, 1913 – March 8, 2014) was an American attorney. He served as Commissioner of Internal Revenue under President Richard Nixon from 1969 to 1971.
Early life and education.
Thrower was born in Tampa, Florida. He graduated from Georgia Military Academy in 1930. He received an undergraduate degree from Emory University in 1934 and received his law degree from the Emory University School of Law in 1936.
Career.
Following graduation from law school he joined the firm of Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP, a law firm with principal offices in Atlanta and Washington, D.C. He became a partner and remained one until his death. Many of his early cases involved handling appeals for death row inmates in Georgia prisons. According to the New York Times, Thrower was haunted for the rest of his life by the case of his client Will Coxson, a black teenager who had been convicted for rape. Thrower was convinced he was innocent. Thrower had just joined the United States Marines, so he let another lawyer take over the appeal, believing that Coxson would surely be acquitted by the Supreme Court of Georgia. However, Coxson was put to death while Thrower was serving in World War II.
In 1942 he joined the FBI, then became a captain in the U.S. Marine Corps, being deployed to the Philippines and Okinawa during World War II.
Thrower, running as a Republican, unsuccessfully challenged incumbent segregationist James C. Davis for a seat in Congress in 1956.
He served as Commissioner of Internal Revenue under President Richard Nixon from 1969 to 1971. During his tenure he revoked the tax-exempt status of private schools that excluded blacks. He also helped to draft the Tax Reform Act of 1969. However, he was alarmed by requests from the White House for the IRS to perform tax audits on Nixon's enemies. In 1971 he requested a meeting with Nixon, believing that the president would be horrified to learn that some of his aides were attempting to use the IRS for political purposes. Instead of a meeting with Nixon, he got a phone call from John D. Ehrlichman telling him that he was fired. He accepted the White House announcement that he had "resigned for personal reasons" and quietly returned to the Atlanta law firm. A few years later he visited the IRS headquarters on business, where he was spontaneously greeted by employees as a hero.
From 1980 to 1992 he was chairman of the City of Atlanta's Board of Ethics.
Recognition.
In 1993, Thrower received the American Bar Association Medal, the ABA's highest honor, for his public, professional, and government service. He was the recipient in 1995 of the Court of Federal Claims Special Service Award and received the Tax Section's Distinguished Service Award for 1996. In 1992 he received the Leadership Award of the Atlanta Bar Association and more recently the Segal-Tweed Founders Award of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. Thrower was presented with the "American Inns of Court Professionalism Award for the Eleventh Circuit" in May 2003.
Personal life.
He was married for 70 years to Margaret Logan Munroe, whom he met at Emory. They lived in Atlanta and had five children. He turned 100 in September 2013 and died in March 2014 at his home in Atlanta.


Funny People

Funny People is a 2009 American black comedy-drama film written and directed by Judd Apatow, co-produced by Apatow Productions and Madison 23 Productions, and starring Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, Leslie Mann, Eric Bana, Jonah Hill, and Jason Schwartzman. The film follows a famous comedian who is diagnosed with a terminal disease and tries to fix the relationships in his life while befriending an aspiring comedian.
The film was released on July 31, 2009. It received praise for the performances but criticism for its runtime, and grossed $71 million against its $75 million budget.
Plot.
George Simmons is a middle-aged retired stand-up comedian turned movie star. Despite his wealth, he is disillusioned and depressed as most of his recent film work is low-brow and poorly received. Diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, he is offered an experimental treatment that has only an 8% success rate. Believing he is about to die, he returns to his roots of stand-up comedy.
Ira Wright is an aspiring stand-up comedian in his 20s, sharing an apartment with his two best friends, Mark and Leo. Mark successfully leads his own TV comedy series. Leo is a rising comedy star and recurring guest star on Mark's TV show.
George meets Ira at a small comedy club, first hiring him as his assistant, Ira becomes one of George's only close relationships. Later he becomes his joke writer, opening for him in big comedy clubs, often meeting with real life comedians who talk about the comedy business.
George reconnects with his ex-fiancée, Laura, currently married to Clarke. Once his physician tells him the leukemia is in remission, George decides he wants Laura back. Laura invites George and Ira to her house in Marin County while her husband is away on business. They spend quality time with Laura and her two young daughters. George and Laura sneak off to have sex, Clarke returns home and there is an altercation.
Laura faces a choice between her husband Clarke, who she suspects has cheated on her (he later confirms he received a happy ending at a massage parlor), or George (who also cheated on her many times). Ira is not always on George's side in the love triangle, so when it doesn't go George's way in the end, he fires Ira, who then calls George out on having learned nothing from his near-death experience.
Ira returns to his old food-service job. After some time has passed, George attends Ira's stand-up act and sees that his old assistant has become a talented and competent performer. The next day, George finds Ira at work and they reconnect as friends, telling each other jokes as equals.
Cast.
Dave Attell, Sarah Silverman, Norm Macdonald, Paul Reiser, Tom Anderson, Charles Fleischer, George Wallace, and Andy Dick made cameo appearances as themselves in the roles of George's fellow comedians. Rapper Eminem, comedian Ray Romano, musician James Taylor, "MADtv" member Nicole Parker, and newcomer Bo Burnham also appeared in small roles. "Undeclared" alum Carla Gallo had a cameo in the film as a character on "Yo Teach!", the television show within the film that Mark stars in, while Justin Long and Apatow regular Ken Jeong have cameos in the film as characters in movies for which George is famous. Owen Wilson and Elizabeth Banks are featured on posters for fake movies in which George starred. Bryan Batt makes an appearance as George's agent. Musicians Jon Brion, Sebastian Steinberg, and James Gadson appear in the film as members of George's jam band. Comedians Rod Man, Budd Friedman, Monty Hoffman, Mark Schiff, Orny Adams, Al Lubel, and Jerry Minor appear as themselves. Comedian/producer/writer Carol Leifer appears as herself.
Production.
Judd Apatow had expressed his desire to make a stand-up comedian mentor film loosely based on his own early experiences as a struggling performer. He could not come up with an interesting idea, however, since most of his mentors were kind to him. He then thought of making a film about a mentor facing a life crisis, and decided to cast his former roommate Adam Sandler after seeing him in "Reign Over Me". They discussed making the film almost two years prior to production.
Apatow had cast Sandler, Seth Rogen, and Leslie Mann as the three leads in March 2008. Eric Bana, Jonah Hill, and Jason Schwartzman were cast in June 2008 when the title of the film was announced. When asked about the decision to cast Bana, Apatow said that both he and Rogen are fans of his films; Rogen additionally commented they cast him as the husband because he was someone who would be considered an intimidating presence to both Sandler and Rogen. Bana mentioned that he decided to play the character with his native Australian accent so he would be more comfortable improvising. Apatow and Mann's daughters, Maude and Iris Apatow, play the young girls in the film. Both Apatow and Mann state that this casting choice allowed for more natural dialogue for the children, but the girls have not been allowed to actually see the film.
Academy Award-winning cinematographer Janusz Kamiński handled the cinematography for the film. Apatow had Sandler, Rogen, and Hill write their own material for routines. Apatow filmed them performing their routines in front of live audiences, using six cameras to capture their performances and audience reactions. Apatow filmed their entire performances, although only five to ten minutes of stand-up footage appear in the film. Hill admitted his performance was not well-received because he had never done stand-up before. Additionally, Apatow filmed scenes from Sandler's character's fictional filmography, as well as scenes from Schwartzman's character's fictional television show "Yo Teach!", for the film to add realism.
Apatow used an old video of Sandler, from when the two were roommates, in which Sandler makes prank phone calls, and features a young Ben Stiller and Janeane Garofalo.
Marketing.
The first teaser poster for the film was released November 13, 2008. On the day the teaser poster was released, Universal Pictures and MySpace partnered together to create a contest that would allow people to have a part in the film by just writing a comment explaining why. Additionally, Apatow held a stand-up comedy concert event called "A Night of Funny People" at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles to film a scene for the movie. The event was open to the general public and featured acts by Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, Aziz Ansari, Sarah Silverman, David Spade, and Patton Oswalt, with Sandler, Rogen, and Ansari performing as their characters in the film. The first theatrical trailer for the film was released February 20, 2009 on the Internet, with a shortened version first appearing in theaters with "I Love You, Man".
A website for a fictional television show-within-a-film was created on NBC.com. The sitcom, "Yo Teach!", "stars" character Mark Taylor Jackson (Jason Schwartzman), a C-list actor portraying a young teacher with a class of failing students, and includes a cameo by internet celebrity Bo Burnham.
A website for Aziz Ansari's character Randy Springs was created, along with a documentary of the character on FunnyOrDie.com. The documentary was directed by Jason Woliner.
Comedy Central aired a special, "Inside Funny People" on July 20, documenting the making of the film and showing clips of the stand-up. The channel also aired "Funny People: Live" on July 24, which is a live broadcast stand-up of Sandler, Rogen and Hill as part of the film's promotion.
Release.
"Funny People" premiered on July 20, 2009, in Los Angeles, California. It was released in all territories by Universal Pictures.
Home media.
"Funny People" was released on DVD and Blu-ray in the United States on November 24, 2009. There is a one-disc "Unrated & Theatrical" cut and a two-disc "Unrated Edition". The Unrated cut of the film runs at 153 minutes. It was released in the United Kingdom on January 18, 2010.
Reception.
Box office.
"Funny People" grossed $51.9 million in the United States and Canada and $19.7 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $71.6 million, against a production budget of $50 million. In comparison, Apatow's previous directorial effort, "Knocked Up", cost $33 million to produce and made over $219 million in gross receipts, while Sandler's last three movies had all made over $100 million.
In North America the film was released on July 31, 2009 in 3,007 theaters. It grossed $8.6 million on its opening day and $22.7 million in its opening weekend, finishing first at the box office.
Critical response.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 69% based on 237 reviews and an average rating of 6.4/10. The site's critical consensus reads, ""Funny People" features the requisite humor, as well as considerable emotional depth, resulting in Judd Apatow's most mature film to date." Another review aggregator, Metacritic, gave the film a score of 60 out of 100, based on 36 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B–" on an A+ to F scale.
Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" awarded the film 3½ stars of four, calling it "a real movie. That means carefully written dialogue and carefully placed supporting performances — and it's about something. It could have easily been a formula film...but George Simmons learns and changes during his ordeal, and we empathize." It is the highest rating Ebert ever gave an Adam Sandler film, tied with his review for "Punch-Drunk Love". Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" also praised the film, writing, "Apatow scores by crafting the film equivalent of a stand-up routine that encompasses the joy, pain, anger, loneliness and aching doubt that go into making an audience laugh." Kyle Smith of the "New York Post" wrote that the film was "one of the most absorbing films of the year."
Michael Phillips of the "Chicago Tribune" gave the film one of its mixed reviews, complaining of the film's two-and-a-half-hour running time: ""Funny People" is...an attempt by Apatow to reconcile the huge success he has become with the up-and-comer he once was. The results run an increasingly exasperating 2½ hours.".
Manohla Dargis of the New York Times complains the film is "irritatingly self-satisfied" and describes the film as "nice" ... "but nice can be murder on comedy and drama alike".
Gene Shalit of NBC's "The Today Show" stated that it's "a smirk of faithful characters that are making a vanity movie about themselves that keeps not ending for 2 1/2 unendurable hours. Director Judd Apatow wrote the script and it's vulgar, in fact it's ineffable, because without the letter F, he would have no script."
Soundtrack.
Funny People: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack was released on July 28, 2009.
Bonus tracks on iTunes release:
The film also features "Joanna" by Kool & The Gang, "Three Little Birds" by Bob Marley, "Diamond Dave" by The Bird and the Bee, "Man in the Box" by Alice in Chains, "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" by Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes, "Walk Like an Egyptian" by The Bangles, "In Private" by Paul McCartney, "Cat Song" by Tomoko Kataoka and "Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)" by George Harrison. Songs from all four former members of The Beatles are in the film and on its soundtrack.
The Blu-ray and 2-Disc DVD includes a jam session of Sandler and Jon Brion performing "Real Love", "Photograph" and an unreleased cover of The English Beat's "Save It for Later." (The band's original 1982 version of the song is used in the movie.)
Additional songs used in the film's trailers are "We Will Become Silhouettes" by The Postal Service, "My Friend" by Dr. Dog, and "Nothing'severgonnastandinmyway (Again)" by Wilco.


Katrien De Cuyper


SS Joseph L. Hurd

SS "Joseph L. Hurd" was a wooden steam ship built in Detroit, Michigan, in 1869.
Career.
The "Joseph L. Hurd" was first enrolled in Detroit on September 15, 1869, starting on the Detroit and Saginaw route. She later collided with the "Cayuga" in 1895, sinking the newer steel ship and killing one crew member. The "Joseph L. Hurd" started carrying stone in October 1904, and she became a barge in 1907.
Beaching.
"Joseph L. Hurd" was beached in September 1913 and subsequently abandoned by its crew.