Entheogen

An entheogen is a psychoactive substance that induces alterations in perception, mood, consciousness, cognition, or behavior  for the purposes of engendering spiritual development in sacred contexts. The religious, shamanic, or spiritual significance of entheogens is well established in anthropological and modern contexts; entheogens have traditionally been used to supplement many diverse practices geared towards achieving transcendence, including divination, meditation, yoga, sensory deprivation, asceticism, prayer, trance, rituals, chanting, hymns like peyote songs, drumming, and ecstatic dance.

Etymology

The neologism entheogen was coined in 1979 by a group of ethnobotanists and scholars of mythology (Carl A. P. Ruck, Jeremy Bigwood, Danny Staples, Richard Evans Schultes, Jonathan Ott and R. Gordon Wasson). The term is derived from two words of Ancient Greek, ἔνθεος (éntheos) and γενέσθαι (genésthai). The adjective entheos translates to English as "full of the god, inspired, possessed", and is the root of the English word "enthusiasm." The Greeks used it as a term of praise for poets and other artists. Genesthai means "to come into being." Thus, an entheogen is a drug that causes one to become inspired or to experience feelings of inspiration, often in a religious or "spiritual" manner.

Entheogen was coined as a replacement for the terms hallucinogen and psychedelic. Hallucinogen was popularized by Aldous Huxley's experiences with mescaline, which were published as The Doors of Perception in 1954. Psychedelic, in contrast, is a Greek neologism for "mind manifest", and was coined by psychiatrist Humphry Osmond; Huxley was a volunteer in experiments Osmond was conducting on mescaline.

Ruck et al. argued that the term hallucinogen was inappropriate owing to its etymological relationship to words relating to delirium and insanity. The term psychedelic was also seen as problematic, owing to the similarity in sound to words pertaining to psychosis and also due to the fact that it had become irreversibly associated with various connotations of 1960s pop culture. In modern usage entheogen may be used synonymously with these terms, or it may be chosen to contrast with recreational use of the same drugs. The meanings of the term entheogen were formally defined by Ruck et al.:

History
Entheogens have been used by indigenous peoples for thousands of years. Some countries have legislation that allows for traditional entheogen use. However, in the mid-20th century, after the discovery of LSD, and the intervention of psychedelic therapy, the term entheogen, invented in 1979, later became an umbrella term used to include artificial drugs, alternative medical treatment, and spiritual practices, whether or not in a formal religious or traditional structure.

Ancient times

R. Gordon Wasson and Giorgio Samorini have proposed several examples of the cultural use of entheogens that are found in the archaeological record. Hemp seeds discovered by archaeologists at Pazyryk suggest early ceremonial practices by the Scythians occurred during the 5th to 2nd century BCE, confirming previous historical reports by Herodotus.

1950s–present

There now exist many synthetic drugs with similar psychoactive properties, many derived from the aforementioned plants. Many pure active compounds with psychoactive properties have been isolated from these respective organisms and chemically synthesized, including mescaline, psilocybin, DMT, salvinorin A, ibogaine, ergine, and muscimol.

Semi-synthetic (e.g., LSD) and synthetic drugs (e.g., DPT and 2C-B used by the Sangoma) have also been developed. Alexander Shulgin developed hundreds of entheogens in PiHKAL and TiHKAL. Most of the drugs in PiHKAL are synthetic.

Religious movements

Entheogens used by movements includes biotas like peyote (Native American Church), extracts like ayahuasca (Santo Daime, União do Vegetal), the semi-synthetic drug LSD (Neo-American Church), and synthetic drugs like DPT (Temple of the True Inner Light) and 2C-B (Sangoma).

Both Santo Daime and União do Vegetal now have members and churches throughout the world.

Psychedelic therapy
Psychedelic therapy refers to therapeutic practices involving the use of psychedelic drugs, particularly serotonergic psychedelics such as LSD, psilocybin, DMT, mescaline, and 2C-i, primarily to assist psychotherapy.

MAPS has pursued a number of other research studies examining the effects of psychedelics administered to human subjects. These studies include, but are not limited to, studies of ayahuasca, DMT, ibogaine, ketamine, LSA, LSD, MDE, MDMA, mescaline, peyote, psilocybin, Salvia divinorum and conducted multi-drug studies as well as cross cultural and meta-analysis research.

Controversial entheogens

Alcohol

Ancient religions

Alcohol has sometimes been invested with religious significance.

 Celtic polytheism

In ancient Celtic religion, Sucellus or Sucellos was the god of agriculture, forests and alcoholic drinks of the Gauls.

 Ancient Mesopotamian religion

Ninkasi is the ancient Sumerian tutelary goddess of beer.

 Dionysian Mysteries

In the ancient Greco-Roman religion, Dionysos (or Bacchus) was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy, of merry making and theatre. The original rite of Dionysus is associated with a wine cult and he may have been worshipped as early as c. 1500–1100 BCE by Mycenean Greeks. The Dionysian Mysteries were a ritual of ancient Greece and Rome which used intoxicants and other trance-inducing techniques (like dance and music) to remove inhibitions and social constraints, liberating the individual to return to a natural state. In his Laws, Plato said that alcoholic drinking parties should be the basis of any educational system, because the alcohol allows relaxation of otherwise fixed views. The Symposium (literally, 'drinking together') was a dramatised account of a drinking party where the participants debated the nature of love.

In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, a cup of wine is offered to Demeter which she refuses, instead insisting upon a potion of barley, water, and glechon, known as the ceremonial drink Kykeon, an essential part of the Mysteries.  The potion has been hypothesized to be an ergot derivative from barley, similar to LSD.

 Osiris

Egyptian pictographs clearly show wine as a finished product around 4000 BCE. Osiris, the god who invented beer and brewing, was worshiped throughout the country. The ancient Egyptians made at least 24 types of wine and 17 types of beer. These beverages were used for pleasure, nutrition, rituals, medicine, and payments. They were also stored in the tombs of the deceased for use in the afterlife. The Osirian Mysteries paralleled the Dionysian, according to contemporary Greek and Egyptian observers. Spirit possession involved liberation from civilization's rules and constraints. It celebrated that which was outside civilized society and a return to the source of being, which would later assume mystical overtones. It also involved escape from the socialized personality and ego into an ecstatic, deified state or the primal herd (sometimes both).

Modern religions

 Esoteric Buddhism
Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche introduced "Mindful Drinking" to the West when he fled Tibet.

 Christianity

Many Christian denominations use wine in the Eucharist or Communion and permit alcohol consumption in moderation. Other denominations use unfermented grape juice in Communion; they either voluntarily abstain from alcohol or prohibit it outright.

 Judaism

Judaism uses wine on Shabbat and some holidays for Kiddush as well as more extensively in the Passover ceremony and other religious ceremonies. The secular consumption of alcohol is allowed. Some Jewish texts, e.g., the Talmud, encourage moderate drinking on holidays (such as Purim) in order to make the occasion more joyous.

 Bahá'í Faith
Bahá'ís are forbidden to drink alcohol or to take drugs, unless prescribed by doctors.  Accordingly, the sale and trafficking of such substances is also forbidden.  Smoking is discouraged but not prohibited.

 Islam

Any substances that cause intoxication are forbidden in Islam in any quantity. The sale of the same is not looked upon favorably, but is not forbidden if no other livelihoods are available.

Usage

Use and abuse

Entheogens have been used by individuals to pursue spiritual goals such as divination, ego death, egolessness, faith healing, psychedelic therapy and spiritual formation.

"Don Alejandro (a Mazatecan shaman) taught me that the visionary experiences are much more important than the plants and drugs that produce them. He no longer needed to take the vision-inducing plants for his journeys."

There are also instances where people have been given entheogens without their knowledge or consent (e.g., tourists in ayahuasca), as well as attempts to use such drugs in other contexts, such as cursing, psychochemical weaponry, psychological torture, brainwashing and mind control; CIA experiments with LSD were used in Project MKUltra, and controversial entheogens like alcohol are often mentioned in context of bread and circuses.

Religious use

Peyotism

The Native American Church (NAC) is also known as Peyotism and Peyote Religion. Peyotism is a Native American religion characterized by mixed traditional as well as Protestant beliefs and by sacramental use of the entheogen peyote.

The Peyote Way Church of God believe that "Peyote is a holy sacrament, when taken according to our sacramental procedure and combined with a holistic lifestyle".

Black shamanism

Black shamanism is a kind of shamanism practiced in Mongolia and Siberia. It is specifically opposed to yellow shamanism, which incorporates rituals and traditions from Buddhism. Black Shamans are usually perceived as working with evil spirits, while white Shamans with spirits of the upper world.

In some areas, there are purported malevolent sorcerers who masquerade as real shamans and who entice tourists to drink ayahuasca in their presence. Shamans believe one of the purposes for this is to steal one's energy and/or power, of which they believe every person has a limited stockpile.

Judaism and Christianity
Many Christian denominations disapprove of the use of most illicit drugs. The early history of the Church, however, was filled with a variety of drug use, recreational and otherwise.

The primary advocate of a religious use of cannabis plant in early Judaism was Sula Benet, also called Sara Benetowa, a Polish anthropologist, who claimed in 1967 that the plant kaneh bosm קְנֵה-בֹשֶׂם mentioned five times in the Hebrew Bible, and used in the holy anointing oil of the Book of Exodus, was in fact cannabis. The Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church confirmed it as a possible valid interpretation.
The lexicons of Hebrew and dictionaries of plants of the Bible such as by Michael Zohary (1985), Hans Arne Jensen (2004) and James A. Duke (2010) and others identify the plant in question as either Acorus calamus or Cymbopogon citratus. Kaneh-bosm is listed as an incense in the Old Testament.

Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (founder of Jewish Renewal) and Richard Alpert (later known as Ram Dass) were influential early Jewish explorers of the connections between hallucinogenics and spirituality, from the early 1960s onwards.

It is generally held by academics specializing in the archaeology and paleobotany of Ancient Israel, and those specializing in the lexicography of the Hebrew Bible that cannabis is not documented or mentioned in early Judaism. Against this some popular writers have argued that there is evidence for religious use of cannabis in the Hebrew Bible, although this hypothesis and some of the specific case studies (e.g., John Allegro in relation to Qumran, 1970) have been "widely dismissed as erroneous, others continue".

According to The Living Torah, cannabis may have been one of the ingredients of the holy anointing oil mentioned in various sacred Hebrew texts. The herb of interest is most commonly known as kaneh-bosm (Hebrew: קְנֵה-בֹשֶׂם). This is mentioned several times in the Old Testament as a bartering material, incense, and an ingredient in holy anointing oil used by the high priest of the temple. Although Chris Bennett's research in this area focuses on cannabis, he mentions evidence suggesting use of additional visionary plants such as henbane, as well.

The Septuagint translates kaneh-bosm as calamus, and this translation has been propagated unchanged to most later translations of the old testament. However, Polish anthropologist Sula Benet published etymological arguments that the Aramaic word for hemp can be read as kannabos and appears to be a cognate to the modern word 'cannabis', with the root kan meaning reed or hemp and bosm meaning fragrant. Both cannabis and calamus are fragrant, reedlike plants containing psychotropic compounds.

In his research, Professor Dan Merkur points to significant evidence of an awareness within the Jewish mystical tradition recognizing manna as an entheogen, thereby substantiating with rabbinic texts theories advanced by the superficial biblical interpretations of Terence McKenna, R. Gordon Wasson and other ethnomycologists.

The historical picture portrayed by the Entheos journal is of fairly widespread use of visionary plants in early Christianity and the surrounding culture, with a gradual reduction of use of entheogens in Christianity. R. Gordon Wasson's book Soma prints a letter from art historian Erwin Panofsky asserting that art scholars are aware of many "mushroom trees" in Christian art.

The question of the extent of visionary plant use throughout the history of Christian practice has barely been considered yet by academic or independent scholars. The question of whether visionary plants were used in pre-Theodosius Christianity is distinct from evidence that indicates the extent to which visionary plants were utilized or forgotten in later Christianity, including heretical or quasi- Christian groups, and the question of other groups such as elites or laity within orthodox Catholic practice.

Buddhism

According to R.C. Parker, "The use of entheogens in the Vajrayana tradition has been documented by such scholars as Ronald M Davidson, William George Stablein, Bulcsu Siklos, David B. Gray, Benoytosh Bhattacharyya, Shashibhusan Das Gupta, Francesca Fremantle, Shinichi Tsuda, David Gordon White, Rene de Nebesky-Wojkowitz, James Francis Hartzell, Edward Todd Fenner, Ian Baker, Dr. Pasang Yonten Arya and numerous others." These scholars have established entheogens were used in Vajrayana (in a limited context) as well as in Tantric Saivite traditions. The major entheogens in the Vajrayana Anuttarayoga Tantra tradition are cannabis and Datura which were used in various pills, ointments, and elixirs. Several tantras within Vajrayana specifically mention these entheogens and their use, including the Laghusamvara-tantra (aka Cakrasaṃvara Tantra), Samputa-tantra, Samvarodaya-tantra, Mahakala-tantra, Guhyasamaja-tantra, Vajramahabhairava-tantra, and the Krsnayamari-tantra. In the Cakrasaṃvara Tantra, the use of entheogens is coupled with meditation practices such as the use of a mandala of the Heruka meditation deity (yidam) and visualization practices which identify the yidam's external body and mandala with one's own body and 'internal mandala'.

It has also been proposed by Scott Hajicek-Dobberstein that the Amanita muscaria mushroom was used by the Tantric Buddhist mahasiddha tradition of the 8th to 12th century.

In the West, some modern Buddhist teachers have written on the usefulness of psychedelics. The Buddhist magazine Tricycle devoted their entire fall 1996 edition to this issue. Some teachers such as Jack Kornfield have acknowledged the possibility that psychedelics could complement Buddhist practice, bring healing and help people understand their connection with everything which could lead to compassion. Kornfield warns however that addiction can still be a hindrance. Other teachers such as Michelle McDonald-Smith expressed views which saw entheogens as not conductive to Buddhist practice ("I don't see them developing anything").

Contemporary movements

Santo Daime
Santo Daime is a syncretic religion founded in the 1930s in the Brazilian Amazonian state of Acre by Raimundo Irineu Serra, known as Mestre Irineu. Santo Daime incorporates elements of several religious or spiritual traditions including Folk Catholicism, Kardecist Spiritism, African animism and indigenous South American shamanism, including vegetalismo.

Ceremonies — trabalhos (Brazilian Portuguese for "works") — are typically several hours long and are undertaken sitting in silent "concentration", or sung collectively, dancing according to simple steps in geometrical formation. Ayahuasca, referred to as Daime within the practice, which contains several psychoactive compounds, is drunk as part of the ceremony. The drinking of Daime can induce a strong emetic effect which is embraced as both emotional and physical purging.

Santo Daime churches promote a wholesome lifestyle in conformity with Irineu's motto of "harmony, love, truth and justice", as well as other key doctrinal values such as strength, humility, fraternity and purity of heart. The practice became a worldwide movement in the 1990s.

União do Vegetal
União do Vegetal ( ; or UDV) is a religious society founded on July 22, 1961 by José Gabriel da Costa, known as Mestre Gabriel. The translation of União do Vegetal is Union of the Plants referring to the sacrament of the UDV, Hoasca tea (also known as ayahuasca). This beverage is made by boiling two plants, Mariri (Banisteriopsis caapi) and Chacrona (Psychotria viridis), both of which are native to the Amazon rainforest.

In its sessions, UDV members drink Hoasca Tea for the effect of mental concentration.  In Brazil, the use of Hoasca in religious rituals was regulated by the Brazilian Federal Government's National Drug Policy Council on January 25, 2010.  The policy established legal norms for the religious institutions that responsibly use this tea.  The Supreme Court of the United States unanimously affirmed the UDV's right to use Hoasca tea in its religious sessions in the United States, in a decision published on February 21, 2006.

Others
Entheogens also play an important role in contemporary religious movements such as the Rastafari movement and the Church of the Universe.

Prohibition
Some religions forbid, discourage, or restrict the drinking of alcoholic beverages. These include Islam, Jainism, the Bahá'í Faith, the Mormons, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the Church of Christ, Scientist, the United Pentecostal Church International, Theravada, most Mahayana schools of Buddhism, some Protestant denominations of Christianity, some sects of Taoism (Five Precepts and Ten Precepts), and Hinduism.

The Pali Canon, the scripture of Theravada Buddhism, depicts refraining from alcohol as essential to moral conduct because intoxication causes a loss of mindfulness. The fifth of the Five Precepts states, "Surā-meraya-majja-pamādaṭṭhānā veramaṇī sikkhāpadaṃ samādiyāmi." In English: "I undertake to refrain from meraya and majja (the two fermented drinks used in the place and time of writing) to heedless intoxication." Although the Fifth Precept only names a specific wine and cider, this has traditionally been interpreted to mean all alcoholic beverages. Technically, this prohibition does not include light to moderate drinking, only drinking to the point of drunkenness. It also doesn't include other mind-altering drugs, but Buddhist tradition includes all intoxicants. The canon does not suggest that alcohol is evil but believes that the carelessness produced by intoxication creates bad karma. Therefore, any drug (beyond tea or mild coffee) that affects one's mindfulness be considered by some to be covered by this prohibition.

Cultural use

Entheogens have been used in various ways, e.g., as part of established religious rituals, as aids for personal spiritual development ("plant teachers"), as recreational drugs, and for medical and therapeutic use.  The use of entheogens in human cultures is nearly ubiquitous throughout recorded history.

Naturally occurring entheogens such as psilocybin and DMT (in the preparation ayahuasca), were, for the most part, discovered and used by older cultures, as part of their spiritual and religious life, as plants and agents that were respected, or in some cases revered for generations and may be a tradition that predates all modern religions as a sort of proto-religious rite.

One of the most widely used entheogens is cannabis, entheogenic use of cannabis has been used in regions such as China, Europe, and India, and, in some cases, for thousands of years. It has also appeared as a part of religions and cultures such as the Rastafari movement, the Sadhus of Hinduism, the Scythians, Sufi Islam, and others.

Africa

The best-known entheogen-using culture of Africa is the Bwitists, who used a preparation of the root bark of Tabernanthe iboga. Although the ancient Egyptians may have been using the sacred blue lily plant in some of their religious rituals or just symbolically, it has been suggested that Egyptian religion once revolved around the ritualistic ingestion of the far more psychoactive Psilocybe cubensis mushroom, and that the Egyptian White Crown, Triple Crown, and Atef Crown were evidently designed to represent pin-stages of this mushroom. There is also evidence for the use of psilocybin mushrooms in Ivory Coast. Numerous other plants used in shamanic ritual in Africa, such as Silene capensis sacred to the Xhosa, are yet to be investigated by western science. A recent revitalization has occurred in the study of southern African psychoactives and entheogens (Mitchell and Hudson 2004; Sobiecki 2002, 2008, 2012).

Among the amaXhosa, the artificial drug 2C-B is used as entheogen by traditional healers or amagqirha over their traditional plants; they refer to the chemical as Ubulawu Nomathotholo, which roughly translates to "Medicine of the Singing Ancestors".

Americas

Entheogens have played a pivotal role in the spiritual practices of most American cultures for millennia. The first American entheogen to be subject to scientific analysis was the peyote cactus (Lophophora williamsii). For his part, one of the founders of modern ethno-botany, the late-Richard Evans Schultes of Harvard University documented the ritual use of peyote cactus among the Kiowa, who live in what became Oklahoma. While it was used traditionally by many cultures of what is now Mexico, in the 19th century its use spread throughout North America, replacing the toxic mescal bean (Calia secundiflora). Other well-known entheogens used by Mexican cultures include the alcoholic Aztec sacrament, pulque, ritual tobacco (known as 'picietl' to the Aztecs, and 'sikar' to the Maya (from where the word 'cigar' derives)), psilocybin mushrooms, morning glories (Ipomoea tricolor and Turbina corymbosa), and Salvia divinorum.

Datura wrightii is sacred to some Native Americans and has been used in ceremonies and rites of passage by Chumash, Tongva, and others. Among the Chumash, when a boy was 8 years old, his mother would give him a preparation of momoy to drink. This supposed spiritual challenge should help the boy develop the spiritual wellbeing that is required to become a man. Not all of the boys undergoing this ritual survived. Momoy was also used to enhance spiritual wellbeing among adults. For instance, during a frightening situation, such as when seeing a coyote walk like a man, a leaf of momoy was sucked to help keep the soul in the body.

Asia
The indigenous peoples of Siberia (from whom the term shaman was borrowed) have used Amanita muscaria as an entheogen.

In Hinduism, Datura stramonium and cannabis have been used in religious ceremonies, although the religious use of datura is not very common, as the primary alkaloids are strong deliriants, which causes serious intoxication with unpredictable effects.

Also, the ancient drink Soma, mentioned often in the Vedas, appears to be consistent with the effects of an entheogen. In his 1967 book, Wasson argues that Soma was Amanita muscaria. The active ingredient of Soma is presumed by some to be ephedrine, an alkaloid with stimulant properties derived from the soma plant, identified as Ephedra pachyclada. However, there are also arguments to suggest that Soma could have also been Syrian rue, cannabis, Atropa belladonna, or some combination of any of the above plants.

Europe

Fermented honey, known in Northern Europe as mead, was an early entheogen in Aegean civilization, predating the introduction of wine, which was the more familiar entheogen of the reborn Dionysus and the maenads. Its religious uses in the Aegean world are bound up with the mythology of the bee.

Dacians were known to use cannabis in their religious and important life ceremonies, proven by discoveries of large clay pots with burnt cannabis seeds in ancient tombs and religious shrines. Also, local oral folklore and myths tell of ancient priests that dreamed with gods and walked in the smoke. Their names, as transmitted by Herodotus, were "kap-no-batai" which in Dacian was supposed to mean "the ones that walk in the clouds".

The growth of Roman Christianity also saw the end of the two-thousand-year-old tradition of the Eleusinian Mysteries, the initiation ceremony for the cult of Demeter and Persephone involving the use of a drug known as kykeon. The term 'ambrosia' is used in Greek mythology in a way that is remarkably similar to the Soma of the Hindus as well.

A theory that natural occurring gases like ethylene used by inhalation may have played a role in divinatory ceremonies at Delphi in Classical Greece received popular press attention in the early 2000s, yet has not been conclusively proven.

Mushroom consumption is part of the culture of Europeans in general, with particular importance to Slavic and Baltic peoples. Some academics consider that using psilocybin- and or muscimol-containing mushrooms was an integral part of the ancient culture of the Rus' people.

Middle East

It has been suggested that the ritual use of small amounts of Syrian rue is an artifact of its ancient use in higher doses as an entheogen (possibly in conjunction with DMT containing acacia).

Philologist John Marco Allegro has argued in his book The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross that early Jewish and Christian cultic practice was based on the use of Amanita muscaria, which was later forgotten by its adherents. Allegro's hypothesis is that Amanita use was sacred knowledge kept only by high figures to hide the true beginnings of the Christian cult, seems supported by his own view that the Plaincourault Chapel shows evidence of Christian amanita use in the 13th century.

Oceania

In general, indigenous Australians are thought not to have used entheogens, although there is a strong barrier of secrecy surrounding Aboriginal shamanism, which has likely limited what has been told to outsiders. A plant that the Australian Aboriginals used to ingest is called Pitcheri, which is said to have a similar effect to that of coca.
Pitcheri was made from the bark of the shrub Duboisia myoporoides. This plant is now grown commercially and is processed to manufacture an eye medication.
There are no known uses of entheogens by the Māori of New Zealand aside from a variant species of kava, although some modern scholars have claimed that there may be evidence of psilocybin mushroom use. Natives of Papua New Guinea are known to use several species of entheogenic mushrooms (Psilocybe spp, Boletus manicus).

Kava or kava kava (Piper Methysticum) has been cultivated for at least 3000 years by a number of Pacific island-dwelling peoples. Historically, most Polynesian, many Melanesian, and some Micronesian cultures have ingested the psychoactive pulverized root, typically taking it mixed with water.  In these traditions, taking kava is believed to facilitate contact with the spirits of the dead, especially relatives and ancestors.

Research
Studies such as Timothy Leary's Marsh Chapel Experiment and Roland R. Griffiths' psilocybin studies at Johns Hopkins have documented reports of mystical/spiritual/religious experiences from participants who were administered psychoactive drugs in controlled trials. Ongoing research is limited due to widespread drug prohibition.

Notable early testing of the entheogenic experience includes the Marsh Chapel Experiment, conducted by physician and theology doctoral candidate, Walter Pahnke, under the supervision of Timothy Leary and the Harvard Psilocybin Project. In this double-blind experiment, volunteer graduate school divinity students from the Boston area almost all claimed to have had profound religious experiences subsequent to the ingestion of pure psilocybin. In 2006, a more rigorously controlled experiment was conducted at Johns Hopkins University, and yielded similar results. To date there is little peer-reviewed research on this subject, due to ongoing drug prohibition and the difficulty of getting approval from institutional review boards.

Furthermore, scientific studies on entheogens present some significant challenges to investigators, including philosophical questions relating to ontology, epistemology and objectivity.

Legal status

United Nations

By country

Australia

Between 2011 and 2012, the Australian Federal Government was considering changes to the Australian Criminal Code that would classify any plants containing any amount of DMT as "controlled plants".
DMT itself was already controlled under current laws. The proposed changes included other similar blanket bans for other substances, such as a ban on any and all plants containing mescaline or ephedrine. The proposal was not pursued after political embarrassment on realisation that this would make the official Floral Emblem of Australia, Acacia pycnantha (golden wattle), illegal. The Therapeutic Goods Administration and federal authority had considered a motion to ban the same, but this was withdrawn in May 2012 (as DMT may still hold potential entheogenic value to native and/or religious peoples).

United States
In 1963 in Sherbert v. Verner the Supreme Court established the Sherbert Test, which consists of four criteria that are used to determine if an individual's right to religious free exercise has been violated by the government. The test is as follows:

For the individual, the court must determine
 whether the person has a claim involving a sincere religious belief, and
 whether the government action is a substantial burden on the person's ability to act on that belief.

If these two elements are established, then the government must prove
 that it is acting in furtherance of a "compelling state interest," and
 that it has pursued that interest in the manner least restrictive, or least burdensome, to religion.

This test was eventually all-but-eliminated in Employment Division v. Smith 494 U.S. 872 (1990) which held that a "neutral law of general applicability" was not subject to the test. Congress resurrected it for the purposes of federal law in the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) of 1993.

In City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507 (1997) RFRA was held to trespass on state sovereignty, and application of the RFRA was essentially limited to federal law enforcement. In Gonzales v. O Centro Espírita Beneficente União do Vegetal, 546 U.S. 418 (2006), a case involving only federal law, RFRA was held to permit a church's use of a DMT-containing tea for religious ceremonies.

Some states have enacted State Religious Freedom Restoration Acts intended to mirror the federal RFRA's protections.

Religious discrimination
Peyote is listed by the United States DEA as a Schedule I controlled substance.  However, practitioners of the Peyote Way Church of God, a Native American religion, perceive the regulations regarding the use of peyote as discriminating, leading to religious discrimination issues regarding about the U.S. policy towards drugs. As the result of Peyote Way Church of God, Inc. v. Thornburgh the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978 was passed.  This federal statute allow the "Traditional Indian religious use of the peyote sacrament," exempting only use by Native American persons.

Classical mythology and cults
Although entheogens are taboo and most of them are officially prohibited in Christian and Islamic societies, their ubiquity and prominence in the spiritual traditions of various other cultures is unquestioned. "The spirit, for example, need not be chemical, as is the case with the ivy and the olive: and yet the god was felt to be within them; nor need its possession be considered something detrimental, like drugged, hallucinatory, or delusionary: but possibly instead an invitation to knowledge or whatever good the god's spirit had to offer."

Most of the well-known modern examples, such as peyote, psilocybin mushrooms, and morning glories are from the native cultures of the Americas. However, it has also been suggested that entheogens played an important role in ancient Indo-European culture, for example by inclusion in the ritual preparations of the Soma, the "pressed juice" that is the subject of Book 9 of the Rig Veda. Soma was ritually prepared and drunk by priests and initiates and elicited a paean in the Rig Veda that embodies the nature of an entheogen:

The kykeon that preceded initiation into the Eleusinian Mysteries is another entheogen, which was investigated (before the word was coined) by Carl Kerényi, in Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter. Other entheogens in the Ancient Near East and the Aegean include the opium poppy, datura, and the unidentified "lotus" (likely the sacred blue lily) eaten by the Lotus-Eaters in the Odyssey and Narcissus.

According to Ruck, Eyan, and Staples, the familiar shamanic entheogen that the Indo-Europeans brought knowledge of was Amanita muscaria. It could not be cultivated; thus it had to be found, which suited it to a nomadic lifestyle. When they reached the world of the Caucasus and the Aegean, the Indo-Europeans encountered wine, the entheogen of Dionysus, who brought it with him from his birthplace in the mythical Nysa, when he returned to claim his Olympian birthright. The Indo-European proto-Greeks "recognized it as the entheogen of Zeus, and their own traditions of shamanism, the Amanita and the 'pressed juice' of Soma – but better, since no longer unpredictable and wild, the way it was found among the Hyperboreans: as befit their own assimilation of agrarian modes of life, the entheogen was now cultivable." Robert Graves, in his foreword to The Greek Myths, hypothesises that the ambrosia of various pre-Hellenic tribes was Amanita muscaria (which, based on the morphological similarity of the words amanita, amrita and ambrosia, is entirely plausible) and perhaps psilocybin mushrooms of the genus Panaeolus.

Amanita was divine food, according to Ruck and Staples, not something to be indulged in or sampled lightly, not something to be profaned. It was the food of the gods, their ambrosia, and it mediated between the two realms. It is said that Tantalus's crime was inviting commoners to share his ambrosia.

Assassins

The legends of the Assassins had much to do with the training and instruction of Nizari fida'is, famed for their public missions during which they often gave their lives to eliminate adversaries.

The tales of the fida'is''' training collected from anti-Ismaili historians and orientalists writers were confounded and compiled in Marco Polo's account, in which he described a "secret garden of paradise". After being drugged, the Ismaili devotees were said to be taken to a paradise-like garden filled with attractive young maidens and beautiful plants in which these fida'is would awaken. Here, they were told by an old man that they were witnessing their place in Paradise and that should they wish to return to this garden permanently, they must serve the Nizari cause(History of Nizari Ismailism). So went the tale of the "Old Man in the Mountain", assembled by Marco Polo and accepted by Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall (1774–1856), a prominent orientalist writer responsible for much of the spread of this legend. Until the 1930s, von Hammer's retelling of the Assassin legends served as the standard account of the Nizaris across Europe.

 Literature
Many works of literature have described entheogen use; some of those are:
 The drug melange (spice) in Frank Herbert's Dune universe acts as both an entheogen (in large enough quantities) and an addictive geriatric medicine. Control of the supply of melange was crucial to the Empire, as it was necessary for, among other things, faster-than-light (folding space) navigation.
 Consumption of the imaginary mushroom anochi [enoki] as the entheogen underlying the creation of Christianity is the premise of Philip K. Dick's last novel, The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, a theme that seems to be inspired by John Allegro's book.
 Aldous Huxley's final novel, Island (1962), depicted a fictional psychoactive mushroom – termed "moksha medicine" – used by the people of Pala in rites of passage, such as the transition to adulthood and at the end of life.
 Bruce Sterling's Holy Fire novel refers to the religion in the future as a result of entheogens, used freely by the population.
 In Stephen King's The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger, Book 1 of The Dark Tower series, the main character receives guidance after taking mescaline.
 The Alastair Reynolds novel Absolution Gap features a moon under the control of a religious government that uses neurological viruses to induce religious faith.
 A critical examination of the ethical and societal implications and relevance of "entheogenic" experiences can be found in Daniel Waterman and Casey William Hardison's book Entheogens, Society & Law: Towards a Politics of Consciousness, Autonomy and Responsibility (Melrose, Oxford 2013). This book includes a controversial analysis of the term entheogen arguing that Wasson et al. were mystifying the effects of the plants and traditions it refers to.

 See also
 List of Acacia species known to contain psychoactive alkaloids
 List of plants used for smoking
 List of psychoactive plants
 List of psychoactive plants, fungi, and animals
 N,N-Dimethyltryptamine
 Psilocybin mushrooms
 Psychoactive Amanita mushrooms
 Psychoactive cacti

 References

 Further reading

 Harner, Michael, The Way of the Shaman: A Guide to Power and Healing, Harper & Row Publishers, NY 1980
 Rätsch, Christian; "The Psychoactive Plants, Ethnopharmacology and Its Applications"; Park Street Press; Rochester Vermont; 1998/2005;

 Roberts, Thomas B. (editor) (2001). Psychoactive Sacramentals: Essays on Entheogens and Religion San Francisco: Council on Spiritual Practices.
 Roberts, Thomas B. (2006) "Chemical Input, Religious Output—Entheogens" Chapter 10 in Where God and Science Meet: Vol. 3: The Psychology of Religious Experience Westport, CT: Praeger/Greenwood.
 Roberts, Thomas, and Hruby, Paula J. (1995–2003). Religion and Psychoactive Sacraments: An Entheogen Chrestomathy https://web.archive.org/web/20071111053855/http://csp.org/chrestomathy/ [Online archive]

 Stafford, Peter. (2003). Psychedelics. Ronin Publishing, Oakland, California. .
 Carl Ruck and Danny Staples, The World of Classical Myth 1994. Introductory excerpts
 Huston Smith, Cleansing the Doors of Perception: The Religious Significance of Entheogenic Plants and Chemicals, 2000, Tarcher/Putnam,
 Daniel Pinchbeck,"Ten Years of Therapy in One Night", The Guardian UK (2003), describes Daniel's second journey with Iboga facilitated by Dr. Martin Polanco at the Ibogaine Association clinic in Rosarito, Mexico.
 Giorgio Samorini 1995 "Traditional use of psychoactive mushrooms in Ivory Coast?" in Eleusis 1 22-27 (no current url)
 M. Bock 2000 "Māori kava (Macropiper excelsum)" in Eleusis - Journal of Psychoactive Plants & Compounds n.s. vol 4 (no current url)
 Plants of the Gods: Their Sacred, Healing and Hallucinogenic Powers by Richard Evans Schultes, Albert Hofmann, Christian Ratsch -
 John J. McGraw, Brain & Belief: An Exploration of the Human Soul, 2004, AEGIS PRESS,
 J.R. Hale, J.Z. de Boer, J.P. Chanton and H.A. Spiller (2003) Questioning the Delphic Oracle, 2003, Scientific American, vol 289, no 2, 67-73.
 The Sacred Plants of our Ancestors by Christian Rätsch, published in TYR: Myth—Culture—Tradition Vol. 2, 2003–2004 -
 Yadhu N. Singh, editor, Kava: From Ethnology to Pharmacology'', 2004, Taylor & Francis,

External links


Huyghe Brewery

Huyghe Brewery () is a brewery founded in 1906 by Leon Huyghe in city of Melle in East Flanders, Belgium. Its "flagship" beer is Delirium Tremens, a golden ale.

History
The site of the brewery has been in operation since 1654. In 1906, Leon Huyghe purchased an existing brewery in the town.  The brewery acquired the present name in 1938. While the company initially brewed a regular pilsner, it soon began brewing the kinds of beers now typically known as "Belgian", including a series of beers under the "Delirium" tag, with pink elephants on the label. The best known of these is Delirium Tremens, a blonde, Belgian ale. Other beers brewed include a Christmas beer and a beer called Deliria, a beer selected from 65 entries by women brewers, in addition to a number of fruit beers with low ABV.

Huyghe has acquired several smaller Belgian breweries, including Arteveld Grand Cru in 1987, Brouwerij Biertoren in 1993,  in 1994, and Brouwerij Villers in 1999.

Selected beers

Delirium Nocturnum - 8.5% alcohol
Delirium Noël - a winter seasonal offering, 10.0% ABV
Delirium Tremens - 8.5% alcohol
Named as "Best Beer in the World" in 2008 at the World Beer Championships in Chicago, Illinois. Stuart Kallen gives it the number one spot in his book, The 50 Greatest Beers in the World.

Gallery


2002–03 Belgian Cup

The 2002–03 Belgian Cup was the 48th season of the main knockout competition in Belgian association football, the Belgian Cup. For the first time the quarter-finals were played in two legs.

Final rounds
The final phase started in the round of 32 when all clubs from the first division entered the competition (18 clubs plus 14 clubs from the qualifications). All rounds were played in one leg except for the quarter-finals and the semifinals (in two legs). The final game was played at the Heysel Stadium in Brussels and won by Louviéroise against Sint-Truidense.


Baby (director)

Baby a.k.a. A. G. Baby is an Indian film director, producer, actor and script writer in Malayalam movies. He has directed more than 50 Malayalam movies. Among the popular movies he directed are Lisa, Pappu (1980), Abhinayam (1981) and Veendum Lisa (1987).

Filmography

Direction

 Manushyaputhran (1973)
 Sapthaswaragal (1974)
 Sankhupushpam (1977)
 Sooryakanthi (1977)
 Lisa (1978)
 Kaathirunna Nimisham (1978)
 Avano Atho Avalo (1979)
 Prabhu (1979)
 Pambaram (1979)
 Anupallavi (1979)
 Tharangam (1979)
 Sarppam (1979)
 Love in Singapore (1980)
 Chandrahaasam (1980)
 Pappu (1980)
 Manushya Mrugam (1980)
 Nizhal Yudham (1981)
 Abhinayam (1981)
 Karimpoocha (1981)
 Saravarsham (1982)
 Amrutha Geetham (1982)
 Samrambham (1983)
 Mortuary (1983)
 Gurudakshina (1983)
 Kurishuyudham (1984)
 NH 47 (1984)
 Oru Sumangaliyude Kadha (1984)
 Onnaamprathi Olivil (1985)
 Bhagavaan (1986)
 Ithu Oru Thudakkam Maathram (1986)
 Veendum Lisa (1987)
 Pathimoonam Number Veedu (1990; Tamil)
Raktha Jwala (1990; Telugu)
 House No. 13 (1991)
 Manmadha Sarangal (1991)

Screenplay
 Sapthaswaragal (1974)
 Lisa (1978)
 Avano Atho Avalo (1979)
 Prabhu (1979)
 Anupallavi (1979)
 Pappu (1980)
 Love in Singapore (1980)
 Abhinayam (1981)
 Karimpoocha (1981)
 Saravarsham (1982)
 Veendum Lisa (1987)

Production
 Chirikkudukka (1976)
 Nirakudam (1977)
 Lillyppookkal (1979)
 Veendum Lisa (1987)

Acting
 Chithramela (1967)
 Yogamullaval (1971)
 Brahmachaari (1972)
 Rakshassu (1984)

Story
 Sarppam (1979)
 Abhinayam (1981)
 Veendum Lisa (1987)

Editing
 Swargaraajyam (1962)

Camera
 Swargaraajyam (1962)

Dialogue
 Abhinayam (1981)


Antxon Olarrea

Antxon Olarrea is a Spanish syntactician and a professor of linguistics within the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Arizona.  He is the author of several books and articles on theoretical linguistics and Spanish morphology and syntax. He also has a solid career as an educator and is the recipient of numerous national teaching awards in Linguistics.

Career
Olarrea holds a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Washington. Currently, he holds the title of Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Arizona and is also a member of the faculty of the Department of Linguistics, the Second Language Acquisition and Teaching (SLAT) Program, and the Center for Latin American Studies. His research interests include formal studies of Spanish syntax, and the biological origins of language.

Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Arizona, Olarrea taught at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

Books


All Sparks Burn Out

All Sparks Burn Out are a noise rock/shoegaze band based in Sydney, Australia consisting of Anthony The, David The, Simon Cox and Garry Stephenson. They formed in 2008 and have released two EPs, Exactly What It Sounds Like (2010) and Red Sky At Night (2013) (digitally distributed by cdbaby) and an album Ceremonies for the Lost (2018).

History

A set of home recordings were created over the course of a few years from 2005–2007 where a demo was sent to drummer Simon Cox (Died Pretty) who joined for the recording of the first EP. Anthony The was enlisted as producer & engineer (as his work with Sounds Like Sunset's 2005 Invisible album was highly regarded by the band). The sessions were recorded across East Street Studios and Sonic Sound Studios, Sydney. Mixing was done by Anthony at The Vault. The EP was an instrumental based work that included a remix 'Some Burn' by Curve main man Dean Garcia. "Taste the Tang" was added to Triple R radio's play list in January 2010.

After the release of Exactly What It Sounds Like Anthony The joined the band on guitar and Simon stayed on as the drummer.

Using Vintage Studios (run by Anthony's brother David) in Marrickville, Sydney as a base over the next 2 years, the demos sessions for Red Sky At Night were from a more fully formed band than the previous recordings. Anthony was also on producer & engineering duties for the actual recording sessions while also mixing 'Red Sky At Night'. Loops and noises were added to the sound to complement the guitars with more of a focus to have vocals added for at least half the EP. The band liked what US band Experimental Aircraft vocalist Rachel Staggs added to their sound and were lucky to have her write and sing on three tracks; 'After Summer', 'Cascade' & 'Four Acting As One'. The EP was a digital release only. It was added to national radio play lists. Dom Alessio of Triple J's Unearthed rated the EP at three-stars and opined "Press play and let the waves of distortion roll over you." Sounds Better with Reverb's reviewer declared that the "quartet’s sprawling rocker "After Summer" rides on the back of some reverb-drenched vocals before crashing into a pit of noise – thumbs up!" Offbeat Music's Alice described how they "surprise with shoegaze and noise rock (even if I do not like to label music, it sometimes makes it easier for the interested reader plus the band say so themselves). They like guitar pedals – now there's a love I would definitely support, no matter what."

The debut album Ceremonies for the Lost was released on August 10, 2018 via their bandcamp site. The recording pieced various sessions together from Vintage Studios in Marrickville and home studios over the last 6 years. David The has been added as a second guitarist. The album features guest vocal performances by Rachel Staggs (Experimental Aircraft), Greg Atkinson (Ups & Downs/Big Heavy Stuff), Kelly Hanlon (Terra Pines/DEAFCULT), Pat Haid (Ides of Space/Key Out), Chris Dubrow (Insurge), Jasmine Yee (Halogen) and Kate Halcrow.

They were named after a lyric in the Editors song "All Sparks" and are influenced by a number of noise/shoegaze/wall of sound bands.

Remixes

The band have been able to have some remixes done by some favourites over the first two EP's. As mentioned earlier Dean Garcia of Curve did remix of two tracks to form 'Some Burn'. Jason Martin of Starflyer 59 remixed "From Space To Splashdown" while Somray (formerly Curious Onlookers) remixed "It's Something, If Not, Something" (with also another version on the bandcamp site). Damon Tutunjian from Swirlies remixed "If True Means Death For Us All".

Somray has also done a remix of "Shower of Sparks", the original is to appear on the debut album.

Band members

 Anthony The - guitars, production, engineering, mixing
 David The - guitars
 Simon Cox  - drums
 Garry Stephenson - bass, loops, guitar noises


Isabelle Moretti

Isabelle Moretti (born 5 May 1964 in Lyon) is a French classical harpist.

Biography
Moretti studied harp at the Conservatoire de Lyon, then at the Conservatoire de Paris where she is a teacher.

In 2006, she premiered the harp concertos by Philippe Hersant and Michèle Reverdy.

In 2007, Isabelle Moretti played la Source by Alphonse Hasselmans in the TV program  by Jean-François Zygel: Les Sons de la nature.

In 2015, she performed the Polish premiere of Karol Beffa's Concerto pour harpe.

Selected discography
 Sonates pour harpe by Casella, C.P.E. Bach, Dussek, Hindemith, Tailleferre, Harmonia Mundi, 1987.
 Ravel, Debussy, Caplet, Cras, Musique de chambre pour harpe, with the Parisii Quartet, Michel Moraguès (flute), Pascal Moraguès (clarinet), Dominique Desjardin (double bass), Auvidis Valois, 1995.
 André Caplet, Le Miroir de Jésus, Inscriptions champêtres, with the Quatuor Ravel, Michel Chanu, Hanna Schaer, female choir Bernard Têtu directed by Bernard Têtu, Musidisc Accord, 1996.
 Joaquin Rodrigo, Concierto serenata, with the Real Orquesta Sinfónica de Sevilla directed by Edmon Colomer, Auvidis Valois, 1999.
 Alberto Ginastera, Concerto pour harpe, with the Orchestre national de Lyon directed by David Robertson, Naïve Records, 2000 (Prix Charles Cros en 2001)
 Witold Lutoslawski, Double concerto pour hautbois et harpe, with François Leleux (oboe) and the Sinfonietta Cracovia directed by Robert Kabara, Arion, 2004.
 Cantare, La voix de la Harpe, with Felicity Lott, Naïve Records, 2009.

Awards
 1996: Victoire de la musique, classical, new talent.
 2001: Prize of the Académie Charles-Cros for the Concierto serenata by Rodrigo
 2007: She is made a Chevalier of the Ordre national du Mérite


Shelbyville State Fish and Wildlife Area is an Illinois state park on  in Moultrie County, Illinois, United States.


Karotomorpha

Karotomorpha is a genus of parasites with a flagellum structure. This organism can infect a variety of higher life forms including a number of amphibians. For example, this genus is known to be a parasite of the rough-skinned newt, a widespread newt in the western USA.


Thiotrichaceae

The Thiotrichaceae are a family of Proteobacteria, including Thiomargarita namibiensis, the largest known bacterium. Some species are movable by gliding, Thiospira by using flagella.


The 2018 Wyre Forest District Council election took place on 3 May 2018 to elect members of the Wyre Forest District Council in Worcestershire, England. They were held on the same day as other local elections.

Council Composition

After the election

Ward results

Aggborough & Spennells

Peter Dyke was elected.

Areley Kings & Riverside

James Alexander Shaw was elected but resigned in November 2018 citing ill-health.

Bewdley & Rock
Nick Harris was elected.

Blakebrook & Habberley South

Broadwaters

Foley Park & Hoobrook

Franche & Habberley North

Mitton

Offmore & Comberton

Wribbenhall & Arley

Wyre Forest Rural


TVS (Russia)

TVS Television () was a private Russian television network which was shut down by the Press Ministry of Russia on June 22, 2003.

Creation
On January 11, 2002, a separate Russian television channel, TV-6 lost a court battle over bankruptcy and was placed into liquidation by a unanimous decision of thirteen judges of the Russian Supreme Arbitration Court.

At midnight on January 22, 2002 the Press Ministry pulled TV-6 off the air. The frequency was temporarily filled with programming from the NTV Plus Sports satellite channel. The auction for TV-6's old frequency took place on March 27, 2002. The Media-Sotsium partnership won the frequency auction, becoming the licensee and broadcaster, with the employees of the former channel TV-6 forming much of the production staff.

On June 1, 2002 TVS began broadcasting. On July 22, 2002 the Moscow Arbitration Court ruled that MNVK was taken off the air unlawfully.

Editorial policy

Many Russians and foreigners consider TVS' editorial policy to be critical towards the government of Vladimir Putin and Mikhail Kasyanov. It was considered to be the last channel with completely independent editorial policy.

Closure
Suffering from low ratings (the main channel projects, Dengi series and reality show Za steklom 3: Teper ty v armii  failed) and poor advertising revenue, TVS had many financial problems. TVS's debt to Vneshekonombank (the Bank for Foreign Economic Activity) came to about US$100 million. TVS also owed more than $6 million in back pay to employees, who had not been paid for some three months.

Mostelekom (the city-owned cable operator that carried TVS in Moscow) began switching TVS' signal off Moscow's cable television networks on June 2, 2003, which rendered more than 90% of Moscow residents unable to view it. Mostelekom demanded that the TV company's shareholders pay off arrears of RUB 245,672m ($8 million).

On June 17, 2003 TVS editor-in-chief Evgeny Kiselyov announced that lack of funding had made it impossible for the company to continue operating, and that after June 23 the channel suspended broadcasting.

Stating it was "for viewers' benefit" the Ministry of Press switched off all TVS broadcasts on June 22, 2003 – 24 hours before the shutdown planned by station management was to happen. Like the closure of TV-6 the year before, the regularly scheduled programming was suddenly interrupted by a brief announcement that the channel was "taken off the air" before switching to a testcard. It was widely speculated in the press that such a hurried closure was performed to prevent the final broadcast of Evgeny Kiselyov's "Itogi" show, the only remaining opposition political broadcast at the time. Later MNVK allowed the state all-sports channel to broadcast on the vacant channel 6.


Half-power point

The half-power point or half-power bandwidth is the point at which the output power has dropped to half of its peak value; that is, at a level of approximately -3 dB. In filters, optical filters, electronic amplifiers, the half-power point is a commonly used definition for the cutoff frequency. In the characterization of  antennas it relates to position describing directionality.

Amplifiers and filters
This occurs when the output voltage has dropped to 1/ (~0.707) of the maximum output voltage and the power has dropped by half. A bandpass amplifier will have two half-power points, whilst a low pass amplifier or a high pass amplifier will have only one.

The bandwidth of an amplifier is usually defined as the difference between the lower and upper half-power points. This is therefore also known as the 3 dB bandwidth.  In the case of a low pass amplifier, there is no lower half-power point so the bandwidth is measured relative to direct current, i.e. 0 rad/s.

Antennas
In antennas, the expression half-power point does not relate to frequency: instead, it describes the extent in space of an antenna beam.  The half-power point is the angle off boresight at which the antenna gain first falls to half power (approx. -3 dB) from the peak. The angle between the  points is known as the beamwidth.


Lillian Tibatemwa-Ekirikubinza

Lillian Tibatemwa-Ekirikubinza is a Ugandan lawyer and judge, who has served as a Justice of the Supreme Court of Uganda, since 2015.

Background and education
She was born in present-day Iganga District in 1961. She studied law at Makerere University, in Kampala, Uganda, graduating with a Bachelor of Laws. She also holds a Diploma in Legal Practice, awarded by the Law Development Centre, also in Kampala.

Her Master of Laws in commercial law, was obtained from the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom. She also has a Doctor of Philosophy in law, obtained from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.

Career
Tibatemwa-Ekirikubinza served as a lecturer then associate professor and then professor of law at Makerere University. Following that, she was promoted to the rank of Deputy Vice-Chancellor responsible for academic affairs at the institution. For a period of six months, from April 2009 until October 2009 she served as the Acting Vice Chancellor of Makerere University. In 2013, she was appointed to the Uganda Court of Appeal, serving in that capacity until 2015, when she was appointed to the Supreme Court. She was elected to the International Commission of jurists for a five year term.

Justice Tibatemwa-Ekirikubinza was one of the justices of the Constitutional Court, who ruled in a 4 to 1 majority, that "there is no single provision in the Constitution that provides for the re-appointment of a retired Chief Justice". She wrote the majority opinion in that ruling. That court's ruling
made Justice Benjamin Odoki ineligible to return as Chief Justice, since he had attained the mandatory retirement age of 70.

Other considerations
She is a Fellow of the Uganda National Academy of Sciences and an alumnus of the International Women’s Leadership Forum. Lillian Tibatemwa-Ekirikubinza has been married to Paul Ekirikubinza, a civil engineer for over 20 years and together are the parents of three sons.


Huang Chung-yi

Huang Chung-yi (; born 12 October 1967 in Hualien County, Taiwan) is a Taiwanese retired baseball player.

Career
A bright star since young, Huang competed in the 1992 Summer Olympics and won the silver medal. After the 1992 Olympics Huang entered CPBL along with then just-established Jungo Bears and stayed with the team and its successors Sinon Bears and Sinon Bulls to date. With his seniority and the so many accomplishments achieved, he was appointed as head coach by the Sinon Bulls after the end of CPBL's 2006 season, but still maintains the identity of player.

Huang's major achievements during his CPBL career:
Hit 3 home runs in a single game in his rookie year on April 27, 1993(versus China Times Eagles in Taichung Baseball Field), the 2nd player to achieve so in the CPBL history.
Reached career 1000th hits fastest in the CPBL history on June 13, 2002, in within only 876 games.
Accumulates most appearances(1332 appearances as of July 2007) and most hits(1509 hits as of July 2007) in the CPBL history, and are still accumulating.
Competed in the 1992 and 2004 Olympics, at an interval of 12 years.

Basic Information
Number: 17 (1989~ )
Height: 174 cm
Weight: 82 kg
Bats/throws:  R/R
Position: Second baseman

Career statistics

In 1992 Olympics:
{|border=1
|- style="background:LIGHTGREY" align=middle
|Batting average||Games||At bat||Runs||Hits||RBI||Doubles||Triples||HR||K||BB
|- align=middle
||.324||9||37||8||12||4||2||1||1||3||2
|-
|}

CPBL career:


Government trifecta

A government trifecta is a political situation in which the same political party controls both the executive branch and the legislative branch in countries that have a legislative branch with two houses and have strict separation of powers. The term is primarily used in the United States.

Most countries and all democracies have some degree of separation of powers into separate and independent branches of government consisting of an executive, a legislative, and a judicial branch, but the term government trifecta is only applied to countries in which the executive is not elected by the legislature. (In parliamentary systems, the executive [or part of it] is elected by the legislature and must have the support of the majority of the MPs but is otherwise separate and independent.)

Government trifectas are seen as beneficial by some and as undesirable by others. Those in favor argue that government trifectas are efficient and avoid gridlocks. Opponents argue that trifectas discourage policing of those in power by the opposition and that they do not limit spending and the expansion of undesirable laws. Opponents also argue that government trifectas do not tend to lead to compromise since one party can simply implement its goals unopposed. Consequently, the incumbent party may alter the structure of executive agencies to prepare for when it is bound to lose its incumbency. These alterations are performed to secure control over the agencies for when the party is no longer incumbent. Examples of these include political appointments that extend beyond the political cycle, contract or grant awards, and debt issuances.

The situation is common in developing nations but rare in developed ones. Early in the 20th century, for example, government trifectas were common in the United States, but they have become increasingly rare since the 1970s.

Government trifectas are contrasted by divided governments—a situation in which one party controls the executive branch while another party controls one or both houses of the legislative branch.

United States

The term is primarily used in the United States, where the federal government level consists of the president and the Congress with its two chambers (the House and the Senate).

Because of the coattail effect, most newly elected presidents have a majority with them in both chambers of Congress. The six-year itch conversely means that the last two years of a two-term president rarely have trifectas. The most recent federal trifecta was held by the Republican Party from 2017 to 2019, and the last one before that was by the Democratic Party from 2009 to 2011.

State government trifectas
At the state level, a trifecta means that one party holds the governorship and both legislative houses. The sole exception is in Nebraska, where there is a unicameral legislature.

Sources:


Kazooloo

Kazooloo is an augmented reality video game powered by a mobile app and a physical game board. The game was developed by American indie studio Unlimited Reality and released in iOS and Android platforms in 2014. A sequel of the game called Kazooloo DMX was launched  2016.

Unlike  most  mobile  games  in  the  market  that  encourage players to sit  down  and  be static the Kazooloo game requires the player to move constantly around the board to avoid enemies’ shots. Kazooloo is being presented at Hamleys and Harrods

Gameplay

Kazooloo is a first person shooter in AR. The player's objective is to shoot enemies coming from the Kazooloo dimensions into their real life surroundings, and dodge enemy attack by physically moving around the game board. Every level of the game has different creatures to fight. As the player progresses, enemies become more difficult to defeat and require more movement of the player.

Reception

Kazooloo was rewarded best augmented reality game in Israel and the UK. Kazoloo was also voted top tech toy of the year 2016.


The 2018–19 Akron Zips men's basketball team represented the University of Akron during the 2018–19 NCAA Division I men's basketball season. The Zips, led by second-year head coach John Groce, played their home games at the James A. Rhodes Arena as members of the East Division of the Mid-American Conference. They finished the season 17–16, 8–10 in MAC play to finish in fourth place in the East Division. They defeated Miami (OH) in the first round of the MAC Tournament before losing in the quarterfinals to Buffalo.

Previous season
The Zips finished the 2017–18 season 14–18, 6–12 in MAC play to finish in last place in the East Division. In the MAC Tournament, they defeated Western Michigan in the first round before losing to Eastern Michigan in the quarterfinals.

Offseason

Departures

Incoming Transfers

Recruiting class of 2018
There was no recruiting class for Akron in 2018.

Recruiting class of 2019

Roster

Schedule and results

|-
!colspan=9 style=| Non-conference regular season

|-
!colspan=9 style=| MAC regular season

|-
!colspan=9 style=| MAC Tournament

Source


Dean Heritage Centre

The Dean Heritage Centre is located in the valley of Soudley, Gloucestershire, England in the Forest of Dean and exists to record and preserve the social and industrial history of the area and its people. The centre comprises the museum itself, a millpond and waterwheel, forester's cottage with garden and animals, art and craft exhibitions and workshops, and trails around the surrounding woodland. In addition, there are picnic tables, barbecue hearths, an adventure playground, a gift shop selling local produce and the Heritage Kitchen, a restaurant providing home-made food.

The museum

The museum itself comprises five galleries telling the history of the Forest of Dean from the earliest geological and fossil records to the present day. They display a wide variety of artefacts from industries such as coal and iron mining, forestry, timber, stone working and clock making that have shaped the history, landscape and culture of the Forest. Among the more noteworthy artefacts in the museum's collection are an 1830s Lightmoor Colliery beam engine, Thomas Sopwith's 1838 geological model of the Dean Forest, and the Voyce collection of eighteenth and nineteenth century longcase clocks.

The Dean Heritage Museum Trust is a registered charity formed in 1979 in response to public concern that the heritage of the Forest of Dean was disappearing. The trust bought a former corn mill Camp Mill and opened a museum there in 1983. The museum underwent a major refurbishment paid for by the Heritage Lottery Fund and completed in 2003.

Setting

The museum has a millpond, water from which drives the restored waterwheel. The pond is fed by a stream running from Morgan's Pool, the lowest of the Soudley Ponds, and is home to colonies of mallard and mandarin ducks. Dippers, kingfishers, wagtails and a heron. Starting from the museum, a forestry trail can be followed through centuries-old oak and beech woods up to the summit of Bradley Hill, where a panoramic view of the valley can be seen; including the 1846 Zion Chapel and the old railway tunnel, excavated in 1894 and which runs beneath the hillside.

Foresters' cottage, garden and animals

The museum grounds are home to a reconstructed early-twentieth century Forester’s cottage, which was moved stone by stone from its original location. The cottage is furnished and decorated in authentic Victorian and Edwardian period style. Like many Forest cottages of the time, it is a two-up, two-down, with, on the ground floor, a well-appointed sitting room with a harmonium, Victorian chaise-longue and a collection of period china, and a kitchen with an authentic cast-iron range.

Upstairs there can be found two bedrooms, a children’s room, and a master bedroom which also contains a cot. The bedrooms do not have wardrobes, but, as houses of the period would, instead contain chests to store clothing. Outside there is a wash-house containing a copper for washing clothes, along with a washing dolly and mangle.

Behind the house lies the garden. It is planted with vegetables of authentic period varieties, and is also home to animals which would traditionally have been kept by the Foresters. These include chickens to provide eggs, and Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs which were kept for their meat, and grazed under the trees on fallen apples. They were also released into the Forest to feed on acorns during the late summer, a right dating from medieval times known as pannage. Two ferrets are also kept in the garden; these traditionally were used (and still are) by Foresters to catch rabbits for the table.

Charcoal burners’ camp
Also on the site is the charcoal burners’ camp, sited in a forest clearing with a stone-and-turf-built hut constructed as they have been for centuries. Whole families would have camped in the Forest for months at a time during the summer in order to provide the constant supervision necessary to keep several burns maintained at one time. The Heritage Centre maintains the tradition by conducting twice-yearly charcoal burns. These are built in the traditional turf and earth method, whereby the wood is stacked tightly together in a dome, then covered in turf and earth to starve the fire of oxygen, ensuring that the wood dries out at a high temperature, but not burned. The charcoal produced would in the past have been used to achieve the high temperatures necessary to smelt the iron ore mined in the Forest. Nowadays, however, it is sold mainly for barbecues.

Freemine entrance
The five densely wooded acres of the Heritage Centre also feature Harvey’s Folly, a replica of a freemine entrance built for the centre by retired freeminer Dave Harvey. The right to mine for coal is believed to have been first granted by Edward II, to any man born within the Forest of Dean’s traditional boundaries, (known as the Hundred of St Briavels) and who has worked underground for a year and a day.

The Gage Library
Opened in 1995, the Gage Library provides a centre of local history resources for the Forest of Dean. It houses a major bequest from Laurie Gage, an antiquarian book dealer and philanthropist with a great personal interest in the area, who died in 1994. The Library contains over 1,500 volumes covering the history, geography and natural history the Forest of Dean and Wye Valley, and also possesses an impressive collection of historic maps dating back to the eighteenth century, along with the papers of many significant local figures from the last two centuries.

Events
The museum maintains a busy schedule of events; including a Fire and Wood festival, Poacher’s Day, Victorian Garden Day, Rural Skills Weekends, Apple Day, Fungi Day and family events during the summer.


1997–98 Eerste Divisie

The Dutch Eerste Divisie in the 1997–98 season was contested by 18 teams. AZ won the championship.

New entrants
Relegated from the 1996–97 Eredivisie
 AZ

League standings

Promotion/relegation play-offs
In the promotion/relegation competition, eight entrants (six from this league and two from the Eredivisie) entered in two groups. The group winners were promoted to the Eredivisie.


Blue Stahli (album)

Blue Stahli  is the eponymous second studio album and the first vocal album by American multi-genre project Blue Stahli, released on March 2, 2011, however, most of the tracks had previously been released as singles. The cover artwork was created by Grant Morhman, the producer of the debut Celldweller album.

An entirely instrumental version of the album was released on January 17, 2012.

On November 27, 2018, a deluxe edition of the album was released for vinyl and Digital Download. The deluxe edition featured new tracks such as the 'ULTRAnumb' acoustic, the Entropy Zero remix of 'Doubt,' and the long-awaited Celldweller remix of 'ULTRAnumb'. In addition to these new tracks were songs of the album B-Sides And Other Things I Forgot, such as 'Burning Bridges' (the alternative version of 'Anti-You'), the alternate version of Takedown featuring XINA on vocals, the acoustic version of 'Scrape', and the mariachi version of 'ULTRAnumb.'

Track listing

Bonus Tracks


Risan, Iran

Risan (, also Romanized as Rīsan) is a village in Shuil Rural District, Rahimabad District, Rudsar County, Gilan Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 152, in 39 families.


David Lemieux (archivist)

David Hardy Lemieux (born November 8, 1970) is an audio and film archivist.  He is a Grammy, Juno, and Gemini Award voting member.  He is the audiovisual archivist and legacy manager for the Grateful Dead.

Education
Lemieux is originally from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and was educated at Carleton University in Ottawa (BA in history), Concordia University in Montreal (BFA in film studies) and the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK (MA in film archiving).

Grateful Dead
He has been working as the Grateful Dead's audiovisual archivist and CD/DVD producer since September 1999. He was put in charge of the Grateful Dead's vault after the August 1999 passing of original Grateful Dead tape archivist Dick Latvala. With his producing partner, and long-time Grateful Dead studio engineer, Jeffrey Norman, Lemieux has produced scores of Grateful Dead CD and DVD releases since 2000. The Dave's Picks series is titled after Lemieux.  He has also produced several CD releases by Jerry Garcia.

Lemieux hosts a daily radio show on The Grateful Dead Channel on SiriusXM Satellite Radio (Channel 23)/Dish Network (Channel 6023), Today in Grateful Dead History, in which he selects a segment of music from that day in the Grateful Dead's history and explains its historical context and other information relating to the selection.

Other
Lemieux is also the editor of the Association of Moving Image Archivists' quarterly Newsletter.
He is on the Board of Directors of the Victoria Film Festival in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, where he has been on the programming committee since 2003, and for which he writes film notes for the festival's official programme guide.


Gymnoscyphus

Gymnoscyphus ascitus is a small species of clingfish found in the Caribbean Sea (documented off of Cuba, Cozumel and St. Vincent) at depths of . This species is the only known member of the genus Gymnoscyphus.


Riverway, Townsville

Riverway is a riverfront parkland attraction located in the Condon Suburb of Townsville that opened in July 2006. It stretches along  of the Ross River, with areas at Pioneer Park, Loam Island, Apex Park and Ross Park at the Ross River Dam. The areas of Riverway that have been completed are Pioneer Park and Loam Island. Riverway is connected directly to the Thuringowa Central business district via a pathway along the foreshore.

Village Boulevard

Village Boulevard is the name of the road into Pioneer Park and forms the city/park integration. From the car park it extends through the park as a pedestrian spine that follows the rivers edge and forms the heart of Pioneer Park.

Tony Ireland Stadium

The Tony Ireland Stadium is part of the second stage of Riverway and consists of an international standard AFL and cricket stadium with a capacity of 10,000+.

Riverway Arts Centre

Riverway Arts Centre is a geographical formation with a grass roof integrated into the surrounding parkland, without decreasing the available grassed area. It also lowers the interior temperature by reducing the roof surface temperature. The Pinnacles Art Gallery is also in this building. The Australian improvised music trio, The Necks recorded their third live album, Townsville (2007), at the Riverway Arts Centre.

Riverway's Village precinct

Riverway's Village precinct is a planned retail and dining strip with exclusive boutiques, gift shops, health and beauty salons and gourmet food outlets.
Construction of this precinct is to commence in 2008/9.

History
Before what is now the Riverway, this area was a Camping Reserve for the army's R72 and after the future of Camping Reserve (Renamed R326) was being debated and had been left unused, the then Thuringowa Shire Council made a decision that the area remain un-subdivided for community use, and with the demand for recreational space growing, along with the Upper Ross population, this area was the best location.

In 1970 poisoning and bulldozing of the Chinee Apple trees started, along with drainage works and mowing. The road that traveled along the river was closed to traffic and clubhouses and toilets were built on the site in 1971. It was a pre-war tradition to plant raintrees in the reserve and this was continued by the Thuringowa Council. These trees still stand today, shading the roadway into the Riverway.

During the early 1970s the Thuringowa Council and residents entered into discussion's about what to name the reserve, suggestions including: Upper Ross Sports Complex, The Kirwan Sports Reserve, Vickers Park, Ross River Memorial Park and Upper Ross Memorial Park, however the Thuringowa Council officially named the reserve the Pioneer Sporting Complex in October 1971.

Over the years, Pioneer Sporting Complex had many small upgrades and was and still is used by many sporting teams and clubs, and became better known as 'Pioneer Park',. However, as the population of Thuringowa was growing at a fast rate the need for more recreational activities in the area also increased.,

Construction
Riverway Stage One included the construction of two swimming lagoons, the Riverway Arts Centre, Pinnacles Gallery, the Riverwalk, public art, village spine and parklands. Stage Two involved the construction of the Riverway Stadium, now named the Tony Ireland Stadium. Stage Three is the area consisting of Apex Park and the Upper Ross Shopping Centre area.

Itara at Riverway
Itara at Riverway is a medium density residential development, consisting of 265 apartments which have helped to pay for the Riverway development.


Reuben Parsons (priest)

Rev. Reuben Parsons, D.D. (1841 – 13 April 1906) was an American Catholic priest and author.

Biography
Reuben Parsons was born in Paterson, Passaic County, New Jersey and was ordained priest in 1866. He received his early education at Mount St. Mary's University, and later at the Pontifical North American College. For thirteen years Parson was chaplain of St. Joseph's Hospital in Yonkers, where he died after a long illness.

Works
 (1872). A Biographical Dictionary. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co.
 (1892). Some Lies and Errors of History. Notre Dame, IND.: Office of the "Ave Maria".
 (1896-1900). Studies in Church History:
 (1896). Vol. I: Centuries I-VIII. New York: Fr. Pustet & Co.
 (1896). Vol. II: Centuries IX-XIV. New York: Fr. Pustet & Co.
 (1897). Vol. III: Centuries XV-XVI. New York: Fr. Pustet & Co.
 (1897). Vol. IV: Centuries XVII-XVIII. New York: Fr. Pustet & Co.
 (1898). Vol. V: Century XIX (Part I). New York: Fr. Pustet & Co.
 (1900). Vol. VI: Century XIX (Part II). New York: Fr. Pustet & Co.
 (1902). Universal History. Yonkers, N.Y. [10 vols.]
 (1908). Sermons. Philadelphia, Pa.: J.J. McVey.

Selected articles
 (1887). "Pope Clement VIII. and Beatrice Cenci," The American Catholic Quarterly Review 12, pp. 29–38.
 (1887). "The Charge of Heresy against Dante," The American Catholic Quarterly Review 12, pp. 714–725.
 (1894). "A Glance at the Soldier Monks," The Catholic World, Vol. LIX, pp. 502–521.
 (1895). "The Eight Centennial of the First Crusade," The Rosary Magazine 7, pp. 16–23.
 (1895). "Gustavus Adolphus," The American Catholic Quarterly Review 20, pp. 510–527.
 (1896). "Explorers in the Middle Age: Marco Polo," The American Catholic Quarterly Review 21, pp. 43–52.
 (1896). "The Baptism of France," The American Catholic Quarterly Review 21, pp. 497–517.
 (1897). "A Glance at the Reign of St. Louis," The American Catholic Quarterly Review 22, pp. 47–73
 (1897). "Lacordaire and Lamennais," The American Catholic Quarterly Review 22, pp. 256–279.
 (1897). "The Struggle of Polish Catholicity with Russian Orthodoxy," The American Catholic Quarterly Review 22, pp. 694–723.
 (1898). "The Later Religious Martyrdom of Poland," The American Catholic Quarterly Review 23, pp. 71–96.
 (1898). "Freemasonry in Latin America," The American Catholic Quarterly Review 23, pp. 802–835.
 (1899). "The Third French Republic as a Persecutor of the Church," The American Catholic Quarterly Review 24, No. 96, pp. 1–18.
 (1900). "Some Heterodoxies and Inconsintencies of Russian 'Orthodoxy'," The American Catholic Quarterly Review 25, pp. 675–696.
 (1902). "The Commencements of the Normans," The American Catholic Quarterly Review 27, pp. 32–53.
 (1903). "The Historical and Religious Origin of Our Recent Immigrants from Eastern Europe," The American Catholic Quarterly Review 28, pp. 37–59.
 (1904). "Feudalism, Chivalry and the Communes in the Middle Age,"  The American Catholic Quarterly Review 29, pp. 39–51.
 (1910). "Early Days of the American College," in History of the American College. New York: Benziger Brothers.

Notes

External links

 Works by Reuben Parsons, at Hathi Trust


Daptone Records

Daptone Records is a funk and soul independent record label based in Brooklyn, New York that is known for Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings and Charles Bradley.

History
In 2001, Bosco Mann and Neal Sugarman formed Daptone Records. Mann had previously run the now defunct Desco record label.

The core beginning of the Daptone Records sound began as The Dap-Kings, who in collaboration with Mark Ronson, backed Amy Winehouse on her hit record, Back to Black, which was partially recorded at the Daptone recording studio. In 2007, the Dap-Kings toured with Winehouse.

Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings features Sharon Jones on vocals, Bosco Mann on electric bass, Binky Griptite on guitar, Tommy 'TNT' Brenneck on guitar, Fernando 'Bugaloo' Velez on percussion, Homer Steinweiss on drums, David Guy on trumpet, Neal Sugarman on tenor sax, and Ian Hendrixson-Smith on baritone sax.

The Sugarman 3 features Neal Sugarman, saxophone; Adam Scone, Hammond organ; Al Street, guitar; Rudy Albin, drums; Dave Guy, trumpet. Soul singer Lee Fields often sings with the Sugarman 3, and Daisy Sugarman plays flute.

In addition to Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, Daptone has recorded and released the music of Antibalas, The Sugarman 3, The Budos Band, The Poets of Rhythm, The Mystery Lights, The Daktaris, The Mighty Imperials, Lee Fields, Charles Bradley, Binky Griptite, and Naomi Davis.

The Daptone Record label is inexorably tied to Sharon Jones. The label and members of her band were with her during the last weeks before her death.

Brooklyn studios
Daptone built their studio, called Daptone's House of Soul in a converted two-family home in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn. It was very run down when they first rented it, and the neighborhood was not great. Daptone Records has its offices in the top floor, the studio is on the ground floor. The label built the studio from scratch, and made the decision to not have computers, but to rely completely on the more old-fashioned analog recording methods to make music. There are tape machines and a CD recorder, but no Pro Tools or digital reverbs.

The studio is where they have recorded most of their releases. Their distinctive sound is a product of the studio acoustics, recording only on analog tape (no digital), and mixing done by Roth. The recording studio and engineering personnel have been sought out by record producers such as Mark Ronson.

In February 2009, Daptone's House of Soul was broken into and thieves made off with the better part of its equipment.

Artists
 Adam Scone
 Antibalas
 Benjamin & the Right Direction
 Bob & Gene
 Charles Bradley
 Lee Fields
 Menahan Street Band
 Naomi Shelton & The Gospel Queens
 Saun and Starr AKA "The Dap-ettes"
 Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
 The Budos Band
 The Como Mamas
 The Frightnrs
 The James Hunter Six
 The Mighty Imperials
 The Sugarman 3
 The Olympians

Wick imprint artists
 The Ar-Kaics
 The Mystery Lights
 Michael Rault

Discography


Brian John

Dr Brian S. John (born 1940) is a Welsh writer.  He is the author of the historical-fiction series Angel Mountain Saga.

John was born in Carmarthen, Wales.  He studied at Haverfordwest Grammar School and at Jesus College, Oxford, where he read Geography from 1959 to 1962 and went on to obtain a D Phil for a study of the Ice Age in Wales. He worked as a field scientist in Antarctica and spent eleven years as a geography lecturer at Durham University. He has travelled widely in the Arctic, Antarctic and Scandinavia. Since 1977 he has made his living as a writer and publisher.

John is also actively involved in environmental and community organisations; in 1980 he founded Eco Centre Wales in Newport and is one of the leaders of the community group GM Free Cymru.  He is the author of a number of articles and 90 books, including university texts, walking guides, coffee table glossies, and books of popular science. His Glaciers and Landscape (written with David Sugden), a university textbook, remained in print as a geomorphology classic for almost 30 years. He also writes on topics of local interest related to Wales: tourist guides, books of local jokes, walkers' handbooks, and titles on local folklore and traditions.

In 2012 he won the Wishing Shelf Book award for his children's book called The Strange Affair of the Ethiopian Treasure Chest.

In recognition of his contributions to polar geomorphology, a glacier in the Pensacola Mountains of Antarctica was named John Glacier.

In recent years John has done radio and TV work, and has featured in the BBC2W programme called The Man from Angel Mountain and on the BBC1 One Show.


Ghadir-class submarine

Ghadir () is a class of midget submarines built by Iran specifically for cruising within the shallow waters of the Persian Gulf. It has a surface displacement estimated at about . The Ghadir class is probably better described as a coastal or littoral submarine, similar in concept to the Italian Sauro class, though significantly smaller.

The Ghadir class is based on the North Korean Yono-class submarine. Photographs indicate a pair of bow torpedo tubes around  diameter, allowing them to fire typical heavyweight torpedoes. It could thus serve as a launch platform for the VA-111 Shkval rocket torpedo.

History
On 24 November 2007 Iranian rear-admiral Habibollah Sayyari announced: "A home-made destroyer called Jamaran and a home-made submarine of Ghadir class will launch operation on November 28."   He also said that the submarine was equipped with the latest military and technological equipment and that its capabilities are equal to that of foreign types.  Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei was quoted saying to Iran's navy commanders on the day the submarine was launched: "Today, you have been able to design and build many of the military requirements. We have become self-sufficient from other countries."

New Ghadir submarines were delivered to the Iranian navy on June 2009, August 2010, August 2011, November 2011, February 2012, November 2012 and November 2018.

While Ghadir resembles the North Korean Yono-class submarine, it is probably better described as a littoral submarine. Head of the Marine Industries Organization of Iran General Amir Rastegari announced Dec 02, 2018 that subsurface-to-surface missiles have been mounted on the new home-made Qadir-class submarine, adding that many foreign states are willing to purchase the vessel. He also added that a home-made torpedo, Valfajr, mounted on the submarine enjoys a destruction power 6 times more than a cruise missile and can drown a 1,000-ton vessel into the sea in less than 10 seconds. He said that a unique periscope has also been mounted on Qadir submarine, noting that a number of industrial countries have demanded to purchase this periscope and optical system from Iran.

Submarines in the class
There are 23 Ghadir-class minisubs in service with the Iranian Navy.

Two Ghadir-class submarines joined the Navy’s combat fleet in November 2018.


Tom Canty

Thomas "Tom" Canty is a fictitious character from Mark Twain's 1881 novel The Prince and the Pauper. He was born the same day as Edward Tudor, the Prince of Wales in 1537 and grew up in a life of poverty with his abusive, alcoholic father. His mother and his sisters always tried to protect him. He was well educated and learned Latin from Father Andrew, a local priest. One day, while taking a stroll, he meets Edward. They switch places with each other to get to know each other's lives better. When King Henry VIII died, Edward was to be crowned King.

Tom was about to be crowned king when Edward comes in and proves that he is the rightful King by knowing where the Great Seal of England was, having hidden it just after they had switched clothes.

Edward is crowned King Edward VI of England, and names Tom his royal ward. The end of the book mentions that Tom lived to be a very old man, whereas Edward tragically died at the age of 15.


Graeco-Aryan

Graeco-Aryan, or Graeco-Armeno-Aryan, is a hypothetical clade within the Indo-European family that would be the ancestor of Greek, Armenian, and the Indo-Iranian languages.

The Graeco-Armeno-Aryan group supposedly branched off from the parent Indo-European stem by the mid-3rd millennium BC.

Relation to the possible homeland
In the context of the Kurgan hypothesis, Graeco-Aryan is also known as "Late Proto-Indo-European" or "Late Indo-European" to suggest that Graeco-Aryan forms a dialect group, which corresponds to the latest stage of linguistic unity in the Indo-European homeland in the early part of the 3rd millennium BC. By 2500 BC, Proto-Greek and Proto-Indo-Iranian had separated, moving westward and eastward from the Pontic Steppe, respectively.

If Graeco-Aryan is a valid group, Grassmann's law may have a common origin in Greek and Sanskrit. However, Grassmann's law in Greek postdates certain sound changes that happened only in Greek and not Sanskrit, which suggests that it could not have been inherited directly from a common Graeco-Aryan stage. Rather, it is more likely that an areal feature spread across a then-contiguous Graeco-Aryan–speaking area. That would have occurred after early stages of Proto-Greek and Proto-Indo-Iranian had developed into separate dialects but before they ceased to be in geographic contact.

Scientific discussion
Evidence for the existence of a Graeco-Aryan subclade was given by Wolfram Euler's 1979 examination on shared features in Greek and Sanskrit nominal inflection. Graeco-Aryan is invoked in particular in studies of comparative mythology such as Martin Litchfield West (1999) and Calvert Watkins (2001).

A widely rejected hypothesis has placed Greek in a Graeco-Armenian subclade of Indo-European, though some researchers have integrated both attempts by including also Armenian in a putative Graeco-Armeno-Aryan language family, further divided between Proto-Greek (possibly united with Phrygian) and thus arriving at an Armeno-Aryan subclade, the putative ancestor of Armenian and Indo-Iranian.

Graeco-Aryan has comparatively wide support among Indo-Europeanists who support the Armenian hypothesis, which asserts that the homeland of the Indo-European language family was in the Armenian Highlands.


Knucklebones (film)

Knucklebones () is a 1971 Iranian film directed by Zakaria Hashemi. It stars Naser Malek Motiee, Bahman Mofid, Shahrzad, and Morvarid.

Cast


Lead Me On (Kelly Joe Phelps album)

Lead Me On is the debut album of American blues singer and guitarist Kelly Joe Phelps. It is his first release on the Burnside label before moving to Rykodisc Records.

Reception

Writing for Allmusic, music critic Roch Parisien wrote of the album "This is the real deal — Phelps performs with the full authority and authenticity of the Delta blues tradition without ever once sounding like a Folkways museum piece."

Track listing
All songs written by Kelly Joe Phelps except as noted.
"I've Been Converted" (Traditional) – 6:16
"Hard Time Killin' Floor Blues" (Skip James) – 5:24
"Where Do I Go Now" – 5:33
"Love Me Baby Blues" (Joe Calicott) – 4:41
"Lead Me On" – 4:46
"Jesus Make up My Dying Bed" (Traditional) – 5:17
"Leavin' Blues" (Herman Johnson) – 5:54
"Marking Stone Blues" – 4:58
"The Black Crow Keeps Flying" – 4:17
"I'd Be a Rich Man" – 4:44
"Someone to Save Me" – 6:35
"Motherless Children" (Traditional)– 7:24
"Fare Thee Well" – 4:33

Personnel
Kelly Joe Phelps - vocals, guitar, stomp box
Engineered by Mike Moore
Executive producer – Terry Carrier
Photos by James Rexroad, Project 47


Alexandro Marie Antoin Fridzeri

Alexandro Marie Antoin Fridzeri or Frixer (born Verona January 16, 1741, died Antwerp 1825) was the most renowned of mandolin virtuosi, a clever violinist, organist, and a composer whose works met with popular favor. Among his works were sonatas and chamber music and operas. His life began and ended with tragic notes, losing his eyesight and later his home and possessions.  Music historian Philip J. Bone called Fridzeri " an artist of undoubted genius and a man of most remarkable character, which was fully tried under great adversity." The late Giuseppe Bellenghi, mandolinist and composer, dedicated his variations for mandolin and piano on the Carnival of Venice, to the memory of Fridzeri, the blind mandolin player and composer.

Blind boy
He lost his eyesight in a childhood accident and the loss of this sense only quickened and intensified others. He was taken with music at an early age and was taught singing and the elements of music while a child. However, apart from this first elementary instruction Fridzeri was self-taught in all the branches of the art, both practical and theoretical. He had learned to play the mandolin by age 11 and constructed his own instrument. He mastered the mandolin enough by that point to be engaged as singing boy at the fashionable serenades, which were customary and exceedingly popular among the nobility of Italy, accompanying himself with his mandolin.  Fidzeri had a good voice and his stage presence—a blind boy singing romances, accompanied by his mandolin—was a pleasure to these select assemblies.

Traveling musician
Fridzeri also devoted himself to the study of other musical instruments and excelled in his performances upon the violin, flute, viol d'amour and organ.  When he reached twenty years of age, he was appointed organist of the cathedral of the Madonna del Monte Berico, Vicenza, and he moved there from Verona with his parents to take up this position. For the space of about three years he remained as organist of this celebrated cathedral, and then commenced an exceedingly romantic and checkered career. At the age of twenty-four he left home with a companion and toured Europe as a blind mandolin virtuoso. His repertoire consisted of the concertos of Tartini, the principal works of Pugnani and Ferrari, and several of his own compositions. They travelled through the north of Italy and central France, ultimately reaching Paris, towards the close of the same year (c. 1862).

Fridzeri met with success and received great applause wherever he performed during his travels. However, in Paris he was not encouraged by his reception; the mandolin was not as popular as in Italy, and he turned to the violin. He appeared as violin soloist at the famous Concerts Spirituels and performed with brilliant success a concerto of Pierre Gavinies and his own two concertos for violin, Op. 5. Then he took up residence in Paris for two years, teaching the mandolin and violin, after which he made a long concert tour through the north of France, Belgium and the Rhineland of Germany. Fridzeri found popularity in Strasburg and he resided there for twelve months, writing his first two operas, which were produced at the Comedie Italienne in Paris when he returned to France.

Settling and composing
He returned to Paris by 1771, engaged in writing incidental music for the Parisian theaters and also numerous string quartets and mandolin sonatas. Towards the end of that year he left Paris again, this time for Brittany, where he had been appointed private musician to the Count Chateaugiron,and with whom he remained for twelve years. During this time he applied himself in his leisure principally to operatic composition, and undertook periodical visits to Paris to superintend the production of his new stage works. Finding a demand for this class of composition he terminated his service as private musician to Count Chateaugiron and again took up his residence in Paris. Then the French Revolution began in 1789, and he fled to Nantes, where he established an academy of music and was once more employed in teaching.

French civil war
For five years the blind musician was thus actively engaged in Nantes until the terrors of the civil war in Vendee and there was wholesale massacre Nantes too. He fled back to Paris for refuge. On his return he was elected a member of the "Lycee de Arts," 1794, and commenced a music printing business in the Rue Saint Nicaise, near the Palaise Royal. Although his business quickly failed, he did published his opera, Les souliers mordores there. In spite of that, it was the beginning of ill fortune, for in December, 1801, a bomb was hurled at the Palaise Royal and its explosion totally destroyed all Fridzeri's possessions. He wasn't alone; the unsettled state of fifteen thousand persons perished in one month. The French government of this year compelled the blind musician, now sixty years of age and reduced to poverty, to leave France. He began to wander again, with his two daughters — both musicians.  With them, the elder a violinist and the younger vocalist,  they travelled through Belgium and settled in Antwerp where the daughters followed the vocation of their father and established a music and musical instrument business. The business continued until the death of Fridzeri.

Works
His opera, Les deux miliciens (The two soldiers), established his reputation as a musician and writer of music which was at once melodious and brilliant, and his published works, though not numerous, embrace nearly every variety of musical composition. The following are the principal:

Six quartets for two violins, alto and bass, Op. 1, published 1771, in Paris
a second book of Six quartets published later
Les deux miliciens (The two soldiers), Op. 2, a comic opera in one act which was produced successfully in 1772
Six sonatas for the mandolin, Op. 3, published 1771, Paris
Les souliers mordores (The brown shoes), Op. 4, a comic opera in two acts produced 1776 at Comedie Italienne
Two concertos for the violin, Op. 5, played by the composer at the Concerts Spirituels, Paris
Six romances for voice with harp accompaniment, Op. 6
Four duos for two violins, Op. 7, published 1795, Paris
Lucette, an opera produced in 1785
Les Thermopyles, Op. 8, a grand opera — an edition of this work was arranged by the composer for piano solo
Collection of songs with piano accompaniment, Op. 9
Symphony concertante for two violins, alto and grand orchestra, and many other pieces for the mandolin.


Ampthill Tunnel

Ampthill tunnel is a railway tunnel at Ampthill on the London Midland region between Bedford and Flitwick.

The Sheffield Daily Telegraph reported that the tunnels were  long on completion.

Between June 1893  and 1895 a second tunnel was constructed alongside, to allow the widening of the Midland Main Line from two tracks to four.