Resettlement in Newfoundland and Labrador terms refers to an organized approach to centralize the population into growth areas. It is used in the current context when referring to a voluntary relocation initiated from isolated communities themselves.

Three attempts of resettlement were initiated by the Government between 1954 and 1975 which resulted in the abandonment of 300 communities and nearly 30,000 people moved. Government's attempt of resettlement has been viewed as one of the most controversial government programs of the post-Confederation Newfoundland and Labrador.

In the 21st century, the Community Relocation Policy allows for voluntary relocation of isolated settlements. From 2002 to 2020, nine communities relocated.

Background
The history and commerce of Newfoundland and Labrador was built on the fishery and thus many small communities were established throughout the entire coastal region. Some of these communities were seasonal fishing stations and some eventually grew into communities which were very much isolated from much of the country except for water transportation or overland hiking trails. In many communities the seasonal inshore cod fishery provided both sustenance and the vast majority of employment opportunities.

In the early 20th century, settlement patterns and population distribution were changing due to a number of factors. Newfoundlanders began moving to larger centres such as St. John's. For example, in 1874 the population of St. John's was 30,574 and the major Conception Bay districts had a combined population of 41,368. By 1935 the population of the Conception Bay districts had increased by over 4,500 people, while the population of St. John's had more than doubled to 65,256 people.

Other parts of the island and Labrador went through major changes in resource development that affected areas outside the Avalon Peninsula. The construction of paper mills in both Grand Falls and Corner Brook drew many people from coastal towns and villages. These areas contributed to growth in other areas such as Botwood and Deer Lake. Mineral discoveries at places such as Wabush and Labrador City, St. Lawrence, Baie Verte and Buchans also contributed to the movement of people away from the outports. World War II also had a part to play when air force bases were built at Stephenville, Argentia and Goose Bay, and the booming international airport in Gander.

The 1992 cod moratorium especially affected Newfoundland's rural outports, where the loss of an important source of income caused widespread out-migration. Some communities have tried to compensate by fishing shellfish, crab and shrimp, but their stocks are faltering in recent years. The moratorium is still in effect, but it has been slightly loosened to allow for some fishing. However, the stocks remain critical according to industry experts.

The ever-shrinking communities are struggling with an aging population that needs access to essential services. As of October 2017, the province's marine transportation system costs $76 million annually. It is often cited as a burden to the economy, requiring spending millions of dollars to guarantee frequent transport from communities with no more than a hundred residents.

Prior to 1954
Prior to the start of the government sponsored resettlement program many communities were abandoned for various reasons including disease, lack of work and natural disaster. One of the earliest examples of this is the community of Garia. The community lost 3/4 of its inhabitants after they decided to move to Anticosti Island for work in 1873. The remaining residents slowly moved away and the community was abandoned in the 1910s.

Between 1946 and 1954, it is estimated that 49 communities were abandoned without government intervention. Government officials had long petitioned for a greater concentration of the population, citing many benefits. In 1953 the Newfoundland Department of Welfare offered small amounts of financial assistance to residents of 110 communities to accelerate the process which had come naturally. This became the beginning of the government assisted resettlement program for the province.

Labrador on a much smaller scale was experiencing a resettlement when the Moravian Church in the northern part of Labrador was relocating the Inuit to centres such as Hebron and Nain. Dr. Wilfred Grenfell, in his efforts to provide health and educational benefits to the people of southern Labrador and the northern coast of the Great Northern Peninsula, also helped to the centralization of populations in areas such as St. Anthony and Charlottetown.

First Resettlement Program (1954-1965)

In 1954 the provincial Department of Welfare introduced a program to encourage residents of small coastal communities to move to larger "growth centres". The government would pay for the relocation of all of a family's belongings as well as their house to the new community. This was changed to a cash payment of $150 per family at the start of the program and gradually increased to $600 per family by the end of the program. This was a significant amount of money as a fisherman working in the inshore fishery was generally earning under $500 per year. In order for a community to be eligible for assistance every member would have to agree to relocate. By 1965 the program had helped resettle 115 communities with a combined population of 7500.

Second and Third Resettlement Programs (1965-1975)
In 1965 the provincial and federal governments partnered in a new resettlement program. The new program was administered by the Department of Fisheries. Under the new program the assistance was increased to $1000 per family plus $200 for each dependant in addition to moving costs. The proportion of residents who needed to agree to the move decreased to 90% and later to 80%. A second federal-provincial agreement was started in 1970, with responsibility being shared by the federal Department of Regional Economic Expansion (DREE) and the provincial Department of Community and Social Development. Between 1965 and 1975 some 148 communities were abandoned, involving the relocation of an additional 20,000 people.

Community Relocation Policy (2010s)
State-assisted relocation is still practiced in Newfoundland and Labrador, but the requests must come from the communities themselves. The modern Community Relocation Policy clearly states that the government cannot encourage or "initiate any actions" to promote resettlement. Essential services, including electricity, are terminated in the communities where the vote reaches a threshold of 90-per-cent. In 2013, the compensation was boosted from $100,000 to $270,000 per household.

Despite a community voting in favor, state-assisted relocation has been refused in some settlements, where the cost for compensation exceeds the amount saved in services cut. Even if Nippers Harbour voted with a majority of 98%, the government has declared that the consequences to the economy would outweigh the benefits.

Since 2000, eight communities have relocated — Great Harbour Deep (2002), Petites (2003), Big Brook (2004), Grand Bruit (2010), Round Harbour (2016), William's Harbour (2017), Snook's Arm (2018) and Little Bay Islands (2019). In 2019, Little Bay Islands became the most recent settlement to resettle.

In 2021, the provincial government's Community Relocation Policy was changed lowering the vote required for relocation from 90 percent to 75 percent.

Following the policy change, in 2021 François voted against resettlement. In 2023, Gaultois voted against resettlement.

In art
The social change caused by resettlement has appeared in some works of literature and music. The song The Government Game by the Newfoundland writer Al Pittman describes the issue, with lyrics such as "It's surely a sad sight, their movin' around,/ A-wishin they still lived by the cod-fishin' ground;/ But there's no goin' back now, there's nothing to gain,/ Now that they've played in the government game."  The song Out From St Leonards also describes the resettlement, noting how residents left "with their houses in tow" by physically shipping buildings to their new homes. His best-known play West Moon is set in a resettled outport, where the ghosts of the dead lament the abandonment of their home.

The resettlement of an outport community is a focal point of Newfoundland author Michael Crummey's 2014 novel Sweetland, and its theatrical feature film adaptation Sweetland.

Newfoundland-based photographer April MacDonald has extensively documented the legacy of homes and villages abandoned by resettled Newfoundlanders.

See also
 History of Newfoundland and Labrador
 Collapse of the Atlantic northwest cod fishery
 Newfoundland outport

References

Populated coastal places in Canada
Populated places in Newfoundland and Labrador
Settlement schemes in Canada
Rural society in Canada


Raffaello Gambino (April 18, 1928 – August 26, 1989) was an Italian water polo player who competed in the 1952 Summer Olympics.

He was born in Rome.

In 1952 he was part of the Italian team which won the bronze medal in the Olympic tournament. He played seven matches as goalkeeper.

See also
 Italy men's Olympic water polo team records and statistics
 List of Olympic medalists in water polo (men)
 List of men's Olympic water polo tournament goalkeepers

External links

1928 births
1989 deaths
Italian male water polo players
Water polo goalkeepers
Water polo players at the 1952 Summer Olympics
Olympic bronze medalists for Italy in water polo
Medalists at the 1952 Summer Olympics
Water polo players from Rome


The J.A. Sweeton Residence was built in 1950 in Cherry Hill, in Camden County, New Jersey, United States. At , it is the smallest of the four Frank Lloyd Wright houses in New Jersey. This Usonian scheme house was constructed of concrete blocks and redwood plywood.

The Sweeton House is sheltered by a dramatically pitched roof that comes within four feet of the ground. An impressive cantilevered carport extending about  from the house provides a dramatic visual element to the entrance. Wright loved the automobile but thought garages were a relic of the "livery-stable mind," according to his revised autobiography.

The compact horizontal plan reflects a standard Usonian scheme. Three bedrooms and one bathroom are arranged on a linear axis like cabins of an ocean liner. With its prominent living room defined by six glass doors, mitered glass corners and cathedral ceiling, the home seems larger than its .

The Sweeton House remains a private residence and is not accessible by the public. The larger original site has been subdivided and is isolated from major roadways.

The homes address is actually 373 Kings Highway.  375 is Princeton Behavioral Center, house is behind the Center.

See also
 List of Frank Lloyd Wright works

References

 Storrer, William Allin. The Frank Lloyd Wright Companion. University of Chicago Press, 2006,  (S.325)

External links
 Exploring Art - Frank Lloyd Wright - JA Sweeton Residence
 Frank Lloyd Wright Houses - Bernardsville, Cherry Hill, Glen Ridge, Millstone
 PrairieMod: One Couple "Sweeton's" Their Life Style
 J A Sweeton House photos on Flickr
 J A Sweeton House, Cherry Hill NJ 1950 - Frank Lloyd Wright Designed Buildings on Waymarking.com
 Cherry Hill Historical Commission
 "On the Trail of Frank Lloyd Wright," The New York Times, 2001

Houses completed in 1950
Cherry Hill, New Jersey
Frank Lloyd Wright buildings
Houses in Camden County, New Jersey


William R. Stall (February 21, 1937 – November 2, 2008) was a reporter and staff member of the Los Angeles Times who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2004.

Biography
Stall was born on February 21, 1937, in Philadelphia to parents Sidney J. and Helen R. Stall. He and his two siblings moved with his parents in 1942 to Big Horn, Wyoming, to operate a small ranch. Stall's father worked part-time at the Sheridan Press, later owning a weekly newspaper.

Stall majored in journalism at the University of Wyoming and was sports editor, and later covered city-county government, for Laramie Daily Bulletin while still in college. He also attended Northwestern University and Johns Hopkins University, and served in the National Guard. He was hired by the Associated Press in Cheyenne, Wyoming, later working as the AP's Reno correspondent before a move to the agency's Sacramento, California, bureau, where he was bureau chief from 1966 to 1974.

He served in the administration of Governor Jerry Brown as press secretary and director of public affairs in 1975 and 1976. He was hired in 1976 by The Los Angeles Times reporting in the Metro section. He later covered energy policy and was assistant Metro editor before becoming a staff writer in the paper's Washington, D.C., bureau. He took a position as Washington bureau chief for the Hartford Courant.

In 1980, he shared the Gerald Loeb Award for Large Newspapers for his coverage of the U.S. energy crisis.

Stall was awarded the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing for a series of editorials written in October, November and December 2003 on California's troubled state government. The Reinventing California editorials included "How the Engine Derailed", "Primed for Fiscal Overhaul", "Yank the 'For Sale' Sign", "A Legislature at War" and concluded with "Seize the Political Moment". The Pulitzer board noted that Stall's series of editorials "prescribed remedies and served as a model for addressing complex state issues."

Stall was also proud of a 2001 series of editorials he wrote supporting Senate Bill 221, a measure submitted by State Senator Sheila Kuehl that would require real estate developers of projects with 500 or more units to demonstrate that the homes would have access to a long-term water supply. A lobbyist for the East Bay Municipal Utility District said that Stall's editorials helped make the case for the legislation, overcoming opposition from the building industry. After ten years of unsuccessful efforts to pass such a bill, the proposal passed in the legislature and was signed into law by Governor Gray Davis, making California the first state in the Western United States to enact such a law.

Stall died of complications from pulmonary disease on November 2, 2008, at his home in Sacramento, California. He had been in failing health much of the year.

References

1937 births
2008 deaths
American newspaper editors
American reporters and correspondents
Journalists from Philadelphia
Respiratory disease deaths in California
Deaths from lung disease
Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing winners
Gerald Loeb Award winners for Large Newspapers
20th-century American journalists
American male journalists


Operation North () was the code name which was assigned by the USSR Ministry of State Security to the massive deportation of Jehovah's Witnesses and their families to Siberia in the Soviet Union on 1 and 8 April 1951.

Background

There were almost no Jehovah's Witnesses in the Soviet Union until its annexation of the Baltic States, Western Belarus, Western Ukraine, Bessarabia, and Northern Bukovina; most of them were living in the Moldavian SSR and Ukrainian SSR. Jehovah's Witnesses came into the conflict with the Soviet government, primarily because they refused to join the military. Their teachings were soon regarded as anti-Soviet. Members of religious groups, including Jehovah's Witnesses, qualified as religious elements which were considered a potential source of danger by the communist regime. In November 1950, Viktor Abakumov reported a plan to deport them to Stalin, and Stalin suggested that the deportation should occur in March–April 1951.

Implementation

On February 19, 1951, Abakumov delivered a secret notice to Stalin, detailing plans for the deportations of Jehovah's Witnesses to Tomsk Oblast and Irkutsk Oblast. It said, in particular, that during 1947–1950, 1048 Jehovah's Witnesses leaders and activists had been arrested, 5 underground print houses had been uncovered, and large amounts of printed matter confiscated. The deportees were permitted to take a maximum of 150 kilograms of property, packed within two hours; the remaining property was to be confiscated "to cover the obligations of the deportees before the state". Abakumov's notice listed the following planned numbers of deportees:
Total number: 8576 persons (3048 families), including:
Ukrainian SSR — 6140 persons (2020 families);
Byelorussian SSR — 394 persons (153 families);
Moldavian SSR — 1675 persons (670 families);
Latvian SSR — 52 persons (27 families);
Lithuanian SSR — 76 persons (48 families);
Estonian SSR — 250 persons (130 families).

On March 3, 1951, the USSR Council of Ministers issued the corresponding decree (no. 667-339ss), followed by an order of the Ministry of State Security (no. 00193) of March 5, 1951. On March 24, the Moldavian SSR Council of Ministers issued the decree on the confiscation and selling of the property of the deportees. Operation North started at 4 a.m. on April 1, 1951, and round-ups ended on April 2. The deportees were classified as "special settlers". From the Moldavian SSR, there were 2,617 persons (723 families) deported on the night of March 31 to April 1, 1951. In total, 9,973 persons were deported from the whole country.

Amnesty and exculpation
On September 30, 1965, a decree (no. 4020-1U) of the Presidium of the USSR Council of Ministers cancelled the "special settlement" restriction for members of the four deported religious groups and their family members. However, this  decree signed by Anastas Mikoyan stated that there would be no compensation for the confiscated property, and that return to their previous places of residence was subject to the approval of the local administrations. Though released, Jehovah's Witnesses remained the subject of legal persecution due to their ideology classified as anti-Soviet. The organization was legalized in the Soviet Union in 1991 and re-banned by Russia in 2017. The deported and convicted Jehovah's Witnesses (and other religion-related convicts) were rehabilitated as victims of Soviet political repressions by the ukase no. 378 of President of the Russian Federation of March 3, 1996, "On the Measures for Rehabilitation of the Priests and Believers who had become Victims of Unjustified Repressions" (О мерах по реабилитации священнослужителей и верующих, ставших жертвами необоснованных репрессий).

Notable deportees
 Family of Zinaida Greceanîi, former prime Minister of Moldova

See also
Persecution of Christians in the Soviet Union
Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in other places
Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia
Commission for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Moldova

References and notes

External links

April 1951 events in Europe
Anti-religious campaign in the Soviet Union
Forced migration in the Soviet Union
Political repression in the Soviet Union
1951 in the Soviet Union
Religious persecution by communists
Persecution of Christians in the Eastern Bloc
Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses
Anti-Christian sentiment in Russia
Persecution by atheist states
1951 in Christianity


Mfundo Shumana (born 17 December 1985, in Cape Town) is a South African association football midfielder who played in the Premier Soccer League.

Personal
He hails from Nyanga on the Cape Flats.

References

1985 births
Living people
Soccer players from Cape Town
South African men's soccer players
Men's association football midfielders
Cape Town Spurs F.C. players
Moroka Swallows F.C. players
Chippa United F.C. players
South African Premier Division players
National First Division players


Salvatore Gionta (born 22 December 1930) is an Italian water polo player who competed in the 1952 Summer Olympics and in the 1960 Summer Olympics.

Biography and career
He was born in Formia. In 1952 he was part of the Italian team which won the bronze medal in the Olympic tournament. He played two matches. Eight years later he won the gold medal with the Italian team in the 1960 Olympic tournament. He played two matches and scored two goals.

See also
 Italy men's Olympic water polo team records and statistics
 List of Olympic champions in men's water polo
 List of Olympic medalists in water polo (men)

External links

1930 births
Living people
Italian male water polo players
People from Formia
Water polo players at the 1952 Summer Olympics
Water polo players at the 1960 Summer Olympics
Olympic gold medalists for Italy in water polo
Olympic bronze medalists for Italy in water polo
Medalists at the 1960 Summer Olympics
Medalists at the 1952 Summer Olympics
Sportspeople from the Province of Latina


The women's 56 kg powerlifting event at the 2008 Summer Paralympics was contested on 10 September at the Beihang University Gymnasium in Beijing, China. This event was the fifth-lightest of the women's powerlifting weight classes, limiting competitors to a maximum of  of body mass.

As with all Paralympic powerlifting events, lifters competed in the bench press. Each athlete was allowed three attempts to bench press as much weight as possible. Athletes attempting to break a record were allowed a fourth attempt. For the attempt to be valid, the competitor must have lowered the weighted bar to her chest, held it motionless for a moment, then pressed the bar upwards until her arms were fully extended. If the competitor failed to meet these requirements or any other rule infraction was committed, the attempt was declared invalid by a team of three referees and the result struck from the record.

Results

Key: PR=Paralympic record; WR=World record

References

Women's 056 kg
Para


Maurizio Mannelli (January 1, 1930 – May 22, 2014) was an Italian water polo player who competed in the 1952 Summer Olympics.

He was born in Rome.

In 1952 he was part of the Italian team which won the bronze medal in the Olympic tournament. He played all eight matches.

See also
 List of Olympic medalists in water polo (men)

References

External links

1930 births
2014 deaths
Italian male water polo players
Water polo players at the 1952 Summer Olympics
Olympic bronze medalists for Italy in water polo
Medalists at the 1952 Summer Olympics
Water polo players from Rome


Slüz Düz Music is the debut album by American multi-instrumentalist Peter Ostroushko, released in 1985.

"Sluz Duz" is an Old World sound developed by Ostroushko that combines the dance music of the Ukraine and other European countries with American blugrass, ragtime and swing. The bluegrass band Hot Rize is also featured on the album.

Reception

Writing for Allmusic, music critic Steven Thomas Erlewine wrote of the album "... the result is quite intriguing, even if his ambition sometimes doesn't match his grasp"

Track listing
All songs by Peter Ostroushko.
"The Last Stand" – 3:45
"Friedrich Polka" – 3:23
"Marjorie's Waltz" – 4:55
"Fiddle Tune Medley:" – 4:19
"My Love, I Miss Her So"
"Farewell to Calgary"
"Burnt Biscuit Breakdown" – 4:55
"Sleepy Jesus Rag" – 3:44
"Slüz-Düz Polka	" – 3:45
"Katerina's Waltz" – 4:28
"Christian Creek" – 4:00
"Co. Kerry to Kiev Medley:" – 7:01
"McIntyre's Hornpipe"
"The Mist on the Lake"
"McIntyre's Reel"

Personnel
Peter Ostroushko – mandolin, fiddle, mandola, guitar, mandocello
Norman Blake – guitar
Bruce Calin – bass
John Angus Foster – bass, piano
Tim Hennessy – guitar
Red Maddock – drums
Mick Moloney – banjo, tenor banjo
Paddy O'Brien – accordion
Tim O'Brien – fiddle
Charles Sawtelle – guitar
Daíthí Sproule – guitar
Butch Thompson – piano
Pete Wernick – banjo, fiddle
Bruce Allard – violin
John Anderson – bodhrán
Nancy Blake – cello

Production notes
Peter Ostroushko – producer,  liner notes, mixing
Tom Mudge – engineer
Lynne Cruise – engineer, mixing
John Scherf – assistant engineer
Jonathan Wyner – mastering
Nancy Given – reissue design

References

1985 debut albums
Peter Ostroushko albums
Rounder Records albums


Reese Williams and Bianca Montgomery are fictional characters and a lesbian couple from the ABC daytime drama All My Children. Reese was portrayed by Tamara Braun, and Bianca was portrayed by Eden Riegel. On Internet message boards, the pairing is commonly referred to by the portmanteaus "Rianca" (for Reese and Bianca) and "Breese" (for Bianca and Reese). The couple debuted in October 2008 and is groundbreaking for featuring the first same-sex marriage proposal, as well as the first legal same-sex wedding and marriage, on an American soap opera. In addition, the pairing's family is the first onscreen family made up of same-sex parents in the history of American daytime television.

The couple's wedding took place on February 13, 2009. Though the wedding received praise for being the first on an American soap opera, it also received criticism. The couple's romance was the subject of controversy, from writing and development to fan dissatisfaction and creator commentary.

Background

Writing and portrayals
Eden Riegel was cast in 2000 as Bianca Montgomery, the lesbian daughter of Erica Kane. Riegel left the role and returned several times, before permanently retiring from the role in 2010.  She attributed her 2008 return to the wishes of her fans. Through the web presence she created for herself during her web series Imaginary Bitches, fans let her know how much they wanted her back on the show. "I definitely wanted to fulfill that desire if I could," she said. Riegel then let the show know she was willing to come back. "[The] next thing I knew I got a call and they said, 'Okay, we've got something for you,'" she said. The story the All My Children writers came up with involved a new love interest for Bianca, Reese Williams, who would be portrayed by daytime alumni Tamara Braun. Riegel addressed specific reasons she made the return. "It was the storyline that got me excited," she said. "I always want to come back. I love All My Children, and they're my family. I barely need an excuse—it's usually just about timing." Riegel added that "this time it was the fact that they were going to have Bianca in a committed relationship". She stated, "It was very, very important to me, and I was so glad to hear that. In the context of that, there's some pretty exciting story line plot points that I'm aware of that are dramatic and fun to play and enticing as an actress." In addition, Riegel was enthused about playing opposite Braun. "It means so much [that Braun was cast] because it shows how committed AMC is to this pairing," Riegel said in an interview with Soap Opera Weekly. "We're going to have some serious stuff to play- they aren't going to waste her talents."

After portraying Ava Vitali on the NBC soap opera Days of Our Lives, Tamara Braun did not expect to appear on another daytime drama so soon. "I didn't want to do another soap, I was ready to do other things," Braun said in an interview with TV Guide. "But this was an opportunity I couldn't pass up." All My Children head writer Charles Pratt, Jr. was creating the role of Reese with Braun in mind when he offered her the role. The story he presented her convinced Braun to take the part. "[T]his is a story that's groundbreaking and over due," Braun said. "Two female soap characters having a baby together is unprecedented. I wanted to be part of something that could have a strong and positive impact and help give same-sex couples their rightful place in the world of daytime drama."

Since coming out as a lesbian, Bianca's romantic entanglements have consisted of sexual confusion, unrequited love, bad timing, and betrayal, including a short-lived romance with Lena Kundera (Olga Sosnovska) and an on-but-mostly-off-screen romantic relationship with Maggie Stone (Elizabeth Hendrickson). The pairing of Reese and Bianca finally allowed the character to be scripted into an on-screen committed relationship. The show had been criticized in the past for not giving Bianca a full-fledged on-screen romance. When asked by The Advocate if she felt Bianca's pairing with Reese, especially by bringing on a recognized name (Braun), would make a difference, Riegel replied, "I think there has to be a difference." She responded to the criticism about Bianca's lack of onscreen intimacy with past romantic partners. "I don't know if the criticism is entirely warranted," she asserted. "I know I was glad that the show's priority was in giving me good stories, and I thought that they did go further than anyone else had ever gone, so I always thought that they should be commended." Riegel added, however, that she knows the lack of onscreen intimacy between Bianca and the character's past romantic love interests left fans and herself unsatisfied. "She never really got to have the kind of relationship that she deserved," stated Riegel. Riegel said of Bianca's return this time, "you’ll see a couple of things you haven’t seen in a while".

The writers characterized Reese as "very warm and real and very expressive with her feelings". Her relationship with Bianca is also "very" affectionate. In the past whenever a kiss was written in for Bianca, significant soap opera press usually focused in on the moment as an event and another kiss usually took a year or longer to happen following the immediate shift of making her romance more physically reserved than heterosexual relationships on the show. The atmosphere was different for Reese and Bianca's relationship. Braun said in an interview with Shewired.com that she would not have been able to portray the character as well back then because Reese is so affectionate. "This character is warm and open and for me to play a woman who's in love, it's important for me to be able to express that," she said. "Perhaps that's one of the reasons they wanted me to play this." Braun and Riegel have portrayed their characters as in love and committed to each other. Reese was also scripted early on as the love of Bianca's life, negating Bianca's previous true love Maggie.

When asked how she felt Bianca and Maggie (BAM) fans would respond to the Reese and Bianca pairing, Riegel stated, "I'm pretty sure BAM fans will never be entirely satisfied until they have their two favorite girls together forever. But Lizzie's [Elizabeth Hendrickson] been so successful on Y&R [as Chloe Mitchell ], and is so obviously happy there, I am hoping they are able to embrace this pairing for the time being."

Wardrobe
All My Children's wardrobe director, David R. Zyla, collaborated with Braun in creating the wardrobe for the Reese Williams character. The two had worked together before when Braun portrayed Carly Corinthos on General Hospital. While bringing their ideas together, they tried to make sure they did not make Reese into too much of a cliché. "I like that she goes from really strong pants with a buttoned shirt and tie, which is so on trend but is also just great style, to wearing dresses," Braun said. Reese's wardrobe goes back and forth between the two different types of style which allows Braun and Zyla to play with her fashion. "She's an architect, so to me, I would think she has a real eye for lines," said Braun. "She appreciates form and beauty, and the look we came up with I would describe as 'streamlined with a flair'."

For Reese and Bianca's wedding, the dresses of the brides were chosen to complement each other by featuring "a long, lean, Grecian flowy feeling". As Bianca, Riegel was dressed in a Monique Lhuillier one shoulder sari-inspired dress with gold beading. Her shoes were gold Aldos. Reese's dress was designed to fit her style as an architect. Her dress was designed by Andrew Gn. It was "a fit to flair" which featured center beading applique and the shoes she wore were off white.

The characters' family, including their daughter Gabrielle, were "dressed in the wedding's color palette: deep red." Haley Evans, who portrays the flower girl and Bianca's daughter Miranda Montgomery, wore a red velvet Lucy Sykes dress. Bianca's mother, Erica's red dress was designed by Gustavo Cadile.

Storylines
Most of Bianca and Reese's relationship takes place offscreen in Paris, where they live with Bianca's daughter Miranda Montgomery. They decide they want to expand their family with another baby. Zach Slater comes to Paris and meets Reese. He agrees to be their sperm donor, and none of them tell Bianca's sister and Zach's wife, Kendall Hart Slater, for fear that she will say no. When Bianca is close to delivering her and Reese's baby, she returns to Pine Valley to tell Kendall. Before she can, a tornado hits and Kendall is injured. After an ambulance takes Kendall to the hospital, Bianca goes into labor and Zach helps her deliver their baby, a girl. Bianca and Zach later find out that Kendall is comatose. Bianca worries for Kendall but also fears how she would react to the news of Zach fathering her second child.

Reese comes to Pine Valley not long after the tornado with Miranda. She proposes marriage to Bianca, and Bianca accepts. Reese and Bianca decide to have a commitment ceremony in Pine Valley and to get married later in Paris, since gay marriage is not yet legal in Pennsylvania where Pine Valley is located. Those plans change as they plan to legally marry in Connecticut. They set their wedding date on Valentine's Day. Bianca's cousin, Greenlee Smythe, also plans to marry her former husband, Ryan Lavery, on that same day. The two couples arrange for a double wedding.

Bianca finds out that Reese was once engaged to a man and that she is Reese's first lesbian partner. She is hurt Reese did not tell her this. She also becomes increasingly insecure in their relationship as she sees her fiance getting closer with Zach. Bianca decides to test Reese's love for her. She tells Zach and Reese that she will be leaving town, but she secretly stays to spy on them. When Bianca witnesses Zach and Reese in an embrace as Zach gives Reese a kiss to the forehead, she believes Reese is cheating on her and flees. She ends up in a car accident soon afterward, but suffers no serious injuries. Zach and Reese rush to the hospital to see Bianca, and Bianca explains that she saw them embracing. She asks if they are in love. Zach and Reese say no. Despite this, Bianca is furious with Reese and does not want to talk with her. Reese frustratedly leaves the hospital and sends Bianca a note saying she plans to leave. After reading the note, Bianca hurries home to convince Reese to stay; she says that she loves her and knows that she is not romantically interested in Zach. Reese says that she would not have left, regardless.

Zach and Reese continue to bond, and Reese and Bianca continue planning their wedding. However, tragedy strikes when Kendall and Bianca's brother, Josh Madden, is killed by Zach after Josh has taken Reese and his family members hostage. Zach is determined to have Josh's heart be donated to Kendall, who needs a heart transplant to save her life. Erica, the siblings' mother, makes the painful decision to take Josh off life support and donate his heart to Kendall.

Kendall awakes from her coma days after her transplant. She is told of having been recently comatose, about her heart transplant, that Josh is dead and she has his heart, and of Bianca's engagement to Reese. Kendall is naturally overwhelmed by all the news, but handles it well. When she is told of Zach having fathered Bianca's second child, she seems numb to this news also. Her family had thought she would take this particular news badly, but Kendall seems okay with it. Greenlee (Kendall's best friend) and Erica, however, are the only ones to believe that Kendall is not okay with Zach being the father.

Kendall moves back home not long after being awake from her coma. Reese can sense that Kendall is uneasy with her and Bianca living there. She talks with Kendall alone, but it is apparent that Kendall is distant. After their conversation, Reese leaves the room and Zach comes in. Kendall tells Zach that she wants Reese and Bianca out of their home. Zach later obliges Kendall's wishes and sets Reese and Bianca up at his casino to stay. Reese and Bianca get into a fight while there, but later reconcile.

The day before Reese and Bianca's wedding, Kendall refuses to attend the ceremony. Zach tries to convince her to change her mind, saying that she is acting childish, but Kendall explains that he and Bianca betrayed her. Bianca receives word that Kendall will not be coming to her wedding and immediately rushes to Kendall's home to insist she attend. Kendall says that she will only come to the wedding as long as Bianca promises to leave for Paris soon afterward and take Reese and baby Gabrielle with her. Bianca reluctantly agrees. Later that night, Reese and Bianca have a wedding rehearsal. Kendall picks up a wine glass and makes a snarky toast to Reese and Bianca but particularly to Reese. Reese becomes upset; she grabs a bottle of wine, a glass, and walks off. Bianca follows her, but Reese wants to be alone. Zach later finds Reese and consoles her. He pulls her into a hug and then kisses her passionately; Reese kisses back. After a few moments, with Ryan having witnessed their kiss, unknown to them, they agree that the kiss never happened and that they already have people they are deeply in love with. Ryan later confronts Zach about the kiss, but Zach says it was nothing and nonchalantly walks away from Ryan.

On their wedding day, Reese and Bianca are blissfully happy before the ceremony. Bianca feels that maybe she should stay in Pine Valley. She later tells her mother this and says that she will stay, which Kendall overhears and subsequently decides not to attend the wedding after all.

Without Kendall, Reese and Bianca exchange wedding vows on February 12, 2009. Ryan, however, has called off his wedding with Greenlee after seeing Zach and Reese kiss. He tells Greenlee that he knows Zach and Reese have been sleeping together and that he does not want to be married next to them, but he promises her that he will give her the wedding of her dreams. Greenlee then tries to get in touch with Zach; she wants to know if he has really been having an affair with Reese. When Greenlee cannot get in touch with Zach, she drives off on her motorcycle in search of him. Also on the road are Zach and Kendall in a car arguing. Kendall ends up in the wrong lane and nearly hits Greenlee. Both try to swerve out of the other's way, leaving Greenlee to drive off the road. When Greenlee's body is not found, she is presumed dead. Reese, Bianca and others soon find out about Greenlee being missing. Ryan tells Bianca that Zach and Reese have been engaging in a sexual relationship with each other. Bianca goes to Reese to tell her that their relationship and marriage is over. She later sends Reese annulment papers, and returns to Paris with Miranda and Gabrielle.

On April 24, 2009, Bianca comes back to Pine Valley after having discussed with Zach the reasons she left. After later talking over her and Reese's relationship problems with Zach and Kendall, the couple reconcile and hope that they can work their relationship out. They return to Paris together with their children, and later remarry. In 2010, Bianca returns to Pine Valley for a family emergency, and soon wants to stay. After Reese decides that she is not coming back to Pine Valley, Bianca decides to end their marriage for good and now is single.

Reception and impact

First same-sex marriage and critical praise
Reese and Bianca are the first same-sex couple to become engaged for marriage on an American soap opera. On October 31, 2008, AfterEllen.com founder Sarah Warn stated, "Bianca (Eden Riegel) and Reese's (Tamara Braun) much-anticipated engagement finally took place on ABC's daytime drama All My Children today (the first lesbian marriage proposal on daytime TV), and for once, the AMC writers didn't disappoint." In addition, the couple has been allowed the type of physical intimacy not previously allowed between same-sex couples within the series. Their kiss following the marriage proposal was seen as a change in the show's attitude about portraying homosexual relationships. "...They had an actual kiss—a real one, not a peck on the cheek," stated Warn. She added that the kiss was significant due to romantic kisses, explicit or otherwise, between two women on All My Children or on any daytime drama being rare.

Reese and Bianca's wedding on February 13, 2009 marked a first-time event for a daytime drama; the couple exchange vows in the first legal same-sex marriage in American daytime history. (Within the show, the wedding took place on February 12, 2009, Valentine's Day.) Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) president Neil G. Giuliano released a statement in honor of the milestone:

In addition, All My Children was nominated for a GLAAD Award in January 2009. The wedding event was featured on CNN on February 16, 2009 following the continuation of the February 13, 2009 episode. The CNN report featured positive and negative thoughts about the wedding. The View discussed the wedding the following day, and relayed that angry letters had been sent to them about the wedding. Regardless of this, they applauded ABC for featuring the ceremony.

Criticism and controversy

Gabrielle Montgomery
In October 2008, with Bianca's return to the series during a series of tornadoes striking fictional town Pine Valley, Bianca was reported to be pregnant with her second child. Fans immediately began speculating on who the sperm donor was, which caught the attention of soap opera press, LGBT press, and other media outlets. TV Guide reported that "nobody knows [Bianca's] in town until her brother-in-law finds her under the rubble". SOAPnet.com stated, "The physical affects [sic] of the tornado are miniscule [sic] compared to the ripples Bianca's presence creates." Another soap opera website sensationalized the story by stating, "When Bianca returns to town this time, she will have a brand new 'someone special' in her life and a big surprise—Bianca is pregnant! And wait until everyone finds out who the 'father' is."

Fans, aware that Miranda Montgomery, Bianca's first child, was the result of rapist Michael Cambias, speculated Zach Slater as the child's biological father. Zach was Michael's older brother. Fans theorized that Bianca wanted a baby closely related to Miranda and asked Zach to father the child. If Bianca were already pregnant when she got to Pine Valley, then Zach could have "donated" last time Bianca was in town, even though the timing within the series did not correlate with this. Another theory concluded Bianca's former love Zarf/Zoe, a pre-op MTF transsexual, as the father; the argument arose over a website putting "father" in quotations. The "father" is really a "mother" trapped in a "father's" body, the theory entailed.

Zach was eventually confirmed as the father of the child through an article in Soap Opera Digest. Bianca's reasons for asking Zach to be the donor and doing so without informing her sister and Zach's wife, Kendall Hart Slater, infuriated viewers. They reasoned that neither Bianca nor Zach would do this to Kendall. AfterEllen.com writer/co-founder Sarah Warn stated of the explanation behind how Bianca conceived Gabrielle, "This storyline is all kinds of wrong—and not just because it makes me feel like I need a shower. Bianca and Kendall have a strong, very close relationship." Warn further expressed in the article that she could not fathom that Bianca would make "a move like this" without discussing it with Kendall first. Bianca's reason, however, was that she did not want to give Kendall a chance to say no.

Bianca wanting her children closely related was seen by viewers as unneeded, since the children would still be closely related through Bianca. Warn, in the forememtioned AfterEllen article, relayed, "...Bianca wanting a baby closely related to Miranda, whose father was a rapist and whose grandfather was a mass murderer. I’m no geneticist, but propagating that DNA seems risky at best." The choice for Zach as the father made Miranda and the new child not only half-siblings but cousins as well, which some found "icky".

Reese being introduced as Bianca's love interest was the first time an American soap opera would showcase same-sex partners having decided to create a child together. Riegel set up the Reese and Bianca storyline and what the couple's introduction entailed to the New York Daily News, "Zach is looking for Kendall [in the immediate aftermath of the tornado]. He is shocked to find Bianca. Nobody knew she was coming to Pine Valley. Zach discovers Kendall's lifeless body and resuscitates her. Paramedics come, but they only have room in the vehicle for one person. Zach convinces them to take the kids, as well. He and Bianca wait." This gave the series a chance to explain Bianca's return to the audience, as they saw Bianca, clearly pregnant, sit beside Zach. "Zach agreed to be Bianca's [sperm] donor, but she failed to tell him that the pregnancy took," explained Riegel. "The reason she was not forthcoming is that Kendall was not told. Bianca came halfway across the world from France in the Cambias private jet—the only jet that can fly into a tornado—and didn't even get to tell Kendall the truth."

The writers detailed Bianca and Zach talking only briefly before Bianca was seen going into labor. Zach delivers the baby, a girl. "If there's a giant storm, Bianca will give birth," joked Riegel, referring to how Bianca's first pregnancy (with Miranda) went. Riegel clarified that the baby "is actually" Reese and Bianca's, while Zach is the sperm donor. "After Zach delivers Bianca's baby," she said, "Reese tries to get to Pine Valley, but the roads are closed. She and Miranda fly to New York to surprise Bianca." Bianca's second child is soon named Gabrielle Montgomery, with Reese's blessing. Reese and Bianca are the first same-sex partners on an American soap opera to raise a family onscreen. Bianca had previously raised Miranda with character Maggie Stone, but the interaction takes place offscreen.

Romance, sexual confusion, and the wedding
Viewers of the series noted what they considered "the many failings" of the Reese and Bianca love story. LGBT viewers were especially vocal about their discontent regarding the storyline. There were complaints that Reese was not "sufficiently integrated" into the Pine Valley canvas for the audience to invest in her relationship with Bianca, as well as complaints about the budding relationship between Reese and Bianca and their sperm donor Zach. The couple's wedding was heavily criticized. While there were viewers who felt that the wedding ceremony was a "joyous and celebratory" landmark, others were left feeling that the show missed an opportunity to make the union memorable when it cut to other story points during the wedding as Reese and Bianca exchanged vows.

Following Reese and Bianca's arrival to the series as a couple in October 2008, the writers started building a Zach and Reese friendship. To viewers, the friendship soon became somewhat sexual in nature in what they described as Reese "giving off a sexual vibe" whenever around Zach. This perception was intensified once Reese was revealed by the series to have been engaged to a man just a couple of months before becoming romantically involved with Bianca. Viewers who speculated Reese as bisexual suggested that she may be after Zach. The writers played this angle with ambiguity; they added in hug and kiss "teasers" such as Zach giving Reese a lingering peck on the cheek/neck.

Viewers became frustrated and angered by what seemed to be the writers situating a man into a lesbian love story, as well as Reese seeming to share more screentime and secrets with Zach than Bianca, and a lack of Reese and Bianca truly knowing each other. The audience had experienced sexual confusion storylines before with other former love interests of Bianca's, most notably Maggie, and were hoping that this love story would be without such confusion. At one point, Reese confesses to Zach her ambiguous feelings for him and asks him if he feels the same way for her just as "the phone [rings]" and "[saves] the day".

When asked by The Advocate in a February 12, 2009 interview about viewer concern among the LGBT community that Reese would leave Bianca for Zach and likely has romantic feelings for him, All My Children executive producer Julie Hanan Carruthers responded, "First of all, it's not true. I think what's confused in Reese's head is she has misinterpreted a friendship. Zach is one of the [few] people who have not kicked her to the curb, so to speak, in Pine Valley." Carruthers said that Reese is a confused and insecure person. "She has never wavered in her commitment to Bianca," she said. "It's solid, Reese has just had a lot of emotional stuff hit. Her family is rejecting and judging her... in both her family and Bianca's." In specific response to viewers being upset at the appearance that Reese was considering leaving Bianca for Zach, Carruthers stated, "She is not considering it. That's the audience rewriting what's there. It's not being written that way at all. Reese has never wavered in what she wants." Carruthers acknowledged that Reese leaving Bianca for a man would upset viewers, but that "it's never been about that". "I don't know how to stress this more," she said. "Never has she played a moment of, 'I want Zach more than I want Bianca,' or 'I would leave Bianca for Zach.' He has literally just been a friend. Look, we tantalize in this genre. We do it whether we do it with heterosexual or homosexual couples. It’s what the genre is."

Despite Carruthers comments about the Zach and Reese relationship, Reese passionately engages in a kiss with Zach the same day of The Advocate February 12, 2009 interview, the night before Reese and Bianca's wedding. Carruthers explained, "The night before the wedding when Kendall, Zach’s wife, nails her with a backhanded toast, Reese gets a little drunk, and the person who consoles her is Zach." Carruthers described it as a moment where she kisses him and then realizes, "Oh, my god, what the heck am I doing? The person I love is Bianca, and the person you love is Kendall. What just happened?" That moment, said Carruthers, is what unravels Reese's world and "where someone tells somebody and it grows bigger than it ever was".

In addition to viewers being upset by Reese's actions, AfterEllen.com was frustrated by Reese's ambiguous involvement with Zach and stated, "ABC touting the wedding as a 'historic daytime event' just ticks [them] off". Carruthers said, "[Reese] may not be the poster child to represent the lesbian women in the world. But at the same time, she is very responsible, as are the writers portraying a woman dealing with a crisis and trying to ground herself in her identity." She relayed that though Reese and Bianca would break up due to the Zach and Reese kiss, Bianca would return in the spring to give resolution to the story. "The journey Reese has to take to earn Bianca’s trust again is significant," said Carruthers.

On February 16, 2009, in response to the February 12, 2009 interview by The Advocate, television program Soap's Up from Canada's A-Channel criticized Carruthers for insulting the audience's intelligence by saying that the audience had been rewriting the storyline. The program stated that while "it is good" for All My Children to feature a same-sex wedding, they have not been impressed by the love story and that a show's producer should have more control over the way a character behaves.

On February 27, 2009, Warn, who had previously praised the series in her AfterEllen October 31, 2008 column for the portrayal of the couple's onscreen physical affection, criticized the structure and overall writing of the romance. "...many queer and straight viewers began heading for the door when it became clear that the kisses and the wedding plans were just new ways to dress up the same old depressing and boring lesbian storylines about sperm donors, custody battles, and sexually confused lesbians," she said. "From an entertainment perspective, some of the conflict between Reese and Bianca at the end was interesting, but overall, their storyline became boring and predictable pretty quickly."

Warn said that the February 12, 2009 statements by Carruthers regarding Reese insulted the audience's intelligence. The statements were not supported by what the audience saw, she said. "There is validity to the argument Carruthers is making—that there simply aren't enough romantic-pairing options for long-running lesbian characters unless you're willing to change the general makeup of the established cast of characters," said Warn. "This logic is frequently used by TV writers and showrunners to justify minimal lesbian visibility, bad lesbian storylines, and the growing trend towards adding bisexual characters to their shows instead of lesbians." Warn said that while this may be an understandable decision for an individual show, when it is happening on various shows, the viewer is "left with a television landscape populated by lesbians who sleep with men, or no lesbians at all, only bisexual characters (who also primarily sleep with men)" and that All My Children "fed right into" this with the Reese and Bianca storyline.

On March 23, 2009, The Advocate interviewed Braun about her portrayal of Reese and the Reese and Bianca storyline. "From my point of view, Reese is not in love with Zach and she never has been," said Braun. "As far as the kiss, any doubt she may have had about her relationship with Bianca dissolved immediately after it happened. It was a moment of needing a connection. It was not about being in love with Zach. She was drunk, upset, and it was unfortunate. It was a terrible mistake. As far as I am concerned, Reese has always been in love with Bianca."

Braun said Reese's feelings toward Zach can be summed up as a "dear, dear friendship and connection on an intimate but not sexual level". She said that Reese has never had a clear point of view. "One minute I think I am playing a storyline that is going one way, and then there is a detour. So I have to make it clear in my head. Yes, it’s not fun playing the outsider who has nobody, and no strong leg to stand on," said Braun. "Reese has been under a microscope since she came to town and doesn't have any family to support her. There is no one around who knows the essence of who she really is."

Braun clarified that, in some ways, this was "not the story" [she] came on to play but that it was in other ways. "We were getting married, which is why I wanted to do the role," she said. "I thought that we were going to show what it’s like to be a same-sex couple in a loving, committed relationship dealing with what life throws at them and the outside world and how they are treated. There are a lot of story points and ideas I thought we were going to hit upon, but they decided to take it another route."

In response to the LGBT community being left "very disgruntled" with the Reese and Bianca storyline, Braun said, "I am sorry they were not happy, because one of my main reasons for taking this role was to be able to give a positive voice to same-sex couples." Braun agreed that "the issues" went "off-point" and that she understood why it was difficult for viewers to root for the Reese and Bianca couple. She thanked the viewers who supported the pairing despite the way the romance was told. "I was shocked by [the positive feedback] because I know it was not the story they wanted," she said, "but they were so happy to be represented on TV and on a soap."

"Blame" and fan retaliation
On April 13, 2009, Charles Pratt, Jr., head writer of the series, was interviewed by TV Guide about the Reese and Bianca relationship. After saying he felt he had longer to tell the love story and that it could have been better told if not for Riegel temporarily departing as Bianca, Pratt was viewed by fans and critics as blaming Riegel for the failure of the storyline. "I was led to believe we had her for longer than we really did—suddenly I got word that Eden is leaving now," stated Pratt. "We got to play everything we wanted to with Bianca and Reese but not in the time we'd hoped for—in my mind, it was a two-year story. I guess I could have rushed to the wedding earlier so that they’d have had more time together as a married couple and then had them break up, but I think the fans would have been even more unsatisfied with that."

Despite earlier comments by Carruthers that "Reese never wavered in her commitment to Bianca" and was not bisexual, Pratt admitted that they were considering on "turning" Reese bisexual. "...if Tamara decided to stay, keeping her on the show as an angry lesbian—with no other lesbian characters on the canvas—would be kind of insane," said Pratt. "So we thought about making Reese bisexual—kind of an Anne Heche who bounces back and forth—and maybe make her an opportunistic black widow, a real bad girl. And Tamara would have been really great at that. But, ultimately, we decided to stick with the message."

Pratt's comments to TV Guide about Riegel and the storyline angered viewers and critics, who felt Pratt was being dishonest about not knowing how long Riegel was signed on for and did not admit to what they consider the true flaws of the love story. They reasoned that it was known from the beginning, to even fans of the series, that Riegel had only signed on for a four-month contract to portray the Reese and Bianca storyline and that her four-month contract should not mean that the story could not have been better written. In early 2009, Riegel briefly exited the show to focus her attention on pilot season. She had said that if the story was well written, she would extend her contract. She ultimately declined extending, but agreed to return to "tie up" the Reese and Bianca storyline for a spring 2009 "happy" ending.

Fans "retaliated" against Pratt's comments about Riegel and the storyline. Two fans created an animated online series called Pratt Falls to "skewer" the show's executives about the love story. In Season 1, Episode 1 of the parody, viewed on YouTube, a fictional Carruthers has to tell Pratt that there are "fans" who become emotionally invested in the show. The fictional Pratt asks, "Who are Bianca and Reese?" and "We have lesbians on our show?" The series, described as tongue-in-cheek, concludes its first episode with the animated Pratt announcing that he has devised a plan to blame the failed storyline on Riegel as he urges Carruthers to call TV Guide to arrange an interview.

See also
Bianca Montgomery and Maggie Stone
Lena Kundera and Bianca Montgomery
List of supercouples

References

External links
Bianca Montgomery @ Soapcentral.com
Reese Williams @ Soapcentral.com

All My Children characters
Fictional lesbians
Soap opera supercouples
Fictional LGBT characters in television
Female characters in television
Fictional LGBT couples
Fictional married couples
Fictional characters in a same-sex marriage


is a 1933 Japanese silent drama film directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. It is based on the story of the same name by Kyōka Izumi.

Plot
Tomo, called "Shiraito", is a "mizugei" (water arts presented by a performer) artist touring with a circus troupe based in Kanazawa. After an encounter with coachman Kinya, she falls in love with him and decides to finance his law studies, which he can't afford himself. Kinya takes up his studies in Tokyo, regularly receiving money with Shiraito's letters, who hopes that some day they will be reunited.

Two years later, the troupe has gone broke after the Winter season and the present audience being too small to pay for their expenses. As the troupe's bookkeeper, Shiraito gives the last money to young couple Nadeshiko and Shinzō to help them elope from the schemings of knife thrower Minami, who sold Nadeshiko to loan shark Iwabuchi. Shiraito goes to Iwabuchi herself and manages to borrow 300 yen from him in return for sexual services. On her way back, she is robbed by a group of men. As one of the men left behind a knife used by Minami in his act, she realises that the robbery was a set-up by Minami and Iwabuchi. She returns to Iwabuchi to confront him and, when he tries to rape her, stabs him to death. Seizing the money which Minami's men had taken from her, she escapes.

Shiraito flees to Tokyo to see Kinya once again, but he is not at home when she shows up at his address. When she is finally arrested and taken to court for murder in Kanazawa, the prosecutor sent from Tokyo is none other than Kinya. After he learns of the circumstances of the crime and that Shiraito had wanted the money for him, he offers to resign and stand in trial for her. Yet Shiraito insists that he does his duty, as his becoming a respected lawyer was all she had lived for in the past years. After her hearing in court, she commits suicide by biting off her tongue, and Kinya shoots himself with a pistol.

Cast
 Irie Takako as Tomo Mizushima/Taki no shiraito
 Tokihiko Okada as Kinya Murakoshi
 Suzuko Taki as Nadeshiko
 Ichirō Sugai as Gozo Iwabuchi
 Kōju Murata as Minami
 Mimyo Bontarō as Shinzō
 Kumeko Urabe as Ogin
 Kōji Ōizumi as Gonji
 Minoru Ōhara as Tanjirō
 Nobuo Kosaka as Takamura
 Etsuji Oki as Old detective
 Kōji Kawase

Background
The Water Magician was the second film adaptation (after 1915) of Kyōka Izumi's story, and one in a series of dramatisations of his work by director Mizoguchi. It was produced by Takako Irie's own production company, Irie Production, the first female star film production company. It premiered in Japan on 1 June 1933.

Legacy
In his review for the online edition of Sight and Sound magazine, film scholar Alexander Jacoby called The Water Magician an "extraordinary" film, which "already reveals the director's skill with the camera" and benefits from actress Irie Takako's "magnetic performance".

The Water Magician is still occasionally being shown with live benshi narration by Midori Sawato, Ichirō Kataoka, Komura Tomoko, and others.

Notes

References

External links

1933 films
Japanese silent films
Japanese black-and-white films
Films directed by Kenji Mizoguchi
Japanese drama films
1933 drama films
Silent drama films
Films based on short fiction


Geminio Ognio (13 December 1917 – 28 October 1990) was an Italian water polo player who competed in the 1948 Summer Olympics and in the 1952 Summer Olympics.

He was born in Recco and died in Rome.

In 1948 he was part of the Italian team which won the gold medal. He played six matches and scored four goals.

Four years later he was a member of the Italian team which won the bronze medal in the Olympic tournament. He played four matches.

See also
 Italy men's Olympic water polo team records and statistics
 List of Olympic champions in men's water polo
 List of Olympic medalists in water polo (men)

External links

1917 births
1990 deaths
Italian male water polo players
Water polo players at the 1948 Summer Olympics
Water polo players at the 1952 Summer Olympics
Olympic gold medalists for Italy in water polo
Olympic bronze medalists for Italy in water polo
Medalists at the 1952 Summer Olympics
Medalists at the 1948 Summer Olympics
Water polo players of Marina Militare
Sportspeople from the Province of Genoa
20th-century Italian people


The women's 60 kg powerlifting event at the 2008 Summer Paralympics was contested on 13 September at the Beihang University Gymnasium in Beijing, China. This event was the fifth-heaviest of the women's powerlifting weight classes, limiting competitors to a maximum of  of body mass.

As with all Paralympic powerlifting events, lifters competed in the bench press. Each athlete was allowed three attempts to bench press as much weight as possible. Athletes attempting to break a record were allowed a fourth attempt. For the attempt to be valid, the competitor must have lowered the weighted bar to her chest, held it motionless for a moment, then pressed the bar upwards until her arms were fully extended. If the competitor failed to meet these requirements or any other rule infraction was committed, the attempt was declared invalid by a team of three referees and the result struck from the record.

Results

Key: WR=World record

References

Women's 060 kg
Para


James P. Lucier (born 1934 or 1935) is an author and a former staff member of the United States Senate.

Early life and education
Lucier has a bachelor's degree in radio and television journalism from the University of Detroit, where he co-founded the educational station WDET, and a doctoral degree in English literature from the University of Michigan.

Career
After completing his doctorate, Lucier was associate editor of the Richmond News Leader, in Virginia; he caused controversy by writing critically of President Kennedy shortly after his assassination. Also in 1963 he wrote for American Opinion, the magazine of the right-wing John Birch Society, accusing African leaders of embracing socialism as "abundance without necessitating the earning of it".

Lucier was a Senate staff member for 25 years. After working for South Carolina Southern Democrat and later Republican Senator Strom Thurmond, he joined the staff of North Carolina Republican Senator Jesse Helms, initially as coordinator of domestic legislative policy, then as chief legislative aide for foreign affairs. He became minority staff director for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when Helms became its ranking minority member in February 1987. A leader of the hard-line faction among Republican staffers, he was relieved of his position in a general shake-up by Helms in 1992, being replaced by James "Bud" Nance, a retired admiral and friend of Helms'.

In 1972, Lucier established Capitol Information Services, for which he worked part-time at the beginning of his employment with Helms; in 1986 the Charlotte Observer raised questions about the ethics of a Senate aide running such a business. While working for Helms, he and another aide to Helms, John Carbaugh, were criticized for profiting from private foundations they had set up with Helms, and were accused of meddling in foreign policy on Helms' behalf, particularly when both attended and attempted to influence the Lancaster House talks between Britain and Rhodesia.

He subsequently became senior editor of the news weekly Insight, and has also served as chairman of the advisory commission for the Thomas Balch Library and a member of the board of the James Monroe Museum and Senior Fellow of the Monroe Foundation.

In 2006 he was appointed head of the Program on the Middle East and the Iran Information Center at the Institute on Religion and Public Policy.

Publications
In 2001 he published The Political Writings of James Monroe, one of a series on presidential writings commissioned by the publisher. For his work on the book, he was appointed one of six scholars in the Congressional Reading Room at the Library of Congress.

References

1930s births
Living people
American male writers
University of Detroit Mercy alumni
Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies alumni


Carlo Peretti (March 5, 1930 – June 1, 2018) was an Italian water polo player who competed in the 1952 Summer Olympics. He was born in Florence. In 1952 he was part of the Italian team which won the bronze medal in the Olympic tournament. He played five matches.

See also
 List of Olympic medalists in water polo (men)

References
Carlo Peretti's obituary

External links

1930 births
2018 deaths
Sportspeople from Florence
Italian male water polo players
Water polo players at the 1952 Summer Olympics
Olympic bronze medalists for Italy in water polo
Medalists at the 1952 Summer Olympics


Vincenzo "Enzo" Polito (born 29 October 1926) is an Italian water polo player who competed in the 1952 Summer Olympics. He was born in Naples. In 1952 he was part of the Italian team which won the bronze medal in the Olympic tournament. He played six matches.

See also
 List of Olympic medalists in water polo (men)

External links

1926 births
Possibly living people
Italian male water polo players
Water polo players at the 1952 Summer Olympics
Olympic bronze medalists for Italy in water polo
Medalists at the 1952 Summer Olympics
Water polo players from Naples


The Believers is a 2008 novel by Zoë Heller. It depicts the family of a controversial lawyer in New York after a stroke renders him comatose. Each member of the Litvinoff family must confront the hypocrisies underlying their patriarch's political profile, and make difficult choices about their own values and ideological commitments.

The motto of the book—"The challenge of modernity is to live without illusions and without becoming disillusioned"—is a quotation from Antonio Gramsci. It has been noted that The Believers, Heller's third novel, bears no resemblance to her previous book, the successful Notes on a Scandal (2003).

Plot summary
At a party in 1962, 18-year-old typist Audrey Howard meets Joel Litvinoff, an American lawyer involved with the civil rights movement. Although Joel is fourteen years older, Audrey is impressed when Joel puts her pompous date in his place. In turn, Joel is intrigued by Audrey's aloofness. Joel later finds Audrey's number in a telephone book and insists on accompanying Audrey to visit her dreary, rural parents the next day. Audrey and Joel spend the night together, and Joel half-seriously suggests that Audrey marry him and follow him to the United States. Bored with her unstimulating life in Britain, Audrey takes him up on his offer.

Forty years later, Joel and Audrey live together in Greenwich Village. Joel is now famous, successful, and controversial for his radical legal activism. Audrey has become a fiery, antagonistic woman who finds fault in all things and defends her husband's causes with zealous conviction. Joel and Audrey have three adult children living elsewhere in New York City. Lenny, the eldest, was adopted at age seven as part of Joel's belief in collective, "tribal" child-rearing. Lenny's parents were eco-terrorists, with their last campaign killing his biological father and landing his biological mother in jail. Since then, Joel has grown frustrated with Lenny's addiction issues and repeated petty crimes, while Audrey dotes on Lenny and constantly excuses his delinquency. Karla, the middle child, is a hospital social worker. Karla struggles with low self-esteem after years of demeaning treatment from her family about her weight and intelligence. Karla is unhappily married to Mike, a union organizer, who desperately wants children. Rosa, the youngest, chaperones an after-school program for underprivileged girls. Once a firm socialist, Rosa tried to join the socialist revolution in Cuba but returned disillusioned after four years of witnessing Fidel Castro's oppression. However, by the time she is introduced, Rosa has had a positive experience in a synagogue and discovered an interest in Orthodox Judaism.

While defending an Arab American man against terrorism charges in the wake of the September 11 attacks, Joel has a stroke and enters a coma. At the hospital, Audrey lashes out at the doctors, causing a fight with Rosa that ends with Audrey kicking Rosa from the hospital. Audrey's long-suffering confidant, Jean, tries to help distract her by taking her to activist social functions, but Audrey is offended at the activists' lack of concern for Joel and preoccupation with public figures. Audrey receives a letter from a woman named Berenice Mason, who claims to be Joel's lover and the mother of his illegitimate child. Audrey dismisses the claim.

Rosa spends a weekend with an Orthodox rabbi's family in Monsey. Rosa is at first put off by the family's insularity, but is intrigued by the rabbi's willingness to discuss his faith rationally with her. Later, Rosa witnesses a girl's mother strike her child during a parent-teacher conference, and confides in her fellow chaperone Raphael that she believes they cannot help the girls escape their lower-class neighbourhoods.

Karla attempts to help her melancholic neighbour, Ms. Mee, write a letter against Ms. Mee's employer, who is taking all her tips. At work, Karla is saved from an aggressive patient by Khaled, the man who runs the newspaper stand outside the hospital. Karla is surprised by Khaled's genuine kindness, enjoyment of simple pleasures, and lack of concern for politics and appearances - so unlike her parents.

Berenice confronts Audrey at her home, but Audrey sends her away in anger. After Joel's former staff and Jean confront her with proof that Berenice is telling the truth, she agrees to meet with Berenice. Jean warns her to wait until she is ready, but Audrey presses ahead, and the meeting goes poorly. Andrey angrily refuses Berenice's request for their children to have a relationship. Halfway through her tirade, she realizes everyone in the room is afraid of her and loses her energy. She agrees to pay Joel's child support in his stead on the condition that Berenice immediately leave and avoid further contact with her or her three children. Afterwards, Jean watches Audrey cry for the first time.

The Litvinoff family gathers for Audrey's birthday. Mike argues with Audrey over his union's decision to support a Republican governor, and both of them mock Rosa for entertaining Orthodox faith. Lenny's girlfriend Tanya obliviously tries to join the conversation as Audrey mocks her too. Lenny goes to the bathroom, but stays inside so long that Rosa becomes concerned. The family knocks down the bathroom door to find him in a drug-induced stupor. Audrey and Tanya treat the overdose as an excusable mistake, horrifying Rosa and causing her to leave.

Rosa attends lessons on religion at her local Jewish community centre. The experience makes her feel conflicted. She instinctively dislikes the blind obedience of the Orthodox women and their insistence that her skepticism towards misogynistic religious rules is something to be overcome, but also wonders if her skepticism is human weakness holding her back from supernatural truth. Rosa also realizes that her international, upper-class upbringing has alienated her from the sensibilities and concerns of average suburban Americans, like her roommate. Rosa feels guilty for looking down on "normal" girls, at least until she finds her roommate cheating on her fiance with Lenny. Back at work, Rosa vetoes a dance routine at the after-school program for being too explicit, and Raphael and the girls make fun of her prudishness and suggest it is because she is Jewish.

Audrey takes Lenny to visit his biological mother, Susan, in prison. She is jealous of Lenny's natural love for Susan, especially since she finds Susan unrefined. Audrey despairs that Lenny does not return her love so freely. Jean encourages Audrey to cut Lenny off unless he takes serious action to deal with his addiction issues. Jean even suggests that she take Lenny with her to work on a farm by her vacation home in another state. Audrey refuses at first, but eventually agrees with Jean. Lenny at first reacts angrily, but when Audrey stands her ground, he gives in.

Mike decides that he and Karla have tried for children naturally long enough, and moves to adopt. During the pre-adoption courses, Karla is embarrassed at her inability to express sincere desire for children, whereas Mike's answers flow readily. Meanwhile, she continues to spend time with Khaled at work, and their relationship evolves into a sexual affair.  Karla questions how Khaled can care nothing for politics despite the systemic injustices against Arabs in America and the important accomplishments of past activists. Khaled replies that America is better than the Middle East and that politics are boring and pointless. Karla decides what they are doing is wrong and ends the affair.

Audrey visits Joel with Karla and Rosa. She is approached by Joel's doctors, who inform her that now would be the appropriate time to turn off Joel's life-sustaining equipment. Audrey is furious and does not give her consent, accusing the doctors of opportunism and malpractice. At the same time she realizes her hypocrisy, as she and Joel had mutually agreed to pull the plug if one of them became unable care for themselves and scorned the pro-life lobby. Berenice accidentally visits at the same time and Audrey causes a scene.

Rosa attends excursions to various Jewish sites with her classmates, but when a classmate suggests that Rosa's hesitations are rooted in being uncomfortable with her womanhood, Rosa becomes angry and disavows the religion lessons. She sets up a one-night stand with a college acquaintance, Chris, to prove to herself that she is done with Orthodox rules. Afterwards, she decides that she still feels a connection to Orthodox Judaism, and decides to continue visiting Monsey.

When the after-school program girls perform the dance she vetoed at a public event, Rosa leaves without congratulating them. When Raphael confronts her, she repeats that their work is futile and she cannot stand to watch the girls meet their class destiny. Raphael angrily tells her that the girls deserve better than someone who sees them as lost causes, and Rosa realizes that he is correct and takes steps to quit.

When Audrey visits Lenny in the countryside, he is doing well. He has positive relationships with his Alcoholic Anonymous sponsor, works hard on the farm, and has cut ties with Tanya and his addict friends in New York City. Audrey reacts skeptically and sourly, but Jean bluntly tells her that Audrey must be afraid Lenny will leave her if he does not have to depend on her. Audrey confides in Jean that she believes Joel never loved her. Audrey acknowledges out loud for the first time that she accepted continuous infidelity from Joel, but she can tell Joel saw Berenice as more than a sexual fling, and that he loved Berenice in a way that he had never loved her.

Rosa and Karla decide to visit Berenice. Berenice tells the girls that Joel got her the apartment illegally through connections. She shows them photographs of her genitals and books on the occult, and asks them to have a relationship with their half-sibling even if it has to be kept secret from Audrey. Rosa expresses anger to Karla after they leave, upset that Berenice would ask them to conspire against their mother. Rosa also condemns their father for giving Berenice love that was meant for them, and for compromising his principles for a kooky artist. Karla, however, personally understands that Joel would have had less energy to love his children had he limited himself to an unsatisfying marriage. She reflects on the perpetual unhappiness of her neighbour Ms. Mee, and wonders if she and Mike will also come to define their lives by mundane unhappiness.

Rosa takes the after-school program girls on one last excursion to a rally held by [Susan Sarandon] against the Iraq War. Audrey and Jean show up to assist her.  While Jean fetches candies and souvenirs for the girls, Rosa speaks with her mother about Judaism. She tells Audrey that she now supports the right of the Israeli state to defend itself, to Audrey's disgust. Rosa asks Audrey what she would do if the truth struck her undeniably and inexplicably, even if she could not make sense of it and it contradicted everything she was raised to believe. Audrey bitterly replies that this would never happen, and if it did she would reject it.

Eventually, Joel contracts an infection. The doctors tell the family that they need to come urgently. Mike is upset because the infection came on the same day as the election campaign he had run for his union, and he wanted to see the results. Karla is disturbed that Mike seems to view Joel's passing as both an irritation and an exciting source of drama. At the hospital, Audrey, Lenny, Karla, Mike, Rosa, and Joel's mother visit him for the last time. Joel's mother gives him a brief and definitive goodbye, then asks to leave. Mike focuses on the election results until his candidate is declared the winner, then shows a tabloid article to Audrey about rumors regarding an affair by Joel. Karla sternly asks her husband to leave, to his displeasure. Rosa reflects on all the times she chastised her father for compromising his values for small comforts, and regrets that she wasted time trying to call out his hypocrisy instead of enjoying his company. In the hallway, Audrey surprises Karla by telling her that she does not have to stay with Mike if she is unhappy. Joel dies while they are speaking. The children silently join Audrey as she weeps over Joel's corpse, then leave one by one to let Audrey be with their father.

Joel's funeral is held in a cathedral almost immediately after his death. Audrey's sister and brother-in-law accompany Jean to the ceremony. They are struck by the wide variety of mourners in the crowd. Audrey delivers a eulogy from the pulpit. She speaks of Joel as a principled defender of civil rights and social progress. To everyone's surprise, she unexpectedly calls Berenice to join her from among the crowd of mourners, along with Berenice's son Jamil. Audrey declares that Berenice and Jamil are a testament to Joel's commitment to collective tribal child-rearing and expanded families, and that she sees them as family too. She also announces a new scholarship for progressive causes in Joel's name. After the funeral, Jean approaches Audrey in shock, but Audrey rebuffs her questions. Jean realizes that Audrey gone back to coldly hiding her feelings to safeguard Joel's legacy as a man of principle.

Lenny attends the funeral reception with Tanya, apparently having relapsed. Rosa tells her mother of her plans to go to Jerusalem, and to study the Torah at a yeshiva. Mike looks for Karla, but cannot find her at the reception. Across town, Karla boards a subway and texts Khaled to let him know she will join him soon.

Reviews
The Believers was published to almost unanimously positive reviews. It has been called a "cruelly clever new novel", "an observant and unsentimental family drama that pits rationalism against faith", "at heart an American novel: a larger, more considered, layered and utterly assured study of a family driven by political passion whose personal lives refuse to comply with prescribed ideology". Critics agree that it defies comparison with Notes on a Scandal and that it is rich in character development.

Reviewers and critics have suggested that Heller has a "penchant for unlikeable characters" which may be seen as interesting or annoying. Heller has retorted by stating that

Lionel Shriver notes that the character of Joel Litvinoff may be modelled on William Kunstler.

References

External links
Skirmishes in the Family Garden Cathleen Schine review from The New York Review of Books

Family saga novels
2008 British novels
Fiction set in 2002
Novels set in New York City
Penguin Books books


Renato Traiola (19 December 1924 – 18 January 1988) was an Italian water polo player who competed in the 1952 Summer Olympics. He was born in Naples. In 1952 he was part of the Italian team which won the bronze medal in the Olympic tournament. He played one match as goalkeeper.

See also
 Italy men's Olympic water polo team records and statistics
 List of Olympic medalists in water polo (men)
 List of men's Olympic water polo tournament goalkeepers

External links

1924 births
1988 deaths
Italian male water polo players
Water polo goalkeepers
Water polo players at the 1952 Summer Olympics
Olympic bronze medalists for Italy in water polo
Medalists at the 1952 Summer Olympics
Water polo players from Naples


Louis Cardwell (20 August 1912 – 23 April 1986) was an English professional footballer. A defender, he spent six years at Blackpool in the 1930s, making over 100 the Football League appearances for the club, and helping them to win promotion out of the Second Division in 1936–37. He later played for Manchester City, Netherfield, and Crewe Alexandra.

Career

Blackpool
After starting his career with South Shore and Imperial Hydro, Cardwell made his debut for Blackpool on 17 January 1931, in a 5–1 defeat at Middlesbrough. It was his only league appearance of the 1930–31 season; he did, however, appear in the club's two FA Cup ties. He missed the entire 1931–32 campaign due to injury, and only returned with ten games of the following 1932–33 season remaining, appearing in six of them. Sandy MacFarlane succeeded Harry Evans as Blackpool manager prior to the 1933–34 season, and the Scot only gave one start to Cardwell, in a 3–0 Boxing Day defeat at Hull City. The following season, however, he selected him in 29 of the club's 42 league games.

Cardwell served under his third Blackpool manager (this time Joe Smith) for the 1935–36 term, and he went on to be ever-present for the season. He also scored five goals. The first three came in consecutive games: against Bradford City on 7 March, Plymouth Argyle a week later, and then against Barnsley on 21 March. The remaining two were both from the penalty spot: against Hull City on 11 April, and against Newcastle United on 22 April, in the penultimate game of the league campaign.

Cardwell was also ever-present the following season, 1936–37, as Blackpool were promoted to the First Division as runners-up of the Second Division. In 1937–38, Cardwell started in eleven of the first twelve league games (and scored in one of them) before being sold to Manchester City. His final game for the "Seasiders" came on 16 October, a 2–0 defeat to Chelsea at Bloomfield Road.

Manchester City and beyond
Cardwell played 39 League games for Manchester City. The "Citizens" were relegated out of the top-flight in 1937–38, and finished fifth in the Second Division in 1938–39 – they were five points behind promoted Sheffield United.

He joined Port Vale as a wartime guest in January 1945, making his debut in a 5–0 defeat at Wrexham on 20 January. He scored one goal in seven further games before departing in March 1945. He also guested for Blackpool, Fulham, Millwall, Portsmouth and West Ham United.

Cardwell moved on loan to Netherfield, and then left Maine Road permanently on a transfer to Crewe Alexandra in 1947. The "Railwaymen" finished tenth and 12th in the Third Division North in 1947–48 and 1948–49 under the stewardship of Frank Hill and Arthur Turner. He played 25 league games during his two seasons at Gresty Road.

Career statistics
Source:

Honours
Blackpool
Football League Second Division second-place promotion: 1936–37

References

1912 births
1986 deaths
Footballers from Blackpool
English men's footballers
Men's association football defenders
Blackpool F.C. players
Manchester City F.C. players
Port Vale F.C. wartime guest players
Blackpool F.C. wartime guest players
Fulham F.C. wartime guest players
Millwall F.C. wartime guest players
Portsmouth F.C. wartime guest players
West Ham United F.C. wartime guest players
Kendal Town F.C. players
Crewe Alexandra F.C. players
English Football League players


The women's 67.5 kg powerlifting event at the 2008 Summer Paralympics was contested on 13 September at the Beihang University Gymnasium in Beijing, China. This event was the fourth-heaviest of the women's powerlifting weight classes, limiting competitors to a maximum of  of body mass.

As with all Paralympic powerlifting events, lifters competed in the bench press. Each athlete was allowed three attempts to bench press as much weight as possible. Athletes attempting to break a record were allowed a fourth attempt. For the attempt to be valid, the competitor must have lowered the weighted bar to her chest, held it motionless for a moment, then pressed the bar upwards until her arms were fully extended. If the competitor failed to meet these requirements or any other rule infraction was committed, the attempt was declared invalid by a team of three referees and the result struck from the record.

Results

Key: WR=World record; NMR=No marks recorded

References

Women's 067.5 kg
Para


Davka Corporation is a software company specializing in applications related to Jewish history, customs and traditions and the Hebrew language. Founded in 1982, Davka is notable as the publisher of several early games for the Apple II series of computers including The Lion's Share (1983 video game) by Robert Aaron and The Philistine Ploy by Robert Aaron and Alan Rosenbaum.  The company has published numerous software titles for the PC, Macintosh and Palm platforms including the ubiquitous Davkawriter Hebrew/English Word processor.

Name
The name Davka comes from a Hebrew word that is difficult to translate.  At times the intent is to say "exactly so"; often, the word "specifically" can be used as a synonym, but it has many other translations.

About
In the late 1990s and somewhat beyond, its major competitor was
Jerusalem-based Torah Educational Software.

Davkawriter
DavkaWriter is a Hebrew-English word processing program for Windows. (A Mac version is available as well.)

Its built-in tools include a dictionary, a thesaurus, and a translating tool. It comes with the complete Hebrew texts of the Bible and many other volumes of Jewish literature. Its spellchecker recognizes both English and Hebrew words.

DavkaWriter Platinum was reviewed in 2002, 2004 and 2006 issues of The Jewish Press, referring to  updated versions.

CD-ROM - Soncino Classics Collection
Davka also released a CD-ROM named Soncino Classics Collection that contains:
 Hebrew and English of Tanach
 Aramaic and English of the Soncino Talmud
 Soncino Midrash Rabbah
 Soncino Zohar

In addition to The New York Times ' 9 paragraph 1998 review, a full page was devoted in The Jewish Press to this CD in 2003.

See also
 Torah Educational Software
 Jewish Nonviolent video games

References

External links

 DavkaWriter website
 "Jewish software runs the gamut, from educational games to printing programs to advanced research tools for the scholar" : a JTA comparative overview

Companies based in Chicago
Hebrew language
Jewish media
Jewish printing and publishing
Judaism software
Privately held companies based in Illinois
Video game companies of the United States
Windows word processors


Pierre-Michel Nguimbi (born 1957) is a Congolese politician who served in the government of Congo-Brazzaville as Minister of Technical and Vocational Education from 2002 to 2009. Previously, he briefly served as Minister of Scientific and Technological Development in 1992, and he was Ambassador to Israel and Ambassador to France during the mid-1990s. After leaving the government, he was Ambassador to Senegal from 2012 to 2017.

Political career
Nguimbi was born at Dolisie in 1957. Under President Pascal Lissouba, he was Minister of Scientific and Technological Development and  Technical and Vocational Education from September 1992 to December 1992 as part of the short-lived government of Prime Minister Stéphane Maurice Bongho-Nouarra. After that government lost its parliamentary majority and was replaced, Nguimbi served as President Lissouba's Science and Technology Adviser from 1993 to 1994. He was subsequently posted as Congo's Ambassador to Israel from 1994 to 1995 and as Ambassador to France from 1995 to 1997.

Presented as the undisputed leader of the south of Congo, he does not hide his ambitions to replace one day his Master in politics Denis Sassou Nguesso at the head of the country

In 2002, when the Club 2002 was formed, Nguimbi became a member of its National Executive Bureau. After the May–June 2002 parliamentary election, Nguimbi was appointed as Minister of Technical and Vocational Education on 18 August 2002. He succeeded André Okombi Salissa at the head of that ministry on 23 August 2002. Nguimbi eventually left the Club 2002 and joined the Congolese Labour Party (PCT).

In the June–August 2007 parliamentary election, Nguimbi was elected to the National Assembly as the PCT candidate in the first constituency of Dolisie. He was retained as Minister of Technical and Vocational Education in the government appointed on 30 December 2007.

After nine years as Minister of Technical and Vocational Education, Nguimbi was dismissed from the government on 15 September 2009. He subsequently returned to his seat in the National Assembly.

As of 2010, Nguimbi is the President of the Circle for the Renaissance of Dolisie, an organization promoting local development in Dolisie.

In the July–August 2012 parliamentary election, Nguimbi was re-elected to the National Assembly as the PCT candidate in Louvakou constituency. He won the seat in the second round of voting, receiving 54.38% of the vote against 45.62% for UPADS candidate Auguste Boussoukou. However, soon afterward he took up the post of Ambassador to Senegal, presenting his credentials to Senegalese President Macky Sall in December 2012. He additionally presented his credentials as Ambassador to the Gambia on 5 November 2012, and he had a meeting with Gambian Vice-President Isatou Njie-Saidy on 6 November. Aside from Senegal and the Gambia, Nguimbi was also accredited as ambassador to several other West African countries: Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, and Cape Verde.

On 11 November 2013, Nguimbi was awarded the medal for the rank of Commander of the National Order of Peace, an honorary order in Congo-Brazzaville.

As part of a restructuring of Congolese diplomacy, Nguimbi was one of 16 ambassadors who were dismissed from their posts and recalled on 25 January 2017.

References

1957 births
Living people
Members of the National Assembly (Republic of the Congo)
Congolese Party of Labour politicians
Club 2002 – Party for the Unity of the Republic politicians
Ambassadors of the Republic of the Congo to Israel
Ambassadors of the Republic of the Congo to France


The Sheremetev Sh-5 (Шереметьев Ш-5) was a two-seat sailplane designed by Boris Nikolayevich Sheremetev and produced in the Soviet Union in the 1930s. It was an unorthodox design, with a pod-and-boom layout and a cruciform tail that had its horizontal stabiliser mounted atop the boom with a large ventral fin extending below it. The monoplane wing was mounted high, on a pylon above the fuselage pod, and braced to the fuselage with V-struts. Two open cockpits were provided in tandem, with the rear cockpit located beneath the wing. The landing gear consisted of a single sprung skid under the fuselage and a small tailwheel on the ventral fin.

The Sh-5 was used to establish several records during the decade, including distance records of  and   in 1933, and an altitude record  set by Dmitri Aleksandrovich Koshits in 1935. On May 11 the same year, Koshits made a long-distance flight through the Caucasus mountains in a Sh-5 towed behind a Polikarpov R-5, covering   at altitudes up to   in 34 hours of flight.

The Sh-5 was also produced in Turkey as an unlicensed copy by THK as the THK-9 and subsequently by MKEK as the MKEK-7 when the latter company took over the production facilities of the former in 1952.

Specifications

Notes

References

1930s Soviet sailplanes
Sheremetev aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1933


Heinrich Werner (2 October 1800 – 3 March 1833) was a German composer.

Biography

Werner was born into a musical family in Kirchohmfeld in the Eichsfeld district of Thuringia. Initially trained at home, he played the organ for the local church at the age of 11 and became a choral singer at Sankt Andreasberg  at 15. His older brother in Braunschweig had him study music and attend the Gymnasium there. Starting in 1821, he studied in Erfurt and took the teaching examination the next year; he then led the chorus at the city's opera house and taught music students. From 1825, he was choral director at the court theatre at Braunschweig.

He is said  to have written 84 compositions, mostly songs, including a setting of Goethe's poem Heidenröslein. It was first publicly performed in 1829, under his direction, and bore as title the first line, "Sah ein Knab' ein Röslein stehn" ("A boy saw a little rose standing"). It was seen as superior to all the roughly 100 versions that had preceded his, and became the outstanding popular-song version (although the Schubert art-song setting, published in 1821, has outlasted it).

He died at the age of 32 in Braunschweig in 1833, having become ill with tuberculosis the previous year.

References

External links

1800 births
1833 deaths
19th-century classical composers
19th-century German composers
19th-century German male musicians
German male classical composers
German Romantic composers
People from Leinefelde-Worbis


The women's 75 kg powerlifting event at the 2008 Summer Paralympics was contested on 14 September at the Beihang University Gymnasium in Beijing, China. This event was the third-heaviest of the women's powerlifting weight classes, limiting competitors to a maximum of  of body mass.

As with all Paralympic powerlifting events, lifters competed in the bench press. Each athlete was allowed three attempts to bench press as much weight as possible. Athletes attempting to break a record were allowed a fourth attempt. For the attempt to be valid, the competitor must have lowered the weighted bar to her chest, held it motionless for a moment, then pressed the bar upwards until her arms were fully extended. If the competitor failed to meet these requirements or any other rule infraction was committed, the attempt was declared invalid by a team of three referees and the result struck from the record.

Results

References

Women's 075 kg
Para


John Contee Fairfax (September 18, 1830 – September 25, 1900) was an American citizen and heir to a Scottish peerage.

Early life
John Contee Fairfax was born at Vaucluse, Virginia, the second son of Albert Fairfax (April 15, 1802 – May 9, 1835) and Caroline Eliza Snowden (April 21, 1812 – December 28, 1899), who were married on April 7, 1828.  His elder brother was Charles S. Fairfax, 10th Lord Fairfax of Cameron.

Personal life
He married Mary Brown Kirby, daughter of Col. Edward Kirby (US Army), in 1857. They had the following children:
Caroline Snowden Fairfax
Josephine Fairfax, who married Tunstall Smith
Albert Fairfax, 12th Lord Fairfax of Cameron (1870-1939), who married Maude Wishart McKelvie.

He died at age 70 in his country home Northampton, in Prince George's County, Maryland. At the time of his death he was the only American citizen to be considered a member of the British peerage.

See also
Lord Fairfax of Cameron

References

1830 births
1900 deaths
19th-century American Episcopalians
American people of English descent
American people of Scottish descent
John
People from Fairfax County, Virginia
People from Prince George's County, Maryland
Lords Fairfax of Cameron