Tom De Haven (born 1949) is an American author, editor, journalist, and writing teacher. His recurring subjects include literary and film noir, the Hollywood studio system and the American comics industry. De Haven is noted for his comics-themed novels, including the Derby Dugan trilogy and It's Superman.

Life and career
De Haven was born in Bayonne, New Jersey. He attended Catholic school, where he was a classmate of fellow author George R. R. Martin, though he notes that they weren't friends, even though Martin was an editor of the school newspaper where he was a cartoonist.

De Haven originally wanted to be a cartoonist before attending college, but by the time he graduated from the university, he realized that he would never be a professional cartoonist, and considers the realization "the First Great Disappointment of My Life". He received a Sociology degree from Rutgers University in 1971 and an MFA from Bowling Green State University in 1973.

An avid reader of comic books and graphic novels, De Haven considers himself a narrative writer, and considers the storytelling style of comics to have been a major influence on his writing since he was a child of almost six or seven.

He began teaching creative writing part-time at Hofstra University in 1981, before moving in 1987 to Rutgers to teach American Studies (including one of the first college courses on American comics) before relocating to Richmond, Virginia to become a full-time teacher.

De Haven is currently a full professor of Creative Writing at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia in the MFA program, and often teaches at least one American Studies course, including "The Graphic Novel". De Haven is also the co-creator with author Laura Browder of the VCU's First Novelist Award, honoring the best debut novel published during a calendar year. He is also a licensed private investigator. He considers himself a Democrat, and has been criticized for anti-Republican statements he has made over the years.

The author noted in an interview that he agreed with Robert Crumb's observation that the Thirties was the pinnacle of American culture. He also notes in the same interview that he finds truth to Art Spiegelman's statement "that we are, for whatever reason, most nostalgic for the decade before the one we were born in", as he was born in the Forties.

As a freelance journalist, he has written criticism for publications such as the New York Times Book Review and Entertainment Weekly. De Haven's novels include the Funny Paper trilogy (consisting of Funny Papers (1985), Derby Dugan's Depression Funnies (1996) and Dugan Under Ground (2001)). The trilogy's storyline stretches from the beginnings of the newspaper comic strips in the 1890s to the 1970s.

The New York Times Book Review called the Derby books "a mighty accomplishment: John Dos Passos's U.S.A. trilogy for comic geeks." The Boston Globe hails the trilogy as a "wild ride"

In 2005, his novel It's Superman reinvented the early years of the well-known superhero of the same name amidst the Great Depression. The author noted his initial apprehension when he was contacted by DC Comics in 1997 in regards to writing a novel about Superman: "[S]hould I do a novel with a character that I don't own? So I had to think about it, but I didn't think about it very long, really. I just thought [...] this is too good to let go [...] they were giving me carte blanche." He states that his prior novels about comic strips are what prompted DC to contact him about writing the period piece. For the novel, he took as his inspiration the early Superman stories of the 1930s through the 1950s, in which the hero is less concerned with super-villains and Lex Luthor and more with clearing slums in the New Deal era and exposing corrupt politicians. De Haven says he was aiming for his hero to develop a social conscience during the Great Depression. His only intentional departure from creators'  Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster conception of the character was to relocate the character from Cleveland, Ohio, where some of the earliest Superman stories had given as his home. De Haven changed this to "Metropolis" of New York City.

Awards and honors
De Haven's awards include a fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, and he has twice won fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. His novel, Depression Funnies, received an American Book Award in 1997. Dugan Under Ground received the Library of Virginia Fiction Award (also called the Library of Virginia Literary Awards.

Works

Novels

Adult fiction
 Freaks' Amour (1979)
 Jersey Luck: A Novel (1980)
 The Funny Papers Trilogy
 Funny Papers (1985)
 Derby Dugan's Depression Funnies (1996)
 Dugan Under Ground: A Novel (2001)
 Joe Gosh (1988)
 Pixie Meat (1990)
 Chronicles of the King's Tramp
 Walker of Worlds (1991)
 End-Of-Everything Man (1992)
 The Last Human (1992)
 It's Superman! (2005)

Children's and Young Adult fiction
 The Orphan's Tent (part of mult-author Chill series) (1986)
 U.S.S.A.: Book 1 (part of multi-author U.S.S.A. series) (1987)

Comics
 Neuromancer: the Graphic Novel, Volume 1 (1989) (adapted with Bruce Jensen from the novel by William Gibson)
 Green Candles (with artist Robin Smith, Paradox Graphic Mystery series) (1997)
 Love By Labor Lost (2010) (Co-writer, with David Kantor, illustrated by Kelly Alder)

Short fiction collections
 Sunburn Lake (1990)

Television
 Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers (1986)
 "One Million Emotions" (1986)
 "Galaxy Stranger" (1986)
 "Rainmaker" (1986)

Nonfiction
"In Flagrante Delicto"
"Out in the Big Empty Spaces"
 Our Hero: Superman on Earth  (part of the Icons of America series, 2011)

References

External links
2/16/06 interview with the author
Article with excerpts of the first pages of books by Tom De Haven
Article and review on author Tom De Haven

1949 births
Living people
20th-century American novelists
American male journalists
Bowling Green State University alumni
Writers of books about writing fiction
Writers from Bayonne, New Jersey
Rutgers University alumni
American editors
21st-century American novelists
American male novelists
American male short story writers
20th-century American short story writers
21st-century American short story writers
American Book Award winners
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
Novelists from New Jersey
20th-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers


Rags to riches refers to any situation in which a person rises from poverty to wealth, and in some cases from absolute obscurity to heights of fame, fortune and celebrity—sometimes instantly. This is a common archetype in literature and popular culture, such as the writings of Horatio Alger, Jr.

Pre-20th-century fictional examples
 Fairy tales, such as Cinderella and Aladdin.
 The Dickens novel Oliver Twist, whose protagonist rises from a workhouse to child labour to a gang of pickpockets to being adopted by a wealthy family.
 The Arthurian story of Sir Gareth, who rises from a lowly kitchen boy to a prominent Knight of the Round Table.
 The folklore tale of Dick Whittington and His Cat, who, with the help of his cat, rises from orphaned poverty to become thrice Lord Mayor of London.

Historical examples

 Abdalonymus was a gardener who was appointed king of Sidon by Alexander the Great due to his possible royal ancestry.
 Baibars, a slave who rose to become the Mamluk Sultan of Egypt through his military prowess.
 Emperor Basil I, born a simple peasant in the theme of Macedonia, he rose in the imperial court and despite his humble origins, he showed great ability in running the affairs of state. On Michael III's death, Basil, as an already acclaimed co-emperor, automatically became the ruling emperor.
 Catherine I of Russia, born into a peasant family, married Peter the Great, and became Empress of Russia following his death.
 Chandragupta Maurya of India, who from a humble beginning founded the Maurya Empire.
 Emperor Diocletian, born to a freed slave of low social standing in Dalmatia, rose through the ranks of the Roman military to become a cavalry commander. After the death of emperor Carus, Diocletian defeated the former emperor's son Carinus in battle and proclaimed himself Roman emperor. His reign was marked by the consolidation of power around himself and its impact on the history of the late Roman Empire. He eventually gave up his post in later life to become a farmer.
 Emperor Gaozu of Han and Hongwu Emperor who were both born into peasant families, but eventually founded two of the nation's most illustrious imperial dynasties.
 Fredegund, a palace servant who rose to become the regent queen of Neustria, in the western part of the Kingdom of the Franks.
 George Thomas (soldier), born into a poor Irish farming family, became a mercenary in India eventually rising to become a wealthy Raja.
 Genghis Khan was born the son of a Mongol chieftain, but following his father's death, he and his family were abandoned by their clan and left in poverty on the Mongolian steppe. He survived and went on to create the largest land empire in history.
 Pope Gregory VII was born a commoner Hildebrand, perhaps the son of a blacksmith. His bad reputation was partially due to horror at his high social mobility.
 Emperor Guangwu of Han lived life as a peasant at one point in his life despite being a distant royal. He eventually restored the Han dynasty.
 Hurrem Sultan, also known as Roxelana, was the chief consort and legal wife of the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. She became one of the most powerful and influential women in Ottoman history and a prominent and controversial figure during the era known as the Sultanate of Women.
 Ivaylo of Bulgaria was a peasant farmer who briefly ruled over Bulgaria after organizing an uprising against the incompetent rule of Constantine Tikh.
 Emperors Justin I, Justinian the Great and Theodora came from peasant families. Justin and Justinian later became Emperors of the Eastern Roman Empire. Theodora was a courtesan and actress. Later became Empress and second in the Empire.
 Karin Månsdotter, daughter of a soldier and jailkeeper named Måns, became Queen of Sweden by her marriage with King Eric XIV of Sweden.
 Pope Leo III was of commoner origin and attained a high position in spite of violent opposition from the nobility, who considered the papacy as their preserve.
 Leonora Dori, a French courtier of Italian origin and an influential favourite of the French regent Marie de' Medici, mother of King Louis XIII of France.
 Abraham Lincoln, born into poverty in a log cabin and raised on the American frontier, he was mostly self-educated and rose to become a lawyer, then congressman, and finally President of the United States, where he led the Union through the American Civil War, defended the ideals of democracy and liberty, abolished slavery, strengthened the federal government, and modernized the U.S. economy.
 Madame de Maintenon, second wife of King Louis XIV of France and founder of the Maison royale de Saint-Louis, a school for girls from poorer noble families.
 Mahmud of Ghazni, son of a Turkic slave, who founded the Ghaznavid Empire.
 Emperor Michael II hailed from a family of peasants who were granted land via military service to the Roman Empire. He eventually became emperor after assassinating his former colleague Emperor Leo V.
 Nader Shah, founder of the Afsharid dynasty, was the orphaned son of a goatherder who established the most powerful empire in modern Persian history.
 Shō En was a peasant farmer who became king of the Ryukyu Kingdom and founder of the Second Shō dynasty.
 Pope Sixtus IV, Pope from 9 August 1471 to his death in 1484, founder of the Della Rovere family.
 Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a famous example in late medieval times, helped unify pre-modern Japan.
 Wei Zhongxian of Ming Dynasty China, a gambler who castrated himself and entered the Imperial Palace where he ended enormous power under the reign of the Tianqi Emperor. He eventually committed suicide upon banishment by the Chongzhen Emperor.
Empress Xiaowu Si of Han, or Wei Zifu, was born in a peasant family and ended up as the second wife and empress of Emperor Wu of Han
 Emperor Xuan of Han brought up a commoner despite royal blood, later rose to become a capable ruler.

Pre-modern and modern times

Thousands of people have risen from poverty to riches; some are:
Pryce Pryce-Jones - left school at 12 and formed the first mail order company in 1861, with the BBC calling it an extraordinary rags to riches story.
Michael Schumacher - Was born and raised as bricklayer's son but went on to become a 7 times F1 world champion and holds the record for the most F1 world titles won by any F1 driver.
Bette Midler - Was born and raised in Hawaii by her mother Ruth and her father Fred, a house painter.
Jim Rohn - (author and motivational speaker).
Cardi B - Was born in Manhattan. Lived mostly with her grandmother. Joined the Bloods at 16 and became a stripper at 19. Went on to become one of the most successful female rappers in the world and has the most number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100 among female rappers (5 number-ones).
Giannis Antetokounmpo - Born in Athens, Greece to parents from Nigeria. As a child growing up in the Sepolia neighborhood of Athens, his father had a tough time finding work, so he helped his family by hawking watches, handbags, and sunglasses in the streets. He started playing basketball in 2007 and joined EFAO Zografou B.C. in the Greek B Basket League. After racking up several impressive individual accolades, he was selected 15th overall by the Milwaukee Bucks in the 2013 NBA draft. In his first season in the NBA, he was named to the NBA All-Rookie Team. Since then, he has earned several honors, including being named to the NBA All-Star game five times, and winning the league MVP award twice. In 2021, he led the Bucks to their first NBA Championship in 50 years, scoring 50 points in the clinching game. He also was named NBA Finals MVP.
Cher - Was born in California to a truck driver with gambling problems and a mother who was an occasional model. Her parents divorced when she was 10 months old. She went on to become the "goddess of pop."
Cuauhtémoc Blanco - born in Mexico City, in the district of Tlatilco, but grew up in Tepito, one of the most poor sectors of the Mexican capital.  He grew up in poverty, raised by his single mother who eventually re-married. Blanco came to be one of the greatest Mexican footballers of all time, as well as one of the best penalty takers of all time. After football, Blanco became a politician and he is the current Governor of Morelos under the coalition Juntos Haremos Historia.
Bas & Aad van Toor - Born shortly before and during World War II, the Van Toor brothers came from a poor labourers family in the Netherlands. Their home was damaged during the German bombing of Rotterdam and the brothers' father died in Prague from harsh conditions during forced labour. After the war, the brothers and their mother lived in extreme poverty. After working an odd number of jobs, the brothers created their own acrobat act, with which they toured all over the world. Between 1976 and 1994, the brothers wrote, directed and shot a successful children's television series based on their alter egos Bassie & Adriaan and owned their own circus, which turned them into multi-millionaires. They are praised for their self-made success and rigid management techniques.
Susan Boyle - Prior to her audition on Britain's Got Talent, Boyle was a single, never married woman living alone with her pet cat, Pebbles. She cared for her elderly mother, Bridget, until her death in 2007 at the age of 91. Boyle was a member of her local church choir and performed regularly at church events and local talent shows. When she appeared on the BGT stage, Boyle was met with skepticism and cynicism, with many in the audience jeering or rolling their eyes. When she began to sing, Boyle shocked everyone with her powerhouse voice. Judge Piers Morgan said it was "the biggest surprise I have had in three years in this show". Amanda Holden summed up her critique by calling it the "biggest wake-up call ever". Show creator/producer Simon Cowell called Boyle "a little tiger". Despite an overwhelming positive response from the public, dance troupe Diversity were named the winners of series 3, making Boyle runner-up. Boyle went on to worldwide acclaim and success.
Conor McGregor – Was living on Ireland's social welfare before his UFC debut.
Floyd Mayweather Jr. - His mother was a heroin addict and his father was a boxer who was eventually incarcerated. His family was poor and sometimes did not even have electricity. For much of his childhood, he was raised by his grandmother. Eventually, he became one of the highest-rated boxers of all time and is known for his extravagant spending habits.
Axl Rose - Born in Lafayette, Indiana to a poor and very religious family, as a child he sang in a trio with his brother and sister. Being very shy at school, following the discovery of his true family origins, Rose became the local juvenile delinquent in Lafayette; he was arrested more than 20 times on charges such as public intoxication and battery, and served jail terms up to three months. After Lafayette authorities threatened to charge him as a habitual criminal, Rose moved to Los Angeles, California, in December 1982 following his school friend Izzy Stradlin; they used to live together in very cheap and dirty rooms around LA before signing with Geffen Records in 1986.
Roman Abramovich
Alexis Sánchez
Joan Crawford came from a damaged, impoverished, single-mother family and was partly raised in a laundry. She also had to undertake a work scholarship to receive an education as a child.
Sheldon Adelson
Dhirubhai Ambani
AJ Styles
Charles Bronson was born from a poor coal-mining family of Lithuanian descent; he began working at the coal mines from the age of 10 after his father's death; his family was so poor that, at one time, he had to wear his sister's dress to school for lack of clothing. Grew up to become one of the greatest film actors during the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Ursula Burns – Raised by her Panamanian-immigrant single mother in the Baruch Houses, a New York City public housing project. She became the CEO (July 2009 – December 2016) and Chairwoman (May 2010 – present) of Xerox, a Fortune 500 company.
Andrew Carnegie (Industrialist)
Jim Carrey
Ben Carson
Jason Kay – Before he became the lead singer of Jamiroquai, Kay had lived on the streets as a teenager and was even stabbed. Jamiroquai went on to be one of the most successful bands of all time, selling 26 million albums during Kay's career.
Sean Connery – Worked as a milkman before joining the Royal Navy but was later discharged due to a duodenal ulcer.  Afterwards, he worked as, among other things, a lorry driver, a lifeguard, a labourer, an artist's model for the Edinburgh College of Art, and a coffin polisher. He began his acting career while working backstage at the King's Theatre where he had secured several minor roles, but was still struggling to make ends meet. He was then forced to accept a part-time job as a babysitter. Connery's breakthrough came in the role of British secret agent James Bond, which began his successful acting career. In July 2000, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.
Coco Chanel
Charlie Chaplin
Chow Yun-fat – Born and raised in a farming community on Lamma Island, Hong Kong. His family's house had no electricity. During mornings, he helped his mother sell herbal jelly and Hakka tea-pudding on the streets; during afternoons he worked in the fields. At age seventeen, he left school to help support the family by doing odd jobs including hotel porter, postman, camera salesman, and taxi driver. Eventually, he became one of the most well-known and highest-earning actors in Hong Kong.
Eminem – Grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Detroit. He dropped out of high school at age 17 and worked at several jobs to help his mother pay the bills, but she often threw him out of the house. He eventually had a successful rap career, becoming one of the world's best-selling music artists.
Chris Gardner – Lived in foster care with his sisters after their mother was imprisoned. Worked as a research lab assistant after serving in the U.S. Navy. He also became a medical equipment salesman. He gained a position in Dean Witter Reynolds' stock brokerage training program but did not have a salary. For a time, Gardner and his son were homeless. They ate in soup kitchens and slept in his office after hours, at flophouses, motels, parks, airports, on public transport, and at the Glide Memorial United Methodist Church's shelter for homeless women. He eventually established Gardner Rich & Co. Gardner's memoirs, The Pursuit of Happyness, was published in May 2006. The 2006 film The Pursuit of Happyness, starring Will Smith, is based on his memoirs.
John Gokongwei – He was 13 years old when his father died. He supported his family by peddling items along the streets of Cebu on his bicycle. From the age of 17 to 19, he traded using a wooden boat, shipping items to Lucena by sea, and then to Manila by truck. He is now one of the richest Filipinos. His business assets include: Universal Robina, Cebu Pacific, JG Summit Holdings, and Robinsons Malls.
Jimi Hendrix
Zlatan Ibrahimović – Grew up in Rosengård, a poor suburb of Malmö. He eventually became one of the highest-paid football players in the world. He is the all-time leading goalscorer for Sweden.
Mahalia Jackson
Michael Jackson – Grew up into a working-class family in Gary, Indiana in a two bedroom house with nine siblings and his parents. His mother was a stay-at-home mom who had dreams of being an aspiring country singer who played the piano and the clarinet, while his father, a crane operator for Inland Steel Company had hopes of making it big through boxing or singing with his band The Falcons. He started to play with The Jackson 5 in 1964 when he was five years old and then became one of the biggest stars of the planet.
LeBron James – Born to a 16-year-old single mother, his childhood was spent moving from apartment to apartment in the sordid neighborhoods of Akron, Ohio while his mother struggled to find a steady job. He grew up to have a successful career in the NBA, with four championships (2012, 2013, 2016, 2020). He is the Cleveland Cavaliers' all-time leading scorer. He also won two Olympic gold medals for the United States National Basketball Team. He is currently one of the world's highest-paid athletes.
Jewel –  Grew up in a house that lacked indoor plumbing and had only a simple outhouse. Early in her music career, she lived in her car while traveling around the United States doing street performances and small gigs.
Li Ka-Shing (businessman)
Jan Koum (technology entrepreneur)
Ralph Lauren (fashion designer)
Stan Lee – His father was a dress cutter who worked only sporadically after the Great Depression. By the time Lee was in his teens, the family was living in a third-floor one-bedroom apartment where he shared the bedroom with his brother while his parents slept on a foldout couch. In his youth, he worked part-time jobs such as writing obituaries and press releases, delivering sandwiches,  running office errands, ushering at a theater, and selling newspaper subscriptions. He went on to create Spider-Man, the Hulk, Doctor Strange, the Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Daredevil, Thor, the X-Men, and many other fictional characters.
David Letterman
Martin W. Littleton (lawyer)
Jack London - At age 14, he was working 12 to 18 hours a day in a cannery. He was also an oyster pirate, seal hunter, jute mill worker, and coal heaver before becoming a vagrant. At the age of 21, due to financial circumstances, he dropped out from UC Berkeley and joined the Klondike Gold Rush. He eventually had a successful writing career; his most famous works are The Call of the Wild and White Fang.
Diego Maradona - Grew up in a shantytown on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. He went on to lead Argentina to victory in the 1986 FIFA World Cup where he also won the Golden Ball as the tournament's best player. He is also the first player in football history to set the world record transfer fee twice, first when he transferred to FC Barcelona for a then world record £5 million, and second, when he transferred to S.S.C. Napoli for another record fee £6.9 million. He was named the FIFA Co-Player of the 20th Century, an honor he shares with Pelé.
George R. R. Martin – Early in his writing career, he "wasn't making enough money to stay alive". He went on to write the international bestselling series of epic fantasy novels, A Song of Ice and Fire, which was later adapted into the HBO television series Game of Thrones.
Isko Moreno – Born and raised in the slums of Tondo, Manila, Philippines to a stevedore father and laundrywoman mother. Moreno spent most of his childhood finding alternative sources of income for his family by working as a scrap and garbage collector, and driving a passenger pedicab. He also used to rummage through restaurant garbage bins for leftover food (colloquially called pagpag in the Philippines), which his mother would recook for dinner. Moreno rose to prominence when he was discovered by a talent scout while attending a funeral and was then persuaded to join show business. He achieved average success as an actor for five years before entering politics. He was subsequently elected as councilor, vice mayor and mayor in the City of Manila, the Philippines' capital country, which elevated him to further prominence. Moreno has since received several awards in his political career.
Liz Murray (motivational speaker)
Benito Mussolini
Trevor Noah - Born in Apartheid-era South Africa to a Black Xhosa mother and a White father from Switzerland. He had a poor upbringing in Soweto, just outside of Johannesburg. His challenges included not having indoor plumbing in his childhood home, separation from his biological father due to Apartheid, and having an abusive, alcoholic step-father. At the age of 18, he landed a starring role on the South African soap opera Isidingo. He later became an accomplished stand-up comedian, releasing numerous specials. In the fall of 2015, he took over for Jon Stewart and became the host of The Daily Show, a position he held until 2022.
Manny Pacquiao – Dropped out of high school and left home at age 14 due to extreme poverty. For a time, he lived on the streets of Manila. He eventually became the first and only eight-division world champion in professional boxing and one of the highest-paid athletes in the world.
Sarah Jessica Parker (actress)
Arnel Pineda – His mother suffered from heart disease and died when he was 13 years old, leaving their family in debt. Pineda then quit school and started working. He spent about two years on the streets, collecting glass bottles, newspapers, and scrap metal and selling them to recyclers. He also took odd jobs like cleaning scrap metal and docked ships. He didn't have much to eat, sometimes rationing a small package of Marie biscuit as food for two days. When Pineda was 15 years old, he became the lead singer of the Filipino group Ijos which began his music career. In 2007, he was recruited to become the new lead singer of the American rock band Journey.
Chris Pratt – Dropped out of community college halfway through the first semester and, after working as a discount ticket salesman and daytime stripper, he ended up homeless in Maui, Hawaii, sleeping in a van and a tent on the beach. He was working at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company restaurant in Maui when he was offered his first film role which then led to a successful film career.
 Jim Jones - He grew up with neglectful parents in a shack that lacked plumbing and electricity. His family often depended on the financial support of relatives. In 1954 he founded his own church and by the mid-1970s he had amassed a large fortune and had established an international community.
Elvis Presley - Elvis was born in Mississippi and moved to Memphis. His family was so poor that his dad was arrested for a bad $4 check. At age 19, he became   a mega star with his recording of 'That's All Right'. He went on to sell over 250 million albums, with 19 no. 1 hits and 115 top 40 hits. He won three Grammies and starred in 31 movies.
Dennis Rodman – His father left the family when he was young, forcing his mother to work odd jobs (up to four at the same time) to support them. Rodman grew up in Oak Cliff, one of the most impoverished areas of Dallas at the time. After high school, he worked as a janitor at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport. He eventually had a successful career in the NBA, with five championships (1989, 1990, 1996, 1997, 1998). He also led the NBA in rebounds per game for seven consecutive years (1991–1998). In 2011, he was inducted to the Basketball Hall of Fame.
Cristiano Ronaldo – His mother was a cook while his father was a gardener. He grew up in poverty and shared a room with his three elder siblings. He subsequently became one of the world's best-paid and most famous athletes. He is the all-time leading goalscorer for both Real Madrid and Portugal.
J. K. Rowling – Was an unemployed single mother living on welfare benefits. She described her economic status as being "poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless." She found success after writing the Harry Potter novels, which have gained worldwide attention, won multiple awards, and sold more than 400 million copies. She is the United Kingdom's best-selling living author and one of the richest people in the country.
Colonel Sanders – When he was 10, he began to work as a farmhand. He also worked as a horse carriage painter, streetcar conductor, teamster for the United States Army, blacksmith's helper, steam engine stoker, insurance & tire salesman, filling station operator, and secretary before founding KFC.
Irina Shayk – Her father was a coal miner who died when she was 14. Her mother was forced to work two jobs to provide for the family. Shayk became a successful and internationally recognized model.
Luis Suárez – Developed his football skills on the streets of Montevideo while he worked as a street sweeper. He subsequently became one of the world's best footballers, winning numerous awards including Dutch Footballer of the Year, Premier League Golden Boot, PFA Players' Player of the Year, FWA Footballer of the Year, Copa América Best Player, and European Golden Shoe. He is the all-time record goalscorer for Uruguay. In July 2014, he moved from Liverpool F.C. to FC Barcelona for a fee of £64.98 million, making him one of the most expensive players in football history.
Alan Sugar
Henry Sy – Born to a poor family in Fujian province, China and migrated to the Philippines when he was 12 years old. His parents owned a small sari-sari store where the family slept at night. In 1958, he established a small shoe store in Manila which became the first of his SM Supermalls. He eventually became one of the richest people in the Philippines.
Lucio Tan – Worked as a janitor at a tobacco factory to pay for his school fees. He is now one of the richest Filipinos. His business assets include: Philippine Airlines, University of the East, Philippine National Bank, Asia Brewery, and Tanduay.
Danny Trejo (rags: former California prison inmate –riches: Actor)
Shania Twain – Her parents earned little money and food was often scarce in their household. She eventually had a successful singing career, becoming one of the best-selling music artists of all time.
John D. Rockefeller (businessman)
Cornelius Vanderbilt – Dropped out of school at the age of 11. At the age of 16, he began his business of ferrying freight and passengers between Staten Island and Manhattan. He went on to build his wealth in the railroad and shipping industries, becoming one of the richest Americans in history.
Madam C. J. Walker – She was an African American entrepreneur, philanthropist, and political and social activist. She is recorded as the first female self-made millionaire in America in the Guinness Book of World Records.
Manny Villar – Born and raised in a tiny rented apartment in Tondo, the impoverished, densely populated, and gang-infested slum district of Manila. His father was a civil servant while his mother was a fishmonger. At age 6, he began helping his mother sell fish and shrimp to support the family; this forced him to temporarily stop schooling. He worked part-time while attending the University of the Philippines Diliman, where he earned a degree in business administration and accountancy. After resigning from his first job, he established a seafood delivery business, which eventually failed. With a capital of ₱10,000, he started a sand-and-gravel business which evolved into Camella Homes, the Philippines' largest homebuilding company. He was also a politician, serving as representative for Las Piñas (1992–2001), and as Speaker of the House during his third term in congress (1998–2000). He also served as senator (2001–2013) and Senate President (2006–2008). He was a candidate in the 2010 Philippine presidential election but lost to Benigno Aquino III. In 2014, Forbes ranked him as the 14th-wealthiest person in the Philippines, with his net worth of US$1.460 billion.
 MrBeast - School dropped out of East Carolina University to pursue a YouTube career becoming known as the "biggest philanthropist".
Natalia Vodianova (supermodel, entrepreneur, philanthropist)
Oprah Winfrey – Her mother was a former maid, and her father a former coalminer and barber. She is in possession of a sum total wealth, estimated by Forbes magazine (true on 6 December 2015) as, net-worth 3.2. billion dollars.
Ronnie Wood (English rock musician)
Victoria Woodhull (political activist and first female candidate to the US presidency)
Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay - He was born in a poor Brahmin family and his financial condition deteriorated until rising to literary fame.
 Charlie Soong
 Sam Walton
 Rihanna - She grew up in a three-bedroom bungalow in Bridgetown and sold clothes with her father in a stall on the street.
 Steve Harvey - Was homeless and stayed in a 1976 Ford for three years. He became the host of Family Feud and its celebrity and African counterparts; the longtime host of Showtime at the Apollo; authored Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man; has a radio show; and won seven Daytime Emmy Awards, two NAB Marconi Radio Awards, and fourteen NAACP Image Awards.

Use in art and media

TV and films
 Movies, such as Rocky, Trading Places, The Wolf of Wall Street, My Fair Lady, Scarface, The Pursuit of Happyness, Goodfellas, Charlie Chaplin in The Gold Rush, The Public Enemy, The Blind Side, Guru, Slumdog Millionaire, Million Dollar Arm, and Magic Beyond Words: The J.K. Rowling Story, The Founder.
 Game shows like The Price Is Right, Queen for a Day, and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
 Reality television shows such as American Idol, The X Factor and Joe Millionaire.
 Rags to Riches (TV series).

Music
 Songs as "Rags to Riches", from 1953, by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross, popularized by Tony Bennett or "This Could All Be Yours", from 2010, by Guster.
 Guns N' Roses' song "Paradise City" features the term in its lyrics.
 Vilayat Khan made an album with classical Indian music (Ragas) and named it "Ragas to Riches".
 Jay-Z's song "99 Problems" features the term in its lyrics.
Rod Wave’s song “Rags2Riches (song)”
Ufo361's song "Hard Work Pays Off" features the term in its lyrics.
Notorious BIG's song "Juicy"

Print
 Rags to Riches, a comic book by Four Color Comics Edition #356
 Rags to Riches, a 1981 romance novel by Joanne Kaye (Rachel Cosgrove Payes)
 The Rise of David Levinsky has been described as "the first American novel to chronicle the Jewish American immigrant experience at the end of the 19th century:" "arrived .. with four cents in my pocket" to "worth more than two million dollars."

Sport

 A term used in many team sports when a team goes from a poor finishing position one season to a strong finishing position the following season. It also refers to a player who unexpectedly performs well. For example, NFL quarterback Kurt Warner went undrafted by any team in the 1994 NFL draft, Warner signed on with the Green Bay Packers and was cut from the team. After his dismissal from the Packers, Warner stocked shelves at an Iowa grocery store. Warner later played arena football and with NFL Europe team Amsterdam Admirals. As a backup to starting St. Louis Rams quarterback Trent Green in the 1999 NFL season, the Rams went 13-3 in the regular season earning a spot in the playoffs. Warner played an instrumental part in the team winning Super Bowl XXXIV and went on to have a long career in pro football, making two more Super Bowl appearances and being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Video gaming
 Video games such as Rags to Riches, a 1985 computer game released for the Commodore 64, or Grand Theft Auto: IV, wherein the character is a poor Yugoslavian-born immigrant who rises up in the criminal empire.

Criticism
The concept of "rags to riches" has been criticised by social reformers, anti-capitalists, revolutionaries, essayists and statisticians, who argue that only a handful of exceptionally capable and/or mainly lucky persons are actually able to travel the "rags to riches" road, being the great publicity given to such cases causes a natural survivorship bias illusion, which help keep the masses of the working class and the working poor in line, preventing them from agitating for an overall collective change in the direction of social equality.

Bibliography
 Peña, Manuel. "American Mythologies" Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2012.
 Taleb, Nassim N. "Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets" Random House 2001
 Weiss, Richard. "The American Myth of Success: From Horatio Alger to Norman Vincent Peale" Basic Books, 1969.

See also
 American Dream
 Horatio Alger
 Lottery
 New Russians
 Nouveau riche
 Novus homo
 Self-made man
 Social mobility

References

External links
Al-Fahim, Mohammed. From Rags to Riches: A Story of Abu Dhabi, I. B. Tauris, Limited 1998, , London Centre for Arab Studies.

English-language idioms
Poverty
Economics in fiction

de:Sozialer Aufstieg#Vom Tellerwäscher zum Millionär


Rags to riches refers to a rise from poverty to wealth. It may also refer to:

 Rags to Riches (video game), a 1985 computer game for the Commodore 64
 Rags to Riches (horse), a thoroughbred race horse
 "Rags to Riches" (song), a 1953 popular song by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross, popularized by Tony Bennett
 "Rags2Riches" (song), a 2020 song by Rod Wave featuring ATR SonSon
 Rags to Riches (TV series), an American musical comedy drama series
 Rags to Riches (1941 film), a film directed by Joseph Kane
 Rags to Riches (1922 film), a 1922 American drama film
 "Rags to Riches", a track from The Blue Nile's 1984 album A Walk Across the Rooftops


Winston v. Lee, 470 U.S. 753 (1985), was a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which held that a compelled surgical intrusion into an individual's body for evidence implicates expectations of privacy and security of such magnitude that the intrusion would be "unreasonable" under the Fourth Amendment, even if likely to produce evidence of a crime.

The reasonableness of surgical intrusions beneath the skin depends on a case-by-case approach, in which the individual's interests in privacy and security are weighed against society's interests in conducting the procedure to obtain evidence for fairly determining guilt or innocence. The appropriate framework of analysis for such cases is provided in Schmerber v. California (1966), which held that a State may, over the suspect's protest, have a physician extract blood from a person suspected of drunken driving without violating the suspect's Fourth Amendment rights.

Background
A shopkeeper, Ralph Watkinson was wounded by gunshot during an attempted robbery but, also being armed with a gun, apparently wounded his assailant in his left side, and the assailant then ran from the scene. Shortly after Watkinson was taken to a hospital, police officers found Rudolph Lee, who was suffering from a gunshot wound to his left chest area, eight blocks away from the shooting. He was also taken to the hospital, where Watkinson identified him as the robber.

After an investigation, the police charged Lee with, inter alia, attempted robbery, and malicious wounding. Thereafter, the Commonwealth of Virginia moved in state court for an order directing Lee to undergo surgery to remove a bullet lodged under his left collarbone, asserting that the bullet would provide evidence of Lee's guilt or innocence.  However, Lee expressed resistance toward this procedure.  On the basis of expert testimony that the surgery would require an incision of only about one-half inch, could be performed under local anesthesia, and would result in "no danger on the basis that there's no general anesthesia employed," the court granted that the surgery could proceed, and the Virginia Supreme Court denied Lee's petition for a writ of prohibition and/or a writ of habeas corpus.

Lee subsequently brought an action in Federal District Court to prevent the pending operation, claiming that it constituted an "illegal search" on Fourth Amendment grounds, but the court refused to issue a preliminary injunction. Shortly thereafter, X-rays taken just before surgery was scheduled to begin showed that the bullet was lodged substantially deeper than had been thought when the state court initially granted the motion to compel surgery, and the surgeon concluded that a general anesthetic would be desirable. Armed with this information, Lee unsuccessfully sought a rehearing in the state trial court, and the Virginia Supreme Court affirmed. However, Lee then returned to the Federal District Court, which, after an evidentiary hearing, ruled against enforcing the surgery, a ruling which the Court of Appeals affirmed.

Opinion of the Court
The Supreme Court, was unanimous in determining that, in the absence of any potentially substantial evidentiary gains from performing such an operation, the surgery did indeed constitute an "unreasonable search" under the Fourth Amendment.  According to the opinion authored by William J. Brennan Jr., since the Commonwealth of Virginia could not produce a compelling argument that recovering the bullet from Lee would provide significant evidence in the case, the surgery was unconstitutional.  However, Chief Justice Warren E. Burger wrote in his concurring opinion that this motion did not necessarily preclude officers from detaining an individual whose body/presence could naturally provide evidence in a case.

See also
List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 470
Union Pacific Railway Co. v. Botsford (1891), same principle in civil case
Rochin v. California (1952)
Breithaupt v. Abram (1957)
Schmerber v. California (1966)

References

Further reading

External links

United States Supreme Court cases
United States Supreme Court cases of the Burger Court
United States Fourth Amendment case law
1985 in United States case law


Princess Mathilde of Saxony, Duchess of Saxony (19 March 1863 – 27 March 1933) was the third child and third-eldest daughter of George of Saxony and his wife, Infanta Maria Anna of Portugal.  She was an elder sister of the Kingdom of Saxony's last king, Frederick Augustus III of Saxony.

Life
As a young girl, Mathilde was quiet and gentle, but she was not especially good-looking. Her father, George of Saxony, had planned a marriage between Mathilde and Archduke Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria, Hungary, and Bohemia, however Rudolf rejected this arrangement and instead married Princess Stéphanie of Belgium.

It was then agreed that Mathilde would marry a nephew of Emperor Franz Joseph I and the presumptive heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand. However, Franz Ferdinand rejected this arrangement.  Dynastic relations between the Saxon royal family and the Habsburgs were once again strained when Franz Ferdinand chose to marry (morganatically) Sophie, Countess Chotek von Wognin. Relations between the two nations improved only when Mathilde's younger sister Maria Josepha married her second cousin, Archduke Otto Franz of Austria.

Mathilde became embittered by these rejections and turned critical and waspish; she also turned to alcohol to ease her unhappiness, acquiring the nickname "Schnapps-Mathilde" for obvious reasons. She made life difficult for other members of the royal family, and as a consequence was the least popular of the family by a wide margin among the people of Saxony.

She was a talented painter and took lessons from the artist Alfred Diethe from 1890 to 1901. Some of her paintings, mainly landscapes and scenes of court life in Pillnitz, were made into prints.  Others appeared on postcards, which were sold to raise money for charity.

Mathilde died unmarried on 27 March 1933 at the age of 70. She was interred in the New Tomb of the Katholische Hofkirche in Dresden.

Ancestry

References

1863 births
1933 deaths
House of Wettin
Saxon princesses
Dames of the Order of Saint Isabel
Burials at Dresden Cathedral
Nobility from Dresden
German Roman Catholics
Albertine branch
Artists from Dresden
Daughters of kings


Ebenezer Dorkutso Dugbatey  (born 31 July 1973) is a Ghanaian former professional football defender who played for clubs in Africa and Europe.

Club career
Dugbatey was born in Accra. He played for FC Lorient in the French Ligue 1 and Ligue 2. He had a brief spell with Samsunspor in the Turkish Süper Lig.

International career
Dugbatey made seven appearances for the full Ghana national team, including two matches at the 2000 African Cup of Nations finals, where he was the first player to be sent off in the tournament. He also made two appearances in qualifying matches for the 2002 FIFA World Cup.

References

External links

 Interview with Eben Dugbatey

Living people
1973 births
Men's association football defenders
Ghanaian men's footballers
Ghana men's international footballers
2000 African Cup of Nations players
Ghanaian expatriate men's footballers
Ligue 1 players
Ligue 2 players
Belgian Pro League players
Accra Hearts of Oak S.C. players
Samsunspor footballers
FC Solothurn players
FC Lorient players
R.A.A. Louviéroise players
Cambridge United F.C. players
Expatriate men's footballers in Belgium
Ghanaian expatriate sportspeople in France
Expatriate men's footballers in Turkey
Ghanaian expatriate sportspeople in Italy
Expatriate men's footballers in Switzerland
Ghanaian expatriate sportspeople in Switzerland
Expatriate men's footballers in Italy
Ghanaian expatriate sportspeople in Belgium
Expatriate men's footballers in France
Expatriate men's footballers in England
Ghanaian expatriate sportspeople in Turkey


France Magazine was founded in 1985. The magazine is published quarterly by the French-American Cultural Foundation and has its headquarters in Washington DC. Karen Taylor is the editor-in-chief.

France Magazine is written in English for an international audience and its articles range in subject matter from contemporary design to music festivals. It also includes information on French cultural events taking place in North America. Temps Modernes is a regular column featured in each issue of France Magazine. It is written by Michel Faure, a retired journalist from L'Express.

The cartoonist Dave Colton draws the regular puzzle cartoon feature, Faux Mots

Awards
In 1996, Cadmus magazines awarded the spring edition of France Magazine with a Pewter Award (part of the Gold Ink Awards competition) for printing excellence.

References

External links

1985 establishments in Washington, D.C.
French-American Cultural Foundation
Magazines established in 1985
Magazines published in Washington, D.C.
Quarterly magazines published in the United States
Visual arts magazines published in the United States


Köhünlü (also, Kokhunlu and Kokhunly) is a village and municipality in the Kurdamir Rayon of Azerbaijan.

References

Populated places in Kurdamir District


Joe Farago is an American actor, former stuntman and television personality. In 1985, he replaced Gene Rayburn as the host of the game show Break the Bank, having previously appeared as a celebrity guest three times during the show's first two weeks. He hosted more than 160 episodes.

Farago has appeared as a spokesman for shows including the "GT Express" countertop grill the "True Sleeper" foam mattress topper, T-Fal cookware and The Bissell Big Green Clean machine among others. He has hosted 35 infomercials seen in more than 70 countries around the world.

He was also the host of the 1990-91 HBO comedy show Night Rap with guests including Timothy Leary, Ed Koch, G. Gordon Liddy and Mel Brooks. He briefly appeared on Seinfeld in the episode "The Parking Garage".

In 2001, after the September 11 attacks, Farago became a firefighter. He was part of a Type II federal incident management team deploying to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. He currently teaches FEMA/DHS public information officer and incident command courses to first responders and emergency management personnel across the country.

Filmography

External links

American male film actors
American game show hosts
American male television actors
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)


In information theory and coding theory, linear programming decoding (LP decoding) is a decoding method which uses concepts from linear programming (LP) theory to solve decoding problems. This approach was first used by Jon Feldman et al. They showed how the LP can be used to decode block codes.

The basic idea behind LP decoding is to first represent the maximum likelihood decoding of a linear code as an integer linear program, and then relax the integrality constraints on the variables into linear inequalities.

References

Linear programming


Christopher John Hipkins (born 5 September 1978) is a New Zealand politician who is the prime minister of New Zealand and current leader of the New Zealand Labour Party since January 2023. He became member of Parliament (MP) for Remutaka in 2008, previously serving as the minister for the Public Service and Minister for Education from 2017 to 2023 and the minister for Health and the COVID-19 response from 2020 to 2022.

Hipkins was born and raised in the Hutt Valley in Wellington, and while at Victoria University of Wellington became heavily involved in student politics. He was elected president of VUWSA twice, in 2000 and 2001. Hipkins won the pre-selection for the typically safe Labour seat of Remutaka in the Hutt Valley in 2008, but due to the return of the National Party to governance won it by a thin margin. As Labour's education spokesperson during their nine years in opposition, Hipkins became regarded as a "cut-throat political player" and a sharp, quick-witted debater. After Jacinda Ardern led Labour to victory in the 2017 general election, Hipkins assumed multiple portfolios within the Sixth Labour Government, serving variously as minister of education, police, the public service, and leader of the House. For his perceived competence within multiple roles and responsibilities, Hipkins became regarded as Labour's "fixer".

His tenure as minister of health was widely praised, and he was central to the government's highly effective response to the COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand. The elimination policy became the primary focus of the 2020 election, helping Labour win in a landslide. After the victory, Hipkins took on more responsibility, serving as minister for COVID-19 response from November 2020 to June 2022. On 21 January 2023, Hipkins became the sole candidate to succeed Ardern as leader of the Labour Party after she announced her resignation. He became party leader after being elected unopposed on 22 January 2023, and was consequently appointed prime minister by the governor-general on 25 January 2023. His premiership was faced almost immediately with the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Weekend floods, and then by further flooding from Cyclone Gabrielle. He led his party into the 2023 general election, with Labour losing to National.

Hipkins is often characterised ideologically as pragmatic. During his premiership he has emphasised "bread and butter" issues, such as combatting the increased cost of living. Some observers see this as a push to retain or regain the support of the centrist swing voters who abandoned National in swathes for Labour in 2020. In July 2023, Labour introduced sweeping welfare initiatives as part of that year's budget, including a $1 billion Cyclone Recovery plan, a large increase in childcare and parental leave, scrapping prescription co-payments, free public transport for under-13s (and half price for under-25s), and increasing the funding for Te Matatini tenfold.

Early life
Christopher John Hipkins was born in the Hutt Valley on 5 September 1978, the son of Doug and Rosemary Hipkins. His mother is the chief researcher for the New Zealand Council for Educational Research.

Hipkins attended Waterloo Primary School in Lower Hutt and Hutt Intermediate School. He was head boy at Hutt Valley Memorial College (later known as Petone College) in 1996. He later studied at the Victoria University of Wellington, where he was student president in 2000 and 2001.

In September 1997, as a first-year student at Victoria University, Hipkins was one of dozens arrested while protesting against the Tertiary Review Green Bill at Parliament. The matter went through the courts, and 10 years later an apology and award of over $200,000 was shared among the 41 protesters. The judge ruled that despite claims by police that the protestors were violent, the protest was peaceful and there were no grounds for arrest.

Hipkins received a Bachelor of Arts with a major in political science and criminology from Victoria University of Wellington. He then worked as a policy advisor for the Industry Training Federation and as a training manager for Todd Energy in Taranaki. Hipkins also worked in Parliament as an advisor to Trevor Mallard and Helen Clark.

Political career

 Hipkins was selected to stand in the Labour-held seat of Rimutaka (renamed Remutaka in 2020 following a 2016 Treaty of Waitangi settlement) in the 2008 general election, following the retirement of the sitting MP Paul Swain. He contested the Labour selection over trade unionist Paul Chalmers, who had Swain's support. His selection was part of Prime Minister Helen Clark's intention to rejuvenate the party with 29-year-old Hipkins winning against the 54-year-old Chalmers. In his first election, Hipkins won the seat with a majority of 753 and comfortably retained the electorate on each subsequent attempt. In the 2020 general election, he had the highest majority of any successful candidate other than Ardern.

In Opposition (2008–2017)
For the first nine years of Hipkins' parliamentary career, Labour formed the Official Opposition. In his first term, Hipkins was the Labour spokesperson for internal affairs and a member of parliamentary committees for government administration, local government and environment, and transport and infrastructure. In May 2010, his Electricity (Renewable Preference) Amendment Bill was drawn from the member's ballot. The bill would have reinstated a ban on the thermal generation of electricity which had been imposed by the previous Labour Government in September 2008 before being repealed by the incoming National Government in December 2008, but was defeated at its first reading in June.

In Hipkins' second term, he was promoted into Labour's shadow Cabinet as spokesperson for state services and education under new leader, David Shearer. He also became the Labour Party's chief whip for the first time. As education spokesperson, Hipkins was outspoken in his opposition to the National Government's implementation of charter schools in New Zealand and closure of schools in Christchurch following the destructive 2011 earthquake. He continued as education spokesperson under subsequent leaders David Cunliffe, Andrew Little and Ardern. Under Little and Ardern, Hipkins was additionally shadow leader of the House.

In April 2013, Hipkins voted in favour of the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill, which legalised same-sex marriage in New Zealand. In late 2015, Hipkins received veiled threats, including a death threat, for voicing his concerns about a billboard advertising "cut-price" guns.

In April 2016, his Education (Charter Schools Abolition) Amendment Bill was drawn from the members' ballot. It was defeated at its first reading in November.

In Government, 2017–present
As a senior Labour MP, Hipkins was a key figure in the Sixth Labour Government. Between 2017 and 2023, he was the sixth-ranked Government minister from the Labour Party and he was assigned responsibilities as minister of education, minister for the public service and leader of the House. He was later looked upon as a "fixer," and was given additional responsibility as minister of health and minister for COVID-19 response during the COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand, and later as minister of police during a spate of ram-raids.

First term (2017–2020)
Hipkins was elected as a Cabinet minister by the Labour Party caucus following the formation of a Labour–New Zealand First coalition government supported by the Greens. It was later announced that he would serve as minister for education.

As education minister, Hipkins has supported the abolition of National Standards and charter schools in New Zealand, which were supported by the previous National Government. He has also signaled a review of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) high school certificate system. However, Hipkins has clarified that the Ministry of Education would continue to fund the University of Otago's National Monitoring Study of Student Achievement and the Progress and Consistency Tool (PaCT). The Government's announcement that it would close charter schools drew criticism from the opposition National and ACT parties. In early 2018, Hipkins introduced legislation preventing the creation of new charter schools, while enabling existing charter schools to be converted into special character schools. By September 2018, all twelve charter schools had successfully transitioned to become state-integrated and special character schools.

In December 2018, Hipkins rejected a recommendation by the Council of Victoria University of Wellington to rename the university "University of Wellington", citing the strong opposition to the name change from staff, students, and alumni. Hipkins said that "he was not convinced the university had sufficiently engaged with stakeholders, who should have their views considered."

In February 2019, Hipkins proposed merging the country's 16 polytechnics into a New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology to counter deficits and declining domestic enrolments. This proposed Institute of Skills and Technology will also take over the country's vocational and apprenticeship programmes. While the Tertiary Education Union, Employers and Manufacturers Union, and the Canterbury Employers' Chamber of Commerce have expressed support for the Government's proposal, this has been criticised by the opposition National Party, Southern Institute of Technology CEO Penny Simmonds, and Mayor of Invercargill Tim Shadbolt. In response to the Christchurch mosque shootings, Hipkins extended the polytechnic submission timeframe to 5 April 2019.

In early May 2019, Hipkins announced that the Government would be investing NZ$95 million to train 2,400 new teacher trainees through increased scholarships and placements, new employment-based teacher education programmes, and iwi-based scholarships over the next four years to address the teaching shortage. These measures were criticised as inadequate by the Post Primary Teachers' Association and National Party education spokesperson Nikki Kaye.

On 1 August 2019, Hipkins reaffirmed the Government's plan to merge all polytechnics into a single entity in April 2020. In addition, he announced that the Government would replace all 11 industrial training organisations (ITOs) with between four and seven workforce development councils that would be set up by 2022 to influence vocational education and training. While polytechnics have been cautiously optimistic about the changes despite concerns about losing their autonomy, ITOs and National's tertiary education spokesperson Shane Reti have opposed these changes, claiming they would damage the vocational training system and cause job losses. By 2022, the merger began to strike difficulties including low enrolments, large deficits and resignations of senior staff.

Following the resignation of David Clark as minister of health on 2 July 2020, Prime Minister Ardern appointed Hipkins as interim health minister, serving until the October 2020 general election.

Second term (2020–2023)
In early November 2020, Hipkins retained his education portfolio. He was also designated as minister for COVID-19 response and minister for the Public Service. As Minister of COVID-19 response, Hipkins instituted the wearing of face masks on public transportation and domestic flights in November 2020, pre-departure test requirements for overseas travellers in January 2021, border restrictions for high risk countries in April 2021, and alert level restrictions following the August 2021 outbreak in Auckland. In addition, Hipkins oversaw the launch of the Government's "My Vaccine Pass" vaccine certificate in November 2021, the national vaccination rollout, and the passage of the COVID-19 Response (Vaccinations) Legislation Act 2021, which provided the legal framework for the Government's vaccine mandate.

On 22 August 2021, Hipkins made a comment that attracted controversy and humour when he misspoke during a press conference; encouraging New Zealanders to get tested for COVID-19, he inadvertently urged New Zealanders to socially distance when they go outside to "spread their legs". Commentators suggested that he meant to say, "stretch your legs."

In mid-January 2022, Hipkins, in his capacity as minister for COVID-19 response, postponed the next MIQ lottery due to a tenfold increase in imported Omicron cases entering New Zealand. The Government's decision was criticised by Grounded Kiwis member and Australian–based expatriate Maxine Strydom who stated that many New Zealand expatriates were facing emotional and metal stress due to travel restrictions, expiring visas and job losses. Meanwhile, health economist Professor Paula Lorgelly rationalised the postponement of the MIQ lottery as "a short-term pain for what I perceive to be quite a long-term gain."

On 31 January 2022, Hipkins, in his capacity as minister for COVID-19 response, issued a statement that the Government had offered stranded New Zealand journalist Charlotte Bellis a place under the emergency allocation criteria to travel to New Zealand within a period of 14 days. However, he also claimed that Bellis had indicated that she did not intend to travel until late February and that MIQ had advised her to consider moving her travel plans forward. He also confirmed that New Zealand consular assistance had earlier twice offered to help her return from Afghanistan in December 2021. Bellis was an Al Jazeera journalist who, after becoming pregnant, had left Qatar owing to the Gulf state's law criminalising unmarried pregnancies. Bellis had travelled to Afghanistan where she and her partner had visas allowing them to live there. Due to New Zealand's strict pandemic border policies, Bellis had struggled to secure a place in the Managed Isolation and Quarantine (MIQ) system.

Hipkins was criticised by Bellis' lawyer Tudor Clee for allegedly breaching her client's privacy by sharing personal details about her circumstances and indicated that she was considering "legal options." In response, Bellis stated that she did not give Hipkins consent to share her information and disputed the facts in his statement. MPs Chris Bishop and David Seymour, from National and ACT respectively, also criticised Hipkins' actions, stating that they were "unbecoming" of a minister of the Crown. On 22 June 2022, Hipkins publicly apologised for releasing personal information without Bellis' consent and making inaccurate comments about Bellis travelling to Afghanistan and being offered consular assistance. As a result, Bellis and her partner Jim Huylebroek received online abuse. Hipkins had earlier privately apologised to Bellis in mid-March 2022.

Throughout 2022, Hipkins, as minister of COVID-19 response, oversaw the easing of several COVID-19 mitigation policies including the isolation requirements for positive cases and contacts, vaccination and vaccine pass requirements for school-age children, MIQ isolation hotels, the COVID-19 Protection Framework, and border isolation requirements. In early May 2022, Hipkins acknowledged that the New Zealand Government was spending NZ$10 million a month paying COVID-19 contact tracers despite phasing out contact tracing several months earlier. He stated that the contact tracers were supporting people with COVID-19 in the community. In response, ACT leader Seymour criticised the Government's decision to continuing funding contact tracing services as a waste of taxpayer money.

In a June 2022 reshuffle, Hipkins was shifted from his COVID-19 response portfolio and replaced Poto Williams as minister of police.

In September 2022, Hipkins apologised to former Finance Minister Bill English for suggesting that he had granted his brothers favourable government contracts. Hipkins had made those remarks during an exchange over the awarding of government contracts to Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta's husband Gannin Ormsby.

In mid-October 2022, Hipkins, acting on behalf of COVID-19 response minister Verrall, announced that the Government would scrap several of the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020's provisions including lockdown and MIQ restrictions, border closures, vaccine passes and mandates. The Government however opted to retain the Act's provisions for seven-day isolation periods, mask use and border entry requirements until Parliament passed general pandemic legislation. Hipkins also announced that the Government had revoked the Epidemic Notice, signalling a shift from emergency management to long-term management of COVID-19. That same day, Hipkins confirmed that the Government would hold a Royal Commission of Inquiry into its COVID-19 responses.

Prime Minister (2023–present)

Nomination and appointment

Jacinda Ardern unexpectedly announced her resignation as leader of the Labour Party in a media conference on 19 January 2023, stating that she "no longer had enough in the tank" to do the job. She indicated that she would formally step down no later than 7 February 2023.

Hipkins was confirmed as the only nominee shortly after nominations closed at 9:00 a.m. on 21 January. Stuff reported that Kiritapu Allan, the East Coast MP and minister of justice who had been speculated by media as an alternative candidate, was one of the seven MPs who nominated him. Hipkins had previously demurred when asked about his leadership aspirations, stating that he would support whichever candidate the Labour Party could "reach a consensus" on. In a media standup outside Parliament at 1:00 p.m. on 21 January, Hipkins commented that he discovered he had emerged as that consensus candidate as "the door to the plane [that he had boarded for a flight to Wellington] was closing", leaving him unable to respond to his messages for 40 minutes. The formal meeting to confirm Hipkins as leader was scheduled for 1:00 p.m. on 22 January 2023.

Hipkins was sworn in as prime minister by Governor-General Dame Cindy Kiro on 25 January 2023. His deputy prime minister is Carmel Sepuloni, the first Pasifika to hold the position. Upon taking office, Hipkins addressed the cost of living, saying that New Zealanders will "absolutely see in the coming weeks and months the cost of living is right at the heart of our work program", and declared it his "absolute priority". He indicated that Labour would postpone some of its new projects until after the election to focus on the economy. Politically he has been cited as a centrist.

Domestic affairs
On 26 January, Hipkins met several Auckland business leaders at a roundtable event hosted by the Auckland Business Chamber, led by former National MP Simon Bridges. During the meeting, Hipkins affirmed his Government's commitment to pursuing a constructive relationship with businesses, citing their importance to the New Zealand economy. Hipkins also confirmed that business representatives had given the Government feedback on several policy areas including skills shortages. Hipkins also stated that businesses supported the Government's apprenticeship boost, which created opportunities for them. Earlier, several small business owners including Kiwi Kai business owner Reni Gargiulo, Air Milford CEO Hank Sproull, Christchurch pharmacy owner Annabel Turley, Saint Andrews Dairy Dhaval Amin, and Grownup Donuts owner Daniel Black had called on Hipkins' Government to address various issues including staffing shortages, immigration work visa policies, youth crime, and inflation. In addition, Ashburton dairy farmer Nick Gier called on the Government to scrap the Three Waters reform programme and carbon emissions taxes on the agricultural sector.

Hipkins was faced almost immediately with the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Weekend floods. The flash flooding began on 27 January 2023, and saw an entire summer's worth of rain fall within just a day. On 28 January, Hipkins and Minister for Emergency Management Kieran McAnulty visited Auckland to liaise with emergency services, reassure affected constituents, and assess the damage. Hipkins subsequently attended a press conference in West Auckland with MacAnulty, Mayor of Auckland Wayne Brown, and Minister of Transport Michael Wood.

After Hipkins' ascension to the role of prime minister and his response to the recent floods, opinion polls saw his personal popularity and that of the Labour Party surge: a 1 News–Kantar poll had Labour up 5 percentage points to 38, with National dropping one percentage point to 37; Hipkins also had a net approval of 36 points, with National Leader Christopher Luxon trailing on 9 points. Another poll conducted by Newshub–Reid Research had Labour up 5.7 points to 38, ahead of National, which fell 4.1 points, dropping to 36.6.

In February 2023, Hipkins announced that several policies including the proposed TVNZ-RNZ merger and that a biofuel mandate requiring petrol and diesel to contain a certain percentage of biofuel from renewable resources would be scrapped. In addition, Hipkins confirmed that other policies including the social income insurance scheme, proposed hate speech legislation, and the Three Waters reform programme would be delayed or revised. Hipkins also confirmed that the minimum wage would be raised from NZ$21.20 to NZ$22.70 an hour from 1 April 2023. In response to the recent North Island floods, Hipkins confirmed that the Government would invest NZ$3 million in discretionary flood recovery payments, NZ$1 million in supporting flood-affected businesses, and an additional NZ$1 million in mental health support.

On 13 March, Hipkins announced that the Government would scrap several policies and reform programmes including legislation to lower the voting age to 16 years, the speed reduction programme except for the most dangerous 1% of highways, and the NZ$586 million Clean Car Upgrade programme. In addition, the Government announced that it would delay or revise several policies and programmes including proposed alcohol reforms, the container return scheme, public transportation including the Auckland Light Rail, and public consultation on a new test to determine the difference between contractors and employees. The Government would redirect funding to a NZ$2 billion to a welfare package to provide "bread and butter" support to 1.4 million New Zealanders affected by the ongoing "cost of living" crisis. While the Green and Māori parties criticised the Government for backtracking on climate action policies, the National and ACT parties welcomed the scrapping of "wasteful" Government policies but questioned the Government's commitment to change.

On 11 April 2023, Hipkins and Health Minister Verrall announced that the New Zealand Government would retain the few remaining COVID-19 restrictions including the seven-day mandatory isolation period for positive cases and mask wearing requirements at hospitals for at least two months.

The 2023 New Zealand Budget, presented on 18 May 2023, was regarded as cementing Hipkins' dedication to a "no-frills" welfare program to combat cost of living. The budget included many sweeping initiatives to support lower-middle class New Zealanders, including $618.6 million to scrap NZ$5 prescription fees, $1.2 billion to extend 20 free early childhood education hours to include two year olds, $327 million on free public transport for under-13 year olds, and permanent half-price fees for under-25 year olds, and $402 million on expanding the Warmer Kiwi Homes plan. The latter will subsidise heating, insulation, hot water heat pumps, and LED lamps. The budget will also allocate NZ$1.9b from the Climate Emergency Response Fund on emissions reductions and adaptation measures. The budget also included a "huge funding boost" for Te Matatini, putting it on par with the Royal New Zealand Ballet and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra for the first time in over 50 years.

Foreign affairs

On 7 February, Hipkins undertook his first state visit to the Australian capital, Canberra, where he met Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. While the two leaders reaffirmed Australian–New Zealand bilateral relations, they also discussed the controversial Section 501 deportation policy. During the visit, Albanese confirmed that his government would revise the deportation policy to take into account individuals' connections to Australia and the length of time they had lived in the country. During the visit, the two leaders exchanged gifts; with Hipkins gifting Albanese a greenstone pounamu in the shape of a hook and Albanese giving several Australian records including music from Thelma Plum, Gang of Youths and Alex the Astronaut.

In early May 2023, Hipkins confirmed that he would attend the coronation of King Charles III on 6 May. He also extended an invitation to Leader of the Opposition Christopher Luxon. Hipkins confirmed that he would meet with Charles III, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Minister of State for the Armed Forces James Heappey, and New Zealand soldiers stationed in the UK training Ukrainian forces. Prior to his departure for the UK, Hipkins also called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to reiterate New Zealand's support for Ukraine.

On 22 May 2023, Hipkins visited Papua New Guinea where he met with several regional and international leaders including Papua New Guinean Prime Minister James Marape, Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown, United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Hipkins' visit coincided with the signing of two bilateral defence and maritime agreements between the United States and Papua New Guinea. Hipkins voiced support for the strengthening of Papua New Guinea–United States relations and stated that the United States and New Zealand would work together on combating climate change and the "militarisation" of the South Pacific. He also stated that the United States acknowledged New Zealand's nuclear-free stance. On 23 May, Hipkins accepted an offer from Modi to visit India and discuss a proposed free trade agreement between India and New Zealand.

On 19 June, Radio New Zealand reported that Hipkins would lead a large political and business delegation to China in late June 2023 to promote diplomatic and trade relations with China. Hipkins also confirmed that he would meet Chinese President Xi Jinping during the state visit. Hipkins' delegation arrived in Beijing on 26 June where he was greeted by New Zealand Ambassador to China Grahame Morton and Chinese Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Ma Zhaoxu. On 27 June, Hipkins met with Xi, with the two leaders emphasizing the importance of friendly bilateral relations. The two heads of government discussed Sino-New Zealand bilateral relations, China-United States relations, the Ukraine conflict, Pacific issues, and human rights. The opposition criticised Hipkins for flying with a second jetliner as backup to as far as the Philippines in case the Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) Boeing 757 he rode were to experience mishap. According to the RNZAF, the precaution is not unusual. Delegations to other destinations in the past have become stranded after their plane broke down.

On 9 July, Hipkins and President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen formally signed the New Zealand-European free trade agreement in Brussels. which awaits ratification by the European Parliament. While farmers and some political groups in the European Parliament are expected to oppose the free trade agreement, European Union Ambassador to New Zealand Nina Obermaier confirmed that the 27 European Union member states had consented to the agreement

On 8 October 2023, Hipkins unequivocally condemned Hamas' actions during the 2023 Israel–Hamas war. He said that the target of civilians and hostage taking violated fundamental international humanitarian principles. He also stated Israel had the right to defend itself. Hipkins' statement came after the Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta had issued a statement calling for the belligerents to halt violence, protect civilians, and uphold international humanitarian law. In response to criticism of Mahuta's remarks by ACT Party leader David Seymour, Hipkins denied that Mahuta was out of step with New Zealand foreign policy and stated that her remarks was a matter of timing.

Political views
Hipkins is typically regarded as a centrist politician, and an "arch-pragmatist". A student activist at university, he has labelled himself as increasingly moderate due to deepening political polarisation. Hipkins is not a monarchist but ahead of the coronation of Charles III, he announced that he would not be pushing for New Zealand to become a republic during his premiership. During a press conference, Hipkins stated: "Ideally, I think in time, New Zealand will become a fully independent country... I don’t think that swapping out the governor-general for some other form of head of state is necessarily an urgent priority right now, though."

Public image
Hipkins is nicknamed "Chippy", a diminutive name derived from his initials, but reflective of his "upbeat, slightly schoolboyish demeanour". He is known for his enjoyment of sausage rolls and Coke Zero. His love for sausage rolls has promoted discussion, with some political commentators claiming it embodies the sharp departure from the soft power New Zealand enjoyed under Ardern ("Jacindamania"). Ben Thomas, a political consultant and former staffer for the National Party, said in 2023 that "for five years we had this funny, beautiful, self-deprecating PM who looks like an actual princess when she goes to meet the Queen ... and now we've got the sausage roll guy." Hipkins has embraced his public perception, and is generally known as humble, affable, and self-deprecating.

Personal life
Hipkins and his wife Jade were married in 2020 in a ceremony held at Premier House, Wellington, with Grant Robertson serving as best man. He has two children. He and his wife separated in 2022. When he took extended paternity leave for the birth of his second child in 2018, he was one of the first senior male cabinet ministers to do so. He remet former staffer Toni Grace and began a relationship with her. The relationship was publicly revealed during his election night concession speech in October 2023.

Both of Hipkins' children have a blood clotting disorder known as Von Willebrand disease. In mid-August 2023, he took leave from election campaigning to support his four-year old daughter.

References

External links

 Profile on the New Zealand Parliament website
 Profile at New Zealand Labour Party
 MPs webpage

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1978 births
Living people
People from the Wellington Region
Prime Ministers of New Zealand
New Zealand Labour Party leaders
New Zealand Labour Party MPs
Members of the Cabinet of New Zealand
New Zealand education ministers
New Zealand republicans
Members of the New Zealand House of Representatives
New Zealand MPs for Hutt Valley electorates
Candidates in the 2017 New Zealand general election
Candidates in the 2020 New Zealand general election
Victoria University of Wellington alumni
Victoria University of Wellington Students' Association presidents
20th-century New Zealand people
21st-century New Zealand politicians
Candidates in the 2023 New Zealand general election


Kathiani Constituency is an electoral constituency in Kenya. It is one of eight constituencies in Machakos County. The constituency was established for the 1988 elections.

Members of Parliament

Locations and wards

References

External links
Map of the constituency

Constituencies in Machakos County
1988 establishments in Kenya
Constituencies established in 1988
Constituencies in Eastern Province (Kenya)


The Grace Divine School collapse occurred on November 12, 2008, at the Grace Divine Primary and Secondary School in the Canapé Vert section of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The collapse, along with the 2008 Pétion-Ville school collapse, was the second such incident in Haiti in less than a week.

Collapse
The school building was a two-story concrete structure built on the side of a hill. According to one AFP witness, "chunks of the school's walls were scattered on the ground, its concrete roof was sagging, and there were clear cracks in the remaining walls".

No cause was immediately apparent, but poor-quality construction and heavy rains in the preceding days were believed to have been contributing factors. The Red Cross reported that some students were jumping and dancing in a musical just prior to collapse, which may have strained the weakened structure.

Casualties
Around 100 students, ages 5 to 12, attended Grace Divine School. The collapse occurred during a break in classes, when most of the school's students were outside in the yard. At least nine individuals were injured, including two students who were taken to hospital. A preliminary search reported that no one was trapped in the debris and that there were no fatalities.

Compared to the Pétion-Ville disaster, the number and severity of casualties in Port-au-Price were low because of relatively little damage to the buildings and most students were outside of the building during collapse.

Reaction and rescue
After hearing of the collapse parents anxiously gathered at the school, fearing a similar deadly outcome of the collapse of the La Promesse school in Pétion-Ville. Foreign and domestic rescue teams were quick to arrive on scene due to their involvement in the Pétion-Ville collapse.

At one school a mile away from Grace Divine, students believed their own school building was shaking; there was no damage but two children were injured in the panic.

Initial information about the disaster was reported to the international media by Dr. Jean Pierre Guiteau, the executive officer of the Haitian Red Cross.

References

Building and structure collapses in 2008
2008 in Haiti
Man-made disasters in Haiti
Disasters in schools
21st century in Port-au-Prince


Executive Recycling is an Englewood, Colorado-based business specializing in electronic waste recycling. 60 Minutes linked Executive Recycling to the illegal export of electronic waste from the Denver area to Guiyu, China.  In the report, the company also was found to have illegally offered to help an undercover investigative team to ship more than 1,500 CRT (cathode ray tube) monitors and 1,200 CRT TVs to Hong Kong for recycling purposes.  The story added that the federal government has issued a search warrant to investigate Executive Recycling's actions. Until November 2008, Executive Recycling was partnered with Colorado's Governor's Office of Economic Development to assist in recycling pickup events.

In response to the 60 Minutes report, Executive Recycling issued a statement claiming that they "... discovered that forged documents (provided by the port authorities) were used to improperly shift blame to us when ER (Executive Recycling) sold the tested working units to a Canadian wholesale buyer. We are currently seeking legal actions against this one wholesale buyer in regards to this report." When asked by the Denver Business Journal about how other Executive Recycling shipments had illegally made their way from Colorado to China, as 60 Minutes had reported, the company's CEO, Brandon Richter, did not answer the questions.

As of December 2012, both the CEO and vice president of Executive Recycling have been convicted "of multiple counts of mail and wire fraud and environmental crimes related to the illegal disposal of electronic waste, smuggling, and obstruction of justice, following an 11-day trial." The CEO was sentenced to thirty months in prison in July 2013, and the vice president received a sentence of 14 months in federal prison.

References

External links

Electronic waste in the United States
Companies based in Englewood, Colorado


Gracen is a village and a former municipality in the Elbasan County, central Albania. At the 2015 local government reform it became a subdivision of the municipality Elbasan. The population at the 2011 census was 2,192. The municipal unit consists of the villages Gracen, Plangaricë, Tërbaç, Bodin, Shingjin, Gjormë, Pajengë, Mamli and Dopaj.

References

Former municipalities in Elbasan County
Administrative units of Elbasan
Villages in Elbasan County


"Lucy Gray" is a poem written by William Wordsworth in 1799 and published in his Lyrical Ballads. It describes the death of a young girl named Lucy Gray, who went out one evening into a storm.

Lucy Gray gives her name to the lead female character Lucy Gray Baird in the novel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Suzanne Collins's 2020 prequel to the Hunger Games series.

Background
The poem was inspired by Wordsworth being surrounded by snow, and his sister's memory of a real incident that happened at Halifax. Wordsworth explained the origins when he wrote, "Written at Goslar in Germany in 1799. It was founded on a circumstance told me by my Sister, of a little girl who, not far from Halifax in Yorkshire, was bewildered in a snow-storm. Her footsteps were traced by her parents to the middle of the lock of a canal, and no other vestige of her, backward or forward, could be traced. The body however was found in the canal." Lucy Gray was first published in Volume 2 of the 1800 edition of Lyrical Ballads.

Poem
Lucy Gray is generally not included with Wordsworth's "Lucy" poems, even though it is a poem that mentions a character named Lucy. The poem is excluded from the series because the traditional "Lucy" poems are uncertain about the age of Lucy and her actual relationship with the narrator, and Lucy Gray provides exact details on both. Furthermore, the poem is different from the "Lucy" poems in that it relies on narrative storytelling and is a direct imitation of the traditional 18th century ballad form.

 LUCY GRAY

Oft I had heard of Lucy Gray,
And, when I crossed the Wild,
I chanced to see at break of day
The solitary Child.

No mate, no comrade Lucy knew;
She dwelt on a wide Moor,
-The sweetest Thing that ever grew
Beside a human door!

You yet may spy the Fawn at play,
The Hare upon the Green;
But the sweet face of Lucy Gray
Will never more be seen.

“To-night will be a stormy night,
You to the Town must go,
And take the lantern, Child, to light
Your Mother through the snow.”

“That, Father! Will I gladly do;
‘Tis scarcely afternoon-
The Minster-clock had just struck two,
And yonder is the moon.”

At this the Father raised his hook
And snapp'd a faggot-band;
He plied his work – and Lucy took
The lantern in her hand.

Not blither is the mountain roe;
With many a wanton stroke
Her feet disperse the powdery snow,
That rises up like smoke.

The storm came on before its time,
She wander'd up and down,
And many a hill did Lucy climb
But never reach'd the Town.

The wrecked Parents all that night
Went shouting far and wide;
But there was neither sound nor sight
To serve them for a guide.

At day-break on a hill they stood
That overlooked the Moor;
And thence they saw the Bridge of Wood
A furlong from their door.

They wept, and turning homeward cried
"In Heaven we all shall meet!"
When in the snow the Mother spied
The print of Lucy's feet.

Then downward from the steep hill's edge
They tracked the footmarks small;
And through the broken hawthorn-hedge,
And by the long stone-wall;

And then an open field they crossed,
The marks were still the same;
They tracked them on, nor ever lost,
And to the Bridge they came.

They followed from the snowy bank
The footmarks, one by one,
Into the middle of the plank,
And further there were none.

Yet some maintain that to this day
She is a living Child,
That you may see sweet Lucy Gray
Upon the lonesome Wild.

Over rough and smooth she trips along,
And never looks behind;
And sings a solitary song
That whistles in the wind.

Themes
Bennett Weaver points out that "The dominant theme of the poems of 1799 is death: death for the children of the village school, for Matthew's daughter, and for Lucy Gray", and Mary Moorman believes that Lucy Gray is the "most haunting of all his ballads of childhood". Lucy Gray, like the Lucy of the Lucy poems and Ruth of Wordsworth's "Ruth" are, according to H. W. Garrod, part of "an order of beings who have lapsed out of nature – the nature of woods and hills – into human connections hardly strong enough to hold them. Perpetually they threaten to fall back into a kind of things or a kind of spirits."

Wordsworth is trying to describe how Lucy, a girl connected to nature, dies. She is part of nature, according to Robert Langbaum, because Wordsworth "makes the human figure seem to evolve out of and pass back into the landscape". Henry Crabb Robinson explains that Wordsworth's point "was to exhibit poetically entire solitude, and he represents the child as observing the day-moon, which no town or village girl would ever notice". However, her connection with nature makes it is possible that Lucy's spirit is able to survive. The feeling in Lucy Gray, as John Beer writes, is counter to the feeling in "She dwelt among the untrodden ways" that "No amount of dwelling on her significance as an embodiment of life-forces can reduce by one iota the dull fact of her death and the necessary loss to all who love her."

Wordsworth wrote, in reference to Lucy Gray, "the way in which the incident was treated and the spiritualizing of the character might furnish hints for contrasting the imaginative influences which I have endeavoured to throw over common life with Crabbe's matter of fact style of treating subjects of the same kind". By this, Raymond Havens points out, Wordsworth is trying to pull away from realism into a state dominated by the imagination. To Wordsworth, the imagination was connected to both ethics and aesthetics, and he sought to exalt the imagination in Lucy Gray. Paul De Man believes that there is a "loss of name in the Lucy Gray poems where death makes her into an anonymous entity". However, some critics, like Mark Jones, believe that, in arguing for "a more general symbolic or literary value for Lucy Gray" or deemphasising Lucy Gray's identity as an individual, a critic "obliterates her status as human pure and simple, or, what is the same, underrates the importance of this status."

Reception
William Blake marked the poems Lucy Gray, "Strange fits", and "Louisa" with an "X", which provoked Mark Jones to write "The award for minimalist commentary must go to William Blake". Matthew Arnold believed that Lucy Gray was "a beautiful success" when contrasting how it is able to emphasise an incorporeal side of nature, and he believed that the poem "The Sailor's Mother" was "a failure" for its lack of the incorporeal. However, Swinburne believed that "The Sailor's Mother" was "the deeper in its pathos, the more enduring in its effect, the happier if also the more venturous in its simplicity".

A.C. Bradley believed that "there is too much reason to fear that for half his readers his 'solitary child' is generalised into a mere 'little girl,' and that they never receive the main impression he wished this is very wrong where is the actual theme written to produce. Yet his intention is announced in the opening lines, and as clearly shown in the lovely final stanzas, which gives even to this ballad the visionary touch".

References

 Arnold, Matthew. "Preface" in Poems of Wordsworth. London: Macmillan, 1879.
 Beer, John. Wordsworth and the Human Heart. New York: Columbia University Press, 1978.
 Bradley, A. C. Oxford Lectures on Poetry. London: Macmillan, 1959.
 De Man, Paul. "Time and History in Wordsworth". Diacritics, Vol. 17, No. 4, (Winter, 1987), pp. 4–17.
 Garrod, Heathcote William. Profession of Poetry and Other Lectures. Ayer Publishing, 1967.
 Havens, Raymond. The Mind of a Poet. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1941.
 Jones, Mark. The 'Lucy Poems': A Case Study in Literary Knowledge. Toronto: The University of Toronto Press, 1995. .
 Langbaum, Robert. "The Evolution of Soul in Wordsworth's Poetry". PMLA, Vol. 82, No. 2 (May 1967), pp. 265–272.
 Moorman, Mary. William Wordsworth A Biography: The Early Years 1770–1803. London: Oxford University Press, 1968.
 Robinson, Henry Crabb. The Diary of Henry Crabb Robinson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967.
 Stork, Charles Wharton. "The Influence of the Popular Ballad on Wordsworth and Coleridge". PMLA, Vol. 29, No. 3 (1914), pp. 299–326.
 Swinburne, Algernon Charles. Miscellanies. New York: Worthington, 1886. OCLC 7291800.
 Weaver, Bennett. "Wordsworth: Poet of the Unconquerable Mind". PMLA, Vol. 75, No. 3 (Jun. 1960), pp. 231–237.
 Wordsworth, William. Poems by William Wordsworth. New York: McClure Phillips, 1907.
 Wordsworth, William. Lyrical Ballads. Routledge, 1991.

External links

Poetry by William Wordsworth
1799 poems


The 2009 Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Pioneers season was the team's eighth season of arena football. The Pioneers made another attempt to return to the ArenaCup after falling out of the playoff race for ArenaCup IX.  The team signed many key players from the 2008 campaign, including quarterback Ryan Vena and defensive lineman Alan Barnes.

The Pioneers returned to the ArenaCup, but lost to the Spokane Shock 74–27.

Rosters

Training camp

Week 1

Final roster

Team staff

Schedule

Regular season

Postseason

Final standings

Attendance

External links
ArenaFan Online 2009 Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Pioneers schedule
ArenaFan Online 2009 af2 standings
ArenaFan Online 2009 af2 attendance

Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Pioneers seasons
Wilkes-Barre Scranton Pioneers
Wilkes-Barre Scranton Pioneers


Papër is a village and a former municipality in the Elbasan County, central Albania. At the 2015 local government reform it became a subdivision of the municipality Elbasan. The population at the 2011 census was 6,348. It is located along the Elbasan-Rrogozhinë-Durrës highway,  west of Elbasan.  It was founded on July 26, 1992.  Within its 52 kilometers of borders, the municipal unit of Papër consists of 13 villages: Papër, Vidhas, Broshke, Balldre, Murres, Valas, Lugaj, Pajun, Ullishtaj, Papër-Sollak, Vidhas-Asgjel, Bizhute, and Jatesh.

Since 2000, Shefqet Bullari has been the elected mayor of Papër.
The geography of Papër is 60% fields, 30% hills, and 10% mountains.  The Shkumbin River flows through Papër.
Papër ranges from 60–722 meters above sea level.

References

Former municipalities in Elbasan County
Administrative units of Elbasan
Villages in Elbasan County


Tsai Horng Chung (also, Chai Chung Ying; 蔡洪鐘) (1915–2003), was a Chinese-Sarawakan painter.

Tsai studied at the Shanghai Art Academy in the early 1940s, together with other artists who were to gain considerable fame such as Chen Shi Fatt, who was to later head the academy.

In late 1943, Tsai got a position teaching art at Sarawak - then under Imperial Japanese occupation - where he lived out the rest of his life, never returning to his native China. He profoundly influenced artistic life in Sarawak, where his pupils were (and many still are) active, and became well known in the whole of Southeast Asia, with exhibitions of his works being held at art galleries in Singapore, Malaysia and other countries in the region.

Among his works are some in traditional Chinese styles and others in modern Western ones, in both of which he had shown considerable proficiency.

As well as a painter, Tsai also became known as a poet and composer, especially for his "Ocean Wave" (published 1953 in Hong Kong).

A comprehensive exhibition of his work, entitled "Rediscovering Tsai Horng Chung" was  presented at the Malaysian National Art Gallery in 2005, after the artist's death. It was introduced with the following words:

The often overlooked painter Tsai Horng Chung is a prodigiously talented Sarawkian painter and dedicated educator. To commemorate this unsung pioneer, the Gallery is exhibiting a large body of undiscovered works and a rich legacy of education.

References

External links
 "Landscape" (1958, traditional Chinese style)
Short biography from "Asian Art and Antique"

Malaysian painters
1915 births
2003 deaths
Malaysian people of Chinese descent
People from Sarawak
20th-century Chinese painters
Chinese emigrants
Immigrants to Sarawak


Dawsonia is the scientific name of several genera of organisms and may refer to:

Dawsonia (plant), a genus of moss some reaching up to 65 cm (two feet) in length
Dawsonia (trilobite), an eodiscoid trilobite
Dawsonia (problematicum), a Palaeozoic problematicum