Mirkwood is a name used for a great dark fictional forest in novels by Sir Walter Scott and William Morris in the 19th century, and by J. R. R. Tolkien in the 20th century. The critic Tom Shippey explains that the name evoked the excitement of the wildness of Europe's ancient North.

At least two distinct Middle-earth forests are named Mirkwood in Tolkien's legendarium. One is in the First Age, when the highlands of Dorthonion north of Beleriand became known as Mirkwood after falling under Morgoth's control. The more famous Mirkwood was in Wilderland, east of the river Anduin. It had acquired the name Mirkwood after it fell under the influence of the Necromancer; before that it had been known as Greenwood the Great. This Mirkwood features significantly in The Hobbit and in the film The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.

The term Mirkwood derives from the forest Myrkviðr of Norse mythology; that forest has been identified by scholars as representing a wooded region of Ukraine at the time of the wars between the Goths and the Huns in the fourth century. A Mirkwood was used by the novelist Sir Walter Scott in his 1814 novel Waverley, and then by William Morris in his 1889 fantasy novel The House of the Wolfings. Forests play a major role in the invented history of Tolkien's Middle-earth and are important in the heroic quests of his characters. The forest device is used as a mysterious transition from one part of the story to another.

In Walter Scott's Waverley

The name Mirkwood was used by Walter Scott in his 1814 novel Waverley, which had

In William Morris's fantasies

William Morris used Mirkwood in his fantasy novels. His 1889 The Roots of the Mountains is set in such a forest, while the forest setting in his The House of the Wolfings, also first published in 1889, is actually named Mirkwood. The book begins by describing the wood:

In Tolkien's writings

A Mirkwood appears in several places in J. R. R. Tolkien's writings, among several forests that play important roles in his storytelling. Projected into Old English, it appears as Myrcwudu in his The Lost Road, as a poem sung by Ælfwine. He used the name Mirkwood in another unfinished work, The Fall of Arthur. But the name is best known and most prominent in his Middle-earth legendarium, where it appears as two distinct forests, one in the First Age in Beleriand, as described in The Silmarillion, the other in the Third Age in Rhovanion, as described in both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

The First Age forest in Beleriand

In The Silmarillion, the forested highlands of Dorthonion in the north of Beleriand (in the northwest of Middle-earth) eventually fell under Morgoth's control and was subjugated by creatures of Sauron, then Lord of Werewolves. Accordingly, the forest was renamed Taur-nu-Fuin in Sindarin, "Forest of Darkness", or "Forest of Nightshade"; Tolkien chose to use the English form "Mirkwood". Beren becomes the sole survivor of the men who once lived there as subjects of the Noldor King Finrod of Nargothrond. Beren ultimately escapes the terrible forest that even the Orcs fear to spend time in. Beleg pursues the captors of Túrin through this forest in the several accounts of Túrin's tale. Along with the rest of Beleriand, this forest was lost in the cataclysm of the War of Wrath at the end of the First Age.

The forest in Rhovanion

Mirkwood is a vast temperate broadleaf and mixed forest in the Middle-earth region of Rhovanion (Wilderland), east of the great river Anduin. In The Hobbit, the wizard Gandalf calls it "the greatest forest of the Northern world." Before it was darkened by evil, it had been called Greenwood the Great.

After the publication of the maps in The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien wrote a correction stating "Mirkwood is too small on map it must be 300 miles across" from east to west, but the maps were never altered to reflect this. On the published maps Mirkwood was up to  across; from north to south it stretched about . The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia states that it is  long and  wide.

The trees were large and densely packed. In the north they were mainly oaks, although beeches predominated in the areas favoured by Elves. Higher elevations in southern Mirkwood were "clad in a forest of dark fir". Pockets of the forest were dominated by dangerous giant spiders. Animals within the forest were described as inedible. The elves of the forest, too, are "black" and hostile, drawing a comparison with Svartalfheim ("Black elf home") in Snorri Sturluson's Old Norse Edda, quite unlike the friendly elves of Rivendell.

Near the end of the Third Age – the period in which The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are set – the expansive forest of "Greenwood the Great" was renamed "Mirkwood", supposedly a translation of an unknown Westron name. The forest plays little part in The Lord of the Rings, but is important in The Hobbit for both atmosphere and plot. It was renamed when "the shadow of Dol Guldur", namely the power of Sauron, fell upon the forest, and people began to call it Taur-nu-Fuin (Sindarin: "forest under deadly nightshade" or "forest under night", i.e. "mirk wood") and Taur-e-Ndaedelos (Sindarin: "forest of great fear").

In The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, with Thorin Oakenshield and his band of Dwarves, attempt to cross Mirkwood during their quest to regain their mountain Erebor and its treasure from Smaug the dragon. One of the Dwarves, the fat Bombur, falls into the Enchanted River and has to be carried, unconscious, for the following days. Losing the Elf-path, the party becomes lost in the forest and is captured by giant spiders. They escape, only to be taken prisoner by King Thranduil's Wood-Elves. The White Council flushes Sauron out of his forest tower at Dol Guldur, and as he flees to Mordor his influence in Mirkwood diminishes.

Years later, Gollum, after his release from Mordor, is captured by Aragorn and brought as a prisoner to Thranduil's realm. Out of pity, they allow him to roam the forest under close guard, but he escapes during an Orc raid. After the downfall of Sauron, Mirkwood is cleansed by the elf-queen Galadriel and renamed Eryn Lasgalen, Sindarin for "Wood of Greenleaves". Thranduil's son, Legolas, leaves Mirkwood for Ithilien. The wizard Radagast lived at Rhosgobel on the western eaves of Mirkwood, as depicted in the film The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

Dol Guldur

Dol Guldur (Sindarin: "Hill of Sorcery") was Sauron's stronghold in Mirkwood, before he moved to Barad-dûr in Mordor. It is first mentioned (as "the dungeons of the Necromancer") in The Hobbit. The hill itself, rocky and barren, was the highest point in the southwestern part of the forest. Before Sauron's occupation, it was called Amon Lanc ("Naked Hill"). It lay near the western edge of the forest, across the Anduin from Lothlórien. Tolkien suggests that Sauron settled on Dol Guldur as the focus for his rise during the period before the War of the Ring in part so that he could search for the One Ring in the Gladden Fields just up the river.

Dol Guldur has been featured in many game adaptations of The Lord of the Rings, including the Iron Crown Enterprises portrayal, which contains scenarios and adventures for the Middle-earth Role Playing game In the strategy battle game The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II, Dol Guldur appears as an iconic building. The campaign-scenario called "Assault on Dol Guldur" appears as the final part of the good campaign. Several portrayals of Dol Guldur are included in the Games Workshop game The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game, appearing prominently in the "Fall of the Necromancer". A number of enemies are listed, including Spider Queens, Castellans of Dol Guldur, Sauron the Necromancer, Wild Warg Chieftain, and their respective armies. Giant Bats are also included in the game. In 1996, the black metal band Summoning released a music album named Dol Guldur.

The Canadian artist John Howe has portrayed Dol Guldur in sketches and drawings, drawn for Electronic Arts. In Myth and Magic: The Art of John Howe, Howe includes Dol Guldur among Middle-earth fortresses. Howe created many drawings for Peter Jackson during the filming of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, worked for Tolkien Enterprises, and drew for Iron Crown Enterprises' collectable Middle-earth card game, which mentions Dol Guldur on Gandalf's card. Mirkwood was added to the MMORPG The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar in the 2009 expansion pack Siege of Mirkwood. The storyline depicts a small Elven assault upon Dol Guldur.

In Peter Jackson's 2012-2014 film trilogy adaptation of The Hobbit, Dol Guldur is depicted as a massive overgrown castle in ruins. According to Alan Lee and John Howe, the conceptual designers, this was used to give the impression that the fortress had been built by Númenóreans during the Second Age, only to fall into ruin when Númenór's power waned. Adrián Maldonado of AlmostArchaeology speculates that the derelict castle could be interpreted by viewers as the ruins of Oropher's halls, erected during the Second Age when he ruled Greenwood the Great from Amon Lanc.

Literary philology

19th-century writers interested in philology, including the folklorist Jacob Grimm and the artist and fantasy writer William Morris, speculated romantically about the wild, primitive Northern forest, the Myrkviðr inn ókunni ("the pathless Mirkwood") and the secret roads across it, in the hope of reconstructing supposed ancient cultures. Grimm proposed that the name Myrkviðr derived from Old Norse mark (boundary) and mǫrk (forest), both, he supposed, from an older word for wood, perhaps at the dangerous and disputed boundary of the kingdoms of the Huns and the Goths.

Morris's Mirkwood is named in his 1899 fantasy novel House of the Wolfings, and a similar large dark forest is the setting in The Roots of the Mountains, again marking a dark and dangerous forest. Tolkien had access to more modern philology than Grimm, with proto-Indo-European mer- (to flicker [dimly]) and *merg- (mark, boundary), and places the early origins of both the Men of Rohan and the hobbits in his Mirkwood. The Tolkien Encyclopedia remarks also that the Old English Beowulf mentions that the path between the worlds of men and monsters, from Hrothgar's hall to Grendel's lair, runs ofer myrcan mor (across a gloomy moor) and wynleasne wudu (a joyless wood).

A Mirkwood is mentioned in multiple Norse texts including Sögubrot af nokkrum fornkonungum, Helgakviða Hundingsbana I and II, Styrbjarnar þáttr Svíakappa, and Völundarkviða; these mentions may have denoted different forests. The Goths had lived in Ukraine until the attack by the Huns in the 370s, when they moved southwest and with the permission of the Emperor Valens settled in the Roman Empire. The scholar Omeljan Pritsak identifies the Mirkwood of Hlöðskviða in Hervarar saga with what would later be called the "dark blue forest" (Goluboj lěsь) and the  "black forest" (Černyj lěsь) north of the Ukrainian steppe.

Tom Shippey noted that Norse legend yields two placenames which would place the Myrkviðr in the borderlands between the Goths and the Huns of the 4th century. The Atlakviða ("The Lay of Atli", in the Elder Edda) and the Hlöðskviða ("The Battle of the Goths and Huns", in Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks) both mention that the Mirkwood was beside the Danpar, the River Dnieper, which runs through Ukraine to the Black Sea. The Hlöðskviða states explicitly in the same passage that the Mirkwood was in Gothland. The Hervarar saga also mentions Harvaða fjöllum, "the Harvad fells", which by Grimm's Law would be *Karpat, the Carpathian Mountains, an identification on which most scholars have long agreed.

Influence

Tolkien's estate disputed the right of the novelist Steve Hillard "to use the name and personality of J. R. R. Tolkien in the novel" Mirkwood: A Novel About J. R. R. Tolkien. The dispute was settled in May 2011, requiring the printing of a disclaimer.
A rock music group named Mirkwood was formed in 1971; their first album in 1973 had the same name. A different band in California used the name in 2005.
Tolkien's forests were the subject of a programme on BBC Radio 3, with Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough and the folk singer Mark Atherton.
Literary holidays in the Forest of Dean have been sold on the basis that the area inspired Tolkien, who often went there, to create Mirkwood and other forests in his books.

References

Primary

Secondary

Sources

Middle-earth forests
Forests in fiction

de:Regionen und Orte in Tolkiens Welt#Düsterwald
pl:Lista lasów Śródziemia#Mroczna Puszcza
sv:Platser i Tolkiens värld#Mörkmården


The Elysium Fossae are a group of large troughs in the Elysium quadrangle of Mars at 24.8° north latitude and 213.7° west longitude.  They are about 1,175 km long and are named after a classical albedo feature name.

Troughs
Large troughs (long narrow depressions) are called fossae in the geographical language used for Mars. Troughs are created when the crust is stretched until it breaks. The stretching can be due to the large weight of a nearby volcano. Fossae/pit craters are common near volcanoes in the Tharsis and Elysium system of volcanoes.  A trough often has two breaks with a middle section moving down, leaving steep cliffs along the sides; such a trough is called a graben.  Lake George, in northern New York State, is a lake that sits in a graben.

Layers
The Elysium Fossae contain layers, also called strata.  Many places on Mars show rocks arranged in layers.  Sometimes the layers are of different colors.  Light-toned rocks on Mars have been associated with hydrated minerals like sulfates.  The Mars rover Opportunity examined such layers close-up with several instruments.  Some layers are probably made up of fine particles because they seem to break up into find dust.  Other layers break up into large boulders so they are probably much harder.  Basalt, a volcanic rock, is thought to in the layers that form boulders.  Basalt has been identified on Mars in many places.  Instruments on orbiting spacecraft have detected clay (also called phyllosilicates) in some layers.  Scientists are excited about finding hydrated minerals such as sulfates and clays on Mars because they are usually formed in the presence of water.  Places that contain clays and/or other hydrated minerals would be good places to look for evidence of life.

Rock can form layers in a variety of ways.  Volcanoes, wind, or water can produce layers.

References

See also

 Fossa (geology)
 Geology of Mars
 HiRISE
 HiWish program

Elysium quadrangle
Valleys and canyons on Mars


Augustus Stephen Vogt (August 14, 1861September 17, 1926) was a German Canadian organist, choral conductor, music educator, composer, and author.

Vogt was born on 14 August 1861 in Washington, Oxford County, Canada West, Province of Canada. His father, John George Vogt, was a German Roman Catholic who emigrated to Canada to avoid the German revolutions of 1848–1849. His mother was a Swiss Lutheran woman named Marianna Zingg, who immigrated to Canada with her parents in the 1830s. Vogt grew up in Elmira, Ontario. Vogt's father was a hotel-keeper and also built organs. Vogt was appointed organist at the local church and later studied in Hamilton. He was appointed organist of First Methodist Church in St Thomas, Ontario. From 1881 to 1884, he studied at the New England Conservatory of Music. From 1885 to 1888, he studied at the Leipzig Conservatory in Germany. In 1888, he returned to Canada and was organist-choirmaster of the Jarvis Street Baptist Church in Toronto, where he would stay until 1906. He taught at the Toronto College of Music and at the Toronto Conservatory of Music. He was a fellow of the Royal College of Organists. Among his notable pupils were W. H. Hewlett and Ernest Seitz.

In 1894, he founded the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. In 1913, he was appointed musical director of the Toronto Conservatory of Music and resigned from the Mendelssohn Choir in 1917. He began suffering from heart problems in 1918, but continued with his career, which he found demanding. He died on 17 September 1926 of a heart attack while suffering from influenza.

References

External links

1861 births
1926 deaths
People from Oxford County, Ontario
New England Conservatory alumni
Academic staff of Toronto College of Music
Canadian music educators
Canadian composers
Canadian male composers
Canadian conductors (music)
Male conductors (music)
Canadian organists
Male organists
Canadian people of German descent
Canadian people of Swiss descent
Musicians from Toronto
People from Woolwich, Ontario
Musicians from the Regional Municipality of Waterloo


This list comprises all players who have participated in at least one league match for Portland Timbers since the USL began keeping archived records in 2003. Players who were on the roster but never played a first team game are not listed; players who appeared for the team in other competitions (US Open Cup, etc.) but never actually made an USL appearance are noted at the bottom of the page where appropriate.

A "†" denotes players who appeared in only a single match.A "*" denotes players who are known to have appeared for the team prior to 2003.

A
  Chugger Adair*
  Vardan Adzemian†
  Fadi Afash
  Hugo Alcaraz-Cuellar
  Kalif Alhassan
  Byron Alvarez
  Jaime Ambriz
  Dan Antoniuk
  Memo Arzate

B
  Ivan Becerra †
  Mark Baena*
  Chris Bagley
  Chad Bartlomé
  Scott Benedetti
  Alex Bengard
  Rees Bettinger*
  Scott Bower*
  Manuel Brasil*
  Adin Brown †
  Chris Brown
  Josh Brown
  Oral Bullen
  Salim Bullen
  Ray Burse
  Jose Burciaga*
  Cole Burgman*

C
  Josh Cameron
  Mike Chabala
  Mubarike Chisoni
  Matt Chulis*
  Johan Claesson
  Jeff Clarke*
  Paul Conway
  Keith Costigan*
  Steve Cronin
  Erik Cronkrite

D
  Mamadou Danso
  Noah Delgado*
  Doug DeMartin
  Bright Dike
  Neil Dombrowski
  Nick Downing*
  Cameron Dunn

E
  Bayard Elfvin

F
  Brian Farber
  Kevin Forrest

G
  Derek Gaudet
  Kevin Goldthwaite
  Jacobi Goodfellow
  Alan Gordon
  Andrew Gregor
  Leonard Griffin
  Miguel Guante
  Alejandro Gutierrez

H
  David Hague
  Luc Harrington
  Chase Harrison
  David Hayes
  Aaron Heinzen
  David Henning
  Shaun Higgins
  Greg Howes*
  Martin Hutton

I
  Sergio Iñiguez

J
  Antouman Jallow
  Jordan James
  Bryan Jordan
  George Josten
  Ian Joy

K
  Mandjou Keita
  Tim Karalexis
  Stephen Keel
  Brian Kelly*†
  Ehren Kilian *
  Quavas Kirk
  Brad Knighton
  Cameron Knowles
  Luke Kreamalmeyer

L
  Kiki Lara
  Kevin Legg *
  Darin Lewis *
  Aaran Lines
  Bryan Little
  Rodrigo López

M
  James Marcelin
  Garrett Marcum
  Drew McAthy
  Sean McAuley *
  Jason McLaughlin
  Tony McManus
  Tony McPeak *
  Kevin Meissner
  Jason Melendez *
  Edwin Miranda
  Yuri Morales
  Lee Morrison
  Dan Moss *†
  Ibad Muhamadu

N
  Matt Napoleon *
  Alex Nimo
  Takuro Nishimura
  Michael Nsien

O
  O. J. Obatola
  Jesús Ochoa *
  Arsène Oka
  Lawrence Olum
  Michael O'Neill *

P
  Tom Poltl
  Ryan Pore
  Steve Purdy
  Matt Pyzdrowski

R
  Mike Randolph
  Troy Ready
  Bryn Ritchie
  Chris Roner*
  Neil Ryan*

S
  Jake Sagare
  Brent Sancho *
  Josh Saunders
  Shawn Saunders
  Keith Savage
  Darren Sawatzky*
  Chris Seitz
  Ronnie Silva
  Chris Smith*†
  Ross Smith
  Ben Somoza*
  Curtis Spiteri*
  Takayuki Suzuki

T
  Matt Taylor
  Tom Taylor
  McKinley Tennyson
  Justin Thompson
  Scot Thompson
  Vadim Tolstolutsky*
  Benjamin Totori

V
  Jake Vaughn
  Brian Visser †

W
  Jamil Walker
  Jarrod Weis
  Josh Wicks
  Gavin Wilkinson
  Adam Wilson
  Brian Winters

Y
  Ryan Youngblood

Others
  Scott Bolkan - Bolkan never made a league appearance for Portland, but did play for them in the U.S. Open Cup in 2008.

See also
 All-time Portland Timbers (MLS) roster -- equivalent list for this team's Major League Soccer successor

Sources

Portland Timbers

Association football player non-biographical articles


In J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy The Lord of the Rings, Old Man Willow is a malign tree-spirit of great age in Tom Bombadil's Old Forest, appearing physically as a large willow tree beside the River Withywindle, but spreading his influence throughout the forest. He is the first hostile character encountered by the Hobbits after they leave the Shire.

Tolkien made a drawing of Old Man Willow while writing the chapter about him; his son Christopher suggests it was based on a tree by the River Cherwell at Oxford. A predatory tree appears in a 1934 poem, but Tolkien did not arrive at the malevolent Old Man Willow, both tree and spirit, for some years. Scholars have debated the nature of the tree; some have been surprised by it, as Tolkien is seen as an environmentalist. The character was omitted by both Ralph Bakshi and Peter Jackson from their film versions of The Lord of the Rings.

Context

The protagonist Frodo Baggins and his Hobbit companions Sam Gamgee and Pippin Took set out from his home at Hobbiton in the Shire. They are pursued by mysterious Black Riders. They travel eastwards and cross the Bucklebury Ferry over the Brandywine River, meeting their friend Merry Brandybuck. They rest briefly in Buckland, deciding to shake off the Black Riders by cutting through the Old Forest.

Old Man Willow first appeared in Tolkien's poem "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil", published in 1934 in The Oxford Magazine.

Character

Old Man Willow is a malign tree-spirit of great age in Tom Bombadil's Old Forest, appearing physically as a large willow tree beside the River Withywindle, but spreading his influence throughout the forest. As Tolkien explains in the narrative of The Lord of the Rings:

Narrative

In the story, Old Man Willow casts a spell on the hobbits, causing them to feel sleepy. Merry and Pippin lean against the trunk of the willow and fall asleep, while Frodo sits on a root to dangle his feet in the water, before he also falls asleep. The willow then traps Merry and Pippin in the cracks of its trunk and tips Frodo into the stream, but the latter is saved by Sam, who, suspicious of the tree, manages to remain awake. After Frodo and Sam start a fire out of dry leaves, grass, and bits of bark in an attempt to frighten the tree, Merry shouts from the inside to put the fire out because the tree says it is going to squeeze them to death. They are saved by the arrival of Tom Bombadil who sings to the ancient tree to release Merry and Pippin. The tree then ejects the two hobbits. Once they are safely in his house, Bombadil explains to the hobbits that the "Great Willow" is wholly evil, and has gradually spread his domination across the Old Forest until almost all the trees from the Hedge to the Barrow-downs are under his control.

Drawing

Tolkien made a careful pencil and coloured pencil drawing of Old Man Willow while he was writing the chapter "The Old Forest"; Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull call it "a fine example" of the drawings he made to support his creative writing. They note that "with a little imagination" a face can just be made out on the right-hand side of the tree above the arm-like branch. Tolkien describes it as a "huge willow-tree, old and hoary"; to the hobbits it seemed enormous, though Hammond and Scull observe that it does not seem so in the drawing. Tolkien's son John suggests that it was based on one of the few unpollarded willows on the River Cherwell at Oxford.

Analysis

Etymological connotations

Tolkien was a philologist. Jason Fisher, writing that "all stories begin with words", takes up Edmund Wilson's "denigrating dismissal" of The Lord of the Rings as "a philological curiosity", replying that to him this is "precisely one of its greatest strengths". Fisher explores in detail the connotations of Tolkien's use of words meaning bent and twisted, including Ringwraith as well as willow or withy (a willow, or flexible twigs from it twisted and woven into wicker baskets), this last from Old English wiþig. "Windle", too, is an old word for a wicker basket, from Old English windel-treow, the willow, the basket-maker's tree, as well as a cognate of the modern English "to wind". Thus, Old Man Willow's Withywindle is perhaps the "willow-winding" river. Fisher comments, too, that Old Man Willow could be said to have gone to the bad, like the Ringwraiths or in the words of the Middle English poem Pearl that Tolkien translated, wyrþe so wrange away, "writhed so wrong away" or "strayed so far from right".

Interpretations

The Tolkien scholar Verlyn Flieger writes that Old Man Willow first appears as "a predatory tree" in the 1934 poem "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil", and that the character is developed in The Lord of the Rings, as documented in The Return of the Shadow. In an early draft from 1938, she writes, the "Willow" tree and the "Old Man" character had not yet become a single "indivisible being". Instead, Tolkien writes of "how that grey thirsty earth-bound spirit had become imprisoned in the greatest Willow of the Forest." Flieger writes that in this draft and in the 1943 "Manuscript B", Tolkien links "a tree and a spirit, a 'non-incarnate mind'" which is "imprisoned" in an individual tree. She comments that Tolkien solved the problem of how a spirit might become trapped in this way by turning them into a single being, at once a tree and a spirit.

Saguaro and Thacker comment that critics have puzzled over Tolkien's description of Old Man Willow, as it does not fit with Tolkien's image as an environmentalist "tree-hugger". They write that trees (like other creatures in Tolkien's world) are subject to the corruption of the Fall of Man, mentioning Tolkien's Catholicism. They state that while Tolkien's writings on the meaning of trees verges on the pagan, both the Old and the New Testament use trees as symbols – the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Book of Genesis, the cross, the tree of death in the Gospels, and the Tree of Life in Revelation (22:2). In their view, Tolkien succeeds in "bring[ing] all these elements together" in The Lord of the Rings: death, creation, sub-creation, re-creation. Dickerson writes that Old Man Willow indicates both that nature, like Man, is fallen, and that it is actively hostile to Man. The Tolkien critic Jared Lobdell compares the "treachery of natural things in an animate world" seen in the character of Old Man Willow to Algernon Blackwood's story "The Willows".

Paul H. Kocher writes that it is unclear whether the tree's malice derives from the Dark Lord Sauron, or is simply the tree's own "natural hatred for destructive mankind", and notes that the hostility extends to all travellers, "innocent and guilty alike".

The scholar of literature James Obertino comments that "'Every obstacle that arises' in the hero's path 'wears the shadowy features of the Terrible Mother'", who in Aeneas's case is the goddess Juno, in Frodo's "the darkness that is Old Man Willow", along with that of the Barrow-wight and Moria. Obertino likens Frodo's encounters with these darknesses to catabasis, the descent into an underworld, complete with psychological interpretations of personal development, of a hero such as Virgil's Aeneas. He adds that Frodo initially finds comfort in the darkness, "in danger of succumbing to the charm of uroboric incest", as he slumbers beside Old Man Willow, and again in the Barrow-wight's deathly dwelling-place.

E. L. Risden states that the elimination of the Ring and Sauron along with his servants the Ringwraiths and Saruman removed the most powerful sources of evil in the world. Others like Old Man Willow were not removed, "but they too will now fade into quietness. The remaining world, blander, has more narrowly circumscribed limits."

Adaptations: appearing or disappearing

Old Man Willow, like the Old Forest and Tom Bombadil, was not included in Peter Jackson's films of The Lord of the Rings. Justifying the excision, Jackson asked rhetorically in From Book to Script "So, you know, what does Old Man Willow contribute to the story of Frodo carrying the Ring? ... it's not really advancing our story & it's not really telling us things that we need to know." Of the earlier adaptations, Terence Tiller's 1955–1956 radio play did include Old Man Willow and Bombadil, though no recording survives. Morton Zimmerman's unproduced 1957 highly-compressed script, criticised by Tolkien for rushing rather than cutting, similarly included them: Bombadil takes the hobbits straight from Old Man Willow to the Barrow-downs, all the action in the episode seemingly occurring in one day. John Boorman's unproduced c. 1970 script did not include them; the hobbits "getting high on mushrooms" instead. Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated film omits the Old Forest altogether, setting a precedent for Jackson. Although the hobbits do not pass through the Old Forest in Jackson's film of The Fellowship of the Ring, the map shown on screen earlier in the film does include Buckland, the Old Forest, and the Barrow-downs; however, in the extended edition DVD of The Two Towers, the Ent Treebeard speaks a version of Bombadil's unlocking words to Old Man Willow in Fangorn Forest, so, argues John D. Rateliff, as far as Jackson was concerned there can have been no Old Man Willow in the mapped Old Forest, and no Bombadil, as the action takes place elsewhere. Old Man Willow however does appear in the Old Forest in the 1991 Soviet television play Khraniteli, where he traps two of the hobbits.

Notes

References

Primary

Secondary

Sources

Fictional trees
Middle-earth characters
Middle-earth monsters


In computing, POST is a request method supported by HTTP used by the World Wide Web.
By design, the POST request method requests that a web server accept the data enclosed in the body of the request message, most likely for storing it. It is often used when uploading a file or when submitting a completed web form.

In contrast, the HTTP GET request method retrieves information from the server. As part of a GET request, some data can be passed within the URL's query string, specifying (for example) search terms, date ranges, or other information that defines the query.

As part of a POST request, an arbitrary amount of data of any type can be sent to the server in the body of the request message. A header field in the POST request usually indicates the message body's Internet media type.

Posting data
The world wide Web and HTTP are based on a number of request methods or 'verbs', including POST and GET as well as PUT, DELETE, and several others. Web browsers normally use only GET and POST, but RESTful online apps make use of many of the others. POST's place in the range of HTTP methods is to send a representation of a new data entity to the server so that it will be stored as a new subordinate of the resource identified by the URI. For example, for the URI http://example.com/customers, POST requests might be expected to represent new customers, each including their name, address, contact details and so on. Early website designers strayed away from this original concept in two important ways. First, there is no technical reason for a URI to textually describe the web resource subordinate to which POST data will be stored. In fact, unless some effort is made, the last part of a URI will more likely describe the web application's processing page and its technology, such as http://example.com/applicationform.php. Secondly, given most web browsers' natural limitation to use only GET or POST, designers felt the need to re-purpose POST to do many other data submission and data management tasks, including the alteration of existing records and their deletion.

Efforts by some influential writers to remedy the first point began as early as 1998. Web application frameworks such as Ruby on Rails and others make it easier for designers to provide their users with semantic URLs. With regard to the second point, it is possible to use client-side scripting, or to write standalone apps, to make use of the other HTTP methods where they are relevant, but outside of this most web forms that submit or alter server data continue to use POST for the purpose.

That is not to say that every web form should specify method="post" in its opening tag. Many forms are used to specify more precisely the retrieval of information from the server, without any intention of altering the main database. Search forms, for example, are ideally suited to having method="get" specified.

There are times when HTTP GET is less suitable even for data retrieval. An example of this is when a great deal of data would need to be specified in the URL. Browsers and web servers can have limits on the length of the URL that they will handle without truncation or error. Percent-encoding of reserved characters in URLs and query strings can significantly increase their length, and while Apache HTTP Server can handle up to 4,000 characters in a URL, Microsoft Internet Explorer is limited to 2,048 characters in any URL. Equally, HTTP GET should not be used where sensitive information, such as usernames and passwords, have to be submitted along with other data for the request to complete. Even if HTTPS is used, preventing the data from being intercepted in transit, the browser history and the web server's logs will likely contain the full URL in plaintext, which may be exposed if either system is hacked. In these cases, HTTP POST should be used.

Use for submitting web forms
When a web browser sends a POST request from a web form element, the default Internet media type is "application/x-www-form-urlencoded". This is a format for encoding key-value pairs with possibly duplicate keys. Each key-value pair is separated by an '&' character, and each key is separated from its value by an '=' character. Keys and values are both escaped by replacing spaces with the '+' character and then using percent-encoding on all other non-alphanumeric characters.

For example, the key-value pairs
Name: misael a Hidalgo a
Age: 35
Formula: a+b == 21
are encoded as
Name=misael+Hidalgo &Age=35
&Formula=a%2Bb+%3D%3D+21

Starting with HTML 4.0, forms can also submit data in multipart/form-data as defined in RFC 2388 (See also RFC 1867 for an earlier experimental version defined as an extension to HTML 2.0 and mentioned in HTML 3.2).

The special case of a POST to the same page that the form belongs to is known as a postback.

Affecting server state
Per RFC 7231, the POST method is not idempotent, meaning that multiple identical requests might not have the same effect than transmitting the request only once. POST is therefore suitable for requests which change the  state each time they are performed, for example submitting a comment to a blog post or voting in an online poll.  GET is defined to be nullipotent, with no side-effects, and idempotent operations have "no side effects on second or future requests". For this reason, web crawlers such as search engine indexers normally use the GET and HEAD methods exclusively, to prevent their automated requests from performing such actions.

However, there are reasons why POST is used even for idempotent requests, notably if the request is very long. Due to restrictions on URLs, the query string  the GET method generates may become very long, especially due to percent-encoding.

References

External links
 Straightforward definition of POST
 POST verb in HTTP specification

Hypertext Transfer Protocol


The Maiar (singular: Maia) are a fictional class of beings from J. R. R. Tolkien's high fantasy legendarium. Supernatural and angelic, they are "lesser Ainur" who entered the cosmos of Eä in the beginning of time. The name Maiar is in the Quenya tongue (one of several languages constructed by Tolkien) from the Elvish root maya- "excellent, admirable".

Commentators have noted that since the Maiar are immortals but can choose to incarnate fully in Men's bodies on Middle-earth, they can be killed; Tolkien did not explain what happened to them then. Others have observed that their semi-divine nature and the fact that they can be sent on missions to work out the divine purpose makes them much like the angels of Christianity.

Description

Lesser Ainur

Tolkien stated that "Maia is the name of the Kin of the Valar, but especially of those of lesser power than the 9 great rulers".

In the Valaquenta, Tolkien wrote that the Maiar are "spirits whose being also began before the world, of the same order as the Valar but of less degree". According to the Valaquenta, many Maiar associated themselves with a particular Vala; for example, Salmar created for his lord Ulmo great conches who produce the music of the sea known as Ulumúri, while Curumo, who came to be known in Middle-earth as Saruman, was with Aulë the smith. The being once known as Mairon also was with Aulë, before being corrupted by Melkor and becoming Sauron, the main antagonist of The Lord of the Rings. Sauron continued his association with smithcraft by befriending the Elven-smiths of Eregion during the Second Age, so that he could gain power over the other rings by forging his One Ring. On the other hand, certain Maiar like Olórin and Melian develop associations with multiple Valar Lords and Queens.

Being of divine origin and possessing great power, the Maiar can wander the world unseen or shape themselves in fashion of Elves or other creatures; these "veils", called fanar in Quenya, could be destroyed, but their true-being could not. Rarely did the Maiar adopt their visible forms to Elves and Men, and for that reason, very few of the Maiar have names in their tongues, and the elves do not know how many of the Maiar exist.

Named Maiar

Only a few of the Maiar are named. These include the Chiefs of the Maiar, Eönwë the Herald of Manwë, King of the Valar, and Ilmarë the Handmaiden of Varda, Lady of the Stars; Ossë and Uinen, spirits who ruled the seas and act under the Lord of Waters Ulmo; Arien, guide of the sun and a spirit of fire uncorrupted by Melkor;  Olórin, the wisest Maia, and Tilion, guide of the moon and the servant of the Huntsman of the Valar, Oromë.

Melkor (known in Sindarin as Morgoth), the evil Vala, corrupted many Maiar into his service. Among Morgoth's most dangerous servants, they are called Úmaiar in Quenya: these include Sauron, and Gothmog, Lord of the Balrogs, large demonic beings of flame and shadow armed with fiery whips, and are said to be perhaps more powerful than dragons. Morgoth is eventually overthrown when his fortresses are destroyed in the War of Wrath by the hosts of the West led by Eönwë. Most of the Balrogs did not survive Morgoth's defeat, which marked the end of the First Age, although at least one hid deep beneath the Misty Mountains until well into the Third Age.

The Maia Melian went to Middle-earth prior to the First Age, where she later fell in love with the Elven-king Elu Thingol, King Greymantle, and with him ruled the kingdom of Doriath. When war with Morgoth came to Doriath, she used her powers to guard and defend her realm with an enchantment called the Girdle of Melian (List Melian in Sindarin). She had a daughter with Thingol named Lúthien, said to be the fairest and most beautiful of all the Children of Ilúvatar. Some of Melian's notable descendants through Lúthien include Elwing, Elrond, Arwen, Elendil, and Aragorn.

Wizards

In about , the Valar sent five Maiar to Middle-earth to help contest the evil of Sauron. They had great skills of hand and mind and assumed the guise of Men, seemingly old but of great vigour. Their mission was to guide elves and men by gaining trust and spreading knowledge, not by ruling them with fear and force. They were known as the Istari or Wizards, and included Gandalf the Grey (Olórin or Mithrandir, later Gandalf the White), Saruman the White (Curumo or Curunír; he later called himself Saruman of Many Colours), Radagast the Brown (Aiwendil), and two "Blue Wizards" (named after their sea-blue robes) who are mentioned in passing within commentary about the development of Tolkien's legendarium, but do not appear in his narratives.

Interpretation

The theologian Ralph C. Wood describes the Valar and Maiar as being what Christians "would call angels", intermediaries between the creator, named as Eru Ilúvatar in the Silmarillion, and the created cosmos. Like angels, they have free will and can therefore rebel against him.

Grant C. Sterling, writing in Mythlore, states that the Maiar resemble the Valar in being unable to die, but differ in being able to choose to incarnate fully in forms such as men's bodies. This means that, like Gandalf and the Balrogs, they can be killed. He notes that Sauron's inability ever to take bodily form again after his defeat could be the result of having given his power to the One Ring, but that the fate of slain Maiar remains unclear.

Jonathan Evans, writing in the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia, calls the Maiar semidivine spirits, and notes that each one is linked with one of the Valar. He states that they have "perpetual importance in the cosmic order", noting the statement in the Silmarillion that their joy "is as an air that they breathe in all their days, whose thought flows in a tide untroubled from the heights to the deeps." Evans notes, too, that Arien and Tilion are central in Tolkien's myth of the Sun and Moon.

See also

 Goldberry
 Tom Bombadil

References

Primary

Secondary

Sources


Fortunato "Fort" Acuña (April 17, 1948 – July 6, 1981) was a Filipino professional basketball player and coach.

A 6'1" center/forward, he played for the UP Fighting Maroons in the UAAP.  In the MICAA, Acuña played for the Meralco Reddy Kilowatts until it disbanded in 1972. He joined the newly formed Toyota Comets in 1973, along with Meralco teammates Alberto Reynoso, Orlando Bauzon, Robert Jaworski and Francis Arnaiz.  He continued with the Toyota team when the franchise transferred to the Philippine Basketball Association in 1975.

Acuña retired from active play after the 1978 PBA All-Filipino Conference and began serving as assistant coach for Toyota.  On December 11 1979, he replaced Dante Silverio as Toyota head coach after Silverio resigned when management decided to reinstate Ramon Fernandez, Ernesto Estrada and Abe King for Game 2 of the ongoing PBA Invitational Conference finals.  Acuña steered the team to the title against arch-rivals Crispa. This was Toyota's sixth title and Acuña's only PBA championship as head coach.

On December 11, 1980, Toyota was playing against the Crispa in Game 3 of the 1980 PBA All-Filipino Conference Finals.  During half time, Acuña was fired by team manager Pablo Carlos Jr. for refusing to heed his request to field Robert Jaworski. Toyota won that game, preventing a Crispa sweep of the tournament.  The Redmanizers would eventually clinch the title by wrapping up the series the following game.

Acuña committed suicide on July 6, 1981, by ingesting a lethal dose of insecticide.  The following day, Toyota had a scheduled game against Crispa during the semi-final round of the 1981 PBA Open Conference.  The team appeared for the game with a piece of black stripe on their jerseys as a sign of mourning. Seemingly affected by the shocking news, the Super Diesels lost to the Redmanizers, 133-118.

References

External links
 History of the PBA

1948 births
1981 deaths
Centers (basketball)
Filipino men's basketball coaches
Filipino men's basketball players
Toyota Super Corollas coaches
Power forwards (basketball)
UP Fighting Maroons men's basketball players
Toyota Super Corollas players
1981 suicides
Suicides by poison
Suicides in the Philippines


Combat School is a Canadian documentary television series that premiered on March 10, 2009, on the Discovery Channel. The show focuses on a platoon of soldiers as they undergo warfare training prior to disembarking for a tour of duty in Afghanistan. The series was produced by Paperny Entertainment. The series was narrated by Canadian actor Kavan Smith.

Synopsis
Combat School documents the combat training and eventual deployment of infantry soldiers from 1 Platoon, Mike Company, 3rd Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment. The platoon of 40 men and women are followed through several months of training at CFB Petawawa, Ontario, CFB Wainwright, Alberta, and Fort Bliss, Texas. In the final episode, the soldiers are followed through their first two weeks in Afghanistan.

Episodes

Soldiers featured

Captain Jon Cox
Major Cayle Oberwarth
Lieutenant Colonel Roger Barrett
Warrant Officer Bruce Rhodenizer
Sergeant Mike Dwyer
Sergeant Jamie Lewis

Corporal Salvatore "Sam" Miranda
Corporal Evynne Sop
Corporal Derek Pannozzo
Corporal Douglas Chick
Corporal Katie Hodges
Private Jeff Valentiate
Private Dan Martin

DVD release
Combat School was released on DVD on October 13, 2009.  The DVD set includes all six episodes of the series, plus over forty-five minutes of bonus footage.

References

External links

Production website

2009 Canadian television series debuts
2009 Canadian television series endings
2000s Canadian reality television series
Discovery Channel (Canada) original programming
Television series by Entertainment One


The Lord of the Nazgûl, also called the Witch-king of Angmar, the Pale King, and the Black Captain, is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings. He had once been the King of Angmar in the north of Eriador. He is the bearer of a Ring of Power, one of the nine that the dark lord Sauron gave to Men, who become the Nazgûl or Ringwraiths. This gives him great power, but enslaves him to Sauron and makes him invisible. By the end of the Third Age, his name has been forgotten. He stabs the bearer of the One Ring, the Hobbit Frodo Baggins, with a Morgul-knife which would reduce its victim to a wraith. Much later in the narrative, in his final battle, the Lord of the Nazgûl attacks Éowyn with a mace. The Hobbit Merry Brandybuck stabs him with an ancient enchanted Númenórean blade, allowing Éowyn to kill him with her sword.

In early drafts, Tolkien had called him the "Wizard King", and considered making him either a renegade member of the Istari, or an immortal Maia, before settling on having him as a Man, a mortal, corrupted by a Ring of Power, given to him by Sauron. Commentators have written that the Lord of the Nazgûl functions at the level of myth when he calls himself Death and bursts the gates of Minas Tirith with magical spells. At a theological level, he embodies a vision of evil similar to Karl Barth's description of evil as , an active and powerful force that turns out to be empty. The prophecy that the Lord of the Nazgûl would not die by the hand of Man echoes that made of the title character in William Shakespeare's Macbeth.

Fictional history

The Witch-king first appears in the Second Age of Middle-earth. The Dark Lord Sauron gave Rings of Power to powerful Men, including kings of countries in Middle-earth. These confer magical power, but also enslave their wearers to the owner of the One Ring, Sauron himself.

The Lord of the Nazgûl appears as the Witch-king of Angmar during the Third Age and is instrumental in the destruction of the Northern kingdom of Arnor. in his notes for translators, Tolkien suggested that the Witch-king of Angmar, ruler of a Northern kingdom with its capital at Carn Dûm, was of Númenórean origin. Nothing is heard of him when Sauron is overthrown by the Last Alliance of Elves and Men late in the Second Age, but his survival is assured by the power of the One Ring.

Over a thousand years later in the Third Age, the Lord of the Nazgûl leads Sauron's forces against the successor kingdoms of Arnor: Rhudaur, Cardolan, and Arthedain. He destroys all of these, but is eventually defeated by the Elf-lord Glorfindel, who puts him to flight, and makes the prophecy that "not by the hand of Man will he fall". He escapes, and returns to Mordor. There, he gathers the other Nazgûl to prepare for Sauron's return.

Towards the end of the Third Age, Sauron sends the Witch-king, leading the other Nazgûl, to the Shire to find and recover the One Ring. He is cloaked and hooded in black; his face cannot be seen; he rides a black horse.  At Weathertop, the Witch-king stabs Frodo, the bearer of the One Ring, in the shoulder with the Morgul-knife, breaking off a piece of it in the Hobbit's flesh. Frodo is able to see that the Witch-king is taller than the other Nazgûl, with "long and gleaming" hair and a crown on his helmet. He is swept away by the waters of the river Bruinen and his horse is drowned. He returns to Mordor. He reappears mounted on a hideous flying beast.

During the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, the Witch-king uses magic, including Grond, a battering-ram engraved with evil spells, to break the gates of Minas Tirith. He is faced by a single warrior, Dernhelm, actually a disguised Éowyn, a noblewoman of Rohan; and not far away, Merry, a hobbit of the Fellowship. Éowyn boldly calls the Nazgûl a "dwimmerlaik", telling him to go if he was not deathless. He casts back his hood to reveal a crown, but the head that wears it is invisible. Merry's surreptitious stroke with an enchanted Barrow-blade brings the Nazgûl to his knees, allowing Éowyn, the niece of Théoden, to drive her sword between his crown and mantle. Thus the Witch-king is destroyed by a woman and a Hobbit, fulfilling Glorfindel's prophecy. Both weapons that pierced him disintegrate, and both assailants are stricken by the Black Breath, which causes a cold paralysis, terror, and often death.

Analysis

From Wizard to Witch-king

Megan N. Fontenot, on Tor.com, writes that in early drafts, Tolkien names him "the Wizard King", so powerful in wizardry that his opponent Gandalf is unable to counter him unaided. In early drafts of "The Council of Elrond", Gandalf explains that his enemy was "of old the greatest of all the wizards of Men". In a later draft, Tolkien adds that the Wizard King was also "a great king of old" and the "fell captain of the Nine [Riders]"; Fontenot glosses "fell" as implying "ravenous cruelty" and "ruthless ... savagery".

Later, in a draft of "The Siege of Gondor", Tolkien makes the Wizard King "a renegade of [Gandalf's] own order" from Númenor. In the manuscript of his notes for translators, Tolkien suggested that the Witch-king of Angmar was most likely of Númenórean origin. Fontenot comments that this could make him both a Maia rather than a Man, and originally one of the Istari, or, as she states, "something decidedly other". But Tolkien then reduces the Wizard King's power, so that Gandalf is able to tell Pippin as they wait for the attack on Gondor that "In him I am not overmatched", and that the Wizard King's main power is to inspire fear at a distance (with the Black Breath). At some stage, too, he renames the enemy the Witch-king; Fontenot suggests this was to distinguish more clearly between him and the Wizards like Gandalf and Saruman. Tolkien had thus explored making him a wizard (Istari or otherwise) or an immortal Maia, before settling on a "a human king whose lust for power got the better of his good judgment." She wonders what he might have been like before he accepted a Ring of Power from Sauron, noting that he was seemingly filled with "possessiveness, greed, lust, and a desire for dominance", all markers of evil in Tolkien's scheme of things.

Evil, the absence of good

The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey writes that the Lord of the Nazgûl hovers close to being an abstraction, "a vast menace of despair ... a huge shadow", actually calling himself Death: "Old fool! This is my hour. Do you not know Death when you see it?" The scene forms, too, a picture of the "unexistence of evil", based on the Boethian philosophy that God is all-powerful, so evil is not the equal and opposite of good, but simply its absence: he forms "a huge shadow".

The theologian George Hunsinger compares Tolkien's depiction of the Witch-king to the theologian Karl Barth's analysis of evil. Barth's conception is embodied in his term , "nothingness", which Hunsinger glosses as "something dynamic and sinister ... an active cosmic power, a power of destruction, a power of chaos, negation, and ruin." The power of   is both "outwardly repulsive" and in Barth's words "intrinsically evil"; it can be described but not explained, and is defeated by God; it is wholly evil and serves no good purpose. It is both fearful and empty.

Hunsinger states that Tolkien's account of the Witch-king as he confronts Gandalf at the gate of Minas Tirith "captures something of Barth's notion of ." He finds it especially relevant that the Witch-king is "above all ... actual and yet empty at the same time", and comments that Tolkiens "dead but undead Black Rider is as good a symbol as any ... for Barth's impossible possibility."

Similarly, Hunsinger finds Tolkien's description of how Éowyn kills the Witch-king "an image for the paradox of evil as something powerful and yet hollow at the same time." He notes that her sword shatters with her final stroke, but of her defeated foe, "nothing is left" in the empty mantle and hauberk.

The Episcopal priest and theologian Fleming Rutledge writes that whereas the "pale king", the invisible Witch-king of Angmar, is striving to kill Frodo, the real king, Aragorn, who has been out of sight, in disguise as a Ranger, is doing all he can to heal him: the two kings are opposites. She writes also that while the enemy visible to Gondor is the Men of Harad and the Easterlings, the real enemy is personified by the Witch-king.

Prophecy both true and false

Julaire Andelin, in The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia, writes that prophecy in Middle-earth depended on characters' understanding of the Music of the Ainur, the divine plan for Arda, and was often ambiguous. Thus, Glorfindel's prophecy "not by the hand of Man will [the Lord of the Nazgûl] fall" did not lead the Lord of the Nazgûl to suppose that he would die at the hands of a woman and a hobbit.

Shippey states that the prophecy, and the Witch-king's surprise at finding Dernhelm to be a woman, parallel the witches' statement to Macbeth in Shakespeare's play of that name that he may "laugh to scorn / The power of man, for none of woman born / Shall harm Macbeth" (Act 4, scene 1), and Macbeth's shock at learning that Macduff "was from his mother's womb / Untimely ripp'd" (Act 5, scene 8), as Macduff was born by Caesarean section. Thus, Shippey notes, despite Tolkien's stated dislike of Shakespeare's treatment of myth, he read Macbeth closely.

The Tolkien scholar Michael Drout identifies a further parallel with Shakespeare, one of several allusions to King Lear in The Lord of the Rings. The Witch-king says "Come not between the Nazgûl and his prey", as the mad Lear says "Come not between the dragon and his wrath".

Adaptations

In Peter Jackson's 2001–2003 The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, during the siege of Minas Tirith, the Witch-king wears a distinctive helmet over his hood resembling a mask and a crown, rather than the crown worn underneath his hood in the book. The Witch-king's mount is largely responsible for the death of Théoden and his horse Snowmane, a departure from the book. As confirmed in the films' audio commentary, the design of the monsters was based largely on illustrations by John Howe.

In the first film of Jackson's 2012–2014 The Hobbit film trilogy, the Wizard Radagast briefly encounters the Witch-king while investigating the forest fortress of Dol Guldur.

Péter Kristóf Makai, in A Companion to J. R. R. Tolkien, writes that the 1976 board game Middle Earth provided the Witch-king with a choice of nine spells, against Gandalf's eleven. Some of these were shared, such as the ability to project a defensive lightning-bolt.

Notes

References

Primary

Secondary

Sources

Middle-earth Men
Fictional undead
The Lord of the Rings characters
Ring-bearers


Ray A. Brownell (June 1876 – August 9, 1954) was a Michigan politician.

Political life
Brownell was elected as the Mayor of City of Flint in 1929 for a single 1-year term by the City Commission.  He was last of the directly elected Flint Mayors until 1975.

References

Mayors of Flint, Michigan
1876 births
1954 deaths
20th-century American politicians


There is significant scholarly debate about the Taoist understanding of death.  The process of death itself is described as shijie or "release from the corpse", but what happens after is described variously as transformation, immortality or ascension to heaven. For example, the Yellow Emperor was said to have ascended directly to heaven in plain sight, while the thaumaturge Ye Fashan was said to have transformed into a sword and then into a column of smoke which rose to heaven.

Religious Taoism holds that the body is filled with spirits and monsters, and prescribes a number of rituals that must be performed so that these spirits are able to guard the body. When the spirits leave the body then there is nothing to protect it from illness so it weakens and dies. Taoism is also known for people believing that there is eternal life. In Taoism when one dies if they need to be contacted it is done so through meditation by an alchemist. In Taoism death is seen as just another phase in life, although many Taoists have attempted to achieve immortality.  People believe if they do what they have to do and are supposed to do then when they die they will be granted immortality.

Funeral ceremonies
Taoist ceremonies for the dead often include an altar upon which are placed a sacred lamp, two candles, tea, rice, and water.  The sacred lamp symbolizes the light of wisdom, yet it could also be referred to as the Golden Pill or Elixir of Immortality.  On each side of the lamp are two tall candles that symbolize the light of the sun, moon, and both eyes of the human body. The tea, rice and water are put in cups in front of the altar. The tea symbolizes yin, water is the energy of the yang, and rice represents the union of the yin and the yang.

Five plates of fruit are used to symbolize the five elements: wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. These elements are further equated with specific colors: green, red, yellow, white, and black. These elements all go in a cycle that when balanced ensure that the body is healthy. An incense burner is placed in the middle of the five elements. The burning of the incense represents refinement and purification of the soul, also known as the inner energies.

The ceremony usually takes place in a person’s house and is held over an odd number of days, usually three, five or seven days. The candle is lit up for the body all that time before burial. During the vigil and the funeral the relatives wear white.

Immortality
A very common and major goal of most Taoists is to achieve immortality rather than enter the regular afterlife. Reaching this goal is not easy; there are various tasks that must be met during your entire lifetime to be qualified to be immortal. The two different categories of requirements for immortality include internal alchemy and external alchemy.

External alchemy is mastering special breathing techniques, sexual practices, physical exercises, yoga, attempting to produce an elixir of immortality by consuming purified metals and complex compounds, and to develop medical skills. In Taoism one’s soul or energy is considered to be interlocked with the vital energy, which is what nourishes your soul. Ridding the body of impurities can increase this energy. Aside from these requirements, you must lead an upright, moral and good-hearted life.

Internal alchemy includes sophisticated visualization, strict dieting, specific sexual exercises and self-control. A strict diet was committed to kill demons within the body and to stimulate and maintain energy. The body is purified by the consumption of refined substances such as jade or gold. The many different types of meditation all revolved around the common idea of breathing. Much of a Taoist’s time is spent meditating. Carl Jung was among those who interpreted internal alchemy in a purely spiritual, rather than physical, sense.

Focus on life
Taoism places great value in life. It does not focus on life after death, but on health and longevity by living a simple life and having inner peace. It is said that the human body is filled with spirits, gods, or demons. When people die, it is believed that they should do rituals to let the spirits guard the body. The spirits of the dead are routinely communicated with through the assistance of spirit-mediums.
When one dies they continue to live on in the Tao.

References

External links
 Taoist Funeral Etiquette by Funeral Services Singapore
 Taoism & Death - Insights by Ang Brothers
 Taoism Funeral Facts by Harmony Funeral Care Singapore

Taoist cosmology
Death customs
Taoist immortals


The Republican Social Party of French Reconciliation (, PRSRF) was a French political party founded in 1945 by former members of François de La Rocque's French Social Party (PSF) who wished to continue the pre-war PSF.

The PRSRF participated in the Rally of Republican Lefts (RGR) before disappearing for good. Its members joined the "moderate" (right-wing) parties of the Fourth Republic such as the CNI.

Defunct political parties in France
Right-wing parties in France
Political parties established in 1945


This is a comprehensive discography of Welsh DJ and record producer Sasha. His discography comprises three studio albums, three compilation albums, two live albums, thirteen mix albums, four extended plays and twenty two singles. He has also released five mix albums and one video album with John Digweed as Sasha & John Digweed.

Albums

Studio albums

Compilation albums

Live albums

Mix albums

Extended plays

Singles

References

Discographies of British artists
Electronic music discographies


"Chuck Versus the Crown Vic" is the 11th episode of the first season of Chuck, airing on December 3, 2007. Chuck must deal with the aftermath of Bryce Larkin's departure as he goes undercover with Sarah to investigate a billionaire philanthropist. Meanwhile, Morgan meets Anna's parents.

Plot summary

Main plot

Chuck escorts Lester and Jeff to do an install on a private boat owned by philanthropist Lon Kirk (Michael Wiseman) to keep the two out of trouble. However Jeff and Lester still go below deck, where they find men counting a substantial amount of money. Chuck flashes on one of the bills and realizes that it's counterfeit. Beckman begins to brief Chuck and Casey, but Sarah—who skipped work at the Wienerlicious—is absent. The two attempt to cover for her before she arrives late. Beckman orders Chuck and Sarah to infiltrate a charity casino being run by Kirk to investigate the counterfeiting operation. Chuck later remarks to Sarah how he expected her to be "halfway to Bryce," but she tells him that this is her assignment. Regardless, the situation between them remains strained and is only made worse when, at the charity event that night, Chuck grows increasingly jealous while Sarah flirts with Kirk as part of the operation. He loses $100,000 at a roulette wheel as a result of trying to show up the philanthropist, but also flashes on an attache to the Taiwanese ambassador, whom he sees Kirk arguing with.

The next morning Chuck watches Casey washing his prized 1985 Crown Vic, and asks what Beckman meant by Sarah using any means necessary to get close to Kirk as part of her investigation. Casey plays on Chuck's jealousy by telling him Sarah will be seducing Kirk. Chuck goes back to work, where Morgan, who is having lunch with Anna and her parents, calls him to say he thinks he sees Sarah on someone's boat. Chuck heads down to the marina to check up on things, while Casey angrily shows him a full team is in place keeping watch on things. Just as Kirk and Sarah are on their way below deck, one of Kirk's men is bringing a crate on board which triggers a flash. Chuck believes the crate contains the counterfeit plates. The team moves in based on the Intersect intel, but discover medical supplies instead. Due to the humiliation of the botched op, Beckman benches the team.

An angry Sarah, professing to believe that Chuck's flash was faked out of jealousy, confronts him. He insists it was genuine. The heated discussion turns towards Sarah's feelings toward Bryce, and Chuck and Sarah's kiss, and soon leads to an argument when Chuck asks if she had kissed him when they thought they were going to die because he just happened to be there, or if she actually felt something for him. Sarah angrily tells him it was a mistake that would not be repeated. During a briefing with Beckman and Graham, Casey and Sarah both appear suspicious that Chuck's flash was fraudulent because of his jealousy. Afterward, an annoyed Casey demands to know if Sarah compromised herself with Chuck. Sarah somberly asks Casey if he's ever wanted to have a normal life, to which he responds that sacrificing that to protect the nation and its people was the right choice. Sarah agrees to talk to Chuck, and if she cannot fix things, will request reassignment.

Chuck returns to work where Morgan sends him a picture of himself taking a cruise with Anna and her parents, and catches a glimpse of one of Kirk's crates.  Chuck realizes Kirk put the counterfeit plates on the boat belonging to the attache whom Anna's parents work for, but Casey refuses to act since Beckman has benched the team. Chuck then turns to Sarah, who initially tries to postpone the conversation. Chuck insists anyway, and after explaining and telling her Morgan and Anna are on the boat, she unhesitatingly jumps to help (against standing orders from Beckman and Graham). They are joined by Casey at the marina, who also decides to disregard his orders and join them in stopping Kirk. Chuck spots and flashes on a GPS transponder fixed to the Taiwanese attache's boat, and when he also flashes on a crate Kirk is loading onto his own boat, realizes that he's going to destroy the plates and kill the attache, along with Morgan, Anna and her parents.

While Sarah and Chuck use their cover to distract Kirk (Sarah wanting to go with Kirk, and Chuck as her jealous boyfriend), Casey sneaks aboard and disables the guards. A fight breaks out and Kirk disappears into the cabin. Chuck pursues him, but is nearly hit when Kirk fires off the missile (knocking himself unconscious from the blast at the same time). Casey and Sarah secure the boat, but the missile is now homing in on the GPS beacon. Chuck resets the missile's homing device, but this sends it back to them. With no other choice, Chuck uses the GPS built into Casey's Crown Vic and redirects the missile, destroying the car. Later at the Buy More holiday party, Chuck and Sarah reconcile their relationship and agree to remain friends. Meanwhile, Beckman calls Casey to inform him the new Intersect is nearly ready and that it would soon be time to "take care of Bartowski."

Buy More

Morgan has been spying on Anna, and saw her go out with someone else while hiding in her bushes. Anna reveals that she was meeting her parents, who work in Taiwan's diplomatic office and are in the country to attend a charity function. Morgan insists on meeting them, which Anna reluctantly agrees to. Chuck tells Morgan to just be himself, but Jeff and Lester tell him he has to be better. At lunch with them the next day, Morgan makes a fool of himself and embarrasses Anna attempting to impress them. While there, he sees Sarah flirting with Kirk on his boat and calls to tell Chuck. Chuck later tells him he was mistaken.

Morgan joins Anna and her family for a cruise aboard the Taiwanese attache's boat, unaware that Kirk has stowed the crates containing counterfeit plates and plans to destroy it. He sees the missile and thinks it's fireworks.

At the Buy More Christmas party, Anna admits she was not embarrassed about Morgan, she was embarrassed about who she is when she's with her parents because she changes her looks and behavior to fit what they want her to be and is not herself. The two reconcile and sneak off to have sex in the break room.

Production

"Chuck Versus the Crown Vic" introduces Casey's fondness for his Crown Victoria, however this was the car's first appearance in the show. Anna is revealed to be of Taiwanese descent, while Lester is established to be Jewish. Chuck also begins to further develop his "Charles Carmichael" persona independent of his real life, as Chuck does not drink martinis but Carmichael loves them. Given events of later seasons of the series, this episode also helps establish the depth of Sarah's connection to Chuck, even at an early stage.

This episode is the first mention since "Chuck Versus the Helicopter" of Casey's orders to terminate Chuck once the Intersect is rebuilt.

Production details

The car used to portray Casey's Crown Vic is not the 1985 model he indicates in the episode, but a 1991 model.
Just as the missile is about to hit the Crown Vic, you can clearly see the windshield and other windows have been removed to avoid injury in the upcoming explosion.
As an excuse to cover for Sarah, Chuck claims she has a spastic colon, just as he did in the episode "Chuck Versus the Sizzling Shrimp".

Flashes

Chuck flashes on one of the bills Lon Kirk's men are handling and identifies it as counterfeit.
Kirk gets into an argument with an attache to the Taiwanese ambassador, on whom Chuck flashes.
When Kirk's men are loading crates on his boat Chuck flashes. However, Kirk's men had swapped the crate that actually contains the plates.
Chuck flashes on the GPS beacon and the missile launcher Kirk intends to use to destroy the attache's boat.

Reception

Reviews for "Chuck Versus the Crown Vic" were generally mixed. BuddyTV noted the episode regressed after the events of the previous two episodes, though remained largely positive. TV Squad found the episode generally underwhelming, though found Morgan's meeting with Anna's parents, and the reveal of Casey's termination orders enjoyable.

IGN's own review was more overwhelmingly positive, rating the episode an 8.9/10. While TV Squad found the "will they won't they" tension between Chuck and Sarah stale and repetitive, IGN reacted more favorably, particularly citing the acting of Levi and Strahovski. Reviews responded positively to the Buy More holiday party and particularly the scene of Casey washing his titular Crown Vic.

References to popular culture
Big Mike calls Morgan "Captain Stubing" when he's walking through the Buy More in a boating cap and jacket. Captain Stubing (Gavin MacLeod) was the captain of MS Pacific Princess on The Love Boat.
While on the attache's boat, Morgan mimics the "King of the World" scene from Titanic.
Chuck calls Morgan "Little Buddy," a reference to Skipper Jonas Grumby and 1st Mate Willy Gilligan on Gilligan's Island.
Casey (Adam Baldwin) tells Chuck to "Flush out your headgear, new guy". Baldwin's character, Animal Mother, uttered the identical admonishment to Rafterman in Full Metal Jacket.
Chuck and Casey both describe the latter's beloved car as "shiny", a positive slang adjective used in the TV show Firefly and its spinoff movie Serenity which also featured Adam Baldwin.
Chuck flashes at the charity event on a character named "Roshan Chen" after two characters from the popular Warcraft 3 mod DotA.

References

External links

Crown Vic
2007 American television episodes


Pasha (; ; ) was a higher rank in the Ottoman political and military system, typically granted to governors, generals, dignitaries, and others. Pasha was also one of the highest titles in the 20th-century Kingdom of Egypt and it was also used in Morocco in the 20th century, where it denoted a regional official or governor of a district.

Etymology
The English word pasha comes from Turkish  (; also  ()). The Oxford English Dictionary attributes the origin of the English borrowing to the mid-17th century. The etymology of the Turkish word itself has been a matter of debate. Contrary to titles like emir (amīr) and bey (beg), which were established in usage much earlier, the title pasha came into Ottoman usage right after the reign of the Osman I (d. 1324), though it had been used before the Ottomans by some Anatolian Turkish rulers of the same era. Old Turkish had no fixed distinction between /b/ and /p/, and the word was spelled  still in the 15th century.

According to Online Etymology Dictionary, the Turkish  or  was itself from Turkish  /  ( 'head, chief'), itself from Old Persian  ('master', from Proto-Indo-European *) and the root of the Persian word , . According to Oxford Dictionaries, the Turkish word from which it was borrowed was formed as a result of the combination of the Pahlavi words  'lord', and  (). According to Josef W. Meri and Jere L. Bacharach, the word is "more than likely derived from the Persian " (). The same view is held by Nicholas Ostler, who mentions that the word was formed as a shortening of the Persian word . Jean Deny also attributed its origin to , while repeating a suggestion by Gerhard Doerfer that it was influenced by Turkic  (), meaning 'agent, tax collector'.

Some theories have posited a Turkish or Turkic origin of the word, claiming it derived from  (), which denoted a 'principal elder brother' or 'prince's elder son' in the pre-Ottoman period. According to etymologist , the word is derived from Turkish  ( 'boy, prince'), which is cognate with Persian  (). Some earlier Turkish lexicographers, such as Ahmed Vefik Paşa and Mehmed Salahi, argued it was most likely derived from Turkish  or Turkish , the latter meaning 'elder brother' and being a title given to some Ottoman provincial officials and janissaries.

As first used in western Europe, the title appeared in writing with an initial b. The English forms bashaw, bassaw, bucha, etc., general in the 16th and 17th century, derive through the medieval Latin and Italian word . Due to the Ottoman presence in the Arab world, the title became used frequently in Arabic, though pronounced basha due to the absence of the /p/ sound in Arabic.

Role in Ottoman and Egyptian political system

Within the Ottoman Empire, the Sultan had the right to bestow the title of Pasha. Lucy Mary Jane Garnett wrote in the 1904 work Turkish Life in Town and Country that it was the sole "Turkish title which carries with it any definite rank and precedence".

It was through this custom that the title () came to be used in Egypt, which was conquered by the Ottomans in 1517. The rise to power in Egypt in 1805 by Muhammad Ali, an Albanian military commander, effectively established Egypt as a de facto independent state, however, it still owed technical fealty to the Ottoman Sultan. Moreover, Muhammad Ali harboured ambitions of supplanting the Osman Dynasty in Constantinople (now Istanbul), and sought to style his Egyptian realm as a successor sultanate to the Ottoman Empire. As such, he bore the title of Pasha, in addition to the official title of Wāli, and the self-declared title of Khedive. His successors to the Egyptian and Sudanese throne, Ibrahim, Abbas, Sa'id, and Isma'il also inherited these titles, with Pasha, and Wāli ceasing to be used in 1867, when the Ottoman Sultan, Abdülaziz officially recognised Isma'il as Khedive.

The title Pasha appears originally to have applied exclusively to military commanders and only high ranking family of the sultans, but subsequently it could distinguish any high official, and also unofficial persons whom the court desired to honour.

It was also part of the official style of the Kapudan Pasha (Grand Admiral of the Ottoman fleet).
Pashas ranked above Beys and Aghas, but below Khedives and Viziers.

Three grades of Pasha existed, distinguished by the number of horse tails (three, two, and one respectively; a symbol of Turco-Mongol tradition) or peacock tails that the bearers were entitled to display on their standard as a symbol of military authority when on campaign. Only the sultan himself was entitled to four tails, as sovereign commander in chief.

The following military ranks entitled the holder to the style Pasha (lower ranks were styled Bey or merely Effendi):
The Vizier-i-Azam (Grand Vizier, the prime minister, but also often taking the field as Generalissimo instead of the Sultan)
Mushir (Field marshal)
Ferik (army lieutenant-general or navy vice-admiral)
Liva (major general or rear-admiral)
The Kizlar Agha (chief black eunuch, the highest officer in the Topkapı Palace; three tails, as commander of the baltadji corps of the halberdiers in the imperial army
Constantinople's Shaikh ul-Islam, the highest Muslim clergyman, of cabinet rank.

If a Pasha governed a provincial territory, it could be called a pashaluk after his military title, besides the administrative term for the type of jurisdiction, e.g. eyalet, vilayet/walayah. Both beylerbeys (governors-general) and valis/wālis (the most common type of Governor) were entitled to the style of Pasha (typically with two tails). The word pashalik designated any province or other jurisdiction of a Pasha, such as the Pasha or Bashaw of Tripoli.

Ottoman and Egyptian authorities conferred the title upon both Muslims and Christians without distinction. They also frequently gave it to foreigners in the service of the Ottoman Empire, or of the Egyptian Khedivate (later Sultanate, and Kingdom in turn), e.g. Hobart Pasha.

In an Egyptian context, the Abaza Family is known as "the family of the pashas" for having produced the largest number of nobles holding this title under the Muhammad Ali dynasty and was noted in Egyptian media as one of the main "families that rule Egypt" to this day, and as "deeply rooted in Egyptian society and… in the history of the country."

Honorific
As an honorific, the title Pasha was an aristocratic title and could be hereditary or non-hereditary, stipulated in the firman (patent of nobility) issued by the Sultan carrying the tughra (imperial seal). The title did not bestow rank or title to the wife nor was any religious leader elevated to the title. In contrast to western nobility titles, where the title normally is added before the given name, Ottoman titles followed the given name. In contacts with foreign emissaries and representatives, holders of the title Pasha were often referred to as "Your Excellency".

The sons of a Pasha were styled Pashazada or Pashazade.

In modern Egyptian and (to a lesser extent) Levantine Arabic, it is used as an honorific closer to "Sir" than "Lord", especially by older people. Among Egyptians born since the Revolution of 1952 and the abolition of aristocratic titles, it is considered a highly formal way of addressing one's male peers.

The Republican Turkish authorities abolished the title circa the 1930s. Although it is no longer an official title, high-ranking officers of the Turkish Armed Forces are often referred to as "pashas" by the Turkish public and media.

In the French Navy, "pasha" (pacha in French) is the nickname of the Commanding Officer, similar to the term "skipper" in the Anglophone  navies.

List of notable pashas

The inclusion criterion is that the person held the rank of "pasha" in his society
 Abaza Family, Egyptian Pashas and Beys
 Abbas I of Egypt
 Abbas II of Egypt
 Ali Pasha, multiple people
 Ali Pasha Mubarak
 Andranik Pasha
 Baker Pasha (Valentine Baker)
 Barbarossa Khair ad-Din Pasha
 Bucknam Pasha (Ransford Dodsworth Bucknam)
 Ahmed Pasha (Claude Alexandre de Bonneval)
 Cigalazade Yusuf Sinan Pasha
 Djemal Pasha
 Pargalı Ibrahim Pasha ("Ibrahim Pasha of Parga"), also known as Frenk Ibrahim Pasha ("the Westerner"), Makbul Ibrahim Pasha ("the Favorite") and Maktul Ibrahim Pasha ("the Executed")
 Dragut, Ottoman Naval Commander & Pasha of Tripoli
 Emin Pasha
 Enver Pasha
 Essad Pasha Toptani
 Fakhri Pasha
 Fekry Pasha Abaza
 Fuad Pasha
 Glubb Pasha (Sir John Bagot Glubb)
 Gordon Pasha (Charles George Gordon)
 Guyon Pasha, (General Richard Guyon), also known as Kurshid Pasha
 Habib Abdoe'r Rahman Alzahier
 Hagop Kazazian Pasha
 Hajji Mustafa Pasha
 Hobart Pasha (Augustus Charles Hobart-Hampden)
 Hüseyin Tevfik Pasha, arms and algebra expert
 Hussein Refki Pasha
 Ibrahim Edhem Pasha
 İsmet Pasha (İsmet İnönü)
 Jafar al-Askari
 Jamal Pasha
 Judar Pasha, Moroccan general
 Kara Mustafa Pasha
 Hicks Pasha (William Hicks), British Colonel, Hero of the Mahdist Wars
 Kazazian Pasha
 Kilic Ali Pasha
 Multiple members of the Köprülü family
 Lala Kara Mustafa Pasha
 Liman von Sanders Pasha (Otto Liman von Sanders)
 Goltz Pasha (Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz)
 Krayem Pasha Al Nahar, Jordan
 Mahmud Dramali Pasha, Ottoman general
 Marcus Simaika Pasha,  was an Egyptian Coptic leader, politician, and founder of the Coptic Museum in Cairo
 Mehmet Esat Bülkat
 Mehmed Pasha Sokolović
 Meissner Pasha (Heinrich August Meissner)
 Melling Pasha (Antoine Ignace Melling)
 Midhat Pasha
 Müezzinzade Ali Pasha, Ottoman admiral
 Muhammad Ali Pasha, viceroy of Egypt
 Mustafa Kemal Pasha, subsequently known as Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of the post-Ottoman Turkish republic
 Mustafa Reshid Pasha
 Naguib Pasha Mahfouz, is known as the father of obstetrics and gynaecology in Egypt and was a pioneer in obstetric fistula
 Nubar Pasha
 Osman Pasha
 Omar Pasha Latas
 Piyale Pasha
 Qassim Pasha Al Zuhair, Pasha of Albasrah and Kuwait
 Radu Bey, Pasha of Wallachia, Brother of Vlad III Tepes
 Refet Bele
 Regep Aga
 Riyad Pasha, Egyptian statesman
 Russell Pasha, British officer in the Egyptian police
 Rüstem Pasha the longest serving Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire
 Said Pasha
 Şerif Pasha, Kurdish nationalist
 Sentot Prawirodirdjo, known as "Alibasah Sentot" or "Sentot Ali Pasha". Javanese Muslim commander during Java War
 Sinan Pasha,
 Stone Pasha (Charles Pomeroy Stone)
 Sulejman Pasha
 Sultan al-Atrash
 Tahir Pasha, vali of Mosul 1910-12
 Talat Pasha
 Tawfiq Bay (Tevfik Pasha), Arab pan-Islamist
 Tewfik Pasha
 Turhan Pasha Përmeti
 Tusun Pasha
 Urabi Pasha
 Vartan Pasha
 Wehib Pasha
 Williams Pasha (Sir William Williams), Canadian/British General
 Woods Pasha (Henry Felix Woods)
 Youssef Wahba Pasha, Egyptian Prime Minister
 Yusuf Murad Pasha (Józef Bem), Polish general and a national hero of Poland and Hungary, who served in the Ottoman Empire.
 Yusuf Karamanli, Pasha of Tripoli
 Zulfikar family, Egyptian Pashas and Beys

See also
 List of Ottoman titles and appellations

Notes

References

Noble titles of Egypt
Noble titles
Ottoman titles
Titles in Iran
Titles in Lebanon
Titles of national or ethnic leadership
Turkish titles
Turkish words and phrases
Bengali Muslim surnames
Titles in Bosnia and Herzegovina during Ottoman period


Dyoplax is an extinct genus of pseudosuchian archosaur, possibly an erpetosuchid. Fossils have been found from the type locality within the upper Schilfsandstein Formation in Stuttgart, Germany. The holotype specimen was a natural cast of a nearly complete skeleton that lacked only parts of the tail and limb bones.

Classification

Oscar Fraas, the original describer of Dyoplax, described the specimen as having "the head of a lizard and the armor of a gavial". When the taxon Pseudosuchia was first proposed in 1890, Dyoplax was considered one of the three genera within the clade, and was included within the family "Aetosauridae". Several other papers published in later years have also placed the genus within Pseudosuchia. In 1956 the genus was referred to Notochampsidae, now known as Protosuchidae. It was suggested to be a possible erpetosuchid in 1966, but was later classified as one of the earliest protosuchids in 1994.

In that same year a paper was published that identified several synamomorphies characteristic of the clade Aetosauria. This confirmed that Dyoplax was not within the order Aetosauria as had been previously speculated because it lacked four out of five of the synapomorphies associated with Aetosauria.

A paper published in 1998 by Spencer et al. considered Dyoplax to be within Sphenosuchia, a grade of basal crocodylomorphs. The authors claimed that all synapomorphies present within Crocodylomorpha, as defined in 1992 by Sereno & Wild, were present in Dyoplax. They further concluded that the genus had most of the synapomorphies common to Sphenosuchia, lacking only the forked posterior process of the squamosal. On this basis, the authors concluded that there was enough evidence to place Dyoplax within Sphenosuchia. The age of the specimen within the strata would make Dyoplax the oldest sphenosuchian known at the time, predating other genera from the late Carnian that were once thought to be the oldest members of Sphenosuchia such as Hesperosuchus and Parrishia. However, Maisch, Matzke and Rathgeber (2013) questioned the placement of Dyoplax within Crocodylomorpha, and argued that it shared important cranial and postcranial features with Erpetosuchus; the authors tentatively reassigned Dyoplax to Erpetosuchidae.

Paleoecology
The Shilfsandstein Formation was deposited during the early Carnian stage of the Late Triassic (~ 228 million years ago) in a lagoonal paleoenvironment. Numerous bivalves, chondrichthyean fish such as Palaeobates, trematosaurian temnospondyls such as Metoposaurus, a phytosaur, and plants such as Neocalamites and Equisetites were also present in the paleoenvironment that existed at the time.

References

External links
 Dyoplax in the Paleobiology Database

Prehistoric pseudosuchian genera
Triassic archosaurs
Late Triassic reptiles of Europe


Lichen myxedematosus is a group of cutaneous disorders considered mucinoses.  Conditions included in this group are:

 Generalized lichen myxedematosus
 Localized lichen myxedematosus
 Discrete papular lichen myxedematosus
 Acral persistent papular mucinosis
 Self-healing papular mucinosis
 Self-healing juvenile cutaneous mucinosis
 Papular mucinosis of infancy
 Atypical lichen myxedematosus
 Atypical tuberous myxedema

See also
 List of cutaneous conditions

References

External links

Mucinoses


Ben Lomond is a rhyolite lava dome near Lake Taupō in New Zealand's North Island. Located about eight kilometres north-northeast of Kinloch, it rises to a height of 744 metres above sea level.

Ben Lomond erupted about 100,000 years ago, producing two lava lobes that flowed around 3.5 kilometres south and southwest from a vent about one kilometre south of Poihipi Road. Much of the lava formed grey banded obsidian as it cooled. Crystalline rhyolite and pumice were also produced.

References

Taupō Volcanic Zone
Pleistocene lava domes
Volcanoes of Waikato


USS Californian was a United States Navy cargo ship in commission in 1918.

SS Californian was launched on 12 May 1900 at San Francisco, California, by Union Iron Works and delivered later that year to the American-Hawaiian Steamship Company of New York City. After the United States entered World War I, the United States Shipping Board acquired Californian for war service and transferred her to the U.S. Navy on 13 May 1918. The Navy commissioned her as USS Californian on 14 May 1918.

Californian immediately loaded a cargo of coal, fuel oil, and general supplies for the American Expeditionary Force in France and departed on 31 May 1918 to join a convoy off New York City.

On 22 June 1918, while proceeding through the Bay of Biscay, Californian struck a naval mine. Although a gallant attempt was made to tow her to port, she sank later that day. Her crew abandoned ship in good order and was picked up by the patrol vessel USS Corsair (SP-159) without suffering any casualties.

Unlike most commercial ships commissioned into U.S. Navy service during World War I, Californian never received a naval registry identification number.

References

Department of the Navy: Naval Historical Center Online Library of Selected Images: U.S. Navy Ships: USS Californian (1918-1918). Originally the Civilian Freighter Californian (1900).
NavSource Online: Section Patrol Craft Photo Archive: Arizonan (ID 4245-A)

World War I cargo ships of the United States
Ships built in San Francisco
World War I shipwrecks in the Atlantic Ocean
1900 ships
Cargo ships of the United States Navy
Ships sunk by mines
Maritime incidents in 1918
Steamships of the United States
Ships built by Union Iron Works


Alghero Cathedral, otherwise the Cathedral of St. Mary the Immaculate ( ), is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Alghero in the province of Sassari, Sardinia, Italy. It is located in the historic center of the city. It was the seat of the Bishop of Alghero from 1503 to 1986, and since 1986 has been that of the Bishop of Alghero-Bosa.

Alghero was designated as a diocesan seat in 1503 but construction work on the cathedral did not begin until 1567. It was inaugurated in 1593 but was not finished. After several restorations it was consecrated in 1730.

The church was originally in Catalan-Gothic style, as can be seen in the five chapels and ambulatory of the presbytery, which also includes the octagonal base of the bell tower. The nave and the two aisles are however in Late Renaissance style. The main altar was designed by the Genovese artist Giuseppe Massetti (1727): the sculpture shows Mary the Immaculate flanked by angels.  He also designed the ambulatory and the pulpit. In 1862 a Neo-Classical narthex was added to the façade, which dramatically changed its appearance.

The first chapel on the right side is dedicated to the Blessed Sacrament. Its imposing, marble altar was inaugurated in 1824. It is located inside a circular temple, reminding the Temple of Vesta in Rome.

The cathedral is the burial site of the Italian-born Duke of Montferrat (1762-1799) and his brother Count of Asti (1766-1802) who died on the island having caught malaria. The marble mausoleum was sculpted by Felice Festa in the early 19th century.

Gallery

Sources and external links
 Catholic Encyclopedia: Alghero
 Catholic Hierarchy: Diocese of Alghero-Bosa
 Website of Diocese of Alghero-Bosa

References
 Francesca Segni Pulvirenti, Aldo Sari. Architettura tardogotica e d'influsso rinascimentale. Nuoro, Ilisso, 1994.
 Salvatore Naitza. Architettura dal tardo '600 al classicismo purista. Nuoro, Ilisso, 1992.
 Maria Grazia Scano. Pittura e scultura dell'Ottocento. Nuoro, Ilisso, 1997.

Roman Catholic cathedrals in Italy
Churches in the province of Sassari
Cathedral
Gothic architecture in Sardinia
Burial sites of the House of Savoy


Mucinoses are a group of cutaneous diseases caused by fibroblasts producing abnormally large amounts of acid mucopolysaccharides (i.e. mucin), usually hyaluronic acid.

Cutaneous mucinosis is a group of conditions involving an accumulation of mucin or glycosaminoglycan in the skin and its annexes. It is described in some connective tissue diseases but never in association with mixed connective tissue disease.

See also
 Skin lesion
 List of cutaneous conditions

References

External links
 Hyaluronic Acid

Mucinoses


Newcastle Coach Station is a coach station located in Newcastle upon Tyne. It opened in 2003, as a replacement for the former Gallowgate Coach Station.

The coach station is located on Churchill Street, and is a short walk from Newcastle Central railway station. It is one of three bus stations in the city centre – the others being Eldon Square and Haymarket.

The coach station has five bays, with facilities including a booking office, waiting room, seating and toilet facilities. A taxi rank is available on Churchill Street. Above the bays is a translucent curved canopy roof, with a glazed block screen wall.

Newcastle Coach Station is served mainly by National Express, however, it is also used by a number of independent operators – including JH Coaches and Wright Bros. of Alston. The station is not served by Megabus, with services instead using a stop on John Dobson Street, adjacent to Newcastle City Library.

See also
 Eldon Square Bus Station
 Haymarket Bus Station

References

External links

Bus stations in Tyne and Wear
2003 establishments in England
Transport in Newcastle upon Tyne
Buildings and structures in Newcastle upon Tyne


KINF or Kinf may refer to:

 KINF-LP, a low-power radio station (107.9 FM) licensed to serve Palestine, Texas, United States
 KDBI (AM), a defunct radio station (730 AM) formerly licensed to serve Boise, Idaho, which held the call sign KINF from 2011 to 2013
 KPDA (FM), a radio station (100.7 FM) licensed to serve Mountain Home, Idaho, which held the call sign KINF-FM from 2011 to 2013
 KXTA-FM, a radio station (99.1 FM) licensed to serve Gooding, Idaho, United States, which held the call sign KINF from 2013 to 2014
 Kids In Need Foundation, a U.S. charity