title: Antonia Kidman

text: In 2008, Kidman was awarded Favourite Female Personality at the ASTRA Awards for the second time. In 2010, she became the "ambassador" for a Chinese travel agency, Book China Online.


title: Antonia Kidman

text: Kidman has co-written two books about parenting: "Feeding Fussy Kids" (2009) and "The Simple Things: Creating an Organised Home, a Happy Family and A Life Worth Living" (2012).


title: Antonia Kidman

text: Kidman's community involvement has included the Royal Hospital for Women Foundation's Mother's Day Appeal, Randwick Mothers' Hospital, the National Breast Cancer Foundation and Taronga Zoo Foundation in Sydney.


title: Antonia Kidman

text: Kidman married Angus Hawley in February 1996. Their wedding took place in the Monte Sant' Angelo Mercy College chapel with her sister Nicole Kidman and her then-husband Tom Cruise present. Together, Kidman and Hawley have four children: two daughters, Lucia (born 1998) and Sybella (born 2007) and two sons, Hamish "Hamey" (born 2001) and James (born 2003). In May 2007, Hawley and Kidman's 11-year marriage ended. Kidman remained with the children in the family home in Greenwich, Sydney, and the couple continued to share the responsibility of parenting their children. Hawley died of a heart attack in April 2015, aged 46.


title: Antonia Kidman

text: In April 2010, Kidman married Craig Marran, a Singapore-based businessman. Kidman and Marran have two sons, Nicholas (born December 2010), and Alexander Norman Kidman Marran (born December 2012).


title: Wendell Berry

text: Wendell Erdman Berry (born August 5, 1934) is an American novelist, poet, essayist, environmental activist, cultural critic, and farmer. Closely identified with rural Kentucky, he developed many of his agrarian themes in the early essays of "The Gift of Good Land" (1981) and "The Unsettling of America" (1977). His attention to the culture and economy of rural communities is also found in the novels and stories of Port William, such as "A Place on Earth" (1967), "Jayber Crow" (2000), and "That Distant Land" (2004).


title: Wendell Berry

text: He is an elected member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, a recipient of The National Humanities Medal, and the Jefferson Lecturer for 2012. He is also a 2013 Fellow of The American Academy of Arts and Sciences and, since 2014, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Berry was named the recipient of the 2013 Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award. On January 28, 2015, he became the first living writer to be inducted into the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame.


title: Wendell Berry

text: Berry was the first of four children to be born to John Marshall Berry, a lawyer and tobacco farmer in Henry County, Kentucky, and Virginia Erdman Berry. The families of both parents had farmed in Henry County for at least five generations. Berry attended secondary school at Millersburg Military Institute and then earned a B.A. (1956) and M.A. (1957) in English at the University of Kentucky. In 1956, at the University of Kentucky he met another Kentucky writer-to-be, Gurney Norman. He completed his M.A. and married Tanya Amyx in 1957. In 1958, he attended Stanford University's creative writing program as a Wallace Stegner Fellow, studying under Stegner in a seminar that included Larry McMurtry, Robert Stone, Ernest Gaines, Tillie Olsen, and Ken Kesey. Berry's first novel, "Nathan Coulter", was published in April 1960.


title: Wendell Berry

text: A John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship took Berry and his family to Italy and France in 1961, where he came to know Wallace Fowlie, critic and translator of French literature. From 1962 to 1964, he taught English at New York University's University Heights campus in the Bronx. In 1964, he began teaching creative writing at the University of Kentucky, from which he resigned in 1977. During this time in Lexington, Kentucky, he came to know author Guy Davenport, as well as author and monk Thomas Merton and photographer Ralph Eugene Meatyard.


title: Wendell Berry

text: On July 4, 1965, Berry, his wife, and his two children moved to Lane's Landing, a 12-acre farm that he had purchased, and began growing corn and small grains on what eventually became a homestead of about . They bought their first flock of seven Border Cheviot sheep in 1978. Lane's Landing is in Henry County, Kentucky in north central Kentucky near Port Royal, and his parents' birthplaces, and is on the western bank of the Kentucky River, not far from where it flows into the Ohio River. Berry has farmed, resided, and written at Lane's Landing ever since. He has written about his early experiences on the land and about his decision to return to it in essays such as "The Long-Legged House" and "A Native Hill".


title: Wendell Berry

text: From 1977 until 1980, he edited and wrote for Rodale, Inc. in Emmaus, Pennsylvania, including for its publications "Organic Gardening and Farming" and "The New Farm". From 1987 to 1993, he returned to the English Department of the University of Kentucky. Berry has written at least twenty-five books (or chapbooks) of poems, sixteen volumes of essays, and twelve novels and short story collections. His writing is grounded in the notion that one's work ought to be rooted in and responsive to one's place.


title: Wendell Berry

text: On February 10, 1968, Berry delivered "A Statement Against the War in Vietnam" during the Kentucky Conference on the War and the Draft at the University of Kentucky in Lexington:


title: Wendell Berry

text: On June 3, 1979, Berry engaged in nonviolent civil disobedience against the construction of a nuclear power plant at Marble Hill, Indiana. He describes "this nearly eventless event" and expands upon his reasons for it in the essay "The Reactor and the Garden."


title: Wendell Berry

text: On February 9, 2003, Berry's essay titled "A Citizen's Response to the National Security Strategy of the United States" was published as a full-page advertisement in "The New York Times". Berry opened the essay—a critique of the G. W. Bush administration's post-9/11 international strategy—by asserting that "The new National Security Strategy published by the White House in September 2002, if carried out, would amount to a radical revision of the political character of our nation."


title: Wendell Berry

text: On January 4, 2009, Berry and Wes Jackson, president of The Land Institute, published an op-ed article in "The New York Times" titled "A 50-Year Farm Bill." In July 2009 Berry, Jackson and Fred Kirschenmann, of The Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, gathered in Washington DC to promote this idea. Berry and Jackson wrote, "We need a 50-year farm bill that addresses forthrightly the problems of soil loss and degradation, toxic pollution, fossil-fuel dependency and the destruction of rural communities."


title: Wendell Berry

text: Also in January 2009, Berry released a statement against the death penalty, which began, "As I am made deeply uncomfortable by the taking of a human life before birth, I am also made deeply uncomfortable by the taking of a human life after birth." And in November 2009, Berry and 38 other writers from Kentucky wrote to Gov. Steve Beshear and Attorney General Jack Conway asking them to impose a moratorium on the death penalty in that state.


title: Wendell Berry

text: On March 2, 2009, Berry joined over 2,000 others in non-violently blocking the gates to a coal-fired power plant in Washington, D.C. No one was arrested.


title: Wendell Berry

text: On May 22, 2009, Berry, at a listening session in Louisville, spoke against the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). He said, "If you impose this program on the small farmers, who are already overburdened, you're going to have to send the police for me. I'm 75 years old. I've about completed my responsibilities to my family. I'll lose very little in going to jail in opposition to your program – and I'll have to do it. Because I will be, in every way that I can conceive of, a non-cooperator."


title: Wendell Berry

text: In October 2009, Berry combined with "the Berea-based Kentucky Environmental Foundation (KEF), along with several other non-profit organizations and rural electric co-op members" to petition against and protest the construction of a coal-burning power plant in Clark County, Kentucky. On February 28, 2011, the Kentucky Public Service Commission approved the cancellation of this power plant.


title: Wendell Berry

text: On December 20, 2009, due to the University of Kentucky's close association with coal interests in the state, Berry removed his papers from the university. He explained to the "Lexington Herald-Leader", "I don't think the University of Kentucky can be so ostentatiously friendly to the coal industry … and still be a friend to me and the interests for which I have stood for the last 45 years. … If they love the coal industry that much, I have to cancel my friendship." In August 2012, the papers were donated to The Kentucky Historical Society in Frankfort, KY.


title: Wendell Berry

text: On September 28, 2010, Berry participated in a rally in Louisville during an EPA hearing on how to manage coal ash. Berry said, "The EPA knows that coal ash is poison. We ask it only to believe in its own findings on this issue, and do its duty."


title: Wendell Berry

text: Berry, with 14 other protesters, spent the weekend of February 12, 2011 locked in the Kentucky governor's office to demand an end to mountaintop removal coal mining. He was part of the environmental group Kentuckians for the Commonwealth that began their sit-in on Friday and left at midday Monday to join about 1,000 others in a mass outdoor rally.


title: Wendell Berry

text: In 2011, The Berry Center was established at New Castle, Kentucky, "for the purpose of bringing focus, knowledge and cohesiveness to the work of changing our ruinous industrial agriculture system into a system and culture that uses nature as the standard, accepts no permanent damage to the ecosphere, and takes into consideration human health in local communities."


title: Wendell Berry

text: In July 2020, Wendell Berry and his wife Tanya Amyx Berry sued the University of Kentucky to prevent the removal of a mural that has been criticized for being "racially offensive." The mural was commissioned in the 1930s and was done by Ann Rice O'Hanlon, a relative of Tanya Amyx Berry.


title: Wendell Berry

text: In August 2022, at a public hearing of the Henry County, Kentucky planning commission, Wendell Berry spoke against re-zoning agricultural land to allow Angel's Envy distillery to develop the property "for bourbon-barrel storage and the development of an agritourism destination." Despite the testimony by Berry and others, the planning commission granted the re-zoning request.


title: Wendell Berry

text: Berry's nonfiction serves as an extended conversation about the life he values. According to him, the good life includes sustainable agriculture, appropriate technologies, healthy rural communities, connection to place, the pleasures of good food, animal husbandry, good work, local economics, the miracle of life, fidelity, frugality, reverence, and the interconnectedness of life. The threats Berry finds to this good simple life include: industrial farming and the industrialization of life, ignorance, hubris, greed, violence against others and against the natural world, the eroding topsoil in the United States, global economics, and environmental destruction. As a prominent defender of agrarian values, Berry's appreciation for traditional farming techniques, such as those of the Amish, grew in the 1970s, due in part to exchanges with "Draft Horse Journal" publisher Maurice Telleen. Berry has long been friendly to and supportive of Wes Jackson, believing that Jackson's agricultural research at The Land Institute lives out the promise of "solving for pattern" and using "nature as model."


title: Wendell Berry

text: Jedediah Britton-Purdy has considered many of Berry's major themes and concerns:Over the years, he has called himself an agrarian, a pacifist, and a Christian—albeit of an eccentric kind. He has written against all forms of violence and destruction—of land, communities, and human beings—and argued that the modern American way of life is a skein of violence. He is an anti-capitalist moralist and a writer of praise for what he admires: the quiet, mostly uncelebrated labor and affection that keep the world whole and might still redeem it. He is also an acerbic critic of what he dislikes, particularly modern individualism, and his emphasis on family and marriage and his ambivalence toward abortion mark him as an outsider to the left.The concept of ""Solving for pattern"", coined by Berry in his essay of the same title, is the process of finding solutions that solve multiple problems, while minimizing the creation of new problems. The essay was originally published in the Rodale, Inc. periodical "The New Farm". Though Mr. Berry's use of the phrase was in direct reference to agriculture, it has since come to enjoy broader use throughout the design community.


title: Wendell Berry

text: Berry, who describes himself as "a person who takes the Gospel seriously," has criticized Christian organizations for failing to challenge cultural complacency about environmental degradation, and has shown a willingness to criticize what he perceives as the arrogance of some Christians. He is an advocate of Christian pacifism, as shown in his book "Blessed Are the Peacemakers: Christ's Teachings About Love, Compassion and Forgiveness" (2005).


title: Wendell Berry

text: Berry's core ideas, and in particular his poem "Sabbaths III, 1989 (Santa Clara Valley)," guided the 2007 documentary feature film "The Unforeseen", produced by Terrence Malick and Robert Redford. In the film Berry narrates his own poem. Director Laura Dunn went on to make the 2016 documentary feature "Look & See: A Portrait of Wendell Berry", again produced by Malick and Redford.


title: Wendell Berry

text: Berry's lyric poetry often appears as a contemporary eclogue, pastoral, or elegy; but he also composes dramatic and historical narratives (such as "Bringer of Water" and "July, 1773", respectively) and occasional and discursive poems ("Against the War in Vietnam" and "Some Further Words", respectively).


title: Wendell Berry

text: Berry's first published poetry book consisted of a single poem, the elegiac "November Twenty Six Nineteen Hundred Sixty Three" (1964), initiated and illustrated by Ben Shahn, commemorating the death of John F. Kennedy. It begins,


title: Wendell Berry

text: and continues through ten more stanzas (each propelled by the anaphora of "We know"). The elegiac here and elsewhere, according to Triggs, enables Berry to characterize the connections "that link past and future generations through their common working of the land."


title: Wendell Berry

text: The first full-length collection, "The Broken Ground" (1964), develops many of Berry's fundamental concerns: "the cycle of life and death, responsiveness to place, pastoral subject matter, and recurring images of the Kentucky River and the hill farms of north-central Kentucky."


title: Wendell Berry

text: According to Angyal, "There is little modernist formalism or postmodernist experimentation in [Berry's] verse." A commitment to the reality and primacy of the actual world stands behind these two rejections. In "Notes: Unspecializing Poetry," Berry writes, "Devotion to order that is not poetical prevents the specialization of poetry." He goes on to note, "Nothing exists for its own sake, but for a harmony greater than itself which includes it. A work of art, which accepts this condition, and exists upon its terms, honors the Creation, and so becomes a part of it."


title: Wendell Berry

text: Lionel Basney placed Berry's poetry within a tradition of didactic poetry that stretches back to Horace: "To say that Berry's poetry can be didactic, then, means that it envisions a specific wisdom, and also the traditional sense of art and culture that gives art the task of teaching this wisdom."


title: Wendell Berry

text: For Berry, poetry exists "at the center of a complex reminding" Both the poet and the reader are reminded of the poem's crafted language, of the poem's formal literary antecedents, of "what is remembered or ought to be remembered," and of "the formal integrity of other works, creatures and structures of the world."


title: Wendell Berry

text: From 1979 to the present Berry has been writing what he calls "Sabbath poems." They were first collected in "A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems 1979-1997". This was followed by Sabbaths from 1998 to 2004 in "Given: New Poems"; and those from 2005 to 2008 are in "Leavings". All Sabbath poems through 2012 are published in "This Day: New and Collected Sabbath Poems 1979 - 2012". "Sabbaths 2013" has been published by Larkspur Press. "A Small Porch" contains nine Sabbath poems from 2014 and sixteen from 2015. One Sabbath poem, "What Passes, What Remains" (VIII from 2016), is published as the epilogue in "The Art of Loading Brush". That poem, along with fourteen others, can also be found in "Sabbaths 2016", published by Larkspur Press.


title: Wendell Berry

text: The poems are motivated by Berry's longtime habit of walking out onto the land on Sunday mornings. As he puts it, "I go free from the tasks and intentions of my workdays, and so my mind becomes hospitable to unintended thoughts: to what I am very willing to call inspiration." He writes in a poem from 1979,


title: Wendell Berry

text: Of wonders and of uncommercial goods.</poem>The Sabbath poems have been described as "written from a particular place and on particular Sabbaths, and so should be read as part of a spiritual practice and as poems, in some sense, devoted to dwelling, to living thoughtfully in one place." Oehlschlaeger links Berry's project to a key observation by Henry David Thoreau,


title: Wendell Berry

text: As Thoreau continues in 'Life Without Principle,' he notes the constant busyness of Americans, so engaged in 'infinite bustle' that 'there is no sabbath.' And he notes later that 'there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself, than this incessant business.' The logic is clear: destruction of the Sabbath is contrary to 'life itself.' That, I suggest, is the context in which we should read the Sabbath poems that Berry has been writing for nearly the last thirty years.


title: Wendell Berry

text: Berry's fiction to date consists of eight novels and fifty-seven short stories—all of which are collected in "That Distant Land" (2004), "A Place in Time" (2012) and "How It Went" (2022)—and one verse drama which, when read as a whole, form a chronicle of the fictional small Kentucky town of Port William. Because of his long-term, ongoing exploration of the life of an imagined place, Berry has been compared to William Faulkner. Yet, although Port William is no stranger to murder, suicide, alcoholism, marital discord, and the full range of losses that touch human lives, it lacks the extremes of characterization and plot development that are found in much of Faulkner. Hence Berry is sometimes described as working in an idealized, pastoral, or nostalgic mode, a characterization of his work which he resists: "If your work includes a criticism of history, which mine certainly does, you can't be accused of wanting to go back to something, because you're saying that what we were wasn't good enough."


title: Wendell Berry

text: The effect of profound shifts in the agricultural practices of the United States, and the disappearance of traditional agrarian life, are some of the major concerns of the Port William fiction, though the theme is often only a background or subtext to the stories themselves. The Port William fiction attempts to portray, on a local scale, what "a human economy … conducted with reverence" looked like in the past—and what civic, domestic, and personal virtues might be evoked by such an economy were it pursued today. Social as well as seasonal changes mark the passage of time. The Port William stories allow Berry to explore the human dimensions of the decline of the family farm and farm community, under the influence of expanding post-World War II agribusiness. But these works rarely fall into simple didacticism, and are never merely tales of decline. Each is grounded in a realistic depiction of character and community. In "A Place on Earth" (1967), for example, farmer Mat Feltner comes to terms with the loss of his only son, Virgil. In the course of the novel, we see how not only Mat but the entire community wrestles with the acute costs of World War II.


title: Wendell Berry

text: Berry's fiction also allows him to explore the literal and metaphorical implications of marriage as that which binds individuals, families, and communities to each other and to Nature itself—yet not all of Port William is happily or conventionally married. "Old Jack" Beechum struggles with significant incompatibilities with his wife, and with a brief yet fulfilling extramarital affair. The barber Jayber Crow lives with a forlorn, secret, and unrequited love for a woman, believing himself "mentally" married to her even though she knows nothing about it. Burley Coulter never formalizes his bond with Kate Helen Branch, the mother of his son. Yet, each of these men find themselves firmly bound up in the community, the "membership," of Port William.


title: Wendell Berry

text: Of his fictional project, Berry has written: "I have made the imagined town of Port William, its neighborhood and membership, in an attempt to honor the actual place where I have lived. By means of the imagined place, over the last fifty years, I have learned to see my native landscape and neighborhood as a place unique in the world, a work of God, possessed of an inherent sanctity that mocks any human valuation that can be put upon it." Elsewhere, Berry has said, "The only thing I try to accomplish in fiction is to show how people act when they love each other."


title: Wendell Berry

text: In January, 2018, the Library of America published a volume of Berry's fiction—the first of a projected four volumes of his writing. "Wendell Berry: Port William Novels & Stories (The Civil War to World War II)" contains four novels and twenty-three short stories in chronological order according to the stories' events. Berry is one of very few living writers currently featured in the Library of America catalog.


title: Wendell Berry

text: In Berry's first novel, young Nathan "comes of age" through dealing with the death of his mother, the depression of his father, Jarrat, the rugged companionship of his brother Tom, and the mischief of his uncle Burley. "Kirkus Review" concludes, "A sensitive adolescent theme is handled rather poetically, but so uniform in tone that no drama is generated and no sense of time passing is felt." John Ditsky finds William Faulkner's influence in "Nathan Coulter", but notes, "Not only does the work avoid the pitfalls encountered by Faulkner's initial attempts to escape his postage stamp of native soil, but Nathan Coulter also seems a wise attempt to get that autobiographical first novel out of one's system, and to do so [with] honesty."


title: Wendell Berry

text: Set in the critical year of 1945, this novel focuses on farmer Mat Feltner's struggle over the news that his son Virgil has been listed as missing in action while also telling multiple tales of the lives of other Port William residents, such as Burley Coulter, Jack Beechum, Ernest Finley, Ida and Gideon Crop. Reprinting by North Point Press in 1983 allowed Berry to radically revise the novel, removing almost a third of its original length. Jeffrey Bilbro believes that these substantial changes marked growth in Berry's approach. "In Berry's revised edition, his technique caught up with his subject. He allows us, as readers, to participate in the ignorance of his characters, and in doing so, we may be able to understand more fully the painful difficulty of choosing fidelity to the natural order while living in the midst of mystery."


title: Wendell Berry

text: This third novel of Port William begins with Jack Beechum as a very old man in 1952 and continues back into his youth and maturity to uncover his life and work as a dedicated farmer, conflicted husband, and living link to past generations. The story ranges from the Civil War to just past World War II. Josh Hurst comments on Berry's ability to avoid certain narrative pitfalls, "Jack's story could be presented us either as heroic ballad or as cautionary [tale]—and there is much in his life to support both admiration and gentle tisk-tisking—but the gift of this book is how it allows a man's memories to wash over us as though unshaped by narrative or conscious editorializing."


title: Wendell Berry

text: In Berry's fourth novel, an adult Andy Catlett wanders through San Francisco remembering, but feeling alienated from, his native Port William. He struggles to come to terms with himself, his marriage, his farm, and the distorted values of American society. Of Berry's vision here, Charles Solomon writes, "Wendell Berry contrasts modern American agribusiness--which he depicts as an artificial conglomeration of sterile flow charts, debts and mechanization--with the older ideal of farming as a nurturing way of life." But along these lines, Bruce Bawer finds a problem with the novel, "Here, for the first time in a Port William novel, Berry seems more interested in communicating opinions than in portraying sympathetic characters in plausible situations; the opening episode, set at a conference on agricultural policy, paints the ideological conflict between Andy and his adversaries in broad, unsubtle strokes."


title: Wendell Berry

text: Young Andy Catlett's uncle Andrew had been murdered back in 1944, and now an adult Andy is reconstructing the event and its aftermath. "Looking back with a mixture of a young boy's incomprehension and an older man's nostalgia, Andy evokes the past not as a narrative but as a series of disembodied fragments in the flow of time." In this fifth novel of Port William, Berry considers the violence of men and its impact on the family and community that must come to terms with it. "Berry shows us the psychic costs of misplaced family pride and social rigidity, and yet he also celebrates the benevolent blessing of familial love. This is simple, soul-satisfying storytelling, augmented by understated humor and quiet insight."


title: Wendell Berry

text: Port William's barber recounts his life's journey in Berry's sixth novel. Jayber's early life as an orphan near Port William is followed by studies towards a possible vocation to Church ministry. A questioning mind, however, sends him in other directions until he finds himself back in Port William with an ever-growing commitment to that place and its people. As "Publishers Weekly" notes, "Crow's life, which begins as WWI is about to erupt, is emblematic of a century of upheaval, and Berry's anecdotal and episodic tale sounds a challenge to contemporary notions of progress. It is to Berry's credit that a novel so freighted with ideas and ideology manages to project such warmth and luminosity."


title: Wendell Berry

text: Berry's seventh novel presents a concise vision of Port William's "membership." The story encompasses Hannah's life, including the Great Depression, World War II, the postwar industrialization of agriculture, the flight of youth to urban employment, and the consequent remoteness of grandchildren. The tale is told in the voice of an old woman twice widowed, who has experienced much loss yet has never been defeated. Somehow, lying at the center of her strength is the "membership"—the fact that people care for each other and, even in absence, hold each other in a kind of presence. All in all, "Hannah Coulter" embodies many of the themes of Berry's Port William saga.


title: Wendell Berry

text: Andy Catlett, age nine, makes his first solo journey to visit with both sets of grandparents in Port William. "The New York Times" reviewer notes, "What the grown-up Andy recalls of that experience is transformed into 'a sort of homage' to a now-vanished world. Title characters from Berry's earlier Port William volumes — Jayber Crow, Old Jack, Hannah Coulter — appear here in affectionate cameos as the adult Andy, echoing Wordsworth, observes that 'in my memory, all who were there ... seem now to be gathered into a love that is at once a boy's and an aging man's.'"


title: Secret police

text: Secret police (or political police) are intelligence, security or police agencies that engage in covert operations against a government's political, religious, or social opponents and dissidents. Secret police organizations are characteristic of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. They protect the political power of a dictator or regime and often operate outside the law to repress dissidents and weaken political opposition, frequently using violence.


title: Secret police

text: In Uganda, the State Research Bureau (SRB) was a secret police organisation for President Idi Amin. The Bureau tortured many Ugandans, operating on behalf of a regime responsible for more than five hundred thousand violent deaths. The SRB attempted to infiltrate every area of Ugandan life.


title: Secret police

text: In East Asia, the "jinyiwei" (Embroidered Uniform Guard) of the Ming Dynasty was founded in the 1360s by the Hongwu Emperor and served as the dynasty's secret police until the collapse of Ming rule in 1644. Originally, their main functions were to serve as the emperor's bodyguard and to spy on his subjects and report any plots of rebellion or regicide directly to the emperor. Over time, the organization took on law enforcement and judicial functions and grew to be immensely powerful, with the power to overrule ordinary judicial rulings and to investigate, interrogate, and punish anyone, including members of the imperial family. In 1420, a second secret police organization run by eunuchs, known as the "dongchang" (Eastern Depot), was formed to suppress suspected political opposition to the usurpation of the throne by the Yongle Emperor. Combined, these two organizations made the Ming Dynasty one of the world's first police states.


title: Secret police

text: After the 2019-20 protests in Hong Kong (a special administrative region of China), the Hong Kong Police Force is sometimes referred to as the "secret police" by protesters.


title: Secret police

text: In Japan, the Kenpeitai existed from 1881 to 1945, and were described as secret police by the Australian War Memorial. It had an equivalent branch in the Imperial Japanese Navy known as the Tokkeitai. However, their civilian counterpart known as the Tokkō was formed in 1911. Its task consisted of controlling political groups and ideologies in Imperial Japan, resembling closer the other secret police agencies of the time period. For this it earned the nickname "the Thought Police".


title: Secret police

text: The Korean Central Intelligence Agency or KCIA was a secret police agency which acted extra-judiciously, and was involved in such activities as kidnapping a presidential candidate and the Assassination of Park Chung-hee, among other things.


title: Secret police

text: Secret police organizations originated in 18th-century Europe after the French Revolution and the Congress of Vienna. Such operations were established in an effort to detect any possible conspiracies or revolutionary subversion. The peak of secret-police operations in most of Europe was 1815 to 1860, "when restrictions on voting, assembly, association, unions and the press were so severe in most European countries that opposition groups were forced into conspiratorial activities." The "Geheime Staatspolizei" of Austria and the "Geheimpolizei" of Prussia were particularly notorious during this period. After 1860, the use of secret police declined due to increasing liberalization, except in autocratic regimes such as Tsarist Russia.


title: Secret police

text: In Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, the "Geheime Staatspolizei" (Secret State Police, Gestapo) were a secret police organization used to identify and eliminate opposition, including suspected organized resistance. Its claimed main duty, according to a 1936 law, was "to investigate and suppress all anti-State tendencies". One method used to spy on citizens was to intercept letters or telephone calls. They encouraged ordinary Germans to inform on each other. As part of the Reich Security Main Office, it was also a key organizer of the Holocaust. Although the Gestapo had a relatively small number of personnel (32,000 in 1944), "it maximized these small resources through informants and a large number of denunciations from the local population". After the defeat of the Nazis in World War II, the East German secret police, the Stasi, likewise made use of an extensive network of civilian informers.


title: Secret police

text: The House of Terror museum in Budapest displays the headquarters for the Arrow Cross Party, which killed hundreds of Jews in its basement, among other targets considered "enemies of the race-based state". The same building was used by the State Protection Authority (or ÁVH) secret police. The Soviet-aligned ÁVH moved into the former fascist police headquarters and used it to torture and execute state opponents.


title: Secret police

text: Ivan the Terrible implemented Oprichnina in Russia between 1565 and 1572. In the Russian Empire, the secret police forces were the Third Section of the Imperial Chancery and then the Okhrana. Agents of the Okhrana were vital in identifying and suppressing opponents of the Tsar. The Okhrana engaged in torture and infiltration of opponents. They infiltrated labor unions, political parties, and newspapers. After the Russian Revolution, the Soviet Union established the Cheka, OGPU, NKVD, NKGB, and MVD. Cheka, as an authorized secret police force under the rule of the Bolsheviks, suppressed political opponents during the Red Terror. It also enacted counterintelligence operations such as Operation Trust, in which it set up a fake anti-Bolshevik organization to identify opponents. It was the temporary forerunner to the KGB, a later secret police agency used for similar purposes. The NKVD participated in the Great Purge under Stalin.


title: Secret police

text: In Cuba, President Fulgencio Batista's secret police, known as the Bureau for the Repression of Communist Activities (or BRAC), suppressed political opponents such as the 26th of July Movement through methods including violent interrogations.


title: Secret police

text: Under the Communist Party of Cuba, the Ministry of the Interior has served a number of secret policing functions. As recently as 1999, the Human Rights Watch reported that repression of dissidents was routine, albeit harsher after heightened periods of opposition activity. The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor under the US State Department reported that Cuba's Ministry of the Interior utilizes a network of informants known as the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (or CDR) to monitor government opponents. Secret state police have operated in secret among CDR groups, and most adult Cubans are officially members. CDR are tasked with informing on other Cubans and monitoring activity in their neighborhoods.


title: Secret police

text: During the Truman doctrine, Mexican president Miguel Alemán Valdés created DFS to combat communist opposition. The agency was later replaced by DISEN in 1985 after DFS agents were working for the Guadalajara Cartel. In 1989, it was replaced by CISEN.


title: Secret police

text: In Mississippi, the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission (or "Sov-Com") was a state agency given unusual authority by the governor of Mississippi from 1956 to 1977, to investigate and police private citizens in order to uphold racial segregation. This authority was used to suppress and spy on the activities of civil rights workers, along with others suspected of sentiments contrary to white supremacy. Agents from the Sov-Com wiretapped and bugged citizens of Mississippi, and historians identify the agency as a secret police force. Among other things, the Sov-Com collaborated with the Ku Klux Klan and engaged in jury tampering to harass targets. The agency ceased to function in 1973, but was not officially dissolved until 1977.


title: Secret police

text: In private writings in 1945, President Harry S. Truman wrote that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (under Director J. Edgar Hoover) had transformed into a secret police force, and compared it to the Gestapo:We want no Gestapo or Secret Police. F.B.I. is tending in that direction. They are dabbling in sex life scandles [sic] and plain blackmail when they should be catching criminals. They also have a habit of sneering at local law enforcement officers.Beginning a decade later in 1956, Hoover's FBI began the COINTELPRO project, aimed at suppressing domestic political opponents. Among other targets, this included Martin Luther King Jr.


title: Secret police

text: During the Getúlio Vargas dictatorship, between 1930 and 1946, the Department of Political and Social Order (DOPS) was the government's secret police.


title: Secret police

text: During the military dictatorship in Brazil, DOPS was employed by the military regime along with the Department of Information Operations - Center for Internal Defense Operations (or DOI-CODI) and the National Intelligence Service (or SNI), and engaged in kidnappings, torture, and attacks against theaters and bookstores.


title: Secret police

text: The National Intelligence Directorate, or DINA, was a powerful secret police agency under the rule of Augusto Pinochet, which was charged with killings and torture related to repression of political opponents. Chilean government investigations found that over 30,000 people were tortured by the agency.


title: Secret police

text: During the dictatorship of Marcos Pérez Jiménez, the Seguridad Nacional secret police investigated, arrested, tortured, and assassinated political opponents to the Venezuelan government. From 1951 until 1953, it operated a prison camp on , which was effectively a forced labour camp. The Seguridad Nacional was abolished following the overthrow of Pérez Jiménez on 23 January 1958.


title: Secret police

text: During the crisis in Venezuela and Venezuelan protests, Vice Presidents Tareck El Aissami and Delcy Rodríguez have been accused of using SEBIN to oppress political demonstrations. SEBIN director and general Manuel Cristopher Figuera reported that SEBIN would torture political demonstrators during interrogation sessions.


title: Secret police

text: Ilan Berman and J. Michael Waller describe the secret police as central to totalitarian regimes and "an indispensable device for the consolidation of power, neutralization of the opposition, and construction of a single-party state". In addition to these activities, secret police may also be responsible for tasks not related to suppressing internal dissent, such as gathering foreign intelligence, engaging in counterintelligence, organizing border security, and guarding government buildings and officials. Secret police forces sometimes endure even after the fall of a totalitarian regime.


title: Secret police

text: Arbitrary detention, abduction and forced disappearance, torture, and assassination are all tools wielded by secret police "to prevent, investigate, or punish (real or imagined) opposition." Because secret police typically act with great discretionary powers "to decide what is a crime" and are a tool used to target political opponents, they operate outside the rule of law.


title: Secret police

text: People apprehended by the secret police are often arbitrarily arrested and detained without due process. While in detention, arrestees may be tortured or subjected to inhumane treatment. Suspects may not receive a public trial, and instead may be convicted in a kangaroo court-style show trial, or by a secret tribunal. Secret police known to have used these approaches in history included the secret police of East Germany (the Ministry for State Security or Stasi) and Portuguese PIDE.


title: Secret police

text: A single secret service may pose a potential threat to the central political authority. Political scientist Sheena Chestnut Greitens writes that: "When it comes to their security forces, autocrats face a fundamental 'coercing dilemma' between empowerment and control. ... Autocrats must empower their security forces with enough coercing capacity to enforce internal order and conduct external defense. Equally important to their survival, however, they must control that capacity, to ensure it is not turned against them." Authoritarian regimes therefore attempt to engage in "coup-proofing" (designing institutions to minimize risks of a coup). Two methods of doing so are:


title: Frances Scott Fitzgerald

text: Frances Scott "Scottie" Fitzgerald (October 26, 1921 – June 18, 1986) was an American writer and journalist and the only child of novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald. She worked for "The Washington Post", "The New Yorker", "The Northern Virginia Sun", and others, and was a prominent member of the Democratic Party. She was inducted into the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame in 1992.


title: Frances Scott Fitzgerald

text: Fitzgerald was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Upon her birth, her mother supposedly remarked that she hoped Scottie would be a "beautiful little fool", which Daisy Buchanan also says in "The Great Gatsby", F. Scott Fitzgerald's best-known novel. Scottie Fitzgerald spent her childhood moving from place to place with her parents – including time in Paris and Antibes in France, and five years' residence in a beach house her father rented on the edge of Chesapeake Bay not far from Baltimore, Maryland. She attended Calvert School and briefly attended the Bryn Mawr School while her mother Zelda received treatment at Sheppard Pratt Hospital.


title: Frances Scott Fitzgerald

text: In 1936, Fitzgerald began attending the Ethel Walker School, a boarding school in Connecticut, but was expelled for sneaking away from campus in order to hitchhike to Yale. She attended Vassar College. Hoping that she would not repeat his academic failures, her father wrote letters to her urging her to take rigorous classes and work hard. She graduated from Vassar in 1942, seventeen months after her father's death.


title: Frances Scott Fitzgerald

text: Fitzgerald and her first husband, Samuel Jackson "Jack" Lanahan, a prominent Washington lawyer, were popular hosts in Washington in the 1950s and 1960s. During this period, she wrote musical comedies about the Washington social scene that were performed annually to benefit the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Washington. Her show "Onward and Upward with the Arts" was considered for a Broadway run by producer David Merrick.


title: Frances Scott Fitzgerald

text: Fitzgerald had four children with her first husband: Thomas Addison Lanahan; Eleanor Anne Lanahan; Samuel Jackson Lanahan, Jr.; and Cecilia Scott Lanahan. Their eldest child, Thomas, known as "Tim", committed suicide at the age of 27 in 1973. Eleanor "Bobbie" Lanahan, an artist and writer, wrote a biography of her mother, "Scottie, The Daughter of ... The Life of Frances Scott Fitzgerald Lanahan Smith" (1995). Fitzgerald's second marriage, to Grove Smith, ended in divorce in 1979.


title: Frances Scott Fitzgerald

text: In 1973, when Fitzgerald was legally separated from husband Grove Smith, she moved from Washington, D.C. to her mother's home town of Montgomery, Alabama. According to a book authored by her daughter Eleanor after her death, she told her family and many friends that she was moving far away from Washington because she was disgusted by constant news reports of the Watergate scandal.


title: Frances Scott Fitzgerald

text: Several months after Fitzgerald's relocation, she was attending a party in Montgomery when she was informed via long-distance telephone call of her son's suicide. She made polite excuses about leaving the party without giving the other guests any clue as to what had happened.


title: Frances Scott Fitzgerald

text: Fitzgerald became active in the state Democratic Party in Alabama, and worked with Walter Mondale during his campaign trips to Montgomery over the years. During the 12 years she lived in Montgomery before developing throat cancer, she traveled frequently to visit her three surviving children and grandchildren, none of whom lived near Alabama.


title: Frances Scott Fitzgerald

text: Fitzgerald died at her Montgomery home from throat cancer in 1986, aged 64. Shortly before she died, she told her three surviving children that she wished she had quit cigarette smoking many years earlier. She is buried next to her parents in Rockville, Maryland.


title: Dijon

text: Dijon (, , ) is the prefecture of the Côte-d'Or department and of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in northeastern France. the commune had a population of 156,920.


title: Dijon

text: The earliest archaeological finds within the city limits of Dijon date to the Neolithic period. Dijon later became a Roman settlement named "Divio", located on the road between Lyon and Paris. The province was home to the Dukes of Burgundy from the early 11th until the late 15th centuries, and Dijon became a place of tremendous wealth and power, one of the great European centres of art, learning, and science.


title: Dijon

text: The city has retained varied architectural styles from many of the main periods of the past millennium, including Capetian, Gothic, and Renaissance. Many still-inhabited town-houses in the city's central district date from the 18th century and earlier. Dijon's architecture is distinguished by, among other things, "toits bourguignons" (Burgundian polychrome roofs) made of tiles glazed in terracotta: green, yellow, and black and arranged in geometric patterns.


title: Dijon

text: Dijon holds an International and Gastronomic Fair every year in the northern-hemisphere autumn. With over 500 exhibitors and 200,000 visitors every year, it is one of the ten most important fairs in France. Dijon also hosts every three years the international flower show "Florissimo". Dijon has become famous for Dijon mustard, which originated in 1856, when Jean Naigeon of Dijon substituted verjuice, the acidic "green" juice of not-quite-ripe grapes, for vinegar in the traditional mustard recipe. Dijon is a green city with an important tertiary sector, as well as a regional economic center with a diversified fabric, a traditional food-processing center (Dijon "crême de cassis" and kir, gingerbread, Lanvin chocolate...) and a renowned pharmaceutical sector.


title: Dijon

text: On 4 July 2015 UNESCO registered the historical centre of the city as a World Heritage site, as one of the components of the "Climats, terroirs of Burgundy" site, because of its historical importance in regulating the system of wine production in Burgundy.


title: Dijon

text: The earliest archaeological finds within the city limits of Dijon date to the Neolithic period. Dijon later became a Roman settlement called "Divio", which may mean "sacred fountain", located on the road from Lyon to Paris. Saint Benignus, the city's apocryphal patron saint, is said to have introduced Christianity to the area before being martyred.


title: Dijon

text: This province was home to the Dukes of Burgundy from the early 11th until the late 15th century, and Dijon was a place of tremendous wealth and power and one of the great European centres of art, learning, and science. The Duchy of Burgundy was key in the transformation of medieval times toward early modern Europe. The Palace of the Dukes of Burgundy now houses the city hall and a museum of art.


title: Dijon

text: In 1513, Swiss and Imperial armies invaded Burgundy and besieged Dijon, which was defended by the governor of the province, Louis II de la Trémoille. The siege was extremely violent, but the town succeeded in resisting the invaders. After long negotiations, Louis II de la Trémoille managed to persuade the Swiss and the Imperial armies to withdraw their troops and also to return three hostages who were being held in Switzerland. During the siege, the population called on the Virgin Mary for help and saw the town's successful resistance and the subsequent withdrawal of the invaders as a miracle. For those reasons, in the years following the siege the inhabitants of Dijon began to venerate Notre-Dame de Bon-Espoir (Our Lady of Good Hope). Although a few areas of the town were destroyed, there are nearly no signs of the siege of 1513 visible today. However, Dijon's museum of fine arts has a large tapestry depicting this episode in the town's history: it shows the town before all subsequent destruction (particularly that which occurred during the French Revolution) and is an example of 16th-century art.


title: Dijon

text: Dijon was also occupied by anti-Napoleonic coalitions in 1814, by the Prussian army in 1870–71, and by Nazi Germany beginning in June 1940, during WWII, when it was bombed by US Air Force B-17 Flying Fortresses, before the liberation of Dijon by the French Army and the French Resistance, 11 September 1944.


title: Dijon

text: Dijon is situated at the heart of a plain drained by two small converging rivers: the Suzon, which crosses it mostly underground from north to south, and the Ouche, on the southern side of town. Farther south is the "côte", or hillside, of vineyards that gives the department its name. Dijon lies southeast of Paris, northwest of Geneva, and north of Lyon.


title: Dijon

text: Dijon features an oceanic climate (Cfb) with continental influence under the Köppen climate classification. The city is highly influenced by its position far inland in Northeastern France. Thus, winters are cool to cold with moderate frosts at night and thawing conditions during the day while summers are warm to hot and humid with frequent thunderstorms.


title: Dijon

text: Dijon has a large number of churches, including Notre Dame de Dijon, St. Philibert, St. Michel, and Dijon Cathedral, dedicated to the apocryphal Saint Benignus, the crypt of which is over 1,000 years old. The city has retained varied architectural styles from many of the main periods of the past millennium, including Capetian, Gothic and Renaissance. Many still-inhabited town houses in the city's central district date from the 18th century and earlier. Dijon architecture is distinguished by, among other things, "toits bourguignons" (Burgundian polychrome roofs) made of tiles glazed in terracotta, green, yellow and black and arranged in geometric patterns.


title: Dijon

text: Dijon was largely spared the destruction of wars such as the 1870 Franco-Prussian War and the Second World War, despite the city being occupied. Therefore, many of the old buildings such as the half-timbered houses dating from the 12th to the 15th centuries (found mainly in the city's core district) are undamaged, at least by organized violence.


title: Dijon

text: Dijon is home to many museums, including the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon in part of the Ducal Palace (see below). It contains, among other things, ducal kitchens dating back to the mid-15th century, and a substantial collection of primarily European art, from Roman times through the present.


title: Dijon

text: Among the more popular sights is the Ducal Palace, the "Palais des Ducs et des États de Bourgogne" or "Palace of the Dukes and the States of Burgundy" (), which includes one of only a few remaining examples of Capetian period architecture in the region. Many art interested visitors flock to the "Puits de Moïse" or Well of Moses, a monumental sculpture by Claus Sluter.


title: Dijon

text: The church of Notre Dame is famous for both its art and architecture. Popular legend has it that one of its stone relief sculptures, an owl ("la chouette") is a good-luck charm: visitors to the church touch the owl with their left hands to make a wish. (The current carving was restored after it was damaged by vandalism in the night of 5 and 6 January 2001).


title: Dijon

text: The Grand Théâtre de Dijon, built in 1828 and one of the main performing venues of the Opéra de Dijon, was declared a monument historique of France in 1975. It was designed by the Dijon-born architect Jacques Cellerier (1742–1814) in the Neo-classical style with an interior modelled on Italian opera houses.


title: Dijon

text: Dijon is located approximately southeast of Paris, about three hours by car along the A38 and A6 motorways. The A31 provides connections to Nancy, Lille and Lyon. The A39 connects Dijon with Bourg-en-Bresse and Geneva, the A36 with Besançon, Mulhouse and Basel.


title: Dijon

text: The Canal de Bourgogne passes through the heart of Dijon and creates a navigable route to Paris in the north-west via the river Yonne, a tributary of the river Seine, and to the Saône river 25 km to the south-east. The canal joins the Saône at Saint-Jean-de-Losne which is the barging centre of France and Europe. In addition to the connection to the Atlantic via the Seine it has navigable water connections to the Mediterranean—via the Saône to the Rhône river at Lyon and further south (ultimately west to the Atlantic via the Canal du Midi)—Germany and central Europe—via the Rhône-Rhine canal—plus west to the centre and river Loire via the Canal du Centre. These waterways were largely completed before the 19th century and were the main means of industrial transport until the railways began taking over in the mid-19th century. Today they form a water route for mostly pleasure craft between northern Europe and the south. For example the route through Dijon is popular with those sailing their boats from the United Kingdom to the Mediterranean.


title: Dijon

text: Dijon is an important railway junction for lines from Paris to Lyon and Marseille, and the east–west lines to Besançon, Belfort, Nancy, Switzerland, and Italy. The Dijon-Ville station is the main railway station, providing service to Paris-Gare de Lyon by TGV high-speed train (LGV Sud-Est), covering the in one hour and 40 minutes. For comparison, Lyon is away and two hours distant by standard train. The city of Nice takes about six hours by TGV and Strasbourg only 1 hour and 56 minutes via the TGV Rhin-Rhône. Lausanne in Switzerland is less than away or two hours by train. Dijon has a direct overnight sleeper/couchette service to Milan, Verona and Venice by the operator Thello. Numerous regional TER Bourgogne-Franche-Comté trains depart from the same station. There is another railway station east of the city centre, Dijon-Porte-Neuve station, on the line to Is-sur-Tille and Culmont-Chalindrey.


title: Dijon

text: A new tram system opened in September 2012. Line T1 is an line with 16 stations running west–east from the Dijon railway station to Quetigny. Line T2 opened in December 2012, an north–south line with 21 stations running between Valmy and Chenôve.


title: Dijon

text: Dijon holds its International and Gastronomic Fair every year in autumn. With over 500 exhibitors and 200,000 visitors every year, it is one of the ten most important fairs in France. Dijon is also home, every three years, to the international flower show "Florissimo".


title: Dijon

text: Dijon has numerous museums such as the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon, the Musée Archéologique, the Musée de la Vie Bourguignonne, the Musée d'Art Sacré, and the Musée Magnin. It also contains approximately 700 hectares of parks and green space, including the Jardin botanique de l'Arquebuse.


title: Dijon

text: Dijon is home to the prominent contemporary art centre Le Consortium, a fine-arts school (ENSA), as well as a number of art galleries like the Fonds régional d'art contemporain, which holds a permanent collection including pieces by locally established artist Yan Pei-Ming.


title: Dijon

text: Apart from the numerous bars, which sometimes have live bands, some popular music venues in Dijon are : Le Zenith de Dijon, La Vapeur, l'Espace autogéré des Tanneries and l'Atheneum.


title: Dijon

text: Dijon mustard originated in 1856, when Jean Naigeon of Dijon substituted verjuice, the acidic "green" juice of not-quite-ripe grapes, for vinegar in the traditional mustard recipe. In general, mustards from Dijon today contain white wine rather than verjuice. Dijon mustard is not necessarily produced near Dijon, as the term is regarded as genericized under European Union law, so that it cannot be registered for protected designation of origin status. Most Dijon mustard (brands such as Amora or Maille) is produced industrially and over 90% of mustard seed used in local production is imported, mainly from Canada. In 2008, Unilever closed its Amora mustard factory in Dijon. Dijon mustard shops sell exotic or unusually-flavoured mustard (fruit-flavoured, for example), often sold in decorative hand-painted "faience" (china) pots.


title: Dijon

text: Burgundy is a world-famous wine growing region, and notable vineyards, such as Vosne-Romanée and Gevrey-Chambertin, are within 20 minutes of the city center. The town's university boasts a renowned enology institute. The road from Santenay to Dijon is known as the "route des Grands Crus", where eight of the world's top ten most expensive wines are produced, according to Wine Searcher.


title: Dijon

text: The city is also well known for its "crème de cassis", or blackcurrant liqueur, used in the drink known as "Kir", named after former mayor of Dijon canon Félix Kir, a mixture of crème de cassis with white wine, traditionally Bourgogne aligoté.


title: Dijon

text: Dijon is home to Dijon FCO, a men's football team now in Ligue 1, and Dijon FCO, a women's team now in Division 1 Féminine. Dijon has a its own (Pro A) basketball club, JDA Dijon Basket. The Palais des Sports de Dijon serves as playground for the team and hosted international basketball events such as the FIBA EuroBasket 1999 in the past. Dijon is home to the Dijon Ducs ice hockey team, who play in the Magnus League. To the northwest, the race track of Dijon-Prenois hosts various motor sport events. It hosted the Formula 1 French Grand Prix on five occasions from 1974 to 1984.


title: Dijon

text: The city's premier football team is Dijon FCO. They play in Ligue 2 after being relegated from Ligue 1 in 2021.


title: John Sessions

text: John Marshall (11 January 1953 – 2 November 2020), better known by the stage name John Sessions, was a British actor and comedian. He was known for comedy improvisation in television shows such as "Whose Line Is It Anyway?", as a panellist on "QI", and as a character actor in numerous films, both in the UK and Hollywood.


title: John Sessions

text: John Sessions was born John Marshall on 11 January 1953, according to most sources in Largs, Ayrshire, Scotland. His family moved to Bedford, England, when he was three. His father was a gas engineer. He had an older brother, Bill, and a twin sister, Maggie.


title: John Sessions

text: Sessions was educated at Bedford Modern School, an independent school for boys (now co-educational), and Verulam School, St Albans, followed by the University College of North Wales in Bangor, from which he graduated with an MA in English literature. At university, he had begun to appear to audiences with his comedy in shows such as "Look back in Bangor" and "Marshall Arts". He later studied for a PhD on John Cowper Powys at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, although he did not complete the doctorate.


title: John Sessions

text: This period in his life was unhappy. In a "Worst of Times" column for "The Independent" from around 1990, he talked of how the freezing Canadian weather had depressed him, he was smoking "far too many cigarettes" and "had a couple of disastrous flings", and described his PhD dissertation as "200 pages of rubbish".


title: John Sessions

text: Sessions attended RADA in the late 1970s, studying alongside Kenneth Branagh; the two would work together on many occasions later in their careers. His name change occurred when he became a performer, owing to the presence of a John Marshall already on the Equity register. In the early 1980s, he worked on the small venue comedy circuit with largely improvised freewheeling fantasy monologues. He topped a double bill with French and Saunders during this period. He had a number of small parts in films including "The Sender" (1982), "The Bounty" (1984) and "Castaway" (1986).


title: John Sessions

text: Sessions played to his strengths in improvisation and comedy with his one-man stage show "Napoleon", which ran in London's West End for some time in the mid-1980s. He and Stephen Fry were the only two regular panellists on the original radio broadcast of "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" in the late 1980s. When the show, still hosted by Clive Anderson, made the transition to television, Fry departed from regular appearances, but Sessions remained the featured panellist for the first season. A frequent player in the second, he did not appear again after his two appearances in the third series.


title: John Sessions

text: A gifted impressionist who also voiced characters for "Spitting Image", he drew heavily on his extensive literary education and developed a reputation for being "a bit of a swot", being able to quote extensive passages of text and make endless cultural and historical references. His ready ability to switch between accents and personae meanwhile allowed his career in improvisation to flourish. On "Whose Line Is It Anyway?", his ability to affect the contrived witticisms of "Restoration Comedy" became an audience favourite. In 1987 he played Lionel Zipser in Channel 4's mini-series "Porterhouse Blue".


title: John Sessions

text: In 1989, he starred in his own one-man TV show, "John Sessions". Filmed at the Donmar Warehouse in London, the show involved Sessions performing before a live audience who were invited to nominate a person, a location and two objects from a selection, around which Sessions would improvise a surreal performance for the next half-hour. This series prompted two further one-man TV shows: "John Sessions' Tall Tales" (1991) and "John Sessions' Likely Stories" (1994). Although billed as improvisation, these were increasingly pre-planned. In an interview headlined 'Who The Hell Does John Sessions Think He Is?' in "Q" magazine in the early 1990s, he admitted that some of his improv was not entirely spontaneous, but that if it were advertised as scripted 'it had to be funnier'. 1991 also saw Sessions in the BBC drama "Jute City", a three-part thriller based around a sinister Masonic bunch of villains, co-starring with vocalist Fish (Derek W. Dick, singer in the first incarnation of rock band Marillion).


title: John Sessions

text: In 1996, he was commissioned by the Royal Academy of Arts to write "Paint, said Fred", the life of Frederic, Lord Leighton, the pre-eminent Victorian artist, in a one-man show that used his comic writing abilities and his gift for impersonation.


title: John Sessions

text: Sessions also starred in "Stella Street", a surreal "soap opera" comedy about a fantasy suburban British street inhabited by celebrities such as Michael Caine and Al Pacino, which he conceived with fellow impressionist Phil Cornwell, the two of them playing several parts in each episode.


title: John Sessions

text: Sessions later returned to formal acting, with parts ranging from James Boswell (to Robbie Coltrane's Samuel Johnson) in the UK TV comedy drama "Boswell and Johnson's Tour of the Western Isles" (1993) to Doctor Prunesquallor in the BBC adaptation of "Gormenghast" (2000) and in 1998 as Hercules Fortesque, a BBC HR manager in the BBC mini-series "In The Red" adapted from the book and the BBC radio series by Mark Taverner. He provided the voice of the Professor in "The Adventures of Pinocchio" in 1996. He also appeared in several Shakespeare films, playing Macmorris in Kenneth Branagh's "Henry V" (1989), Philostrate in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (1999), and Salerio in the movie "The Merchant of Venice" (2004), with Al Pacino and Jeremy Irons. He also contributed "Sonnet 62" to the 2002 compilation album "When Love Speaks" (EMI Classics), which consists of famous actors and musicians interpreting Shakespearean sonnets and play excerpts.


title: John Sessions

text: In between appearing in regular film and TV roles, Sessions made appearances on "Have I Got News for You" and, more recently, as a semi-regular panellist on "QI". He was one of four panellists, including the permanent Alan Davies, on the inaugural episode of "QI", in which he demonstrated his effortless memory of the birth and death dates of various historical figures (while simultaneously and apologetically deeming the knowledge of such facts "a sickness").


title: John Sessions

text: On radio, Sessions was a guest in December 1997 on the regular BBC Radio 3 show "Private Passions", presented by Michael Berkeley, not as himself but as a 112-year-old Viennese percussionist called Manfred Sturmer, who told anecdotes (about Brahms, Clara Schumann, Richard Strauss, Arnold Schoenberg and others) so realistically that some listeners did not realise that the whole thing was a hoax. Other Sessions' creations appeared on Berkeley's show in subsequent years. Sessions had taken the role of narrating the popular Asterix stories for audiobook, since the death of Willie Rushton.


title: John Sessions

text: Sessions made a guest appearance in a special webcast version of "Doctor Who", in a story called "Death Comes to Time", in which he played General Tannis. He occasionally appeared in the BBC series "Judge John Deed" as barrister Brian Cantwell QC. In 2007, he guest-starred in the "Doctor Who" audio adventure "100".


title: John Sessions

text: In 2006, Sessions presented some of the BBC's coverage of The Proms and featured in one of the two "Jackanory" specials, voicing the characters and playing the storyteller in the audiobook version of Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell's children's book "Muddle Earth". In 2007 he appeared in the final episode of the second series of "Hotel Babylon", playing hotel owner Donovan Credo, and as Geoffrey Howe in 2009's "Margaret". In 2010, he played Kenny Prince in "Sherlock".


title: John Sessions

text: Sessions appeared in the teen drama TV show "Skins" in 2011 as one of two adopted fathers of Franky Fitzgerald. He also appeared as a Brummie vicar in an episode of "Outnumbered" on BBC One.


title: John Sessions

text: He had the distinction of playing two British prime ministers in films, Harold Wilson in "Made in Dagenham" and Edward Heath in "The Iron Lady". In 2013 he appeared in the premiere production of the new play "Longing".


title: John Sessions

text: In 2014, he made a short appearance in "Outlander" as Arthur Duncan. In October 2014, Sessions was heard as Gus, the mysterious, psychopathic computer that controlled the eponymous train/spaceship in the "Doctor Who" episode "Mummy on the Orient Express" as well as appearing as Mycroft Holmes in the 2015 film "Mr. Holmes".


title: John Sessions

text: In addition to appearing in the role of Arthur Lowe in the 2015 drama "We're Doomed! The Dad's Army Story". he also played Dr Hermann in the 2016 film "Florence Foster Jenkins".


title: John Sessions

text: Sessions narrated a 10-part radio adaptation of "The Adventures of Captain Bobo" on Fun Kids in 2020, which was still running at the time of his death.


title: John Sessions

text: Sessions was homosexual. He was outed in a 1994 "Evening Standard" article, while starring in the comedy "My Night with Reg", a play set in London's gay community.


title: John Sessions

text: A Eurosceptic, Sessions voiced his support for the UK Independence Party (UKIP) in 2014. He stated, "I get so bored with people going, 'UKIP are a bunch of racists.' They're nothing of the kind. Nigel Farage talks more sense than the rest of the politicians put together. The United States of Europe is madness."


title: John Sessions

text: He was also critical of Scottish nationalism, and argued for the abolition of the Scottish, Welsh and European parliaments. In August 2014, he was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to "The Guardian" expressing their hope that Scotland would vote to remain part of the United Kingdom in September's referendum on that issue.


title: John Sessions

text: Sessions died of a heart attack at his home in South London on 2 November 2020, aged 67. The team behind the BBC television programme "QI" praised his "incredible wit and encyclopedic knowledge [which] played a huge part in the show's history."


title: Reserve Officers' Training Corps

text: The Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC ( or )) is a group of college- and university-based officer-training programs for training commissioned officers of the United States Armed Forces.


title: Reserve Officers' Training Corps

text: While ROTC graduate officers serve in all branches of the U.S. military, the U.S. Marine Corps, the U.S. Space Force, and the U.S. Coast Guard do not have their own respective ROTC programs; rather, graduates of Naval ROTC programs have the option to serve as officers in the Marine Corps contingent on meeting Marine Corps requirements.


title: Reserve Officers' Training Corps

text: In 2020, ROTC graduates constituted 70 percent of newly commissioned active-duty U.S. Army officers, 83 percent of newly commissioned U.S. Marine Corps officers (through NROTC), 61 percent of newly commissioned U.S. Navy officers and 63 percent of newly commissioned U.S. Air Force officers, for a combined 56 percent of all active-duty officers in the Department of Defense commissioned that year. Under ROTC, a student may receive a competitive, merit-based scholarship covering all or part of college tuition, textbooks and lab fees, in return for an active-duty service obligation after graduation (or completion of a graduate degree under an approved education delay). ROTC students attend college like other students, but also receive basic military training and officer training for their chosen branch of service through the ROTC unit at or nearby the college. The students participate in regular drills during the school year and off-campus training opportunities during the summer.


title: Reserve Officers' Training Corps

text: Army ROTC units are organized as brigades, battalions and companies. Air Force ROTC units are detachments with the students organized into wings, groups, squadrons and flights. Army and Air Force ROTC students are referred to as cadets. Naval ROTC units are organized as battalions and also include NROTC students under "Marine Option" who will eventually be commissioned as officers in the Marine Corps. Marine NROTC students may be formed in a separate company when the program includes sufficient numbers. All Naval ROTC students are referred to as midshipmen. Some of the summer training that is offered to cadets in the Army ROTC program are: Airborne, Air Assault, Mountain Warfare, WHINSEC and other related schools. In addition to their mandatory pre-commissioning Field Training (FT) at Maxwell AFB, Alabama (4 weeks for 4-year program cadets; 6 weeks for 2-year program cadets), Air Force ROTC cadets are also eligible for Airborne training under the tutelage of the Army at Fort Benning, Georgia. Naval ROTC midshipmen will participate in summer cruise programs every summer, either afloat or ashore, similar to their U.S. Naval Academy midshipmen counterparts.


title: Reserve Officers' Training Corps

text: The concept of ROTC in the United States was created by Alden Partridge and began with the Morrill Act of 1862 which established the land-grant colleges. Part of the federal government's requirement for these schools was that they include military tactics as part of their curriculum, forming what became known as ROTC. The college from which ROTC originated is Norwich University in Northfield, Vermont. Norwich was founded in 1819 at Norwich, Vermont, as the American Literary, Scientific and Military Academy. The university was founded by former West Point instructor Captain Alden Partridge, who promoted the idea of a "citizen soldier"—a man trained to act in a military capacity when his nation required, but capable of fulfilling standard civilian functions in peacetime. This idea eventually led to the formation of Reservist and National Guard units with regimented training in place of local militia forces.


title: Reserve Officers' Training Corps

text: Another root of the modern ROTC program comes from the "Plattsburg Idea". In 1915, Major General Leonard Wood instituted the Citizen's Military Training Corps, the first series of training camps to make officers out of civilians. For the first time in history, an attempt was made to provide a condensed course of training and commissioning competent reserve line officers after only a summer of military training.


title: Reserve Officers' Training Corps

text: In 1916, the provision to formally establish ROTC was advocated to Congress by a delegation from Ohio including William Oxley Thompson, President of the Ohio State University. On February 7, 1916, Ralph D. Mershon, a graduate of Ohio State, testified before the committee as a professional engineer. Present to testify as an advocate of a Reserve Engineers Corps, he expanded his remarks to argue in favor of the "Ohio Plan." Mershon noted:


title: Reserve Officers' Training Corps

text: Congress agreed, and the ROTC provision was included in the final version of the National Defense Act of 1916. The first ROTC unit was at Harvard in 1916.


title: Reserve Officers' Training Corps

text: Over 5,000 men arrived at Plattsburgh in May 1917 for the first of the large training corps. By the end of 1917, over 17,000 men had been trained. By the eve of its entry into World War I, the U.S. had a prepared corps of officers including one of the earliest Plattsburgh graduates, Theodore Roosevelt Jr.


title: Reserve Officers' Training Corps

text: The National Defense Act of 1920 ramped up ROTC, and by 1928, units had been established at 225 colleges and universities. They were commissioning 6,000 second lieutenants per year.


title: Reserve Officers' Training Corps

text: During the 1930s, there were ROTC programs in some larger city high schools (Memphis, TN; Charlotte, NC; Kansas City, MO; New Orleans, LA).


title: Reserve Officers' Training Corps

text: Until the 1960s, many major universities required compulsory ROTC for all of their male students. However, because of the protests that culminated in the opposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, compulsory ROTC was dropped in favor of voluntary programs. In some places ROTC was expelled from campus altogether, although it was always possible to participate in off-campus ROTC.


title: Reserve Officers' Training Corps

text: As of 2021, more than 1,700 high schools have Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) programs.


title: Reserve Officers' Training Corps

text: In the 21st century, the debate often focused around the Congressional don't ask, don't tell law, signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1993 and in force until 2011, which forbade homosexuals serving in the United States military from disclosing their sexual orientation at the risk of expulsion. Some schools believed this legal mandate would require them to waive or amend their non-discrimination policies.


title: Reserve Officers' Training Corps

text: In recent years, concerted efforts are being made at some Ivy League universities that have previously banned ROTC (including Columbia) to return ROTC to campus. The Harvard ROTC program was reinstated effective March 4, 2011 following enactment of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010.


title: Reserve Officers' Training Corps

text: Under current law, there are three types of ROTC programs administered, each with a different element.


title: Reserve Officers' Training Corps

text: One difference between civilian colleges and the senior or junior military colleges is enrollment option in ROTC. ROTC is voluntary for students attending civilian colleges and universities. However, with few exceptions (as outlined in both Army regulations and federal law) it is required of students attending the senior and junior military colleges. Another major difference between the senior military colleges and civilian colleges is that under federal law, graduates of the SMCs are guaranteed active duty assignments if requested with the approval of the school's professor of military science.


title: Reserve Officers' Training Corps

text: The Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (AROTC) program is the largest branch of ROTC, as the Army is the largest branch of the military. There are over 20,000 ROTC cadets in 273 ROTC programs at major universities throughout the United States. These schools are categorized as Military Colleges (MC), Military Junior Colleges (MJC) and Civilian Colleges (CC). Army ROTC provides the majority of the Army's officer corps; the remainder comes from West Point, Officer Candidate School (OCS), or direct commissions.


title: Reserve Officers' Training Corps

text: AROTC offers scholarships based on the time of enrollment in the program. Newly graduated seniors in high school can enter the program with a full four-year scholarship while college students can enroll later and earn a scholarship that would cover the remainder of their college career.


title: Reserve Officers' Training Corps

text: The two-year scholarship is available for students with two academic years of college remaining. An applicant for a two-year or four-year scholarship must meet the following requirements:


title: Reserve Officers' Training Corps

text: The applicant must agree to accept a commission and serve in the Army on Active Duty or in a Reserve Component (U.S. Army Reserve or Army National Guard).


title: Reserve Officers' Training Corps

text: The four-year scholarship is for students who receive it out of high school or before entering college. The four-year scholarship can be extended with the same conditions to a 5-year scholarship if the major is in Engineering.


title: Reserve Officers' Training Corps

text: Campus-based three-year, two-and-a-half-year, and two-year scholarships are available for students already enrolled in a college or university with three (or two) academic years remaining.


title: Reserve Officers' Training Corps

text: An applicant for a campus-based scholarship must meet all AROTC administrative and academic requirements as well as have a minimum SAT score of 1000 or ACT score of 19.


title: Reserve Officers' Training Corps

text: Once a prospect has shown interest in the AROTC program they can compete in a scholarship board. If the prospect boards well the AROTC program's Professor of Military Science may submit them for selection of a scholarship. Numerous factors will influence this decision.


title: Reserve Officers' Training Corps

text: Typically the summer between the academic junior and senior years of school, Cadets attend Advance Camp at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Here, each cadet would be evaluated on leadership skills. The course was set up for a month of training with other peers and evaluated by Army Officers and Non-Commissioned Officers. Advance Camp is the United States Army's largest training event.


title: Reserve Officers' Training Corps

text: The Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC) program was founded in 1926 and the U.S. Marine Corps joined the program in 1932. The naval NROTC program is offered at over 150 colleges nationwide. The Nation's first Marine Corps oriented NROTC was established at The Citadel in 1970.


title: Reserve Officers' Training Corps

text: The first Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps (then Air ROTC) units were established between 1920 and 1923 at the University of California, Berkeley, the Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Illinois, the University of Washington, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Texas A&M University. After World War II, the Air Force established ROTC units at 77 colleges and universities throughout the United States.


title: Reserve Officers' Training Corps

text: Other national armed forces in countries with strong historical ties to the United States have ROTC programs.


title: Reserve Officers' Training Corps

text: Other countries have also institutionalized reservist training programs. Reserve Officer Training in Russia began in the 1920s. Brazil has had the CPOR and the NPOR since 1928, the difference being that officers trained by the CPOR choose their area of specialization, while officers trained by the NPOR learn from their local army base.


title: Reserve Officers' Training Corps

text: During World War I, the United States created the Student Army Training Corps in an effort to encourage young men to simultaneously receive a college education and train for the military. Students were authorized to participate beginning in the summer of 1917, and training camps were held in the summer of 1918.


title: Reserve Officers' Training Corps

text: Enrollment in the SATC was voluntary, and 525 universities enrolled 200,000 total students on October 1, 1918, the first day SATC units were authorized to formally organize on college campuses. Students who joined the SATC received the rank of private in the army, and some advanced to leadership roles including sergeant.


title: Reserve Officers' Training Corps

text: When the Armistice of November 11, 1918 ended the war, the Army's need for more soldiers and officers ended. The SATC was disbanded in December 1918, and its members were honorably discharged from the military.


title: Peer review

text: Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review methods are used to maintain quality standards, improve performance, and provide credibility. In academia, scholarly peer review is often used to determine an academic paper's suitability for publication. Peer review can be categorized by the type of activity and by the field or profession in which the activity occurs, e.g., medical peer review. It can also be used as a teaching tool to help students improve writing assignments.


title: Peer review

text: Henry Oldenburg (1619–1677) was a German-born British philosopher who is seen as the 'father' of modern scientific peer review.


title: Peer review

text: Professional peer review focuses on the performance of professionals, with a view to improving quality, upholding standards, or providing certification. In academia, peer review is used to inform decisions related to faculty advancement and tenure.


title: Peer review

text: A prototype professional peer review process was recommended in the "Ethics of the Physician" written by Ishāq ibn ʻAlī al-Ruhāwī (854–931). He stated that a visiting physician had to make duplicate notes of a patient's condition on every visit. When the patient was cured or had died, the notes of the physician were examined by a local medical council of other physicians, who would decide whether the treatment had met the required standards of medical care.


title: Peer review

text: Professional peer review is common in the field of health care, where it is usually called "clinical peer review". Further, since peer review activity is commonly segmented by clinical discipline, there is also physician peer review, nursing peer review, dentistry peer review, etc. Many other professional fields have some level of peer review process: accounting, law, engineering (e.g., software peer review, technical peer review), aviation, and even forest fire management.


title: Peer review

text: Peer review is used in education to achieve certain learning objectives, particularly as a tool to reach higher order processes in the affective and cognitive domains as defined by Bloom's taxonomy. This may take a variety of forms, including closely mimicking the scholarly peer review processes used in science and medicine.


title: Peer review

text: The European Union has been using peer review in the "Open Method of Co-ordination" of policies in the fields of active labour market policy since 1999. In 2004, a program of peer reviews started in social inclusion. Each program sponsors about eight peer review meetings in each year, in which a "host country" lays a given policy or initiative open to examination by half a dozen other countries and the relevant European-level NGOs. These usually meet over two days and include visits to local sites where the policy can be seen in operation. The meeting is preceded by the compilation of an expert report on which participating "peer countries" submit comments. The results are published on the web.


title: Peer review

text: The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, through UNECE Environmental Performance Reviews, uses peer review, referred to as "peer learning", to evaluate progress made by its member countries in improving their environmental policies.


title: Peer review

text: The State of California is the only U.S. state to mandate scientific peer review. In 1997, the Governor of California signed into law Senate Bill 1320 (Sher), Chapter 295, statutes of 1997, which mandates that, before any CalEPA Board, Department, or Office adopts a final version of a rule-making, the scientific findings, conclusions, and assumptions on which the proposed rule are based must be submitted for independent external scientific peer review. This requirement is incorporated into the California Health and Safety Code Section 57004.


title: Peer review

text: Additionally, "medical peer review" has been used by the American Medical Association to refer not only to the process of improving quality and safety in health care organizations, but also to the process of rating clinical behavior or compliance with professional society membership standards. The clinical network believes it to be the most ideal method of guaranteeing that distributed exploration is dependable and that any clinical medicines that it advocates are protected and viable for individuals. Thus, the terminology has poor standardization and specificity, particularly as a database search term.


title: Peer review

text: In engineering, technical peer review is a type of engineering review. Technical peer reviews are a well defined review process for finding and fixing defects, conducted by a team of peers with assigned roles. Technical peer reviews are carried out by peers representing areas of life cycle affected by material being reviewed (usually limited to 6 or fewer people). Technical peer reviews are held within development phases, between milestone reviews, on completed products or completed portions of products.


title: Peer review

text: Peer review, or student peer assessment, is widely used in secondary and post-secondary education as part of the writing process. This collaborative learning tool involves groups of students reviewing each other's work and providing feedback and suggestions for revision. While widely used in English and composition classrooms, peer review has gained popularity in other disciplines which require writing as part of the curriculum. These other disciplines include those in the social and natural sciences. Peer review in classrooms helps students become more invested in their work, and the classroom environment at large. Understanding how their work is read by a diverse readership before it is graded by the teacher may also help students clarify ideas, and understand how to persuasively reach different audience members via their writing. It also gives students professional experience that they might draw on later when asked to review the work of a colleague prior to publication.


title: Peer review

text: Critics of peer review in classrooms say that it can be ineffective due to students' lack of practice giving constructive criticism, or lack of expertise in the writing craft at large. As a response to these concerns, instructors may provide examples, model peer review with the class, or focus on specific areas of feedback during the peer review process. Instructors may also experiment with in-class peer review vs. peer review as homework, or peer review using technologies afforded by learning management systems online.


title: Xiaohongshu

text: Xiaohongshu () is a social media and e-commerce platform. It has been described as "China's answer to Instagram".


title: Xiaohongshu

text: , Xiaohongshu had over 300 million registered users and the number of monthly active users is over 85 million. 70% of its users are reportedly born after 1990, and nearly 90% of them are females. The app allows users and influencers to post, discover and share product reviews, most frequently related to beauty and health. Travel bloggers are also known to regularly post content regarding tourism and leisure destinations on the platform. Xiaohongshu also operates RED Mall, which sells international products to Chinese users.


title: Xiaohongshu

text: Xiaohongshu was founded by Miranda Qu and Charlwin Mao in 2013, as an online tour guide for Chinese shoppers, providing a platform for users to review products and to share their shopping experiences with the community. In October 2014, the founders started focusing on connecting Chinese consumers with global retailers and established its own cross-border e-commerce platform, where Chinese consumers can buy products from overseas and order directly.


title: Xiaohongshu

text: By May 2017 Xiaohongshu had over 50 million users, with sales of nearly ¥10 billion, making it one of the world's largest community e-commerce platforms. Xiaohongshu's international logistics system REDelivery went into service during the month. On 6 June that year, Xiaohongshu held a shopping festival to celebrate its fourth anniversary, which sees the sales revenue exceeded CN¥ 100 million in 2 hours, while the app ranked in first place in the iOS App Store under "Shopping" category during that day.


title: Xiaohongshu

text: In June 2018, Xiaohongshu completed a US$300 million funding led by Alibaba and Tencent, with a valuation of US$3 billion.


title: Xiaohongshu

text: Due to the platform's early focus on fashion and beauty trends, Xiaohongshu’s user base is predominantly female in its early years. 90% of Xiaohongshu users were women, according to a report published in April 2021. The app had attracted affluent Gen Z female users in urban China as an alternative to Instagram, which is blocked in the country. Xiaohongshu subsequently adjusted its corporate strategy to attract more male users to maintain its growth. In 2021, it announced that the platform would promote male user content. Xiaohongshu also started increasing advertising in male-centric online spaces, such as the Hupu sports forum with advertising taglines, “Beautiful ladies are all here on Xiaohongshu, free to see, without spending any money!”,  while another Xiaohongshu ad shown on forum site Baidu Tieba read, “Sexy, beautiful car models and stylish beauties are waiting for you.”


title: Xiaohongshu

text: In October 2021. Xiaohongshu decided to transfer the IPO from the United States to Hong Kong. According to a Bloomberg report in July, this includes requiring all companies holding more than 1 million user data to submit a cyber security review, which is one of the reasons for the suspension of Xiaohongshu's listing in the United States.


title: Xiaohongshu

text: As of March 15, 2022, Xiaohongshu has launched the algorithm close button, allowing users to turn off "personalized recommendation" in the background with one click.


title: Xiaohongshu

text: At the end of the 2019, Xiaohongshu began to test the live streaming platform, and will officially launch live streaming with commerce in January 2021.


title: Xiaohongshu

text: In October 2021, Xiaohongshu received criticism for condoning heavily filtered, stylized photographs and perfectly captured imagery that was becoming increasingly common on the platform's feeds. On 17 October 2021, the platform issued a statement on WeChat to acknowledge that there was a problem of travel influencers posting “overly beautified” photos of scenic spots. According to the statement, Xiaohongshu issued an apology and indicated that because "bloggers did not clearly label their works as creative photography, people interpreted them as part of travel guides. Users who visited the locations were disappointed by the differences between their expectations and reality".


title: Xiaohongshu

text: In December 2021, in response to loss of public trust towards the authenticity of content hosted on its platform, Xiaohongshu formed a dedicated team to identify and remove fraudulent content. A system that uses algorithms and human checks to block falsified content was also implemented. Since then, the platform has banned 81 brands and merchants, deleted 172,600 fake reviews, and disabled 53,600 accounts, according to the company.


title: Xiaohongshu

text: On 19 January 2022, an announcement was made by Xiaohongshu to indicate that the company has filed a lawsuit against four companies behind several ghostwriting broker sites in an attempt to restore consumer trust. In an official statement made by Xiaohongshu, the company alleged that the four companies had set up marketplaces for merchants and gig writers to carry out fraudulent practices, including the production of fake reviews and click farming. Xiaohongshu has asked for US$1.57 million in damages for a bruise to its reputation and the infringement of consumer rights on its platform.


title: Xiaohongshu

text: On 25 January 2022, reports emerged that Xiaohongshu has received a fine totaling ¥300,000 from local authorities in Shanghai for failing to remove content that was deemed harmful to minors. The fine relates to a violation of cybersecurity law that guarantees protection for minors after an earlier media report was made by state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) in December 2021, that it found videos posted on Xiaohongshu showing underage girls in various states of undress, featured in advertisements for underwear brands.


title: Observer pattern

text: In software design and engineering, the observer pattern is a software design pattern in which an object, named the subject, maintains a list of its dependents, called observers, and notifies them automatically of any state changes, usually by calling one of their methods.


title: Observer pattern

text: It is often used for implementing distributed event handling systems, in "event driven" software. In those systems, the subject is usually named a "stream of events" or "stream source of events", while the observers are called "sinks of events". The stream nomenclature alludes to a physical setup where the observers are physically separated and have no control over the emitted events from the subject/stream-source. This pattern then perfectly suits any process where data arrives from some input that is not available to the CPU at startup, but instead arrives "at random" (HTTP requests, GPIO data, user input from peripherals, distributed databases and blockchains, etc.).


title: Observer pattern

text: Most modern programming languages comprise built-in "event" constructs implementing the observer-pattern components. While not mandatory, most 'observers' implementations would use background threads listening for subject-events and other support mechanisms provided by the kernel (Linux epoll, ...).


title: Observer pattern

text: The Observer design pattern is a "behavioural pattern", among the twenty-three well-known ""Gang of Four" design patterns" describing how to solve recurring design challenges in order to design flexible and reusable object-oriented software, i.e. objects which are easier to implement, change, test, and reuse.


title: Observer pattern

text: Defining a one-to-many dependency between objects by defining one object (subject) that updates the state of dependent objects directly is inflexible because it couples the subject to particular dependent objects. Still, it can make sense from a performance point of view or if the object implementation is tightly coupled (think of low-level kernel structures that execute thousands of times a second).


title: Observer pattern

text: Tightly coupled objects can be hard to implement in some scenarios, and hard to reuse because they refer to and know about (and how to update) many different objects with different interfaces. In other scenarios, tightly coupled objects can be a better option since the compiler will be able to detect errors at compile-time and optimize the code at the CPU instruction level.


title: Observer pattern

text: The sole responsibility of a subject is to maintain a list of observers and to notify them of state changes by calling their codice_3 operation. The responsibility of observers is to register (and unregister) themselves on a subject (to get notified of state changes) and to update their state (synchronize their state with the subject's state) when they are notified. This makes subject and observers loosely coupled. Subject and observers have no explicit knowledge of each other. Observers can be added and removed independently at run-time. This notification-registration interaction is also known as publish-subscribe.


title: Observer pattern

text: The observer pattern can cause memory leaks, known as the lapsed listener problem, because in a basic implementation, it requires both explicit registration and explicit deregistration, as in the dispose pattern, because the subject holds strong references to the observers, keeping them alive. This can be prevented by the subject holding weak references to the observers.