title: Adjara

text: This changed following the Rose Revolution of 2003 when Shevardnadze was deposed in favour of the reformist opposition leader Mikheil Saakashvili, who pledged to restore the country's territorial integrity and reunite it. Soon after his inauguration as president in January 2004 Saakashvili took aim at Abashidze. In spring 2004, a major crisis in Adjara erupted as the central government sought to reimpose its authority on the region. It threatened to develop into an armed confrontation. However, Saakashvili's ultimata and mass protests against Abashidze's autocratic rule forced the Adjaran leader to resign in May 2004, following which he went into exile in Russia. After Abashidze's ousting, a new law was introduced to redefine the terms of Adjara's autonomy. Levan Varshalomidze succeeded Abashidze as the chairman of the government.


title: Adjara

text: In November 2007 Russia ended its two century military presence in Georgia by withdrawing from the 12th Military Base (the former 145th Motor Rifle Division) in Batumi.


title: Adjara

text: Turkey has noticeable influence in Adjara, which can be seen in the region's economy and in the religious life—through the region's Muslim population.


title: Adjara

text: The status of the Adjaran Autonomous Republic is defined by Georgia's law on Adjara and the region's new constitution, adopted following the ousting of Aslan Abashidze. The local legislative body is the Parliament. The head of the region's government—the Council of Ministers of Adjara—is nominated by the President of Georgia who also has powers to dissolve the assembly and government and to overrule local authorities on issues where the constitution of Georgia is contravened. Tornike Rizhvadze is the current head of the Adjaran government.


title: Adjara

text: Adjara is located on the south-eastern coast of the Black Sea and extends into the wooded foothills and mountains of the Lesser Caucasus. It has borders with the region of Guria to the north, Samtskhe-Javakheti to the east and Turkey to the south. Most of Adjara's territory either consists of hills or mountains. The highest mountains rise more than above sea level. Around 60% of Adjara is covered by forests. Many parts of the Meskheti Range (the west-facing slopes) are covered by temperate rain forests.


title: Adjara

text: Adjara is well known for its humid climate (especially along the coastal regions) and prolonged rainy weather, although there is plentiful sunshine during the spring and summer months. Adjara receives the highest amounts of precipitation both in Georgia and in the Caucasus. It is also one of the wettest temperate regions in the northern hemisphere. No region along Adjara's coast receives less than of precipitation per year. The west-facing (windward) slopes of the Meskheti Range receive upwards of of precipitation per year. The coastal lowlands receive most of the precipitation in the form of rain (due to the area's subtropical climate). September and October are usually the wettest months. Batumi's average monthly rainfall for the month of September is . The interior parts of Adjara are considerably drier than the coastal mountains and lowlands. Winter usually brings significant snowfall to the higher regions of Adjara, where snowfall often reaches several meters. Average summer temperatures are between 22–24 degrees Celsius in the lowland areas and 17–21 degrees Celsius in the highlands. The highest areas of Adjara have lower temperatures. Average winter temperatures are between 4–6 degrees Celsius along the coast while the interior areas and mountains average around -3–2 degrees Celsius. Some of the highest mountains of Adjara have average winter temperatures of -8–(-7) degrees Celsius.


title: Adjara

text: Adjara has good land for growing tea, citrus fruits and tobacco. Mountainous and forested, the region has a subtropical climate, and there are many health resorts. Tobacco, tea, citrus fruits, and avocados are leading crops; livestock raising is also important. Industries include tea packing, tobacco processing, fruit and fish canning, oil refining, and shipbuilding.


title: Adjara

text: The regional capital, Batumi, is an important gateway for the shipment of goods heading into Georgia, Azerbaijan and landlocked Armenia. The port of Batumi is used for the shipment of oil from Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Its oil refinery handles Caspian oil from Azerbaijan which arrives by pipeline to Supsa port and is transported from there to Batumi by rail. The Adjaran capital is a centre for shipbuilding and manufacturing.


title: Adjara

text: Adjara is the main center of Georgia's coastal tourism industry, having displaced the northwestern province of Abkhazia since that region's "de facto" secession from Georgia in 1993.


title: Adjara

text: According to the 2014 census, the population of Adjara is 333,953. The Adjarians (Ajars) are an ethnographic group of the Georgian people who speak a group of local dialects known collectively as Adjarian. The written language is Georgian.


title: Adjara

text: The Georgian population of Adjara had been generally known as "Muslim Georgians" until the 1926 Soviet census which listed them as "Ajars" and counted 71,000 of them. Later, they were simply classified under a broader category of Georgians as no official Soviet census asked about religion. Today, calling them "Muslim Georgians" would be a misnomer in any case as Adjarans are nearly 55% Christian and nearly 40% Muslim (see below).


title: Adjara

text: The collapse of the Soviet Union and the re-establishment of Georgia's independence accelerated the growth of Christianity in the region, especially among the young. However, there still remains Sunni Muslim communities in Adjara, mainly in the Khulo district. According to the 2014 Georgian national census, 54.5% were Orthodox Christians, and 39.8% Muslim. The remaining were Armenian Christians (0.3%), and others (5.3%).


title: Adjara

text: Selimoba is held in the village of Bako, Khulo Municipality on July 3 and commemorates the life of Selim Khimshiashvili. A concert with the participation of local amateur groups of a folk handicraft products exhibition is held during the festival. It is supported by Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports of Adjara.


title: Adjara

text: Shuamtoba ("inter-mountain festival") is a traditional festival, which is held on the summer mountain pastures of two municipalities (Khulo and Shuakhevi), during the first weekend of every August. Horse racing, a folk handicraft exhibition and a concert involving folk ensembles are held as well.


title: Adjara

text: Machakhloba is a Machakhela gorge festivity, held in the second half of September. It is a traditional holiday celebrated in Machakhela gorge, Khelvachauri Municipality. The festival begins at the Machakhela rifle monument (at the point of convergence of the rivers Machakhela and Chorokhi), continues in the village Machakhispiri and ends in the village Zeda Chkhutuneti.


title: Adjara

text: Kolkhoba is an ancient Laz festival. It is held at the end of August or at the beginning of September in Sarpi village, Khelvachauri District. The story of the Argonauts is performed on stage during the festival.


title: Sjón

text: Sigurjón Birgir Sigurðsson (born 27 August 1962), known as Sjón ( ; ; meaning "sight" and being an abbreviation of his first name), is an Icelandic poet, novelist, lyricist, and screenwriter. Sjón frequently collaborates with the singer Björk and has performed with The Sugarcubes as Johnny Triumph. His works have been translated into 30 languages.


title: Sjón

text: Born in Reykjavík, Iceland, Sjón grew up in the city's Breiðholt district, where he lived with his mother. He began his writing career early and published his first book of poetry, "Sýnir" (Visions), in 1978 at 16.


title: Sjón

text: He was one of the founding members of the neo-surrealist group Medúsa and became significant in Reykjavik's cultural scene.


title: Sjón

text: Active on the Icelandic music scene since the early 1980s, Sjón has collaborated with many of the best known artists of the era and was featured as guest vocalist on a rare Sugarcubes 12" single "Luftgitar" in 1987 using the name Johnny Triumph; this was accompanied by a music video of Sjón playing air guitar with Björk and Einar Örn Benediktsson. Sjón would occasionally reprise this role for the final encore of The Sugarcubes concerts, including the band's one-off 2006 reunion show in Reykjavík.


title: Sjón

text: Sjón and Björk first met when they were teenagers, and together they formed a two-person band called Rocka Rocka Drum. Later, when Björk began her solo career in the 1990s, Sjón wrote lyrics for her. The pair teamed up to write the song "I've Seen it All" for the film "Dancer in the Dark" in 2000"," and as a result, Sjón and Björk shared nominations for "Best Original Song" at both the 2001 Golden Globes and the 2001 Academy Awards. Two years later, Sjón was featured in the documentary "Inside Björk". In 2004, Björk performed "Oceania" – a song that the two had written together – at the 2004 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony in Athens, Greece.


title: Sjón

text: In 2007, he contributed the original story and wrote the screenplay for the animated film "Anna and the Moods". He also joined the cast, voicing the character Dr. Artmann.


title: Sjón

text: Sjón co-wrote the feature Lamb together with Valdimar Jòhansson. Lamb premiered in 2021 and was selected as Icelands contribution to the 2022 Academy Awards. Besides being Icelands contribution for the 2022 Academy Awards, Lamb got a lot of international recognition through festivals around the world. It has both been nominated and received prices at festivals such as Cannes Film Festival, Göteborg Film Festival, Sitges - Catalonian Film Festival, Palm Springs International Film Festival, European Film Festival, Edda Awards, Austin Film Critics Association, Athens International Film Festival, amongst others.


title: Sjón

text: From August to December 2021, Sjón was writer-in-residence at the Literaturhaus Zurich and the PWG Foundation in Zurich.


title: Sjón

text: He co-wrote the 2022 film "The Northman," a historical epic and revenge thriller based on the legend of the Viking prince Amleth, with director Robert Eggers. Björk appears in the film in a supporting role as a seeress.


title: Sjón

text: Sjón has lived and worked in London, but he currently resides in central Reykjavík with his wife. He has two adult children.


title: Sjón

text: Sjón was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for the song "I've Seen It All" from the film "Dancer in the Dark".


title: Morrison Hotel

text: Morrison Hotel is the fifth studio album by American rock band the Doors, released on February 9, 1970, by Elektra Records. After the use of brass and string arrangements recommended by producer Paul A. Rothchild on their previous album, "The Soft Parade" (1969), the Doors returned to their blues rock style and this album was largely seen as a return to form for the band. The group entered Elektra Sound Recorders in Los Angeles in November 1969 to record the album which is divided into two separately titled sides, namely: "Hard Rock Café" and "Morrison Hotel". Blues rock guitar pioneer Lonnie Mack and Ray Neapolitan also contributed to the album as session bassists.


title: Morrison Hotel

text: The album reached No. 4 on the "Billboard" 200, and performed better overseas than the preceding album (it was the group's highest-charting studio album in the United Kingdom, where it peaked at No. 12). The accompanying "You Make Me Real" / "Roadhouse Blues" single peaked at No. 50 in May 1970 on the "Billboard" 100 chart. The cover photo was taken by Henry Diltz.


title: Morrison Hotel

text: On March 1, 1969, Jim Morrison performed while intoxicated at the Dinner Key Auditorium in Coconut Grove, Florida, in front of a crowd of nearly 12,000; he was charged for his performance and behavior with indecent exposure, on April 4. The incident negatively reflected on the band's publicity, sparking a "March for Decency" at the Miami Orange Bowl.


title: Morrison Hotel

text: Consequently, twenty-five dates on the band's next tour were cancelled, and their records were blacklisted from radio airplay, resulting in the band abandoning the rest of their potential tour, costing what John Densmore characterized as "a million dollars in gigs." Nevertheless, the band gradually regained momentum by playing concerts throughout the rest of the year, including the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival. In July, the Doors released their fourth album, "The Soft Parade", a heavily orchestrated affair that augmented the band's sound with horns and strings. Around early 1969, Morrison traded in his stage leathers for more conventional attire, grew a beard and gained weight as he attempted to live down his "Lizard King" image; however, his worsening alcoholism often undermined his efforts.


title: Morrison Hotel

text: In November, a drunken Morrison caused such a disturbance on a flight to Phoenix, Arizona, to see a Rolling Stones concert that he was charged with a new skyjacking law that carried up to a $10,000 fine and a ten-year prison sentence.


title: Morrison Hotel

text: "Morrison Hotel"'s back-to-basics approach largely stemmed from the group's dismay over the protracted sessions for "The Soft Parade", which took nine months to record and cost $86,000 (equal to $ today), far more expensive than any previous Doors record. The band had also been stung by the critical reception to the record. On "Morrison Hotel", there is a slight steer toward blues, which would be fully explored by the band on their next album "L.A. Woman". "Morrison Hotel" was recorded between November 1969 and January 1970 with the exception of "Indian Summer", which was recorded on August 19, 1966 for "The Doors", while "Waiting for the Sun" actually originated during the sessions for the band's third album.


title: Morrison Hotel

text: Although "Morrison Hotel" contains no major hit singles, it features some of the band's most popular songs, including "Roadhouse Blues" and "Peace Frog", which would go on to become staples of classic rock radio. "Roadhouse Blues" took two days to record (November 4–5, 1969) with Paul Rothchild striving for perfection. Several takes from these sessions were included on the 2006 remastered album, with Morrison repeating the phrase "Money beats soul" over and over again. The sessions only took off on the second day, when distinguished blues guitarist Lonnie Mack (also signed to Elektra Records) joined in on bass and former Lovin' Spoonful bandleader John Sebastian (appearing under the pseudonym G. Puglese due to the constraint of his Reprise Records recording contract) joined in on harmonica. Over the course of the session, keyboardist Ray Manzarek switched from his Wurlitzer electric piano to a tack piano previously used on the Beach Boys "Good Vibrations".


title: Morrison Hotel

text: The hook of "Peace Frog" is a distorted G5 chord played three times by Krieger, followed by a brief percussive wah-wah effect. Morrison, who took the words from a notebook entitled "Abortion Stories", begins nearly every line with the word "blood", often referring to "Blood in the streets". A brief musical interlude is next, followed by a guitar solo, and a spoken word verse ("Indians scattered on dawn's highway bleeding"). The song ends with a final chord as it segues into the next track, "Blue Sunday".


title: Morrison Hotel

text: "The Spy" and "Queen of the Highway" celebrate Morrison's intense but troubled relationship with longtime girlfriend Pamela Courson. Originally "The Spy" was called "Spy in the House of Love", as shown on the Master Reel Control File, a line borrowed from "A Spy in the House of Love", a novel by Anaïs Nin published in 1954. Both songs are tinged with ambivalence; on "The Spy," Morrison cautions, "I know your deepest, secret fears", while on "Queen of the Highway" he sardonically concludes, "I hope it can continue a little while longer". According to the 1980 Doors biography "No One Here Gets Out Alive", it was during the "Morrison Hotel" sessions that Morrison and Courson had a violent argument after she drank his bottle of liquor so he could not drink it, with engineer Bruce Botnick recalling: "So here were the two of them, completely out of their minds and crying. He started shaking her violently. I think he was putting me on. She was crying out of control, telling him he shouldn't drink anymore and that's why she drank it. And I'm cleaning up and I said, 'Hey man, it's pretty late.' He looked up, stopped shaking her, said, 'Yeah, right', hugged her and they walked out arm in arm... he'd always give you a funny look afterward, to see your reaction."


title: Morrison Hotel

text: The cover photo was taken by Henry Diltz at the Morrison Hotel on South Hope Street in Downtown Los Angeles. The band were not given permission to photograph, so they did it while the clerk was called away from the desk. The band jumped right behind the windows and hit their places without shuffling as Diltz took the shot. The rear cover features a photograph of the Hard Rock Café at nearby 300 East 5th Street. The building is now home to a convenience store. It has been vacant for years, but a new development plan announced in 2018 may restore the building, which happened eventually in 2019 for the annual "Day of the Doors" fan event. Thirteen years later parts of Michael Jackson's music video for the song "Beat It" were filmed inside the former Hard Rock Café on 5th Street.


title: Morrison Hotel

text: Upon its release, "Morrison Hotel" was seen by many as a comeback for the Doors following the critical failure of "The Soft Parade". Although the accompanying "You Make Me Real" / "Roadhouse Blues" single only peaked at No. 50 in May 1970 despite strong FM radio play of the latter song, the album was immediately certified gold by RIAA in February 1970 (the band's fifth consecutive album certification, a record among American hard rock bands of the era) before reaching No. 4 on the "Billboard" album chart in March during a 27-week stay. Additionally, it became the band's highest-charting studio album in the United Kingdom, where it peaked at No. 12.


title: Morrison Hotel

text: Dave Marsh, the editor of "Creem" magazine, called the album "the most horrifying rock and roll I have ever heard. When they're good, they're simply unbeatable. I know this is the best record I've listened to... so far", while "Rock Magazine" called it "without any doubt their ballsiest (and best) album to date". "Circus" praised it as "possibly the best album yet from the Doors" and "good, hard, evil rock... and one of the best albums released this decade". On the other hand, "Rolling Stone" critic Lester Bangs was mixed, who praised some of the tracks, especially the "powerful blast of raw funk" opener "Roadhouse Blues" and "the buoyant catchiness" of "Land Ho!", but criticized the remainder of the album to be uneven: "It's really a shame, too, because somehow one held high expectations for this album and wanted so badly to believe it would be good that one was afraid to listen to it when it was finally released."


title: Morrison Hotel

text: During this period, the de facto blacklisting continued to persist in more socially conservative markets, particularly the Deep South; consequently, the band's 1970 American tour itinerary was largely confined to the Northeast, West Coast and more progressive Midwestern cities amid ongoing (albeit more sporadic) cancellations, including planned concerts in Salt Lake City and at the Jesuit-operated Fairfield University.


title: Morrison Hotel

text: In his 1981 retrospective review, Robert Christgau rated "Morrison Hotel" "B+" on an A+ to F scale. He expressed his preference of the A side ("Hard Rock Café") over the B side ("Morrison Hotel"), both lyrically and musically. He noted that the "band is rocking tighter than it ever has, Robbie Krieger's phrasing keeps things moving, and Morrison's gliding vocal presence–arty and self-absorbed though it may be–provides focus." "The Rolling Stone Album Guide" gave a perfect rating of five stars out of five, and considered it to be the Doors' "most cohesive record," adding that aside "from the throwaway grunter", "Maggie M'Gill", all the other songs were "masterful—and the band swings tougher and easier than they ever had before."


title: Morrison Hotel

text: In more recent reviews, Thom Jurek of AllMusic expressed that the Doors employed blues and R&B "to some degree on all of their albums, but never as consistently, adeptly, or provocatively as they did on "Morrison Hotel", with absolutely stunning results." Sal Cinquemani of "Slant Magazine" gave the record three stars out of five; he praised Morrison's vocals as "cleaner and clearer" than before, and hailed particularly "Peace Frog" as one of the greatest songs in the Doors catalogue. "Morrison Hotel" holds currently a 78/100 approval rating based on 5


title: Morrison Hotel

text: Details are taken from the 2007 Rhino Records CD 40th Anniversary Edition liner notes with Bruce Botnick's and David Fricke's accompanying essays, which may differ from other sources.


title: Derek (TV series)

text: Derek is a British comedy-drama television series starring, written by and directed by Ricky Gervais. The pilot was produced by Derek Productions Ltd. for Channel 4 and aired on 12 April 2012. Channel 4 describes the show as "A bittersweet comedy drama about a group of outsiders living on society's margins".


title: Derek (TV series)

text: On 9 May 2012, Channel 4 announced it had commissioned a full series, which aired from 30 January 2013. On 4 March 2013 (two days before the final episode of the first series was aired), they announced "Derek" had been recommissioned for a second series, to be shown again on Channel 4 and later on Netflix.


title: Derek (TV series)

text: The first series became available for streaming on Netflix on 12 September 2013. The second series, consisting of six episodes, started airing on 23 April 2014 on Channel 4 and concluded on 28 May 2014. In November 2014, Channel 4 announced that a 60-minute "final" special episode of "Derek" would air in the United Kingdom on 22 December 2014.


title: Derek (TV series)

text: The pilot episode aired on 12 April 2012 on Channel 4. Filmed in a mockumentary style, the programming is set mostly in a nursing home, and centres on Derek, a helper at the home. The title character made his first appearance in the 2001 Edinburgh Fringe show "Rubbernecker".


title: Derek (TV series)

text: Gervais says the programming was inspired by his relatives who work in care homes: "Half my family are care workers. My sister works with kids with learning difficulties. My sister-in-law works in a care home for people with Alzheimer's. And four or five of my nieces work in old people's homes. I always write about what I know."


title: Derek (TV series)

text: Gervais plays 50-year-old Derek Noakes, a care worker at Broad Hill, a home for the elderly; he has worked there for three years. He likes watching reality television shows and game shows, and is interested in celebrities, YouTube and, above all, talking about animals. The viewer is told he is kind, helpful and selfless, with good intentions. He is vulnerable because of his childlike naivety and distractions from society. He is ridiculed and ostracised, as well as marginalised by mainstream society because of his social awkwardness and lack of inhibition. Derek says it is more important to be kind than to be clever or good-looking. Some commentators called him autistic, although Gervais firmly denies this. Gervais, in fact, refuses to confirm whether Derek is intellectually-challenged, autistic, or otherwise.


title: Derek (TV series)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes the first series holds a rating of 53% based on 32 critics, with the consensus reading: "Derek is as irreverent as might be expected from a show starring Ricky Gervais, but this time he brings a surprising amount of depth and empathy to the title character." On Metacritic, the first series of the show earned a rating of 64 out of 100, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: Derek (TV series)

text: The show generated occasional controversy due to a perception by some viewers it mocks intellectual disability. Tanya Gold, writing for "The Guardian", dismissed Gervais's claims in "Derek", he was satirising prejudice against disabled people, instead saying it "feels more like lazy cruelty than satire". Jack Seale criticised the show for relying on elements and characterisations from other programming by Gervais. "The Guardian"s Sam Wollaston found it to be "not very good", and says "the whole mockumentary thing feels tired now".


title: Derek (TV series)

text: Tom Sutcliffe of "The Independent" questioned the wisdom of commissioning the programming: "To my mind, the pilot of Ricky Gervais's comedy about an assistant in a retirement home already fully explored its awkward – and testing – balance of comedy and emotion." About the titular character, he wrote "Derek's redeeming qualities are the hardest to take – a sense of self-congratulation at the refinement of its sentiments that has a little bit of the bully in it, too."


title: Derek (TV series)

text: Gervais' performance as "Derek" received mixed reviews. Diane Werts of "Newsday" reacted positively, saying "Gervais nailed it". Curt Wagner of "Red Eye" says Gervais "surprises with some tender, quiet acting, and obvious love of the character. Rob Owen of "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette" says "although there could be an ick factor to Mr. Gervais playing a character with developmental issues, that turns out not to be the case. Mr. Gervais creates a character, not a caricature." On the other hand, "The Guardian"s Sam Wollaston says "Ricky Gervais is out of his depth playing a character that isn't based on his worst foibles." Terry Ramsey of "The Telegraph" says "There is Gervais's cringe-making performance in the title role. I'm sorry, but Derek is simply Ricky Gervais in a patterned jumper with a cricked neck. Gervais is not a character actor, and what Derek needs to bring him alive is to be more believable. What he really needs is someone else playing him."


title: Derek (TV series)

text: The second series of "Derek" generated some positive reviews. The second series currently holds a 67% based on 9 critics on Rotten Tomatoes. Hank Stuever of "The Washington Post" reacted positively, saying "Derek is an honest and often charming endeavor." Kyle Anderson of "Entertainment Weekly" also praised the show, but says the absence of Karl Pilkington hurt the series, saying: "The second series mostly upholds the first's tricky precedent, but the absence of regular Gervais associate Karl Pilkington means the yuks are a bit less hearty." Terry Ramsey of "The Telegraph" wrote, "We didn't need a second series of Ricky Gervais's comedy drama Derek." In a review in "The Guardian", Sam Wollaston says "That's the other big problem with "Derek"...it's not very smart. Or very funny. Or very good." "Msn.com" says "Ricky Gervais' "Derek" remains a mawkish mess. Where to begin? The mockumentary format is moribund. The ethics are muddy. The tone is all over the place in everything but its consistent condescension." Matt D of Unrealitytv.co.uk agrees, saying "The primary reasons for this are the imbalance in tone and Gervais' central performance both of which stop "Derek" from a truly enjoyable program." AV Club says ""Derek" has all the creative ambition of [an online video of little piggies and bunnies doing cute things]." Indie Wire says "Series two is all over the map." Michael Hogan of "The Telegraph" says Derek is a "saccharine series" and "dreadful". Serena Davies, from the same publication, says "the show seems to have been devised by someone of Derek's limited intelligence... [I will not be] wasting any more of my time watching this rather flimsy, curiously pointless program."


title: Derek (TV series)

text: The special was given two stars out of five by "The Telegraph". The reviewer, Ed Power, criticised the episode for the "weak performance" from Gervais and the "sub-Forrest Gump sympathy milking". He described it as "glib" and "manipulative". "The Guardian" reviewer Julia Raeside concurred, adding "I can find no comedy in it, and it lacks the emotional truth required for a drama."


title: Derek (TV series)

text: The complete first series of "Derek" was released on DVD and Blu-ray on 11 November 2013. The complete second series of "Derek" was released on DVD on 17 November 2014. A two-disc set containing the first and second series on DVD was also released on 17 November 2014.


title: Derek (TV series)

text: Derek: The Special was released on DVD on 26 October 2015. A complete collection set was released featuring series and the special.


title: Steve Kloves

text: Stephen Keith Kloves (born March 18, 1960) is an American filmmaker. He wrote and directed the 1989 film "The Fabulous Baker Boys" and is mainly known for his adaptations of novels, especially for all but one of the "Harry Potter" films (the exception being "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix") and for "Wonder Boys", for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.


title: Steve Kloves

text: Kloves, born in Austin, Texas, grew up in Sunnyvale, California, where he graduated from Fremont High School. He attended the University of California, Los Angeles but dropped out when he was not admitted into the film school in his third year. As an unpaid intern for a Hollywood agent, he gained attention for a screenplay he wrote called "Swings". This led to a meeting where he successfully pitched "Racing with the Moon" (1984).


title: Steve Kloves

text: His first experience with professional screenwriting left him wanting more interaction with the actors so that the characters would stay true to his vision. Kloves wrote "The Fabulous Baker Boys" and also intended it to be his directorial debut. After years of trying to sell the project in Hollywood, the film finally got off the ground and was released in 1989. "The Fabulous Baker Boys" did reasonably well and was critically acclaimed, but his next shot as writer/director for "Flesh and Bone" in 1993 fared poorly at the box office. Kloves then stopped writing for three years.


title: Steve Kloves

text: Realizing that he had to return to writing to support his family, he began adapting Michael Chabon's novel "Wonder Boys" into a screenplay. Kloves was offered the chance to direct but he declined, preferring to direct only his own original work. This was his first try at adapting another work to film. His screenplay was nominated for a Golden Globe and an Academy Award after the film's release in 2000.


title: Steve Kloves

text: Warner Bros. sent Kloves a list of novels that the company was considering to adapt as films. The listing included the first "Harry Potter" novel, which intrigued him despite his usual indifference to these catalogs. He went on to write the screenplays for the first four films in the series. However, he turned down writing the fifth film, stating that "The fourth film, "Goblet of Fire", was really hard to do. I wrote on it for two years. But it’s not that simple and I don't know that I'll ever fully understand why I didn't do it." After Michael Goldenberg wrote the screenplay for the fifth film, Kloves then returned to write the sixth, seventh and eighth installments.


title: Steve Kloves

text: In 2011, Kloves was attached to work on a film adaptation of Mark Haddon's novel "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time".


title: Steve Kloves

text: Since 2016, Kloves produced the "Fantastic Beasts" films, a spinoff prequel series to the main "Harry Potter" series. Kloves co-wrote the third installment with J.K. Rowling.


title: Cellular Jail

text: The Cellular Jail, also known as Kālā Pānī (), was a British colonial prison in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The prison was used by the colonial government of India for the purpose of exiling criminals and political prisoners. Many notable independence activists, including Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Diwan Singh Kalepani, Yogendra Shukla, Batukeshwar Dutt, Shadan Chandra Chatterjee, Sohan Singh, Hare Krishna Konar, Shiv Verma, Allama Fazle Haq Khairabadi, Sudhanshu Dasgupta were imprisoned here during the struggle for India's independence. Today, the complex serves as a national memorial monument.


title: Cellular Jail

text: Although the prison complex itself was constructed between 1896 and 1906, the British authorities in India had been using the Andaman Islands as a prison since the days in the immediate aftermath of the Indian Rebellion of 1857.


title: Cellular Jail

text: Shortly after the rebellion was suppressed, captured prisoners were put on trial, with many of them being executed. Others were exiled for life to the Andamans to prevent them from re-offending. Two hundred rebels were transported to the islands under the custody of the jailer David Barry and Major James Pattison Walker, an Indian Medical Service (IMS) doctor who had been warden of the prison at Agra. Another 733 from Karachi arrived in April, 1868. In 1863, the Rev. Henry Fisher Corbyn, of the Bengal Ecclesiastical Establishment, was also sent out there and he set up the 'Andamanese Home' there, which was also a repressive institution albeit disguised as a charitable one. Rev. Corbyn was posted in 1866 as Vicar to St. Luke's Church, Abbottabad, and later died there and is buried at the Old Christian Cemetery, Abbottabad. More prisoners arrived from India and Burma as the settlement grew. Anyone who belonged to the Mughal royal family, or who had sent a petition to Bahadur Shah Zafar during the Rebellion was liable to be deported to the islands.


title: Cellular Jail

text: The remote islands were considered to be a suitable place to punish the independence activists. Not only were they isolated from the mainland, the overseas journey ("kala pani") to the islands also threatened them with loss of caste, resulting in social exclusion. The convicts were also used in chain gangs to construct prisons, buildings and harbour facilities.


title: Cellular Jail

text: By the late 19th century, the independence movement had picked up momentum. As a result, the number of prisoners being sent to the Andamans grew and the need for a high-security prison was felt. From August 1889 Charles James Lyall served as home secretary in the Raj government, and was also tasked with an investigation of the penal settlement at Port Blair. Both he and A. S. Lethbridge, a surgeon in the IMS, concluded that the punishment of transportation to the Andaman Islands was failing to achieve the purpose intended and that indeed criminals preferred to go there rather than be incarcerated in Indian jails. Lyall and Lethbridge recommended that a "penal stage" should exist in the transportation sentence, whereby transported prisoners were subjected to a period of harsh treatment upon arrival. The outcome was the construction of the Cellular Jail, which has been described as "a place of exclusion and isolation within a more broadly constituted remote penal space."


title: Cellular Jail

text: The construction of the prison started in 1896 and was completed in 1906. The original building was a puce-coloured brick building. The bricks used to build the building were brought from Burma.


title: Cellular Jail

text: The building had seven wings, at the center of which a tower served as the intersection and was used by guards to keep watch on the inmates; this format was based on Jeremy Bentham's idea of the Panopticon. The wings radiated from the tower in straight lines, much like the spokes of a bicycle wheel.


title: Cellular Jail

text: Each of the seven wings had three stories upon completion. There were no dormitories and a total of 696 cells. Each cell was in size with a ventilator located at a height of . The name, "cellular jail", derived from the solitary cells which prevented any prisoner from communicating with any other. Also, the spokes were so designed such that the face of a cell in a spoke saw the back of cells in another spoke. This way, communication between prisoners was impossible. They were all in solitary confinement.


title: Cellular Jail

text: The locks of the prison cells were designed in such a way that the inmate would never be able to reach the latch of the lock. The prison guards would lock up the inmates and throw the key of the lock inside the jail. The inmate would try to put his hand out and try to unlock the door but would never be able to do so as his hand would never reach the lock.


title: Cellular Jail

text: Conditions faced by prisoners in the Cellular Jail were frequently abysmal. As noted in a "Guardian" article, prisoner could face "torture, medical tests, forced labor and for many, death." In response to poor conditions in the Cellular Jail, including the quality of prison food, numerous prisoners went on hunger strikes. Those who did were often force-fed by the prison authorities.


title: Cellular Jail

text: Solitary confinement was implemented as the British government of India wanted to ensure that political prisoners and revolutionaries be isolated from one another. The Andaman island served as the ideal setting for the colonial government to achieve this. Most prisoners of the Cellular Jail were independence activists. Some inmates were Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Fazl-e-Haq Khairabadi, Yogendra Shukla, Batukeshwar Dutt, Babarao Savarkar, Sachindra Nath Sanyal, Hare Krishna Konar, Bhai Parmanand, Sohan Singh, Subodh Roy and Trailokyanath Chakravarty Several revolutionaries were tried in the Alipore Case (1908), such as Barindra Kumar Ghose, the surviving companion of Bagha Jatin, was transferred to Berhampore Jail in Bengal, before his mysterious death in 1924.


title: Cellular Jail

text: Sher Ali Afridi, a former officer in the Punjab Mounted Police, was a life convict in the jail who had been imprisoned for murder. He was sentenced to death on 2nd April 1867 and during appeal this was reduced to life imprisonment and he was deported to Andamans to serve his sentence. Richard Bourke, 6th Earl of Mayo, Viceroy of India from 1869, was visiting the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in February 1872 when he was murdered by Alfridi. Sher Ali Afridi wanted to kill the Superintendent and the Viceroy as a revenge for his sentence, which he thought was more severe than he deserved. He said that he killed on the instructions of God. He was subsequently hanged.


title: Cellular Jail

text: In March 1868, 238 prisoners tried to escape. By April they were all caught. One committed suicide and of the remainder Superintendent Walker ordered 87 to be hanged.


title: Cellular Jail

text: Hunger strikes by the inmates in May 1933 caught the attention of the jail authorities. Thirty-three prisoners protested their treatment and sat in hunger strike. Among them were Mahavir Singh, an associate of Bhagat Singh (Lahore conspiracy case), Mohan Kishore Namadas (convicted in Arms Act Case) and Mohit Moitra (also convicted in Arms Act Case). These three died due to force-feeding.


title: Cellular Jail

text: Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore launched a campaign to shut down the jail, and the colonial government decided to repatriate the political prisoners from the Cellular Jail from 1937 to 1938. "The Cellular Jail was forced to empty in 1939. Two years later, the Japanese seized the islands, transforming the penal settlement into a prisoner of war camp, incarcerating the British warders. In 1945 the Andamans would become the first piece of India to be declared independent."


title: Cellular Jail

text: The Japanese launched an invasion of the Andaman islands in March 1942, capturing the Cellular Jail and all prison personnel. The Cellular Jail then became home to British prisoners-of-war, suspected Indian supporters of the British, and later of members of the Indian Independence League, many of whom were tortured and killed there by the Japanese. Notionally during this period control of the Islands was passed to Subhas Chandra Bose, who hoisted the Indian National Flag for the first time on the islands, at the Gymkhana Ground in Port Blair, appointed INA General AD Loganathan as the governor of the Islands, and announced the Azad Hind Government was not merely a Government in Exile, and had freed the territory from British colonial rule.


title: Cellular Jail

text: On 7 October 1945 the British resumed control of the Islands, and prison, following the surrender of the islands to Brigadier J. A. Salomons, of the 116th Indian Infantry Brigade, a month after the Surrender of Japan, at the end of World War II.


title: Cellular Jail

text: Another two wings of the jail were demolished after India achieved independence. However, this led to protests from several former prisoners and political leaders who saw it as a way of erasing the tangible evidence of their history.


title: Cellular Jail

text: The Govind Ballabh Pant Hospital was set up in the premises of the Cellular Jail in 1963. It is now a 500-bed hospital with about 40 doctors serving the local population.


title: Cellular Jail

text: Cellular Jail was declared a National Memorial by the then Prime Minister of India, Morarji Desai on 11 February 1979.


title: Cellular Jail

text: The centenary of the jail's completion was marked on 10 March 2006. Many former prisoners were celebrated on this occasion by the Government of India.


title: Cellular Jail

text: Apart from guided tours, a sound-and-light show is also run in the evenings narrating and showcasing the trials and tribulations of the inmates. It is available in English and Hindi.


title: Cellular Jail

text: "Kaalapani", a Malayalam Historical drama film was based on the prison and its inmates during 1915. Some scenes were shot in the actual prison.


title: Royal family

text: A royal family is the immediate family of kings/queens, emirs/emiras, sultans/sultanas, or raja/rani and sometimes their extended family. The term imperial family appropriately describes the family of an emperor or empress, and the term papal family describes the family of a pope, while the terms baronial family, comital family, ducal family, archducal family, grand ducal family, or princely family are more appropriate to describe, respectively, the relatives of a reigning baron, count/earl, duke, archduke, grand duke, or prince. However, in common parlance members of any family which reigns by hereditary right are often referred to as royalty or "royals". It is also customary in some circles to refer to the extended relations of a deposed monarch and their descendants as a royal family. A dynasty is sometimes referred to as the "House of ...". In July 2013 there were 26 active sovereign dynasties in the world that ruled or reigned over 43 monarchies.


title: Royal family

text: , while there are several European countries whose nominal head of state, by long tradition, is a king or queen, the associated royal families, with the notable exception of the British royal family, are non-notable ordinary citizens who may bear a title but are not involved in public affairs.


title: Royal family

text: A royal family typically includes the spouse of the reigning monarch, surviving spouses of a deceased monarch, the children, grandchildren, brothers, sisters, and paternal cousins of the reigning monarch, as well as their spouses. In some cases, royal family membership may extend to great grandchildren and more distant descendants of a monarch. In certain monarchies where voluntary abdication is the norm, such as the Netherlands, a royal family may also include one or more former monarchs. In certain instances, such as in Canada, the royal family is defined by who holds the styles Majesty and Royal Highness. There is often a distinction between persons of the blood royal and those that marry into the royal family. Under most systems, only persons in the first category are dynasts, that is, potential successors to the throne (unless the member of the latter category is also in line to the throne in their own right, a frequent occurrence in royal families which frequently intermarry). This is not always observed; some monarchies have operated by the principle of "jure uxoris".


title: Royal family

text: In addition, certain relatives of the monarch (by blood or marriage) possess special privileges and are subject to certain statutes, conventions, or special common law. The precise functions of a royal family vary depending on whether the polity in question is an absolute monarchy, a constitutional monarchy, or somewhere in between. In certain monarchies, such as that found in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, or in political systems where the monarch actually exercises executive power, such as in Jordan, it is not uncommon for the members of a royal family to hold important government posts or military commands. In most constitutional monarchies, however, members of a royal family perform certain public, social, or ceremonial functions, but refrain from any involvement in electoral politics or the actual governance of the country.


title: Royal family

text: The specific composition of royal families varies from country to country, as do the titles and royal and noble styles held by members of the family. The composition of the royal family may be regulated by statute enacted by the legislature (e.g., Spain, the Netherlands, and Japan since 1947), the sovereign's prerogative and common law tradition (e.g., the United Kingdom), or a private house law (e.g., Liechtenstein, the former ruling houses of Bavaria, Prussia, Hanover, etc.). Public statutes, constitutional provisions, or conventions may also regulate the marriages, names, and personal titles of royal family members. The members of a royal family may or may not have a surname or dynastic name (see Royal House).


title: Royal family

text: In a constitutional monarchy, when the monarch dies, there is always a law or tradition of succession to the throne that either specifies a formula for identifying the precise order of succession among family members in line to the throne or specifies a process by which a family member is chosen to inherit the crown. Usually in the former case the exact line of hereditary succession among royal individuals may be identified at any given moment during prior reigns (e.g. United Kingdom, Sark, Nizari Ismailis, Japan, Balobedus, Sweden, Kingdom of Benin) whereas in the latter case the next sovereign may be selected (or changed) only during the reign or shortly after the demise of the immediately preceding monarch (e.g. Cambodia, KwaZulu Natal, Buganda, Saudi Arabia, Swaziland, Yorubaland, The Kingitanga). Some monarchies employ a mix of these selection processes (Malaysia, Monaco, Tonga, Jordan, Morocco), providing for both an identifiable line of succession as well as authority for the monarch, dynasty or other institution to alter the line in specific instances without changing the general law of succession.


title: Royal family

text: Some countries have abolished royalty altogether, as in post-revolutionary France (1870), post-revolutionary Russia (1917), Portugal (1910), post-war Germany (1918), post-war Italy (1946) and many ex European colonies.


title: Royal family

text: Whilst mediatization occurred in other countries such as France, Italy and Russia, only the certain houses within the former Holy Roman Empire are collectively called the Mediatized Houses.


title: Meprobamate

text: Meprobamate—marketed as Miltown by Wallace Laboratories and Equanil by Wyeth, among others—is a carbamate derivative used as an anxiolytic drug. It was the best-selling minor tranquilizer for a time, but has largely been replaced by the benzodiazepines due to their wider therapeutic index (lower risk of toxicity at therapeutically prescribed doses) and lower incidence of serious side effects.


title: Meprobamate

text: Frank Berger was working in a laboratory of a British drug company, looking for a preservative for penicillin, when he noticed that a compound called mephenesin calmed laboratory rodents without actually sedating them. Berger subsequently referred to this “tranquilizing” effect in a now-historic article, published by the "British Journal of Pharmacology" in 1946. However, three major drawbacks existed to the use of mephenesin as a tranquilizer: a very short duration of action, greater effect on the spinal cord than on the brain (resulting in a very low therapeutic index), and a weak activity.


title: Meprobamate

text: In May 1950, after moving to Carter Products in New Jersey, Berger and a chemist, Bernard John Ludwig, synthesized a chemically related tranquilizing compound, meprobamate, that overcame these three drawbacks. Wallace Laboratories, a subsidiary of Carter Products, bought the license and named their new product "Miltown" after the borough of Milltown, New Jersey. Launched in 1955, it rapidly became the first blockbuster psychotropic drug in American history, becoming popular in Hollywood and gaining fame for its seemingly miraculous effects. It has since been marketed under more than 100 trade names, from Amepromat through Quivet to Zirpon.


title: Meprobamate

text: A December 1955 study of 101 patients at the Mississippi State Hospital in Whitfield, Rankin County, Mississippi, found meprobamate useful in the alleviation of "mental symptoms": 3% of patients made a complete recovery, 29% were greatly improved, 50% were somewhat better, while 18% realized little change. Self-destructive patients became cooperative and calmer, and experienced a resumption of logical thinking. In 50% of the cases, relaxation brought about more favorable sleep habits. Following the trial, hydrotherapy and all types of shock treatment were subsequently halted. Meprobamate was found to help in the treatment of alcoholics by 1956. By 1957, over 36 million prescriptions had been filled for meprobamate in the US alone, a billion pills had been manufactured, and it accounted for fully a third of all prescriptions written. Berger, clinical director of Wallace Laboratories, described it as a relaxant of the central nervous system, whereas other tranquilizers suppressed it. A University of Michigan study found that meprobamate affected driving skills. Though patients reported being able to relax more easily, meprobamate did not completely alleviate their tense feelings. The disclosures came at a special scientific meeting at the Barbizon Plaza Hotel in New York City, at which Aldous Huxley addressed an evening session. He predicted the development of many chemicals "capable of changing the quality of human consciousness", in the next few years.


title: Meprobamate

text: Meprobamate was one of the first drugs to be widely advertised to the general public, with user Milton Berle promoting the drug heavily on his television show, calling himself 'Uncle Miltown'. Miltown soon became ubiquitous in 1950s American life, with 1 in 20 Americans having used it by late 1956, and popular comedians making as many jokes about the drug as they did about Elvis Presley.


title: Meprobamate

text: In January 1960, Carter Products, Inc. and American Home Products Corporation (which marketed meprobamate as Equanil) were charged with having conspired to monopolize the market in mild tranquilizers. It was revealed that the sale of meprobamate earned $40,000,000 for the defendants. Of this amount, American Home Products accounted for about two-thirds and Carter about one-third. The U.S. government sought an order mandating that Carter make its meprobamate patent available at no charge to any company desiring to use it.


title: Meprobamate

text: In April 1965, meprobamate was removed from the list of tranquilizers when experts ruled that the drug was a sedative, instead. The "U.S. Pharmacopoeia" published the ruling. At the same time, the "Medical Letter" disclosed that meprobamate could be addictive at doses not much above recommended. In December 1967, meprobamate was placed under abuse control amendments to the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. Records on production and distribution were required to be kept. Limits were placed on prescription duration and refills.


title: Meprobamate

text: Production continued throughout the 1960s, but by 1970, meprobamate was listed as a controlled substance after it was discovered to cause physical and psychological dependence.


title: Meprobamate

text: On January 19, 2012, the European Medicines Agency withdrew marketing authorization in the European Union for all medicines containing meprobamate, "due to serious side effects seen with the medicine." The Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use "concluded that the benefits of meprobamate do not outweigh its risks." In October 2013, Canada also withdrew marketing authorization.


title: Meprobamate

text: Although it was marketed as being safer, meprobamate has most of the pharmacological effects and dangers of barbiturates and acts at the barbiturate binding site (though it is less sedating at effective doses). It is reported to have some anticonvulsant properties against absence seizures, but can exacerbate generalized tonic-clonic seizures.


title: Meprobamate

text: Meprobamate's mechanism of action is not completely known. It has been shown in animal studies to have effects at multiple sites in the central nervous system, including the thalamus and limbic system. Meprobamate binds to GABA receptors which interrupts neuronal communication in the reticular formation and spinal cord, causing sedation and altered perception of pain. Meprobamate has the ability to activate currents even in the absence of GABA. This relatively unique property makes meprobamate exceptionally dangerous when used in combination with other GABA-mediated drugs (including alcohol). It is also a potent adenosine reuptake inhibitor. Related drugs include carisoprodol and tybamate (prodrugs of meprobamate), phenprobamate, felbamate, mebutamate, and methocarbamol.


title: Meprobamate

text: Meprobamate is licensed for the short-term relief of anxiety, although whether the purported antianxiety effects of meprobamate are separable from its sedative effects is not known. Its effectiveness as a selective agent for the treatment of anxiety has not been proven in humans, and is not used as often as the benzodiazepines for this purpose.


title: Meprobamate

text: Meprobamate is available in 200- and 400-mg tablets for oral administration. It is also a component of the combination drug Equagesic (discontinued in the UK in 2002), acting as a muscle relaxant.


title: Meprobamate

text: Meprobamate, like barbiturates, possesses an analgesic/anesthetic potential. It is also found as a component of the combination analgesic Stopayne capsules (along with paracetamol (acetaminophen), caffeine, and codeine phosphate).


title: Meprobamate

text: Symptoms of meprobamate overdose include drowsiness, headache, sluggishness, unresponsiveness, or coma; loss of muscle control; severe impairment or cessation of breathing; or shock. Death has been reported with ingestion of as little as 12 g of meprobamate and survival with as much as 40 g. In an overdose, meprobamate tablets may form a gastric bezoar, requiring physical removal of the undissolved mass of tablets through an endoscope; therefore, administration of activated charcoal should be considered even after 4 or more hours or if levels are rising.


title: Meprobamate

text: Meprobamate is a Schedule IV drug (US) (S5 in South Africa) under the Convention on Psychotropic Substances. With protracted use, it can cause physical dependence and a potentially life-threatening abstinence syndrome similar to that of barbiturates and alcohol (delirium tremens). For this reason, discontinuation is often achieved through an extended regimen of slowly decreasing doses over a period of weeks or even months. Alternatively, the patient may be switched to a longer-acting gabaergic agent such as diazepam (in a manner similar to the use of methadone therapy for opiate addiction) before attempting tapering.


title: Meprobamate

text: While an acute cerebral edema is widely believed to be the initial cause of actor and martial artist Bruce Lee's death in 1973, another factor which may have compounded and thereby contributed to Lee’s death, was his decision to take Equagesic (a brand which combined meprobamate and aspirin).


title: Meprobamate

text: "In the January 2008 issue of Drug Safety Update, a stop press article announced the recent European review of carisoprodol for which the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use concluded that the risks of treatment outweigh the benefits. This review was triggered by concerns from the Norwegian Medical Agency that carisoprodol (converted to meprobamate after administration) was associated with increased risk of abuse, addiction, intoxication, and psychomotor impairment." February 2008.


title: Meprobamate

text: The European Medicines Agency recommended suspension of marketing authorisations for meprobamate-containing medicines in the European Union in January 2012.


title: Meprobamate

text: Meprobamate, 2-methyl-2-propyl-1,3-propanediol dicarbamate is synthesized by the reaction of 2-methylvaleraldehyde with two molecules of formaldehyde and the subsequent transformation of the resulting 2-methyl-2-propylpropan-1,3-diol into the dicarbamate via successive reactions with phosgene and ammonia.


title: Maronites

text: The Maronites (; ) are a Christian ethnoreligious group native to the Eastern Mediterranean and Levant region of the Middle East, whose members traditionally belong to the Maronite Church, with the largest concentration long residing near Mount Lebanon in modern Lebanon. The Maronite Church is an Eastern Catholic particular church in full communion with the Pope and the rest of the Catholic Church, whose membership also includes non-ethnic Maronites.


title: Maronites

text: The Maronites derive their name from the Syriac Christian saint Maron, some of whose followers migrated to the area of Mount Lebanon from their previous place of residence around the area of Antioch, and established the nucleus of the Antiochene Syriac Maronite Church. Christianity in Lebanon has a long and continuous history. Biblical scriptures purport that Peter and Paul evangelized the Phoenicians, whom they affiliated to the ancient patriarchate of Antioch. The spread of Christianity in Lebanon was very slow where paganism persisted, especially in the mountaintop strongholds of Mount Lebanon. Saint Maron sent Abraham of Cyrrhus, often referred to as the Apostle of Lebanon, to convert the still significant pagan population of Lebanon to Christianity. The area's inhabitants renamed the Adonis River the Abraham River after Saint Abraham preached there.


title: Maronites

text: The early Maronites were Hellenized Semites, natives of Byzantine Syria who spoke Greek and Syriac, yet identified with the Greek-speaking populace of Constantinople and Antioch. They were able to maintain an independent status in Mount Lebanon and its coastline after the Muslim conquest of the Levant, keeping their Christian religion, and even the distinctive Western Aramaic language as late as the 19th century. Some Maronites argue that they are of Mardaite ancestry, and other historians such as the Clement Joseph, Syriac Catholic Archbishop of Damascus, David reject the identification of Maronites with the Mandates.


title: Maronites

text: Mass emigration to the Americas at the outset of the 20th century, famine during World War I that killed an estimated one third to one half of the population, the 1860 Mount Lebanon civil war and the Lebanese Civil War between 1975-90 greatly decreased their numbers in the Levant; however Maronites today form more than one quarter of the total population of modern-day Lebanon. Though concentrated in Lebanon, Maronites also show presence in the neighboring Levant, as well as a significant part in the Lebanese diaspora in the Americas, Europe, Australia, and Africa.


title: Maronites

text: The Antiochene Syriac Maronite Church, under the Patriarch of Antioch, has branches in nearly all countries where Maronite Christian communities live, in both the Levant and the Lebanese diaspora.


title: Maronites

text: The Maronites and the Druze founded modern Lebanon in Ottoman Lebanon in the early 18th century, through the ruling and social system known as the "Maronite-Druze dualism" in the Ottoman Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate. All Lebanese presidents, with the exception of Charles Debbas and Petro Trad, have been Maronites as part of a continued tradition of the National Pact, by which the Prime Minister has historically been a Sunni Muslim and the Speaker of the National Assembly has historically been a Shi'ite.


title: Maronites

text: Maronites derive their name from Maron, a 4th-century Syriac Christian saint venerated by multiple Christian traditions. He is often mistaken with John Maron, the first Maronite Patriarch, who ruled 685-707.


title: Maronites

text: The cultural and linguistic heritage of the Lebanese people is a blend of both indigenous Phoenician elements and the foreign cultures that have come to rule the land and its people over the course of thousands of years. In a 2013 interview, Pierre Zalloua, a Lebanese biologist who took part in the National Geographic Society's Genographic Project, pointed out that genetic variation preceded religious variation and divisions: "Lebanon already had well-differentiated communities with their own genetic peculiarities, but not significant differences, and religions came as layers of paint on top. There is no distinct pattern that shows that one community carries significantly more Phoenician than another."


title: Maronites

text: Although Christianity existed in Roman Phoenice since the time of the Apostles, Christians were a minority among the majority pagans by the time Emperor Theodosius I issued The Edict of Thessalonica in 380 AD. The coastal cities of Tyre and Sidon remained prosperous during Roman rule, but Phoenicia had ceased to be the maritime empire it once was centuries ago and the north of Berytus (Beirut) and the mountains of Lebanon concentrated a big part of the intellectual and religious activities. Very few Roman temples in Phoenicia were built in the coastal cities, hence the reason for the reign of paganism in the interior of the land.


title: Maronites

text: The Maronite movement reached Lebanon when in 402 AD Saint Maron's first disciple, Abraham of Cyrrhus, who was called the Apostle of Lebanon, realized that there were many non-Christians in Lebanon and so he set out to convert the Phoenician inhabitants of the coastal lines and mountains of Lebanon, introducing them to the way of Saint Maron. Many Phoenician pagans became Maronite Christians.


title: Maronites

text: In 451 AD, the Maronites followed the Council of Chalcedon, rejecting miaphysitisim and maintaining full communion with the then united Orthodox Catholic Church. In 517 AD, a conflict between the Maronites and the Miaphysite Jacobite Syriacs caused the massacre of 350 Maronite monks.


title: Maronites

text: Escaping persecution following the Muslim conquest of the Levant in 637 AD, the Maronites living in the low lands and coastal cities confined themselves to the Mount Lebanon and to the coastal cities of the Phoenician coast which did not particularly interest the Arabs; the area consisting of those regions extending from Sidon in the South and up to Batroun and the south of Tripoli in the north. The Arab conquerors settled in various cities of the Phoenician coast to reduce Byzantine interference even though they were not interested in maritime trade. Since the mountains offered no attraction to them so the Maronites continued to find refuge from colonial empires in the Mountains of Lebanon, especially Qadisha Valley.


title: Maronites

text: The Maronites raided the newly Arab towns after the conquest of 637 AD and were later joined by the Mardaites in repelling the Arab army. The Mardaites were mountaineers from the Taurus that Emperor Constantine IV recruited to infiltrate Lebanon and join the Maronites to carry attacks against the Arab invaders. The resistance movement became known as Marada, meaning rebels.


title: Maronites

text: In 685 AD, the Maronites appointed a Patriarch for themselves, St. John Maron, who became the first Patriarch on the Maronite Church. The appointing of a Patriarch supposedly made the Byzantine Emperor furious, which led to the widely spread story among the Maronites of their persecution by the Byzantines. Historically the group has presented it as follows:


title: Maronites

text: In 694 AD, Emperor Justinian II sent an army to attack the Maronites, destroying their monastery in the Orontes valley and killing 500 monks. The Maronites followed up by leading their army against the Byzantines at Amioun and defeated the Byzantine army in a crushing victory that cost Constantinople two of its best generals. Following the Byzantine persecutions in the Orontes valley, many Aramean Maronite monks left their lands in the Orontes valley and joined the Phoenician Maronites in the mountains of Lebanon. The Maronite Church began to grow then in the valleys of Lebanon.


title: Maronites

text: It is likely that this did not in fact happen given the insufficient literature to support the claim. There is an increasingly apparent body of evidence that seem to ascertain the contrary: That there was not a Byzantine military expedition into the mountains of the Levant at the height of Umayyad Caliphate power in the late 7th century. It seems that emperor Justinian did no such thing; the territory that the Maronites were occupying was directly under Muslim authority, with no Byzantine expedition recorded. The location of the Byzantine at this point in time further correlates with these events.


title: Maronites

text: The Maronites managed then to become "civilly semiautonomous" where they settled and kept speaking Western Aramaic in daily life and Syriac language for their liturgy. The Christians that chose to remain in the newly Arab-controlled areas and inhabited by the Arab invaders gradually became a minority and many of those converted to Islam in order to escape taxation and to further their own political and professional advancement.


title: Maronites

text: For the next 300 years, the Maronites raided and retreated within the region keeping their Christian faith. In 936, the monastery of Beth Moroon (funded by the Byzantine emperor Marcian in Saint Maroun's honour) and a few other monasteries were completely destroyed by the Arabs who attacked the Maronites on religious grounds. Aside from this they were isolated from most of the world for much of the end of the millennium.


title: Maronites

text: The Maronites welcomed the conquering Christians of the First Crusade in 1096 AD. Around the late 12th century, according to William of Tyre, the Maronites numbered 40,000 people. During the several centuries of separation from the rest of the Christian world, they often claim to have been in full communion with the Catholic Church throughout. Despite this the majority of the accounts of those interacting with them at the time indicate that they were monothelites; notable figures from the era such as the medieval historian Jacques de Vitry and the chronicler of the Pope, William of Tyre affirming this, the latter of which (William Tyre) recorded both their kindness upon receiving him and the monothelitic views of which they recanted, stating; "The heresy of Maro and his followers is and was that in our Lord Jesus Christ, there exists and did exist from the beginning one will and one energy only, as may be learned from the sixth council, which as is well known, was assembled against them and in which they suffered sentence of condemnation. Now however...they repented all of these heresies and returned to the catholic church". The Maronites have also had a presence in Cyprus since the early 9th century and many Maronites went there following the Sultan Saladin's successful Siege of Jerusalem in 1187 AD.


title: Maronites

text: During the papacy of Pope Gregory XIII (1572-1585), steps were taken to bring the Maronites still closer to Rome. The Maronite College in Rome ("Pontificio Collegio dei Maroniti") being founded by Gregory XIII in 1584. By the 17th century, the Maronites had developed a strong natural liking for Europe – particularly France.


title: Maronites

text: The relationship between the Druze and Christians has been characterized by harmony and peaceful coexistence, with amicable relations between the two groups prevailing throughout history, with the exception of some periods, including 1860 Mount Lebanon civil war. In the 19th century, thousands of Maronites were massacred by the Lebanese Druze during the 1860 conflict. According to some estimates about 11,000 Lebanese Christians (including Maronites) were killed; over 4,000 died from hunger and disease as a result of the war.


title: Maronites

text: After the 1860 massacres, many Maronites fled to Egypt. Antonios Bachaalany, a Maronite from Salima (Baabda district) was the first emigrant to the New World, where he reached the United States in 1854 and died there two years later.


title: Maronites

text: According to the Maronite church, there were approximately 1,062,000 Maronites in Lebanon in 1994, where they constitute up to 32% of the population. Under the terms of an informal agreement, known as the National Pact, between the various political and religious leaders of Lebanon, the president of the country must be a Maronite Christian.


title: Maronites

text: There is also a small Maronite Christian community in Syria. In 2017, the "Annuario Pontificio" reported that 3,300 people belonged to the Archeparchy of Aleppo, 15,000 in the Archeparchy of Damascus and 45,000 in the Eparchy of Lattaquié). In 2015, the BBC placed the number of Maronites in Syria at between 28,000 and 60,000.


title: Maronites

text: Maronites first migrated to Cyprus in the 8th century, and there are approximately 5,800 Maronites on the island today, the vast majority in the Republic of Cyprus. The community historically spoke Cypriot Maronite Arabic, but today Cypriot Maronites speak the Greek language, with the Cypriot government designating Cypriot Maronite Arabic as a dialect.


title: Maronites

text: A Maronite community of about 11,000 people lives in Israel. The 2017 "Annuario Pontificio" reported that 10,000 people belonged to the Maronite Catholic Archeparchy of Haifa and the Holy Land and 504 people belonged to the Exarchate of Jerusalem and Palestine.


title: Maronites

text: According to the "Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Africa and the Middle East", "accurate figures are not available, but it is probable that the Maronite diaspora of over 2 million individuals is about two times larger" than the Maronite population living in their historic homelands in Lebanon, Syria, and Israel.


title: Maronites

text: According to the "Annuario Pontificio", in 2017 the Eparchy of San Charbel in Buenos Aires, Argentina, has 750,000 members; the Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon of São Paulo, Brazil, had 501,000 members; the Eparchy of Saint Maron of Sydney, Australia, had 152,300 members; the Eparchy of Saint Maron of Montreal, Canada, had 89,775 members; the Eparchy of Our Lady of the Martyrs of Lebanon in Mexico had 159,403 members; the Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon of Los Angeles in the United States had 46,000 members; and the Eparchy of Saint Maron of Brooklyn in the United States had 33,000 members.


title: Maronites

text: According to the "Annuario Pontificio", 50,944 people belonged to the Maronite Catholic Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon of Paris in 2017. In Europe, some Belgian Maronites are involved in the trade of diamonds in the diamond district of Antwerp.


title: Maronites

text: According to the "Annuario Pontificio", 66,495 belonged to the Apostolic Exarchate of West and Central Africa (Nigeria) in 2017.


title: Maronites

text: With only two exceptions, all Lebanese presidents have been Maronites as part of a tradition that persists as part of the National Pact, by which the Prime Minister has historically been a Sunni Muslim and the Speaker of the National Assembly has historically been a Shia Muslim.


title: Maronites

text: People born into Christian families or clans who have either Aramaic or Maronite cultural heritage are considered an ethnicity separate from Israeli Arabs and since 2014 can register themselves as Arameans. The Christians who have applied so far for recognition as Aramean are mostly Galilean Maronites, who trace their culture, ancestry and language to an Aramaic-speaking, pre-Arab population of the Levant.


title: Maronites

text: In addition, some 500 Christian adherents of the Syriac Catholic Church in Israel are expected to apply for the recreated ethnic status, as well as several hundred Aramaic-speaking adherents of the Syriac Orthodox Church. Though supported by Gabriel Naddaf, the move was condemned by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, which described it as "an attempt to divide the Palestinian minority in Israel".


title: Maronites

text: This recognition comes after about seven years of activity by the Aramean Christian Foundation in Israel, led by IDF Major Shadi Khalloul Risho and the Israeli Christian Recruitment Forum, headed by Father Gabriel Naddaf of the Greek-Orthodox Church and Major Ihab Shlayan. Shadi Khalloul Risho is also a member of the Israeli right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party, and was placed 15th in the 2015 parliamentary elections in the party's member list; the party however received only 5 seats.


title: Maronites

text: The followers of the Maronite Church form a part of the Syriac Christians and belong to the West Syriac Rite. The Maronite Syriac Church of Antioch traces its foundation to Maron, an early 4th-century Syriac monk venerated as a saint. Before the conquest by Arabian Muslims reached Lebanon, the Lebanese people, including those who would become Muslim and the majority who would remain Christian, spoke a dialect of Aramaic called Syriac. Syriac remains the liturgical language of the Maronite Church.


title: Maronites

text: Phoenicianism is an identity on the part of Lebanese Christians that has developed into an integrated ideology led by key thinkers, but there are a few who have stood out more than others: Charles Corm, Michel Chiha, and Said Aql in their promotion of Phoenicianism. In post civil-war Lebanon since the Taif agreement, politically Phoenicianism is restricted to a small group.


title: Maronites

text: Among leaders of the movement, Etienne Saqr, Said Akl, Charles Malik, Camille Chamoun, and Bachir Gemayel have been notable names, some going as far as voicing anti-Arab views. In his book the Israeli writer Mordechai Nisan, who at times met with some of them during the war, quoted Said Akl, a famous Lebanese poet and philosopher, as saying; "I would cut off my right hand, and not associate myself to an Arab." Akl believes in emphasizing the Phoenician legacy of the Lebanese people and has promoted the use of the Lebanese dialect written in a modified Latin alphabet, rather than the Arabic one, although both alphabets have descended from the Phoenician alphabet.


title: Maronites

text: In opposition to such views, Arabism was affirmed at the March 1936 Congress of the Coast and Four Districts, when the Muslim leadership at the conference made the declaration that Lebanon was an Arab country, indistinguishable from its Arab neighbors. In the April 1936 Beirut municipal elections, Christian and Muslim politicians were divided along Phoenician and Arab lines in the matter of whether the Lebanese coast should be claimed by Syria or given to Lebanon, increasing the already mounting tensions between the two communities. Phoenicianism is still disputed by many Arabist scholars who have on occasion tried to convince its adherents to abandon their claims as false, and to embrace and accept the Arab identity instead. This conflict of ideas of identity is believed to be one of the pivotal disputes between the Muslim and Christian populations of Lebanon and what mainly divides the country to the detriment of national unity.


title: Maronites

text: In general it appears that Muslims focus more on the Arab identity of the Lebanese history and culture whereas the Christian communities–especially the Maronites, focus on their history and struggles as an ethnoreligious group as distinct from Arab identity and the Arab world, while also reaffirming the Lebanese identity, as well as refraining from Arab characterization as it would deny them their striving achievement of having fended off the Arabs and Turks physically, culturally, and spiritually since their conception. The Maronite perseverance led to their existence even to today.


title: Maronites

text: Lebanese Maronites are known to be specifically linked to the root of Lebanese Nationalism and opposition to Pan-Arabism in Lebanon, this being the case during 1958 Lebanon crisis. When Muslim Arab nationalists backed by Gamel Abdel Nasser tried to overthrow the then Maronite dominated government in power, due to displeasure at the government's "pro-western" policies and their lack of commitment and duty to the so-called "Arab brotherhood" by preferring to keep Lebanon away from the Arab League and the political confrontations of the Middle East. A more hard-nosed nationalism among some Maronites leaders, who saw Lebanese nationalism more in terms of its confessional roots and failed to be carried away by Chiha's vision, clung to a more security-minded view of Lebanon. They regarded the national project as mainly a program for the security of Maronites and a bulwark against threats from Muslims and their hinterland.


title: Maronites

text: The right-wing yet secular Guardians of the Cedars, with its exiled Leader and founder Etienne Saqr (also the father of singers Karol Sakr and Pascale Sakr) took no sectarian stance and even had Muslim members who joined in their radical stance against Arabism and Palestinian forces in Lebanon. Saqr summarized his party's view on Arab Identity in their official ideological manifesto by stating;


title: Maronites

text: On an "Al Jazeera" special dedicated to the political Christian clans of Lebanon and their struggle for power in the 2009 election entitled, "Lebanon: The Family Business", the issue of identity was brought up on several occasions, by various politicians including Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, who claimed that all Lebanese lack somewhat of a real identity and the country is yet to discover one everybody could agree on. Sami Gemayel, of the Gemayel clan and son of former president Amin Gemayel, stated he did not consider himself an Arab but instead identified himself as a Syriac Christian, going on to explain that to him and many Lebanese the "acceptance" of Lebanon's "Arab identity" according to the Taef Agreement wasn't something that they "accepted" but instead were forced into signing through pressure.


title: Maronites

text: In a speech in 2009 to a crowd of Christian Kataeb supporters Gemayel declared that he felt there was importance in Christians in Lebanon finding an identity and went on to state what he finds identification with as a Lebanese Christian, concluding with a purposeful exclusion of Arabism in the segment. The speech met with applause afterward from the audience;


title: Maronites

text: Etienne Sakr, of the Guardians of the Cedars Lebanese party, in an interview responded "We are not Arabs" to an interview question about the Guardians of the Cedars' ideology of Lebanon being Lebanese. He continued by talking about how describing Lebanon as being not Arab was a crime in present-day Lebanon, about the Lebanese Civil War, and about Arabism as being a first step towards Islamism, claiming that "the Arabs want to annex Lebanon" and in order to do this "to push the Christians out (of Lebanon)", this being "the plan since 1975", among other issues.


title: Maronites

text: During a final session of the Lebanese Parliament, a Marada Maronite MP stated his identity as an Arab: "I, the Maronite Christian Lebanese Arab, grandson of Patriarch Estefan Doueihy, declare my pride to be a part of our people’s resistance in the South. Can one renounce what guarantees his rights?"


title: Maronites

text: Maronite Deacon Soubhi Makhoul, administrator for the Maronite Exarchate in Jerusalem, has said "The Maronites are Arabs, we are part of the Arab world. And although it’s important to revive our language and maintain our heritage, the church is very outspoken against the campaign of these people.”


title: Maronites

text: Many Maronites consider themselves the descendants of Arameans who lived in the Levant. Furthermore they identify the founder of the church, Saint Maron as a Syriac-speaking hermit of Aramean origins.


title: Maronites

text: In 2014, Israel recognize the Aramean community within its borders as a national minority, allowing some of the Christians in Israel to be registered as "Aramean", instead of "Arab" or "Unclassified". The Christians, who may apply for recognition as Aramean, are mostly Galilean Maronites, who trace their culture, ancestry and language to Arameans.


title: Maronites

text: The Maronites belong to the Maronite Syriac Church of Antioch (a former ancient Greek city now in Hatay Province, Turkey) and are an Eastern Catholic Syriac Church, using the Antiochian Rite, that had returned to its communion with Rome since 1180 A.D., although the official view of the Contemporary Maronite Church is that it had never accepted either the Monophysitic views held by their Syriac neighbours, which were condemned in the Council of Chalcedon, or the failed compromise doctrine of Monothelitism (despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary of the latter claim being found in contemporary and medieval sources, with evidence that they were staunchly Monothelites for several centuries, beginning in the early 7th century after their rejection of the sixth ecumenical council). The Maronite Patriarch is traditionally seated in Bkerke north of Beirut.


title: Maronites

text: Modern Maronites often adopt French or other Western European given names (with biblical origins) for their children, including Michel, Marc, Marie, Georges, Carole, Charles, Antoine, Joseph, Pierre, Christian, Christelle and Rodrigue. Other common names are strictly Christian and are Aramaic, or Arabic, forms of biblical, Hebrew, or Greek Christian names, such as Antun (Anthony or Antonios), Butros (Peter), Boulos (Paul), Semaan or Shamaoun (Simon or Simeon), Jergyes (George), Elie (Ilyas or Elias), Iskander (Alexander), Hannah, Katrina (Catherine) and Beshara (literally Good News in reference to the Gospel). Other common names are Sarkis (Sergius) and Bakhos (Bacchus), while others are common both among Christians and Muslims, such as Youssef (Joseph), Ibrahim (Abraham), and Maryam (Mary).


title: Maronites

text: Some Maronite Christians are named in honour of Maronite saints, including the Aramaic names Maro(u)n (after their patron saint Maron), Nimtullah, Charbel or Sharbel after Saint Charbel Makhluf and Rafqa (Rebecca).


title: Maronites

text: Maronites were persecuted historically and continuously during the period of Arab conquests of the Middle East (Mount Lebanon) and under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. The Great Famine of Mount Lebanon, which occurred between 1915 and 1918, was caused by multiple factors; one was the Ottoman policy of acquiring all food products in the region to be used for the Ottoman army and administration, and barring food from being sent to the Maronite Christian population of Mount Lebanon, effectively condemning them to starvation. The death of 200,000 Maronite Christians and other people of Mount Lebanon was mainly due to starvation and disease It was suggested at the time that the starvation of the Maronites was a Ottoman policy aimed at destroying the Maronites, in keeping with the treatment of Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks.


title: Maronites

text: Maronite Christians felt a sense of alienation, exclusion, and targeting as a result of Pan-Arabism and Islamism in Lebanon. Part of its historic suffering is the Damour massacre by the PLO., as well as the Beirut Blast in August 2020. Until recently, the Cypriot Maronites battled to preserve their ancestral language. The Maronite monks maintain that Lebanon is synonymous with Maronite history and ethos; that its Maronitism antedates the Arab conquest of Lebanon and that Arabism is only a historical accident. The Maronites experienced mass persecution under the Ottoman Turks, who massacred and mistreated Maronites for their faith, disallowing them from owning horses and forcing them to wear only black clothing. The Ottoman Empire's WW1 policies, in combination with Allied Forces Naval blockade, resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of Maronites of Mount Lebanon, with total fatalities estimated between 100-300 thousand people that died from malnutrition, disease and starvation. The Lebanese Druze also persecuted the Maronites, and massacred in excess of 20,000 of them in the mid-1800s. However, agreements have been held with the Druze. Moreover, the Maronites later emerged as the most dominant group in Lebanon, a status they held until the sectarian conflict that resulted in the Lebanese Civil War.


title: Sean Avery

text: Sean Christopher Avery (born April 10, 1980) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player. During his career in the National Hockey League (NHL), he played left wing for the Detroit Red Wings, Los Angeles Kings, New York Rangers and Dallas Stars, gaining recognition for controversial and disrespectful behavior both on and off the ice. His agitating playing style led to multiple teams waiving him and to having a contract terminated. He led the league in penalty minutes twice, during the 2003–04 and 2005–06 NHL seasons.


title: Sean Avery

text: After retiring in 2012, Avery focused full-time on working in the creative industry. He has worked in fashion as an intern at "Vogue" magazine, as a model, and as a restaurateur. Avery's memoir, "Ice Capades: A Memoir of Fast Living and Tough Hockey", was published by Blue Rider Press in 2017. He has hosted a weekly podcast, "No Gruffs Given with Sean Avery" since December of 2019.


title: Sean Avery

text: Avery was born in North York, Ontario, the son of Al and Marlene Avery, both teachers. He grew up in Pickering, Ontario, where he attended Dunbarton High School. He has a younger brother named Scott.


title: Sean Avery

text: Prior to joining the NHL, Avery played for the Owen Sound Platers and the Kingston Frontenacs of the Ontario Hockey League (OHL).


title: Sean Avery

text: Avery was signed by the Detroit Red Wings as a free agent in 1999. He played one final season in the OHL before turning professional in 2000 with the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks of the American Hockey League (AHL). Avery first played in the NHL during the 2001–02 season, playing 36 games with the Red Wings and 36 in the minors. The Red Wings went on to win the Stanley Cup that season but Avery did not play in the playoffs nor did he play the required 41 games to get his name engraved on the Cup.


title: Sean Avery

text: Midway through the 2002–03 season, Avery was traded to the Los Angeles Kings, along with defenseman Maxim Kuznetsov and two draft picks for Mathieu Schneider. He finished the season with 15 points in 51 games.


title: Sean Avery

text: In 2003–04, Avery played 76 games for the Kings, scoring 9 goals to go along with 19 assists. He also led the NHL in penalty minutes with 261.


title: Sean Avery

text: During the 2004–05 NHL lockout, Avery briefly played in the Finnish Elite League with the Lahti Pelicans, and in the United Hockey League for the Motor City Mechanics. Along with 149 penalty minutes in just 16 games, he tallied 26 points for the Mechanics, including two hat tricks, making him the first player in Mechanics history to record two hat tricks in one season. Several players spoke publicly of their dissatisfaction with the NHL Players' Association’s leadership during the lockout, including Avery, who publicly blamed NHLPA president Bob Goodenow for wasting an entire season with a battle that alienated fans and yielded few results.


title: Sean Avery

text: Avery led the league in penalty minutes for the second consecutive season in 2005-06, with 257. With three games remaining, the Kings unofficially suspended Avery for the remainder of the season after he refused to do a drill in practice. Nevertheless, the team re-signed him to a one-year deal.


title: Sean Avery

text: During his time with the Kings, Avery has been said to have mocked Dustin Brown about his lisp. Former Kings' teammate Ian Laperrière said it "was bullying, like you might see in high school." But according to other players and coaches, Brown's lisp was not Avery's target, Brown's then girlfriend, now wife, Nicole was. Avery did not think Nicole Brown was glamorous enough to be a "girlfriend of a hockey player in Hollywood."


title: Sean Avery

text: On February 5, 2007, in the middle of the 2006–07 season, Avery was traded to the New York Rangers. After joining the Rangers, he scored 20 points in 29 games to help the team complete a 17–4–6 end-of-season run to qualify for the playoffs. On March 17, Avery recorded a single-game career-high four points (one goal and three assists) against the Boston Bruins in a 7–0 victory. Avery played in his first career playoff game on April 12 against the Atlanta Thrashers, recording his first playoff points with a goal and an assist.


title: Sean Avery

text: On August 1, 2007, Avery, as a restricted free agent, earned an arbitration award of $1.9 million for the 2007–08 season, which the Rangers accepted.


title: Sean Avery

text: On February 16, 2008, in a game against the Buffalo Sabres, Avery scored a goal 10 seconds into the game, setting a record for fastest goal scored by a Ranger on home ice.


title: Sean Avery

text: Avery signed a four-year, $15.5 million contract with the Dallas Stars on July 2, 2008. In December 2008, the NHL suspended Avery after he made controversial remarks about other players dating his ex-girlfriends. After serving a six-game suspension and completing a counseling program, the Stars placed Avery on waivers on February 7, 2009.


title: Sean Avery

text: After clearing waivers on February 9, 2009, Avery was assigned to the Hartford Wolf Pack, the Rangers' AHL affiliate, although he remained a member of the Stars organization (that season, the Stars had no AHL affiliate). On March 2, Avery was placed on re-entry waivers by Dallas, and claimed by the Rangers the following day. On January 5, 2010, in a game against the Stars, his former team, Avery recorded one goal and three assists.


title: Sean Avery

text: On October 4, 2011, the Rangers waived Avery. He later cleared waivers and re-joined the Rangers for their November 5 game against the Montreal Canadiens. After being a healthy scratch for nine games, Avery was once again placed on waivers on December 30, 2011. Since no NHL team claimed him, he returned to the AHL's Connecticut Whale. His last game played with the Whale was on January 27, 2012. He was left off the Whale's Clear Day list of players eligible to play for the remainder of the AHL season submitted on March 5, and told to no longer report to games or practices.


title: Sean Avery

text: On March 12, 2012, Avery retired. He announced his retirement on "Watch What Happens Live" with host Andy Cohen.


title: Sean Avery

text: On February 23, 2022, the Orlando Solar Bears of the ECHL signed Avery to a standard player contract, putting him on the team's reserve list. Orlando released him two days later. Avery did not play in a game for the Solar Bears.


title: Sean Avery

text: During and after his hockey career, Avery has been involved in a number of controversies. The NHL and his teams have disciplined him multiple times. Outside of hockey, he has a history of bullying co-workers, support staff, and his own mother-in-law.


title: Sean Avery

text: The lack of respect for others started early in his career; Red Wings general manager Ken Holland said he traded Avery during the 2002–03 season because he did not live up to the standards of an NHL professional.


title: Sean Avery

text: Avery has bullied people including Dustin Brown and Martin Brodeur. One former teammate said of Avery, "He is all smoke and mirrors. He doesn’t have a lot of friends in any line of work."


title: Sean Avery

text: In November 2007, Howard Berger, a reporter for Toronto radio station FAN 590 stated that an unnamed Rangers player had accused Avery of commenting about Toronto Maple Leafs player Jason Blake's battle with leukemia, prior to a pre-game confrontation between Avery and Toronto's Darcy Tucker. Avery, who denied the allegation, received an NHL-maximum $2500 fine, and Tucker received a $1000 fine.


title: Sean Avery

text: During Game 3 of the 2008 Eastern Conference Quarter-Finals against the New Jersey Devils, Avery turned his back on the play in order to face and screen Devils goaltender Martin Brodeur during a two-man advantage on the power play. He waved his hands and stick in front of Brodeur in an attempt to distract him and block his view. The puck was later cleared out of the Devils' zone but on the second Rangers offensive attack, Avery scored a power play goal.


title: Sean Avery

text: Notable in this instance was that Avery had spent the initial part of the play facing Brodeur while ignoring the puck, with his back to the play (normally, the player screening the goaltender is facing the play). The following day, the NHL issued an interpretation of the league's unsportsmanlike conduct rule to cover actions such as the one employed by Avery, which would now result in a minor penalty. This became known colloquially as "The Avery Rule".


title: Sean Avery

text: Avery's tactics during that series against the Devils earned multiple power plays, and he scored in each of the first three games. The Rangers won the series in five games.


title: Sean Avery

text: On November 1, 2008, following a game with the Stars against the Boston Bruins, Avery was accused of shouting obscenities at a fan who had been heckling him during the game. A report of complaint was filed with the NHL, but no action was taken.


title: Sean Avery

text: On December 2, 2008, prior to the Stars' morning skate in preparation for a game against the Calgary Flames, Avery approached the assembled reporters in the dressing room and stated, "I just want to comment on how it's become like a common thing in the NHL for guys to fall in love with my sloppy seconds. I don't know what that's about, but enjoy the game tonight." At the time, two of Avery's ex-girlfriends were dating fellow NHL players – actress Elisha Cuthbert was dating Flames defenseman Dion Phaneuf, and model Rachel Hunter was dating Kings center Jarret Stoll.


title: Sean Avery

text: Within hours, the NHL suspended Avery indefinitely for "conduct detrimental to the league or the game of hockey". His comments were met with near-unanimous condemnation by the Stars organization, fellow players, and fans alike. Stars owner Tom Hicks said that the team would have suspended Avery had the NHL not acted first. Avery apologized the next day, calling his actions "inappropriate" and "a bad attempt to build excitement for the game".


title: Sean Avery

text: On December 5, the NHL fixed Avery's suspension at six games, retroactive to the December 2 game against the Flames. He agreed to undergo anger management counseling due to what the NHL called unacceptable and antisocial behavior. Commissioner Gary Bettman noted that both he and league disciplinarian Colin Campbell had warned Avery several times before about his behavior. On December 14, after the last game of Avery's suspension, the Stars announced that Avery would not return to the team. One factor in the Stars decision was that coach Dave Tippett and several of the players, including Mike Modano and Marty Turco, let it be known they weren't willing to take him back on the team. Tippett had warned Avery not to talk to the media about his former girlfriends, and was outraged when he did so. According to TSN's James Duthie, Avery's teammates had soured on him not long after he arrived. The "sloppy seconds" incident was the last straw, and Hicks had been actively looking to cut ties with him while the suspension was underway.


title: Sean Avery

text: Prior to his second stint with the Rangers, Avery had been called out on numerous occasions by then TSN commentator, future Rangers coach and Stanley Cup winner John Tortorella, who is noted for his no-nonsense behavior with his players and the press. After rejoining the Rangers, Avery’s relationship with Tortorella was uneasy, although in Avery's book he reports there were moments of mutual admiration. Nearly a year after Avery retired, on March 30, 2013, following the Rangers’ second consecutive shutout loss, Avery posted on his Twitter account about his former coach, "Fire this CLOWN, his players hate him and wont play for his BS." On May 29, 2013, after the Rangers lost to the Bruins in the Eastern Conference semifinals, Tortorella was fired. Avery told the "New York Post" that he "had a huge smile" on his face after finding out that Tortorella was fired, adding, "It’s not that I’m happy for myself. I’m happy for the Rangers and Ranger fans."


title: Sean Avery

text: In November 2014, Avery suddenly quit an off-Broadway play he was set to star in, "Negative is Positive", two days before the play was set to open. On November 3, Avery abruptly left rehearsals after growing agitated. The following day, he had "a meltdown" when a stage manager asked him if he wanted a slice of pizza, which he reportedly misheard, believing the stage manager had called him an "asshole". According to witnesses for the "New York Post", Avery "pretty much snapped" and started yelling at the stage manager before quitting the show, leaving her in tears. Playwright and director Christy Smith-Sloman called it "a complete horror story", describing his conduct as "a playwright's worst nightmare." An understudy filled in for him when the play opened.


title: Sean Avery

text: In 2016, Avery was served with a restraining order for harassing his mother-in-law. Beginning in summer of 2016, Avery "...was harassing her. They were running into each other, belonged to the same gym, and he’d issue profanities at her and make obscene gestures. He was driving in his car too close to her and scaring her."


title: Sean Avery

text: In 2019, Avery used his Instagram account to mount "an increasingly brash, occasionally violent crusade" to clear New York City's bike lanes. He was cited by police for allegedly ramming his scooter into a car that was blocking a bike lane in the West Village.