title: Trichonephila clavata

text: Researchers led by Masao Nakagaki at Shinshu University, Japan, have succeeded in creating a silk thread that is stronger, softer, and more durable than conventional silk by injecting silkworm eggs with genes of the Jorō spider. The silkworms that hatch weave cocoons containing 10% spider protein. The dragline silk is said to have many uses, such as for bulletproof vests, sutures after an operation, fishing line, nets, and tennis rackets. A Japanese manufacturer, Okamoto, began developing commercial applications for the silk and planned to release extra-thin, durable spider socks by 2010.


title: Trichonephila clavata

text: Jorōgumo is a legendary creature in Japanese folklore. A Jorōgumo is a spider who can change her appearance into that of a beautiful woman. She's said to breathe fire and to be able to control other spiders. She seeks men to seduce, whom she then binds in her silk and devours.


title: Trichonephila clavata

text: The spider is an introduced species in northeast Georgia and northwest / upstate South Carolina in North America. They were first spotted in Hoschton, Georgia in 2013. Since then, they have been spotted in numerous locations in northeast Georgia, including the Athens, Georgia area, and also in Greenville, South Carolina. It is believed that the species will become naturalized. They are expected to colonize much of the Eastern Seaboard of the United States due to their relative imperviousness to the cold.


title: Trichonephila clavata

text: As of 2022, their impact on their new ecosystem is unknown. They have been observed catching the brown marmorated stink bug ("Halymorpha halys"), an invasive species that native spiders have not been known to eat, and it has also been hoped that they may consume mosquitoes and flies. Some hope that the impact of the species will be positive due to their harmless nature and consumption of primarily invasive or nuisance insects; however, because of the relative lack of information about its ecology, the effects the spider will have on ecosystems are unknown.


title: Brainstorm (1983 film)

text: Brainstorm is a 1983 American science fiction film directed by Douglas Trumbull, and starring Christopher Walken, Natalie Wood (in her final film role), Louise Fletcher, and Cliff Robertson.


title: Brainstorm (1983 film)

text: It follows a research team's efforts to perfect a system that directly records and replays the sensory experiences and emotional feelings of a subject, and the efforts by the company's management to exploit the device for military ends. After a researcher records her own death from a heart attack, her colleagues join forces to retrieve the information and play it back.


title: Brainstorm (1983 film)

text: Scientists invent a brain–computer interface enabling sensations to be recorded from a person's brain and converted to tape for others to experience. The team includes estranged husband and wife Michael and Karen, as well as Michael's colleague Lillian. At CEO Alex's instruction, the team demonstrates the device to investors to gain financing.


title: Brainstorm (1983 film)

text: Karen dons the recorder while working with Michael and Lillian. When Michael plays the tape back, the group realizes that emotional experiences are also recorded. Michael tapes his memories of times with Karen, which he shares with her, leading to their reconciliation.


title: Brainstorm (1983 film)

text: Lillian is pressured by backers to admit Landan to the team, whom she sees as part of the military-industrial complex. She disagrees with their plan to have the invention developed for military use.


title: Brainstorm (1983 film)

text: One team member, Gordy, has sexual intercourse while wearing the recorder, and shares the tape with colleagues, including Hal. Hal splices one section of the tape into a continuous orgasm, which results in sensory overload, leading to his forced retirement. Tensions increase as the possibilities for abuse become clear.


title: Brainstorm (1983 film)

text: Suffering from heart problems and a constant cigarette smoker, Lillian suffers a heart attack while working alone. Realizing she is about to die, Lillian records her experience.


title: Brainstorm (1983 film)

text: Michael later decides to experience Lillian's recording, but nearly dies when his body simulates a heart attack. Michael modifies his console to filter the physical output and replays the tape. He sees "memory bubbles"—moments from Lillian's life. Michael experiences Lillian's memories of a humorous exchange with Michael as he plays with an industrial robot, a surprise birthday party, and being devastated when Alex tells her that an earlier project is canceled.


title: Brainstorm (1983 film)

text: Scientists wanting to discover the machine's military capabilities are monitoring the equipment as Michael plays Lillian's tape. They have Gordy experience the tape, but Landan ignores the advice of the monitoring staff that Michael made modifications to his terminal. Gordy dies from experiencing Lillian's heart attack.


title: Brainstorm (1983 film)

text: Michael's playback is cut short by Hal, but having witnessed the near-death experience makes Michael curious to see the entire tape. Alex has the recording locked away and tells Michael he will not be allowed to view it. When he returns to work, Michael walks in on Landan and outside technicians going through his research records. Alex responds to his protests by firing Michael and Karen.


title: Brainstorm (1983 film)

text: Michael attempts to hack into the lab's computers. Hal advises him to look under "Project Brainstorm", a program the military created to use their invention for torture and brainwashing. Michael accesses a tape from his den and quickly stops viewing it because of its disturbing nature. Michael and Karen's son Chris inadvertently views the tape, causing him to have a psychotic experience that results in his hospitalization. Alex visits and Michael confronts him about Project Brainstorm, blaming Alex for his son's condition. Alex denies any knowledge of the project, then informs Michael of Gordy's death.


title: Brainstorm (1983 film)

text: Michael vows to destroy his work and enlists the help of Karen and Hal. Michael and Karen head to the Pinehurst Resort, and realizing they are under surveillance, stage a fight that results in Karen leaving for Hal's house. As the two feign reconciliation over the phone, Michael accesses the Brainstorm computer via another phone line while Karen hacks into the system, sabotaging the robots that manufacture the interface terminals.


title: Brainstorm (1983 film)

text: Karen shuts down the security system, locking the staff outside and enabling Michael to load Lillian's tape and experience it uninterrupted. With the plant in chaos, Robert orders Michael's arrest.


title: Brainstorm (1983 film)

text: Karen leaves the house to meet with Michael. Hal and his wife, Wendy, send the last of Karen's commands to the company computers, shutting down the plant.


title: Brainstorm (1983 film)

text: Karen meets with Michael while the tape is playing. Michael bears witness to the afterlife, experiencing a vision of hell, then traveling from Earth and through the universe, even after the tape ends. He ultimately has visions of angels and departed souls flying into a great cosmic Light. Michael then collapses. Karen sobs, believing him dead. She pleads for Michael to stay alive. Awakening from the experience, he weeps with joy and embraces Karen.


title: Brainstorm (1983 film)

text: To prepare for the film, Trumbull took most of the key cast and crew to the Esalen Institute, an experimental research facility in Northern California known for its new-age classes and workshops. In September 1981, the cast and crew traveled to North Carolina to begin six weeks of shooting at locations including the Elion-Hitchings Building in Research Triangle Park and Duke University, then returned to the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios in Culver City, California in November to film interior scenes.


title: Brainstorm (1983 film)

text: The film was nearly scuttled by Natalie Wood's death during a production break in November 1981. By this time, Wood had already completed all of her major scenes, but due to mounting financial problems, MGM took Wood's death as an opportunity to terminate the already troubled production. "When she died," said Trumbull, "all the sets were locked and frozen on all the stages. No one could get in or out without special permission while all the negotiations took place."


title: Brainstorm (1983 film)

text: Trumbull believed that financially strapped MGM simply got cold feet about providing the remainder of the funds to complete "Brainstorm". "MGM's problem was that insurance institution Lloyd's of London, when it took depositions from me and other people, realized that the film could be finished. Why should they pay an insurance claim for something that really wasn't damaged goods?" When MGM refused to pay for the film to be completed, Lloyd's of London provided $2.75 million for Trumbull to complete principal photography and an additional $3.5 million towards post-production. Meanwhile, other studios showed interest in buying "Brainstorm" from MGM to release as their own production. "MGM decided to allow Lloyd's of London to offer the film to many of the major studios in town," said Trumbull. "Several of them made bids to MGM. And the studio suddenly realized that a lot of other people in this town were excited about "Brainstorm", and were ready to put up millions of dollars. MGM figured they'd look like jerks if they let it go and it turned out to be a big success. So they finally decided to work out this deal where Lloyd's of London would put up the remaining money and become a profit participant."


title: Brainstorm (1983 film)

text: Trumbull proceeded to complete the film by rewriting the script and using Natalie Wood's younger sister Lana for Wood's few remaining scenes.


title: Brainstorm (1983 film)

text: The film was conceived as an introduction to Trumbull's Showscan 60 frames-per-second 70 mm film process. "In movies people often do flashbacks and point-of-view shots as a gauzy, mysterious, distant kind of image," Trumbull recalled. "And I wanted to do just the opposite, which was to make the material of the mind even more real and high-impact than 'reality'".


title: Brainstorm (1983 film)

text: MGM withdrew its plans to release the experimental picture in the new format. Trumbull instead shot the virtual reality sequences in 24 frames-per-second Super Panavision 70 with an aspect ratio of 2.2:1. The rest of the film was shot in conventional 35mm with an aspect ratio of approximately 1.7 to 1.


title: Brainstorm (1983 film)

text: The score to "Brainstorm" was composed and conducted by James Horner, it won him the Saturn Award for Best Music in 1983. The "Varèse Sarabande" album/CD release is a re-recording with the London Symphony Orchestra, produced shortly before the original theatrical release.


title: Brainstorm (1983 film)

text: "Brainstorm" was released on September 30, 1983, almost two years after Wood's death. However, it opened on a small number of screens and with little publicity despite being lauded unofficially as "Natalie Wood's last movie". Rotten Tomatoes reports that 57% of 21 critics have given the film a positive review with an average rating of 5.69/10.


title: Brainstorm (1983 film)

text: Janet Maslin of the "New York Times" gave particular credit to Louise Fletcher's "superb performance". Christopher John reviewed "Brainstorm" in "Ares Magazine" Special Edition #2 and commented that "For those looking for nothing more than the same old spaceships and monsters, well, this one probably isn't for you – but then again, you've got all the movies you need this year. "Brainstorm" is for the rest of us." Roger Ebert of "The Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film a mixed 2 stars out of a possible 4, describing the premise as "a good idea for a movie" and credited Trumbull with providing "intriguing" special effects. However, Ebert thought the cast was not used well: "The characters take such a secondary importance to the gadget that we never feel much for them."


title: Brainstorm (1983 film)

text: The film was not a commercial success, with a production budget of $18 million and grossing only $10 million in ticket sales in North America.


title: Brainstorm (1983 film)

text: Because of the immensely troubled production and disagreements with MGM, Trumbull opted never to direct a Hollywood film again. In 1983 he stated: In 2013, he explained that the uncertain circumstances of Natalie Wood's death were the main reason for this decision. He later returned to filmmaking.


title: Brainstorm (1983 film)

text: At the 11th Saturn Awards, "Brainstorm" won Best Actress for Louise Fletcher and Best Music for James Horner. It also received nominations for Best Science Fiction Film, Best Director, Best Special Effects and a posthumous Best Supporting Actress nomination for Natalie Wood.


title: Proteus mirabilis

text: Proteus mirabilis is a Gram-negative, facultatively anaerobic, rod-shaped bacterium. It shows swarming motility and urease activity. "P. mirabilis" causes 90% of all "Proteus" infections in humans. It is widely distributed in soil and water. "Proteus mirabilis" can migrate across the surface of solid media or devices using a type of cooperative group motility called swarming. "Proteus mirabilis" is most frequently associated with infections of the urinary tract, especially in complicated or catheter-associated urinary tract infections.


title: Proteus mirabilis

text: An alkaline urine sample is a possible sign of "P. mirabilis". It can be diagnosed in the lab due to characteristic swarming motility, and inability to metabolize lactose (on a MacConkey agar plate, for example). Also "P. mirabilis" produces a very distinct fishy odor.


title: Proteus mirabilis

text: This rod-shaped bacterium has the ability to produce high levels of urease, which hydrolyzes urea to ammonia (NH), so makes the urine more alkaline. If left untreated, the increased alkalinity can lead to the formation of crystals of struvite, calcium carbonate, and/or apatite, which can result in kidney stones. The bacterium can be found throughout the stones, and these bacteria lurking in the kidney stones can reinitiate infection after antibiotic treatment. Once the stones develop, over time they may grow large enough to cause obstruction and kidney failure. "Proteus" species can also cause wound infections, sepsis, and pneumonia, mostly in hospitalized patients.


title: Proteus mirabilis

text: "P. mirabilis" is generally susceptible to most antibiotics apart from tetracycline and nitrofurantoin, but 10–20% of "P. mirabilis" strains are also resistant to first-generation cephalosporins and ampicillin.


title: Proteus mirabilis

text: "P. mirabilis" can use urea. It can produce hydrogen sulfide gas, and forms clear films on growth media. It is motile, possessing peritrichous flagella, and is known for its swarming ability. It is commonly found in the human digestive system. "P. mirabilis" is not pathogenic in guinea pigs or chickens . This species' ability to inhibit growth of unrelated strains had been a topic for scientific curiosity, which then resulted in the discovery a macroscopically visible line of reduced bacterial growth where two swarming strains intersect. This line is named the Dienes line after its discoverer Louis Dienes.


title: Proteus mirabilis

text: Swarming is a specialized form of motility that groups of multicellular, flagellated bacteria can undergo to expand their populations to new locations. The swarming capability of "Proteus mirabilis" is important because it is implicated in the pathogenesis of the bacteria and the swarming capability is associated with the bacteria's ability to express virulence factors "Proteus mirabilis" has a very characteristic bulls-eye appearance on an agar plate due to the regular periodic cycling between the vegetative and swarming state of the cells.


title: Proteus mirabilis

text: In liquid culture, "Proteus mirabilis" exists as a vegetative cell that is approximately 2µm long and has four to ten peritrichous flagella. In the vegetative cell the flagella are used to propel the bacterium forward. Swarming cells are only formed when the bacteria are grown on solid surfaces so the ability to detect these solid surfaces is a required feature. It has been proposed that "Proteus mirabilis" senses a solid surface by the inhibition of its flagellum rotation, and it is this lack of freely rotating flagella that let the bacteria know it is on a solid surface. When "Proteus mirabilis" encounters a solid surface, and other necessary conditions have been met, the cell will undergo the differentiation process into a swarmer cell. This differentiation process includes the elongation of the cell 20 to 50 times longer than the vegetative cell, multinucleation, and more than a 50-fold greater surface density of flagella.


title: Proteus mirabilis

text: The swarming process continues as periodic cycles of cell differentiation, population migration, and consolidation as the bacteria undergo these changes in response to environmental stimulants. The repetition of this cycle is what gives "Proteus mirabilis" its distinctive bulls-eye pattern when growing on solid media. This pattern can be used to distinguish "Proteus mirabilis" from other species of swarming bacteria. Each ring is formed when the bacteria is in the consolidation stage and the bacteria is increasing in population.


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: Israel ben Eliezer (1698 – 22 May 1760), known as the Baal Shem Tov (, ) or as the Besht, was a Jewish mystic and healer who is regarded as the founder of Hasidic Judaism. "Besht" is the acronym for Baal Shem Tov, which means "Master of the Good Name," a term for a magician who wields the secret name of God.


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: The little biographical information about the Besht comes from oral traditions handed down by his students (Jacob Joseph of Polonne and others) and from the legendary tales about his life and behavior collected in "Shivḥei ha-Besht" ("In Praise of the Ba'al Shem Tov"; Kapust and Berdychiv, 1814–15).


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: A central tenet in the Baal Shem Tov's teaching is the direct connection with the divine, "dvekut", which is infused in every human activity and every waking hour. Prayer is of supreme importance, along with the mystical significance of Hebrew letters and words. His innovation lies in "encouraging worshippers to follow their distracting thoughts to their roots in the divine." Those who follow his teachings regard him as descended from the Davidic line that traces its lineage to the royal house of David.


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: Yisroel (Israel) was born to poor parents Eliezer and Sarah in a settlement near Okopy, Ternopil Oblast, a newly built fortress close to Kameniec in West Ukraine, where Zbruch connects with Dniester. Today, Okopy is a village in Chortkiv Raion of Ternopil Oblast.


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: He died in Medzhybizh , which was part of Poland and today is situated in the Khmelnytskyi Oblast (Ukraine) (not to be confused with other cities of the same name).


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: In 1703, Israel became an orphan, and was adopted by the Jewish community of Tluste (near Zalischyky). It is reported that, after the conclusion of his studies at the local "cheder" (Jewish elementary school), he would often wander into the fields and forests that surrounded the village. In 1710, he finished "cheder" and became an assistant to a "melamed" (instructor in "cheder"). In 1711 at the age of 13/14 he entered the chaburas machane yisroel a group of hidden tzaddikim lead by Rabbi Adam Baal Shem. Sometime in 1712 Israel became a "shammash" (sexton) of the local synagogue.


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: He was hired as a teacher's assistant in the "cheders" of the small villages through which they passed. He later related that he took great pleasure in accompanying the children to and from school, using this opportunity to recite prayers with them and tell them Torah stories. The Mezritcher Maggid, the Baal Shem Tov's successor, would later say, "If only we kissed a Torah scroll with the same love that my master [the Baal Shem Tov] kissed the children when he took them to cheder as a teacher's assistant!"


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: According to Hasidic legend, the Baal Shem Tov would have visions in which the prophet Achiya Hashiloni would appear to him. In 1716 the Baal Shem Tov married, but soon his wife died and he went on travelling throughout Eastern Galicia. After serving for a long time as a helper in various small communities of West Ukraine, he settled as a "melamed" at Tluste.


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: The Besht was introduced to Kabbalah by Rabbi Adam Baal Shem of Ropczyce () who was a disciple of Rabbi Yoel Baal Shem (I) of Zamość (), the successor of Rabbi Eliyahu Baal Shem of Worms ().


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: The Besht became the leader of this movement at the age of 18. Caring for the Jewish poor, the group of Tzadikim encouraged Jews to move to agrarian lifestyles as alternatives to the chronic poverty of city Jews. In continuation of this policy, they decided that they needed to look after the educational needs of the children living in small farm communities. If a suitable teacher could not be sourced they themselves would provide one, and therefore the Baal Shem Tov became a teacher's assistant. He later commented "The most joyous time in my life was teaching the small children how to say Modeh Ani, Shema Yisrael and Kametz Alef Ah".


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: He was chosen by people conducting suits against each other to act as their arbitrator and mediator. His services were brought into frequent requisition because the Jews had their own civil courts in Poland. He is said to have made such an impression on Ephraim of Brody that the latter promised the Besht his daughter Chana in marriage. The man died, however, without telling his daughter of her betrothal; but when she heard of her father's wishes, she agreed to comply with them.


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: After their marriage, the couple moved to a village in the Carpathians between Kuty and Kassowa, where their only income was from his work digging clay and lime, which his wife delivered to surrounding villages. The couple had two children: Udl (born in 1720) and Zvi Hersh. A maternal great-grandson of Baal Shem Tov and his wife was Reb Nachman of Breslov whose paternal ancestry came from (according to Hasidic tradition), the Maharal's family descended patrilineally from the Babylonian Exilarchs (during the era of the geonim) and therefore also from the Davidic dynasty.


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: The Besht later took a position as a shohet (ritual butcher) in Kshilowice, near Iaslowice, which he soon gave up in order to manage a village tavern that his brother-in-law bought for him. During the many years that he lived in the woods and came into contact with the peasants, he had learned how to use plants for healing purposes. In fact, his first appearance in public was that of an “ordinary” Baal Shem. He wrote amulets and prescribed cures.


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: After many trips in Podolia and Volhynia as a Baal Shem, Besht, considering his following large enough and his authority established, decided about 1740 to expound his teachings in the shtetl of Medzhybizh and people, mostly from the spiritual elite, came to listen to him. Medzhybizh became the seat of the movement and of the Medzybizh Hasidic dynasty. His following gradually increased and with it the hostility of the Talmudists. Nevertheless, Besht was supported at the beginning of his career by two prominent Talmudists, the brothers Meïr (chief rabbi of Lemberg and later Ostroha, and author of "Meir Netivim" (a work of halachic responsa) and other works) and Isaac Dov Margalios. Later he won over recognized rabbinic authorities who became his disciples and attested to his scholarship. These include Rabbi Yaakov Yosef Hakohen, rabbi of Polnoy; Rabbi Dovid Halperin, rabbi of Ostroha; Rabbi Israel of Satinov, author of "Tiferet Yisrael"; Rabbi Yoseph Heilperin of Slosowitz; and Rabbi Dov Ber of Mezrich (AKA the "Maggid of Mezritch"). It is chiefly due to the latter that Besht's doctrines (though in an essentially altered form) were introduced into learned Jewish religious circles.


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: Israel undertook journeys in which he is recorded as effecting cures and expelling demons and evil spirits (shedim). Later Hasidic tradition, however, downplayed the importance of these healing and magical practices, concentrating on his teachings, his charm, magnetism, and ecstatic personality.


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: Over the past few years, the "Agudas Ohalei Tzadikim" organization (based in Israel) has restored many graves of Tzadikim (Ohelim) in Ukraine, including the Baal Shem Tov's. A guesthouse and synagogue are located next to the Ohel of Baal Shem Tov, and the Baal Shem Tov's synagogue in the village proper has been painstakingly restored. Both synagogues are used by the many visitors from all over the world who come to pray near the Baal Shem Tov's grave.


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: The Besht took sides with the Talmudists in their disputes against the Frankists (Jacob Frank's cultist movement which regarded Frank as the Messiah, modelled after Sabbatai Zevi.) After the mass conversion of the Frankists, the Baal Shem Tov allegedly said that as long as a diseased limb is connected with the body, there is hope that it may be saved; but, once amputated, it is gone, and there is no hope. It is alleged that he died out of grief that the Frankists left Judaism.


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: Israel ben Eliezer left no books; for the Kabbalistic commentary on Psalm 107, ascribed to him (Zhitomir, 1804), "Sefer mi-Rabbi Yisrael Baal Shem-tov," may not be genuine. Therefore, the most reliable record of his teachings is in his utterances as recorded in the works of his disciples (Hasidim). Most are found in the works of Rabbi Jacob Joseph of Polnoy. But since Hasidism, immediately after the death of its founder, was divided into various parties, each claiming for itself the authority of Besht, the utmost of caution is necessary for judging as to the authenticity of utterances ascribed to Besht.


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: Some direct historical evidence remains of the Besht during the days he lived in Medzhybizh. Rosman discovered numerous legal documents that shed light on this period from the Polish Czartoryski noble family archives. The Besht's house is mentioned on several tax registers where it is recorded as having tax-free status. Several of the Besht's colleagues in his stories from Shivhei HaBesht also appear in Polish court records, notably, Ze'ev Wolf Kitzes and Dovid Purkes. Rosman contends that the Polish documents show the Besht and his followers were not outcasts or pariahs, but rather a respected part of mainstream Jewish communal life.


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: Other direct evidence includes the Besht's daily prayer-book (siddur, owned by the Agudas Chabad Library in New York) with his handwritten personal notes in the margins. His grave can be seen today in the old Jewish cemetery in Medzhybizh.


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: Chapin and Weinstock contend that the Besht was essentially the right person, in the right place, at the right time. 18th century Podolia was an ideal place to foster a sea-change in Jewish thinking. It had been depopulated one generation earlier due to the Khmelnitsky Massacres. A Turkish occupation of Podolia occurred within the Besht's lifetime and along with it the influence within this frontier territory of Sabbatai Zevi and his latter day spiritual descendants such as Malach and Jacob Frank. Once the Polish Magnates regained control from the Turks, Podolia went through an economic boom. The Magnates were benevolent to the economic benefits the Jews provided, and encouraged Jewish resettlement to help protect the frontier from future invasions. Thus, the Jewish community itself was essentially starting over. Within this context, the Jews of Podolia were open to new ideas. The Besht's refreshing new approaches to Judaism were welcome, expanding with little resistance in a community hungry for change.


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: The Besht was a mystic who claimed to have achieved "devekut" (“adhesion”), meaning that his soul had reached the high level where he could "ascend" to heaven and speak with any soul in heaven that he wished to speak to (though his only recorded choice was of the Messiah, and only once), and intervene between humans and God. He had the ability to protect the Jewish community from plague and persecution. He did this through prayer.


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: According to a letter from the Besht's brother-in-law to the Besht himself—as interpreted by Moshe Rosman— the letter was a practitioner of prophecy, being able to see a messianic figure arrive in Jerusalem despite living far from the city; the brother-in-law claims to have inquired into the figure and discovered the Besht's vision to be true. This claim also supports the supposed belief that the Besht had the ability to see the souls of men, divining the messianic quality of the man despite only seeing him through a vision. Rosman also describes another letter written by the brother-in-law which claims that the Besht could travel to heaven and commune with God. This view is derived from a series of titles given to the Besht, attributing various religious achievements to him such as understanding the mysteries of God. Similarly, Rosman—though now citing the writings of a Polish rabbi—says that it was believed the Besht was a great medical practitioner with vast knowledge regarding salves, balms, and similar medicants. Some aspects of his medical practice are said to have been mystic in nature, though the degree to which this is the case is not agreed upon. Some claim that the Besht could only heal others through prayer and similar acts: recitation of holy words. In other works, he is said to have fewer limitations on his supposed ability, allowing for more mystic methods to be practised.


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: He ate "farfel" every Friday night because the word was similar to the world "farfalen" which means "wiped out, over and finished". He considered the noodles a symbol marking the beginning of a new week.


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: Although the teachings of the Ba’al Shem Tov derive to some extent from the Kabbalah and frequently employ kabbalistic terminology, he added emphasis on personal existence and the salvation of the soul of the individual, as a requirement for the redemption of the world: “For before one prays for general redemption one must pray for the personal salvation of one’s own soul” ("Toledot Ya’akov Yosef"). He emphasised the personal against a previous preoccupation on messianism. In a letter to Abraham Gershon (dated 1751), he describes his dialogue with the Messiah during a spiritual ascent on Rosh Ha-Shanah, 1747: “I asked the Messiah, ‘When will you come, master,’ and he answered me, ‘When your learning will be made known and revealed to the world and its source will spread and all can recite yiḥudim and experience spiritual ascent as you can…’ and I was astonished and deeply grieved by this, and wondered when this would come to pass” ("Ben Porat Yosef").


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: At the core of the Besht's teaching is the principle of "devekut", and he demanded that "devekut" exist in all daily acts and in social contacts. Man must worship God not only when practicing religious acts and holy deeds, but also in his daily affairs, in his business, and in social contacts, for when a “man is occupied with material needs, and his thought cleaves to God, he will be blessed” ("Ketonet Passim" (1866), 28a). This belief is linked with the Lurianic doctrine of the raising of the holy sparks (niẓoẓot), though he limited this concept to the salvation of the individual soul. Because of his emphasis on "devekut", he did not advocate withdrawal from daily life and society, and he vigorously opposed fasts and asceticism.


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: He believed that physical pleasure can give rise to spiritual pleasure. A physical act can become a religious act if it is performed as worship of God and the act is performed in a state of "devekut".


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: The study of the Torah is of prime importance in his teachings, although he interpreted the traditional ideal of “Torah for its own sake” as “for the sake of the letter.” Through contemplation of the letters of the text, man can open the divine worlds before him. He based this belief on the assumption that the letters of the Torah evolved and descended from a heavenly source, and therefore by contemplating the letters, one can restore them to their spiritual, and divine source. The student thus becomes joined to their higher forms and receives mystical revelations.


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: Similarly, through prayer, a man can reach "devekut" and contact with the divine, by concentrating on the mystical meaning of the letters:


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: The Besht's concept of the zaddik is of the existence of superior individuals whose spiritual qualities are greater than those of other human beings and who are outstanding in their higher level of "devekut". These individuals influence society, and their task is to teach the people to worship God by means of "devekut" and to lead sinners to repent.


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: The later developments of Hasidism are unintelligible without consideration of Besht's opinion concerning man's proper relation with the universe. True worship of God, consists of the cleaving to, and the unification with, God. To use his own words, “the ideal of man is to be a revelation himself, clearly to recognize himself as a manifestation of God.” Mysticism, he said, is not the Kabbalah, which everyone may learn; but that sense of true oneness, which is usually as strange, unintelligible, and incomprehensible to mankind as dancing is to a dove. However, the man who is capable of this feeling is endowed with a genuine intuition, and it is the perception of such a man which is called prophecy, according to the degree of his insight. From this it results, in the first place, that the ideal man may lay claim to authority equal, in a certain sense, to the authority of the Prophets. This focus on oneness and personal revelation help earn his mystical interpretation of Judaism the title of Panentheism.


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: A second and more important result of the doctrine is that through his oneness with God, man forms a connecting link between the Creator and creation. Thus, slightly modifying the Bible verse, Hab. , Besht said, “The righteous can vivify by his faith.“ Besht's followers enlarged upon this idea and consistently deduced from it the source of divine mercy, of blessings, of life; and that therefore, if one loves him, one may partake of God's mercy.


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: It may be said of Hasidism that there is no other Jewish sect in which the founder is as important as his doctrines. Besht himself is still the real center for the Hasidim; his teachings have almost sunk into oblivion. As Schechter (“"Studies in Judaism",” p. 4) observes: “To the Hasidim, Baal-Shem [Besht] ... was the incarnation of a theory, and his whole life the revelation of a system.”


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: Besht did not combat rabbinical Judaism, but the spirit of its practice. His teachings being the result of a deep, religious temperament, he stressed the spirit. Though he considered the Law to be holy and inviolable, and he emphasized the importance of Torah-study, he held that one's entire life should be a service of God. Hasidic legend tells of a woman whom her relatives sought to kill on account of her shameful life, but who was saved in body and soul by Besht. The story is said to be characteristic of Besht's activity in healing those in need of relief. More important to him than prayer was a friendly relationship with sinners. Unselfishness and high-minded benevolence are a motif in the legends about him.


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: Besht's methods of teaching differed from those of his opponents. He directed many satirical remarks at them, a characteristic one being his designation of the typical Talmudist of his day as “a man who through a sheer study of the Law has no time to think about God”. Besht is reported to have illustrated his views of asceticism by the following parable:


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: Besht held a firm conviction that God had entrusted him with a special mission to spread his doctrines. He believed that he had heavenly visions revealing this mission to him. For him, every intuition was a divine revelation, and divine messages were daily occurrences. An example of the power of his spiritual vision is found at the beginning of his grandson's work, "Degel", where he writes that his grandfather wrote to Gershon Kitover who lived in Israel, asking him why he was not in Israel that particular Shabbos.


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: In Hasidic tradition, there's a saying, "Someone who believes in all the stories of the Baal Shem Tov and the other mystics and holy men is a fool; someone who looks at any single story and says 'That one could not be true' is a heretic."


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: According to the "Encyclopaedia Judaica" the number of legends that are told relating to the Ba'al Shem Tov have 'distorted his historical character.' An anthology of legends about him was first compiled by Dov Baer b. Samuel of Linits, who was the son-in-law of Alexander Shoḥat, who had acted for several years as the Besht's scribe. The collection was copied many times and over time it became filled with errors. It was printed with the title, "Shivḥei ha-Besht" after Dov Baer's death. It was published by Israel Jaffe who rewrote the first chapter and removed what he considered to be the distortions caused by copyists.


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: This edition, printed in Kopys (Kapust) in 1814, contains 230 stories grouped by common themes, characters, and motifs. Two editions also appeared in Yiddish that differ markedly from the Hebrew edition.


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: In the 19th century several further collections of legends about the Ba’al Shem Tov, and his followers appeared, in Hebrew and Yiddish, some of which repeated stories found in "Shivḥei ha-Besht" and some of which contained new stories. According to the "Encyclopaedia Judaica" only a few of these stories can actually be regarded as true.


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: One legend tells that his father, Eliezer, was seized during an attack, carried from his home in Wallachia, and sold as a slave to a prince. On account of his wisdom, he found favor with the prince, who gave him to the king to be his minister. During an expedition undertaken by the king, when other counsel failed, and all were disheartened, Eliezer's advice was accepted; and the result was a successful battle of decisive importance. Eliezer was made a general and afterward prime minister, and the king gave him the daughter of the viceroy in marriage. But, being mindful of his duty as a Jew and as he was already married, he married the princess only in name. After being questioned for a long time as to his strange conduct, he confessed to the princess that he was a Jew, who loaded him with costly presents and helped him escape to his own country.


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: On the way, the prophet Elijah is said to have appeared to Eliezer and said: "On account of thy piety and steadfastness, thou wilt have a son who will lighten the eyes of all Israel; and Israel shall be his name because in him shall be fulfilled the verse (Isaiah ): 'Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified.'" Eliezer and his wife Sarah, however, reached old age childless and had given up all hope of ever having a child. But when they were nearly a hundred years old, the promised son (Besht) was born.


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: The Baal Shem Tov directly imparted his teachings to his students, some of whom founded their own Hasidic dynasties.


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: A portrait by John Singleton Copley is often mistaken to be that of Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer, also known as the Baal Shem Tov. It is, in fact, a portrait of Hayyim Samuel Jacob Falk, who was known as the Baal Shem of London.


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: In 2019, American funk quartet The Fearless Flyers released an instrumental single named "The Baal Shem Tov" in honor of the rabbi.


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: The chief source for the Besht's biography is Ber (Dov) ben Shmuel’s "Shivchei ha-Besht", Kopys, 1814, and frequently republished, and traditions recorded in the works of various Hasidic dynasties — especially by the leaders of the Chabad movement.


title: Baal Shem Tov

text: Tzava’at HaRivash and Keter Shem Tov are anthologies and have been reprinted numerous times. Both texts have now appeared in annotated editions with corrections of the texts. (Tzva’at HaRivash 1975, fifth revised edition 1998; Keter Shem Tov - Hashalem 2004, second print 2008.) These new editions were edited by Rabbi Jacob Immanuel Schochet who also added analytical introductions, notes of sources and cross-references, commentaries, supplements and indices, and were published by the Chabad publishing house Kehot in Brooklyn NY.


title: 50 Cent Party

text: The 50 Cent Party, also known as the 50 Cent Army or ( ), are Internet commentators who are paid by the authorities of the People's Republic of China to spread the propaganda of the governing Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It was created during the early phases of the Internet's rollout to the wider public in China.


title: 50 Cent Party

text: The name is derived from the fact that such commentators are paid RMB¥0.50 for every post. These commentators create comments or articles on popular Chinese social media networks that are intended to derail discussions which are critical of the CCP, promoting narratives that serve the government's interests and insulting or spreading misinformation about political opponents of the Chinese government, both domestic and abroad. Some of these commentators have labeled themselves (, short for , , ), claiming they are not paid by authorities and express their support for the Chinese government out of their own volition.


title: 50 Cent Party

text: Authors of a paper published in 2017 in the "American Political Science Review" estimate that the Chinese government fabricates 488 million social media posts per year. In contrast to common assumptions, the 50 Cent Party consists mostly of paid bureaucrats who respond to government directives and rarely defend their government from criticism or engage in direct arguments because "... the goal of this massive secretive operation is instead to distract the public and change the subject." Around 80% of the analysed posts involve pro-China cheerleading with inspirational slogans, and 13% involve general praise and suggestions on governmental policies. Despite the common allegation of the commentators getting paid for their posts, the paper suggested there was "no evidence" that they are paid anything for their posts, instead being required to do so as a part of their official party duties.


title: 50 Cent Party

text: Research by professors at Harvard, Stanford, and UC San Diego indicated a "massive secretive operation" to fill China's Internet with propaganda, and has resulted in some 488 million posts written by fake social media accounts, representing about 0.6% of the 80 billion posts generated on Chinese social media. To maximize their influence, such pro-government comments are made largely during times of intense online debate, and when online protests have a possibility of transforming into real life actions. The colloquial term has also been used by some English speakers outside of China as an insult against people with perceived pro-CCP bias.


title: 50 Cent Party

text: In October 2004, the local CCP Propaganda Department of Changsha started hiring Internet commentators, in one of the earliest known uses of professional Internet commentators.


title: 50 Cent Party

text: In March 2005, the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China enacted a systematic censorship of Chinese college bulletin board systems. The popular "Little Lily" BBS, run by Nanjing University, was forced to close. As a new system was prepared to be launched, school officials hired students as part-time web commentators, paid from the university's work-study funds, to search the forum for undesirable information and actively counter it with Party-friendly viewpoints. In the following months, party leaders from Jiangsu began hiring their own teams. By mid-2007, web commentator teams recruited by schools, and party organizations were common across China. Shanghai Normal University employed undergraduates to monitor for signs of dissent and post on university forums. These commentators not only operate within political discussions, but also in general discussions. Afterwards, some schools and local governments also started to build similar teams.


title: 50 Cent Party

text: On 23 January 2007, Chinese leader Hu Jintao demanded a "reinforcement of ideological and public opinion front construction and positive publicity" at the 38th collective learning of Politburo. Large Chinese websites and local governments have been requested to publish the sayings of Hu, and select "comrades with good political quality" to form "teams of Internet commentators" by the CCP Central Committee () and General Office of the State Council ().


title: 50 Cent Party

text: Negative reporting of local authorities has increased on the Internet since then. In one instance described on the China Digital Times, the Jiaozuo (Henan) City Public Security Bureau established a mechanism to analyse public opinion after criticism of the police handling of a traffic incident appeared on the Internet. The Bureau responded with 120 staff calling for the truth to be revealed in line with the public opinion, which gradually shifted and eventually supported the police position, denouncing the original poster. In the aftermath of the 2008 Guizhou riot, Internet forums were filled with posts critical of the local authorities; the "China News Weekly" later reported that "the major task of the propaganda group was to organize commentators to past [sic] posts on websites to guide online public opinions."


title: 50 Cent Party

text: In 2010, the Shanghai Communist Youth League's official website published a summary, saying that there were more than 200 topics by Shanghai Municipal Authorities' Internet commentators posted at "People's Daily", Xinhua News Agency, Eastday (), Sina and Tianya after many incidents in 2009, including the Lotus Riverside incident, the forced installation of Green Dam Youth Escort software, the Putuo Urban Administrative incident, the control of H1N1, the Shanghai entrapment incident (), the self-immolation of Pan Rong (), etc. It was praised by the Shanghai Internet Publicity Office.


title: 50 Cent Party

text: In December 2014, a Chinese blogger hacked into and published email archives for the Internet Propaganda Department of Zhanggong District in Ganzhou, including over 2,700 emails of 50 Cent Party Internet commentators. For instance, on 16 January 2014, Shi Wenqing, secretary of the Ganzhou branch of the CCP, held a televised "Internet exchange" in which he answered questions from a local news website forum; 50 Cent Party commentators were instructed to post seven discussion points, such as (translated) "I really admire Party Secretary Shi, what a capable and effective Party Secretary! I hope he can be the father of Ganzhou for years to come."


title: 50 Cent Party

text: The Ministry of Culture of the People's Republic of China now holds regular training sessions, where participants are required to pass an exam after which they are issued a job certification. As of 2008, the total number of 50-cent operatives was estimated to be in the tens of thousands, and possibly as high as 280,000–300,000. Every large Chinese website is instructed by the Information Office to create a trained team of Internet commentators.


title: 50 Cent Party

text: According to the "Chinese Communists' opinions of the recruitment of university Work Committee (tentative)", the university Internet commentators are mainly selected from cadres or student cadres at the local CCP Publicity Department of universities, Youth League, Office of Academic Affairs, Network Center, Admissions Employment Department, Political Theory Department, Teaching Department and other units.


title: 50 Cent Party

text: The court of Qinghe District, Huai'an organized a team of 12 commentators. Gansu Province hired 650 commentators, sorted by their writing abilities. Suqian Municipal Publicity Department's first 26 commentators' team were reported by "Yangtse Evening Post" in April 2005. According to high-profile independent Chinese blogger Li Ming, the pro-Chinese government web commentators must number "at least in the tens of thousands".


title: 50 Cent Party

text: A 2016 Harvard study estimated that the group posts about 488 million social media comments per year.


title: 50 Cent Party

text: According to an article published by Xiao Qiang on his website China Digital Times, a leaked propaganda directive, sent to 50 Cent Party Internet commentators, stated their objective was the following:


title: 50 Cent Party

text: In order to circumscribe the influence of Taiwanese democracy, in order to progress further in the work of guiding public opinion, and in accordance with the requirements established by higher authorities to "be strategic, be skilled," we hope that internet commentators conscientiously study the mindset of netizens, grasp international developments, and better perform the work of being an internet commentator. For this purpose, this notice is promulgated as set forth below:


title: 50 Cent Party

text: There is an alternate official term for the Internet Commentator, as well as several unofficial terms coined by netizens for them:


title: 50 Cent Party

text: The term is applied by Chinese netizens to any person who blatantly expresses pro-CCP thoughts online.


title: 50 Cent Party

text: According to "Foreign Policy", Chinese cyberspace is also noted for its ideological contests between "rightists" – reformists who advocate Western-style democratic reforms, versus "leftists" – conservatives and neo-Confucianists who advocate Chinese nationalism and restructured socialism. In this backdrop, rightists sometimes refer to leftists derogatorily as "50 Centers", regardless of their actual employment background.


title: 50 Cent Party

text: The Hong Kong-based "Apple Daily" reported that although a search for "" ("50 Cent Party" in Chinese) on a search engine produces results, most were inaccessible and had been deleted.


title: 50 Cent Party

text: The Internet commentator/50 Cent Party's activities were described by CCP general secretary and Chinese president Hu Jintao as "a new pattern of public-opinion guidance"; they represent a shift from simply erasing dissenting opinions to guiding dialogue. In 2010, a contributor to "The Huffington Post" stated that some comments she received on one of her posts were from the 50 Cent Party; she also stated that the 50 Cent Party monitors popular US websites, news sites and blogs and posts comments that advance Chinese governmental interests.


title: 50 Cent Party

text: David Wertime of "Foreign Policy" argued that the narrative where a large army of paid Internet commentators are behind China's poor public dialogue with its critics is "Orwellian, yet strangely comforting". Rather, many of the Chinese netizens spreading nationalist sentiment online are not paid, but often mean what they say.


title: 50 Cent Party

text: The colloquial term "wumao", from the Chinese pronunciation of the term, has been used as an insult by some English speakers against people with perceived pro-CCP or pro-Chinese views, and has been cited in discussions of Sinophobia. An analyst at the Wilson Center has noted that ethnic Chinese are more likely to be called "wumao" than other groups of people in the English-speaking world; she attributed some of this to racism. In Australia, the term has been used as an insult amidst the rise of anti-Asian and anti-Chinese sentiments and the ongoing debate over increasing "Chinese influence" in the country.


title: 50 Cent Party

text: Facebook and Twitter have been removing accounts and pages that are of "coordinated state-backed operation". In June 2020, Twitter has removed 170,000 accounts which targeted 2019–20 Hong Kong protests.


title: Streetwear

text: Streetwear is a style of casual clothing which became global in the 1990s. It grew from New York hip hop fashion and Californian surf culture to encompass elements of sportswear, punk, skateboarding and Japanese street fashion. Eventually haute couture became an influence. It commonly centers on "casual, comfortable pieces such as jeans, T-shirts, baseball caps, and sneakers", and exclusivity through intentional product scarcity. Enthusiasts follow particular brands and try to obtain limited edition releases.


title: Streetwear

text: Streetwear style is generally accepted to have been born out of the New York City hip-hop culture of the late 1970s and early 1980s, with elements of Los Angeles surf culture. Early streetwear in the 1970s and 1980s also took inspiration from the do-it-yourself aesthetic of punk, Japanese street fashion, new wave, heavy metal, and established legacy sportswear and workwear fashion brands such as Schott NYC, Dr. Martens, Kangol, Fila and Adidas.


title: Streetwear

text: In the late 1980s, surfboard designer Shawn Stussy began selling printed T-shirts featuring the same trademark signature he placed on his custom surfboards. Initially selling the items from his own car, Stussy expanded sales to boutiques once popularity increased. Then as sales peaked, Stüssy moved into exclusive sales to create product scarcity, which established streetwear's focus on T-shirts and exclusivity.


title: Streetwear

text: In the early 1990s, burgeoning record labels associated with popular hip-hop acts like Tommy Boy Records, Def Jam Recordings, and Delicious Vinyl began selling branded merchandise embroidered onto letterman and workwear jackets made by companies like Carhartt. By mid-decade, influences included skateboarding and gangsta rap. Professional American sports franchises have had a significant impact on the scene, especially the New York Yankees, Los Angeles Raiders and Chicago Bulls caps and jackets, with their production of oversized team jerseys, as well as boots from The Timberland Company and the latest shoe design releases from Nike, Inc. Brand launches by the chief executives of record companies followed, with Russell Simmons of Def Jam launching his Phat Farm label, Sean Combs of Bad Boy with Sean John, and Jay-Z and Damon Dash of Roc-a-Fella Records launching Rocawear.


title: Streetwear

text: In the 2000s, the advent of "bling" culture saw established luxury brands make inroads into the market, with Burberry, Gucci and Fendi making appearances in films and hip hop videos. A popular shoe of the era was the Nike Air Force 1, popularized in the hip hop, trap, and grime scenes. Singer Pharrell Williams partnered with fashion designer and A Bathing Ape creator, Nigo, to create Billionaire Boys Club, credited with mixing Japanese street fashion and streetwear, and helped increase their visibility in high fashion. Fashion clothing manufacturers began to follow the streetwear companies co-opting the idea of very limited edition capsule collections, now known as "drops", using social media and product scarcity as marketing tools.


title: Streetwear

text: In the 2010s, some streetwear brands were now coveted as much as the most historically elite fashion brands. "Complex Magazine" named Stüssy, Supreme, and A Bathing Ape as the top streetwear brands, and many went on to collaborate on prized high fashion capsule collections such as Supreme x Louis Vuitton, Fila x Fendi, A Bathing Ape x Commes des Garcons, and Stussy x Dior.


title: Streetwear

text: Contemporary streetwear has an increasing influence on haute couture, and has itself been influenced by runway shows. Designers such as Virgil Abloh and Raf Simons have had a large impact on the evolution of streetwear through their influence on hip hop and popular culture. Other designers such as Demna Gvasalia, creative director of Vetements and Balenciaga, championed trends such as the chunky sneaker and oversized hoodie.


title: Streetwear

text: Streetwear is one of the most inclusive styles in fashion as it is gender neutral and is often made by people of many different ethnicities and backgrounds.


title: Streetwear

text: "Hypebeast" (occasionally "hype beast") culture is a colloquial term that at first was considered a derogatory term until the Hong Kong journalist and businessman Kevin Ma reappropriated it to be used as the name of his fashion blog, "Hypebeast". Even after Ma's fashion blog expanded to a world-famous website, hypebeast still had some negative connotation in the US: namely a lack of authenticity and an interest only in following existing trends. In the UK, hypebeast is a pejorative for a hipster who appropriates designer streetwear and buys only the latest releases, in an ironic imitation of mainstream celebrities like Kanye West. Even though many people will refer to themselves as hypebeasts, taking it as a term of endearment (much like the evolution of the term otaku in Japanese popular culture) others still respond to the negative connotation.


title: Streetwear

text: With a growing trend of prominent brand names and logos on clothing, there has been a development of "hypebeast culture" connected to streetwear as of the mid-2000s. Hypebeasts are defined as buying clothes and accessories to impress others. This trend is inspired by a 1990s fashion for clothing covered in brand names and logos. Hypebeasts usually wear a variety of name brands at once to boast their affluence and display popular trends. Another negative component of "hypebeasts culture" is the link to resellers. Resellers will purchase an upcoming trending sneaker to resell it at a higher asking price later. The resale market and hypebeasts can profit from brands by purchasing them for the trend rather than their cultural significance.


title: Streetwear

text: Sneakers have been a part of streetwear since the late 1970s. By the late 1980s, sneaker collecting had become a major part of the streetwear subculture, due in large part to the signature shoes of basketballer Michael Jordan. Although styles of shoes have changed, the link between sneaker culture and streetwear remains strong. The sneaker market is approximately valued at $85 billion USD in 2022 and is predicted to reach $120 billion by 2026.


title: Belshazzar

text: Belshazzar (Babylonian cuneiform: "Bēl-šar-uṣur", meaning "Bel, protect the king"; "Bēlšaʾṣṣar") was the son and crown prince of Nabonidus (556–539 BC), the last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Through his mother he might have been a grandson of Nebuchadnezzar II (605–562 BC), though this is not certain and the claims to kinship with Nebuchadnezzar may have originated from royal propaganda.


title: Belshazzar

text: Belshazzar played a pivotal role in the "coup d'état" that overthrew the king Labashi-Marduk (556 BC) and brought Nabonidus to power in 556 BC. Since Belshazzar was the main beneficiary of the coup, through confiscating and inheriting Labashi-Marduk's estates and wealth, it is likely that he was the chief orchestrator. Through proclaiming his father as the new king, Belshazzar also made himself the first-in-line to the throne. As Nabonidus was relatively old at the time, Belshazzar could expect to become king within a few years.


title: Belshazzar

text: Nabonidus was absent from Babylon from 553 BC to 543 or 542 BC, in self-imposed "exile" at Tayma in Arabia, for unknown reasons. For the duration of the decade-long absence of his father, Belshazzar served as regent in Babylon, a period which some historians characterize as a co-regency. Belshazzar was entrusted with many typically royal prerogatives, such as granting privileges, commanding portions of the army, and receiving offerings and oaths, though he continued to be styled as the crown prince ("mār šarri", literally meaning "son of the king"), never assuming the title of king ("šarru"). Belshazzar also lacked many of the prerogatives of kingship, most importantly he was not allowed to preside over and officiate the Babylonian New Year's festival, which was the exclusive right of the king himself. Belshazzar's fate is not known, but is often assumed that he was killed during Cyrus the Great's Persian invasion of Babylonia in 539 BC, presumably at the fall of the capital Babylon on 12 October 539 BC.


title: Belshazzar

text: Belshazzar appears as a central character in the story of Belshazzar's feast in the Biblical Book of Daniel, recognized by scholars as a work of historical fiction. Daniel's Belshazzar is not malevolent (he, for instance, rewards Daniel for his interpretation of "the writing on the wall"), but in later Jewish tradition Belshazzar was presented as a tyrant who oppresses the Jewish people.


title: Belshazzar

text: Belshazzar was the son of Nabonidus, an elderly courtier who would rise to become the last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. There are various theories concerning Nabonidus's origins, and in turn what claim he had to the throne, since it is not made clear in any contemporary sources. It is possible that Nabonidus was married to one of Nebuchadnezzar II's daughters. Not only would such a connection explain Nabonidus's rise to the throne (due to his being a member of the royal family), but it would also explain later historical traditions in which Belshazzar is described as Nebuchadnezzar's descendant. In the Book of Daniel in the Hebrew Bible, Belshazzar is referred to as Nebuchadnezzar's (grand)son. It is alternatively possible that later traditions of Belshazzar being a descendant of Nebuchadnezzar are derived from royal propaganda, and that there was no connection to the previous ruling Chaldean dynasty.


title: Belshazzar

text: The ancient Greek historian Herodotus names the "last great queen" of the Babylonian Empire as Nitocris, though that name (nor any other name) is not attested in contemporary Babylonian sources. Herodotus's description of Nitocris contains a wealth of legendary material that makes it difficult to determine whether he uses the name to refer to Nabonidus's wife or mother, but William H. Shea proposed in 1982 that Nitocris may tentatively be identified as the name of Nabonidus's wife and Belshazzar's mother.


title: Belshazzar

text: The most important sources for the time of Belshazzar are the Nabonidus Chronicle, the Cyrus Cylinder, and the Verse Account of Nabonidus—which, despite its name, was commissioned by the Persian conqueror Cyrus the Great. As all of these ancient Babylonian documents were written after Babylon was conquered by the Achaemenid Empire, they are biased in favor of Cyrus, and against Nabonidus and Belshazzar.


title: Belshazzar

text: Belshazzar's father was proclaimed as king in May 556 BC, and by the end of June, tablets recognising Nabonidus are known from across Babylonia. Belshazzar's father came to the throne as a result of a conspiracy that saw the deposition and murder of the previous king, Labashi-Marduk. The sources suggest that while he was part of the conspiracy, Nabonidus had not intended, nor expected, to become king himself and he was hesitant to accept the nomination. After the accession of his father, Belshazzar emerges in the sources as a prominent businessman and the head of a wealthy household, a role that was typically not picked up by members of the royal family in the Neo-Babylonian period. The only other similar case is Neriglissar, though Neriglissar lacked royal blood and had not been the intended successor to the throne, and abandoned his estates upon becoming king, seemingly entrusting them to Labashi-Marduk, his crown prince, and a figure of unclear connections called Nabu-sabit-qate. Whereas Neriglissar's career as a businessman prior to becoming king can be followed through a trail of surviving business documents, Belshazzar appears to have become a prominent member of the Babylonian oligarchy overnight (Belshazzar, in contrast to his co-conspirators was notably not a member of the old Babylonian aristocracy), not being mentioned in any business documents or private transactions prior to Nabonidus becoming king.


title: Belshazzar

text: By examining surviving documents from Belshazzar's time as crown prince, it appears that the estates of Neriglissar's family were confiscated after Labashi-Marduk's death and that they were claimed and taken over by Belshazzar. This is supported by documents describing business transactions of Belshazzar mentioning the same locations, and even the same household and servants, as similar earlier documents of Neriglissar. Since there is little change in the prominent members of Neriglissar's and Labashi-Marduk's former household under Belshazzar, it is probable that Belshazzar becoming the master of the household was met with relatively little opposition. Through the deposition of Labashi-Marduk, Belshazzar had positioned himself to become the heir of one of Babylonia's wealthiest families. Belshazzar is recorded as owning lands throughout Babylonia, for instance owning an agricultural settlement near Uruk.


title: Belshazzar

text: As he was clearly the main beneficiary of the coup, Belshazzar was likely the chief orchestrator of the conspiracy ended in the deposition and death of Labashi-Marduk. Because he could hardly proclaim himself as king while his father was still alive, Belshazzar proclaimed Nabonidus as king. As Nabonidus was relatively old at the time, his reign could be expected to be brief and transitional, meaning that Belshazzar could expect to inherit the throne within a few years.


title: Belshazzar

text: Nabonidus left Babylon in May 553 BC to campaign in the west. He eventually led his forces into Arabia, conquering several cities, including the city of Tayma. Nabonidus made Tayma his provisional seat and he would stay there for about a decade, not returning to Babylon until September or October of 543 or 542 BC. October 543 BC is the return date most supported by surviving Babylonian documentation. The purpose for this prolonged stay, effecively self-exile, in Tayma are unclear and debated. During Nabonidus's absence, Belshazzar was put in charge of the administration in Babylonia. Though this period has often been dubbed a "co-regency", Belshazzar never assumed an official title. The Verse Account of Nabonidus, a biased document probably written after Nabonidus was deposed by Cyrus the Great, states that Nabonidus entrusted Belshazzar with the kingship, but there are no records of Belshazzar assuming the royal title. Though it is clear that Belshazzar during his father's absence assumed many responsibilities typically only held by the king, several prerogatives were also kept solely by Nabonidus. These include:


title: Belshazzar

text: Though Belshazzar's authority was thus limited, he also was allowed, and assumed, certain royal responsibilities. These include:


title: Belshazzar

text: The events that transpired in Babylonia during Belshazzar's regency are not well known, owing to a lack of surviving sources. It is clear that the New Year's festival was not celebrated, and that there was concern regarding the rising power of the Achaemenid Empire under Cyrus the Great. The Babylonian chronicles describe the actions and conquests of Cyrus in detail throughout Belshazzar's regency. As Nabonidus's stay in Tayma continued, Belshazzar as became acutely aware of the threat presented by the Achaemenids, as he is recorded as having expended resources at projects in Sippar and nearby defenses. In 546 BC, Cyrus the Great crossed the Tigris to invade Lydia, ostensibly a Babylonian ally, and though Belshazzar took up a defensive position with his army, perhaps expecting a sudden Persian attack against Babylonia itself, no aid was sent to the Lydians, who were swiftly conquered by Cyrus. It is possible that Belshazzar had campaigned against the Persians on Lydia's behalf a year prior, in 547 BC. The fall of Lydia in 546 BC meant that the Neo-Babylonian Empire was now effectively encircled by a stronger kingdom which had nearly unlimited resources at its disposal. It seems likely that skirmishes along the border were frequent from then until Babylon's fall.


title: Belshazzar

text: It is possible that a noteworthy return to orthodox Babylonian religion, following early attempts by Nabonidus to exalt the moon god Sîn over the traditional Babylonian supreme deity Marduk, can be attributed to Belshazzar. It may even have been Belshazzar who convinced his father to stay away from Babylonia in the first place, fearing a confrontation with the Babylonian oligarchy and clergy over his father's religious beliefs. It is probable that Nabonidus, a reformer, and Belshazzar, apparently more religiously conservative, did not see eye to eye in religious matters. Belshazzar appears to have worked to restore Marduk's status in his father's absence. Upon Nabonidus's return to Babylon, Belshazzar was demoted from his administrative responsibilities and officials he had appointed were dismissed. Nabonidus also had certain inscriptions made during the period of the regency edited to add prayers urging Belshazzar and the people of Babylonia to accept and receive Sîn's blessing.


title: Belshazzar

text: Regardless of any potential animosity between Nabonidus and Belshazzar, Belshazzar retained the status of crown prince and intended successor, as a handful of documents still reference the "son of the king". Otherwise his status and position after Nabonidus's return is never made clear. The sources also do not make Belshazzar's location clear, but it appears that he was stationed some distance away from Babylon, but that he also was no longer in Sippar, where he had stationed himself in 546 BC out of fear of Cyrus. One possibility, suggested by Paul-Alain Beaulieu, is that Belshazzar was put in charge of Babylonia's defense and was moving with the army along the northern and eastern border.


title: Belshazzar

text: Belshazzar partook in Babylon's defense against the invasion by Cyrus the Great in 539 BC. After a decisive victory at the battle of Opis, the Persian army, on 12 October, led by Ugbaru, entered Babylon without a fight. The last tablet dated to Nabonidus's reign is from Uruk and is dated to 13 October, which is considered the end date of his reign. Nabonidus was captured and possibly exiled to Carmania. Belshazzar's fate is not known, since none of the sources record it.' It is often assumed that Belshazzar was killed by the Persians at Babylon when the city fell, on 12 October. He may have alternatively been killed already at the battle of Opis, captured and executed, or exiled together with his father.'


title: Belshazzar

text: In the Book of Daniel, Belshazzar (, "Bēlšaʾṣṣar") plays a significant role in the tale of Belshazzar's feast, a variation on the story of Nebuchadnezzar's madness showing what happens when a king does not repent. During a feast, Babylonians eat and drink from the holy vessels of Yahweh's temple, and "king" Belshazzar sees a hand writing the words "mene, mene, tekel, upharsin" on a wall. Daniel interprets the writing as a judgment from Yahweh, the god of Israel, foretelling the fall of Babylon. Daniel tells Belshazzar that because he has not given honor to God, his kingdom will be given to the Medes and Persians. Belshazzar is killed that night, and Darius the Mede takes the kingdom.


title: Belshazzar

text: The broad consensus among scholars is that the Book of Daniel was compiled shortly after the Maccabean Revolt in the 160s BC. The story of Belshazzar's feast is historical fiction, and several details are not consistent with historical facts. Belshazzar is portrayed as the king of Babylon and "son" of Nebuchadnezzar, though he was actually the son of Nabonidus—one of Nebuchadnezzar's successors—and he never became king in his own right, nor did he lead the religious festivals as the king was required to do. In the story, the conqueror who inherits Babylon is Darius the Mede, but no such individual is known to history, and the invaders were actually Persians. This is typical of the "tale of court contest" in which historical accuracy is not an essential element.


title: Belshazzar

text: In the Book of Daniel, Belshazzar is not malevolent (he rewards Daniel and raises him to high office). The later authors of the Talmud and the Midrash emphasize the tyrannous oppression of his Jewish subjects, with several passages in the Prophets interpreted as referring to him and his predecessors. For example, in the passage, "As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him" (Amos ), the lion is said to represent Nebuchadnezzar, and the bear, equally ferocious if not equally courageous, is Belshazzar. The Babylonian kings are often mentioned together as forming a succession of impious and tyrannical monarchs who oppressed Israel and were therefore foredoomed to disgrace and destruction. Isaiah , "And I will rise up against them, saith the Lord of hosts, and cut off from Babylon name and remnant and son and grandchild, saith the Lord", is applied to the trio: "Name" to Nebuchadnezzar, "remnant" to Amel-Marduk, "son" to Belshazzar, and "grandchild" Vashti (ib.). The command given to Abraham to cut in pieces three heifers () as a part of the covenant established between him and his God was thus elucidated as symbolizing Babylonia, which gave rise to three kings, Nebuchadnezzar, Amel-Marduk, and Belshazzar, whose doom is prefigured by this act of "cutting to pieces" (Midrash Genesis Rabbah xliv.).


title: Belshazzar

text: The Midrash literature enters into the details of Belshazzar's death. Thus the later tradition states that Cyrus and Darius were employed as doorkeepers of the royal palace. Belshazzar, being greatly alarmed at the mysterious handwriting on the wall, and apprehending that someone in disguise might enter the palace with murderous intent, ordered his doorkeepers to behead anyone who attempted to force an entrance that night, even though such person should claim to be the king himself. Belshazzar, overcome by sickness, left the palace unobserved during the night through a rear exit. On his return, the doorkeepers refused to admit him. In vain did he pled that he was the king. They said, "Has not the king ordered us to put to death anyone who attempts to enter the palace, though he claims to be the king himself?" Suiting the action to the word, Cyrus and Darius grasped a heavy ornament forming part of a candelabrum, and with it shattered the skull of their royal master (Shir ha-Shirim Rabbah 3:4).


title: Java Development Kit

text: The Java Development Kit (JDK) is a distribution of Java Technology by Oracle Corporation. It implements the Java Language Specification (JLS) and the Java Virtual Machine Specification (JVMS) and provides the Standard Edition (SE) of the Java Application Programming Interface (API). It is derivative of the community driven OpenJDK which Oracle stewards. It provides software for working with Java applications. Examples of included software are the virtual machine, a compiler, performance monitoring tools, a debugger, and other utilities that Oracle considers useful for a Java programmer.


title: Java Development Kit

text: Oracle have released the current version of the software under the Oracle No-Fee Terms and Conditions (NFTC) license. Oracle release binaries for the x86-64 architecture for Windows, macOS, and Linux based operating systems, and for the aarch64 architecture for macOS and Linux. Previous versions have supported the Oracle Solaris operating system and SPARC architecture.


title: Java Development Kit

text: The JDK also comes with a complete Java Runtime Environment (JRE), usually called a "private" runtime, due to the fact that it is separated from the "regular" JRE and has extra contents. It consists of a Java Virtual Machine and all of the class libraries present in the production environment, as well as additional libraries only useful to developers, such as the internationalization libraries and the IDL libraries.


title: Java Development Kit

text: Copies of the JDK also include a wide selection of example programs demonstrating the use of almost all portions of the Java API.


title: Java Development Kit

text: In addition to the most widely used JDK discussed in this article, there are other JDKs commonly available for a variety of platforms, some of which started from the Sun JDK source and some that did not. All adhere to the basic Java specifications, but often differ in explicitly unspecified areas, such as garbage collection, compilation strategies, and optimization techniques. They include:


title: Monera

text: Monera (/məˈnɪərə/) (Greek - μονήρης (monḗrēs), "single", "solitary") is a biological kingdom that is made up of prokaryotes. As such, it is composed of single-celled organisms that lack a nucleus.


title: Monera

text: The taxon Monera was first proposed as a phylum by Ernst Haeckel in 1866. Subsequently, the phylum was elevated to the rank of kingdom in 1925 by Édouard Chatton. The last commonly accepted mega-classification with the taxon Monera was the five-kingdom classification system was established by Robert Whittaker in 1969.


title: Monera

text: Under the three-domain system of taxonomy, introduced by Carl Woese in 1977, which reflects the evolutionary history of life, the organisms found in kingdom Monera have been divided into two domains, Archaea and Bacteria (with Eukarya as the third domain). Furthermore, the taxon Monera is paraphyletic (does not include all descendants of their most recent common ancestor), as Archaea and Eukarya are currently believed to be more closely related than either is to Bacteria. The term "moneran" is the informal name of members of this group and is still sometimes used (as is the term "prokaryote") to denote a member of either domain.


title: Monera

text: Most bacteria were classified under Monera; however, some Cyanobacteria (often called the blue-green algae) were initially classified under Plantae due to their ability to photosynthesize.


title: Monera

text: Traditionally the natural world was classified as animal, vegetable, or mineral as in Systema Naturae. After the development of the microscope, attempts were made to fit microscopic organisms into either the plant or animal kingdoms. In 1675, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek discovered bacteria and called them "animalcules", assigning them to the class Vermes of the Animalia. Due to the limited tools — the sole references for this group were shape, behaviour, and habitat — the description of genera and their classification was extremely limited, which was accentuated by the perceived lack of importance of the group.


title: Monera

text: Ten years after "The Origin of Species" by Charles Darwin, in 1866 Ernst Haeckel, a supporter of evolutionary theory, proposed a three-kingdom system that added the Protista as a new kingdom that contained most microscopic organisms. One of his eight major divisions of Protista was composed of the monerans (called Moneres by Haeckel), which he defined as completely structure-less and homogeneous organisms, consisting only of a piece of plasma. Haeckel's Monera included not only bacterial groups of early discovery but also several small eukaryotic organisms; in fact the genus Vibrio is the only bacterial genus explicitly assigned to the phylum, while others are mentioned indirectly, which led Copeland to speculate that Haeckel considered all bacteria to belong to the genus Vibrio, ignoring other bacterial genera. One notable exception were the members of the modern phylum Cyanobacteria, such as "Nostoc", which were placed in the phylum Archephyta of Algae (vide infra: Blue-green algae).


title: Monera

text: The Neolatin noun Monera and the German noun Moneren/Moneres are derived from the ancient Greek noun "moneres", which Haeckel stated meant "simple"; however, it actually means "single, solitary". Haeckel also describes the protist genus Monas in the two pages about Monera in his 1866 book. The informal name of a member of the Monera was initially moneron, but later moneran was used.


title: Monera

text: Due to its lack of features, the phylum was not fully subdivided, but the genera therein were divided into two groups:


title: Monera

text: Like Protista, the Monera classification was not fully followed at first and several different ranks were used and located with animals, plants, protists or fungi. Furthermore, Haeckel's classification lacked specificity and was not exhaustive — it in fact covers only a few pages—, consequently a lot of confusion arose even to the point that the Monera did not contain bacterial genera and others according to Huxley. They were first recognized as a kingdom by Enderlein in 1925 (Bakterien-Cyclogenie. de Gruyter, Berlin).


title: Monera

text: The most popular scheme was created in 1859 by C. Von Nägeli who classified non-phototrophic Bacteria as the class Schizomycetes.


title: Monera

text: The class Schizomycetes was then emended by Walter Migula (along with the coinage of the genus "Pseudomonas" in 1894) and others. This term was in dominant use even in 1916 as reported by Robert Earle Buchanan, as it had priority over other terms such as Monera. However, starting with Ferdinand Cohn in 1872 the term "bacteria" (or in German "") became prominently used to informally describe this group of species without a nucleus: Bacterium was in fact a genus created in 1828 by Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg Additionally, Cohn divided the bacteria according to shape namely:


title: Monera

text: Successively, Cohn created the Schizophyta of Plants, which contained the non-photrophic bacteria in the family Schizomycetes and the phototrophic bacteria (blue green algae/Cyanobacteria) in the Schizophyceae This union of blue green algae and Bacteria was much later followed by Haeckel, who classified the two families in a revised phylum Monera in the Protista.


title: Monera

text: Stanier and van Neil (1941, The main outlines of bacterial classification. J Bacteriol 42: 437- 466) recognized the Kingdom Monera with two phyla, Myxophyta and Schizomycetae, the latter comprising classes Eubacteriae (3 orders), Myxobacteriae (1 order), and Spirochetae (1 order); Bisset (1962, Bacteria, 2nd ed., Livingston, London) distinguished 1 class and 4 orders: Eubacteriales, Actinomycetales, Streptomycetales, and Flexibacteriales; Orla-Jensen (1909, Die Hauptlinien des naturalischen Bakteriensystems nebst einer Ubersicht der Garungsphenomene. Zentr. Bakt. Parasitenk., II, 22: 305-346) and Bergey et al (1925, Bergey's Manual of Determinative Bacteriology, Baltimore : Williams & Wilkins Co.) with many subsequent editions) also presented classifications.


title: Monera

text: The term Monera became well established in the 20s and 30s when to rightfully increase the importance of the difference between species with a nucleus and without. In 1925, Édouard Chatton divided all living organisms into two empires Prokaryotes and Eukaryotes: the Kingdom Monera being the sole member of the Prokaryotes empire.


title: Monera

text: The anthropic importance of the crown group of animals, plants and fungi was hard to depose; consequently, several other megaclassification schemes ignored on the empire rank but maintained the kingdom Monera consisting of bacteria, such Copeland in 1938 and Whittaker in 1969. The latter classification system was widely followed, in which Robert Whittaker proposed a five kingdom system for classification of living organisms. Whittaker's system placed most single celled organisms into either the prokaryotic Monera or the eukaryotic Protista. The other three kingdoms in his system were the eukaryotic Fungi, Animalia, and Plantae. Whittaker, however, did not believe that all his kingdoms were monophyletic.


title: Monera

text: Alternative commonly followed subdivision systems were based on Gram stains. This culminated in the Gibbons and Murray classification of 1978:


title: Monera

text: In 1977, a PNAS paper by Carl Woese and George Fox demonstrated that the archaea (initially called archaebacteria) are not significantly closer in relationship to the bacteria than they are to eukaryotes. The paper received front-page coverage in "The New York Times", and great controversy initially. The conclusions have since become accepted, leading to replacement of the kingdom Monera with the two domains Bacteria and Archaea. A minority of scientists, including Thomas Cavalier-Smith, continue to reject the widely accepted division between these two groups. Cavalier-Smith has published classifications in which the archaebacteria are part of a subkingdom of the Kingdom Bacteria.


title: Monera

text: Although it was generally accepted that one could distinguish prokaryotes from eukaryotes on the basis of the presence of a nucleus, mitosis versus binary fission as a way of reproducing, size, and other traits, the monophyly of the kingdom Monera (or for that matter, whether classification should be according to phylogeny) was controversial for many decades. Although distinguishing between prokaryotes from eukaryotes as a fundamental distinction is often credited to a 1937 paper by Édouard Chatton (little noted until 1962), he did not emphasize this distinction more than other biologists of his era. Roger Stanier and C. B. van Niel believed that the bacteria (a term which at the time did not include blue-green algae) and the blue-green algae had a single origin, a conviction that culminated in Stanier writing in a letter in 1970, "I think it is now quite evident that the blue-green algae are not distinguishable from bacteria by any fundamental feature of their cellular organization". Other researchers, such as E. G. Pringsheim writing in 1949, suspected separate origins for bacteria and blue-green algae. In 1974, the influential "Bergey's Manual" published a new edition coining the term cyanobacteria to refer to what had been called blue-green algae, marking the acceptance of this group within the Monera.


title: Flag of the United Nations

text: The flag of the United Nations consists of the emblem depicting the white azimuthal equidistant projection of the world map, centred on the North Pole, with two white olive branches placed on to its right and left, located on the sky blue background. The emblem was officially adopted on 7 December 1946, and the flag, on 20 October 1947.


title: Flag of the United Nations

text: The flag of the United Nations consists of the white emblem on the sky blue background. The emblem depicts a azimuthal equidistant projection of the world map, centred on the North Pole, with the globe being bisected in the centre by the Prime meridian and the International Date Line, thus ensuring that no country is at prominence within the flag. The projection of the map extends to 60 degrees south latitude, and includes five concentric circles. The map is inscribed in a wreath consisting of crossed conventionalized branches of the olive tree.


title: Flag of the United Nations

text: The size of the emblem on the flag is one half the width of the flag itself. The flag proportions of the aspect ratio of the flag height to its width, are equal 2:3, 3:5 or to the same proportions as the national flag of any country in which the UN flag is flown. White and blue are the official colours of the United Nations. The light blue background colour code is Pantone Matching System 2925. It approximates sky blue.


title: Flag of the United Nations

text: The olive branches are a symbol for peace, and the world map represents all the people and the countries of the world.


title: Flag of the United Nations

text: The organizers of the 1945 United Nations Conference on International Organization in San Francisco, California wanted an insignia that could be made into a pin to identify delegates. United States Secretary of State Edward Stettinius, Jr. was chairperson of the U.S. delegation, and realized that a temporary design might become the permanent symbol of the United Nations. He formed a committee headed by Oliver Lundquist that developed a design consisting of a world map surrounded by leaves from a design created by Donal McLaughlin.


title: Flag of the United Nations

text: McLaughlin had previously worked as chief of graphics for the Office of Strategic Services that preceded the CIA. The azimuthal equidistant projection used in his design was heavily influenced by the maps created during World War II by Richard Edes Harrison, a popular cartographer working for "Fortune" and "Life.""".


title: Flag of the United Nations

text: The blue that appears in the background of the insignia was chosen to be "the opposite of red, the war colour", although the exact shade has never been officially specified by the United Nations. The original colour the group chose in 1945 was a gray blue that differs from the current United Nations flag. The globe used in the original design was an azimuthal projection focused on the North Pole with the United States, the host nation of the conference, at the centre. The projection that was used cut off portions of the Southern Hemisphere at the latitude of Argentina, which was acceptable at the time, as Argentina was not planned to be an original member of the United Nations. The projection was later altered so that no country will be at prominence within the flag. The new logo was now designed so that the globe is bisected in the centre by the Prime Meridian and the International Date Line. The earlier version of the emblem had the globe 90 degrees turned eastward compared with the present flag, which has the Prime Meridian and the International Date Line forming the vertical diameter. According to press statements, the change was made to move North America away from the centre of the emblem.


title: Flag of the United Nations

text: In 1946, a UNO committee got the task of making a definite design, which was presented 2 December 1946. The emblem was adopted by the plenary session of the UNO on 7 December 1946, and the flag was officially adopted on 20 October 1947.


title: Flag of the United Nations

text: According to the Convention on the Safety of United Nations and Associated Personnel, the emblem and the flag of the United Nations can be used by the personnel and material of UN peacekeeping missions as a protective sign to prevent attacks during an armed conflict.


title: Flag of the United Nations

text: The United Nations flag may also be flown as a garrison flag with other country flags. Garrison size is 10 feet by 30 feet.


title: Flag of the United Nations

text: The UN flag is the origin of a family of national flags. Because of the UN's association with peace and cooperation, UN-inspired flags are often adopted by nations experiencing conflict or instability. Many nations with UN-inspired flags either were or were a part of United Nations trust territories.


title: Donald DeFreeze

text: Donald David DeFreeze (November 16, 1943 – May 17, 1974), also known as Cinque Mtume and using the nom de guerre "General Field Marshal Cinque", was known as the "spokesman" of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), a small, American far-left group that formed in Oakland, California in 1973. Some analysts suggested he was a figurehead; others said he was the leader. Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, he dropped out of high school and was involved from the age of 14 in frequent brushes with the criminal justice system. He received generous probation in the late 1960s, leading some sources to suggest he was serving as a police informant to the Los Angeles Police Department.


title: Donald DeFreeze

text: He and several white allies began to make plans for armed action that they believed would arouse the black community and attract more recruits. Three SLA "soldiers" fatally shot Marcus Foster, the Superintendent of Public Schools in Oakland, the first black superintendent of any major public school system, and wounded his deputy. They mistakenly believed he supported a program of student IDs, and, by his assassination, alienated the black community. Two members of the SLA were arrested in January 1974, convicted and sentenced to prison for the crimes.


title: Donald DeFreeze

text: DeFreeze and co-conspirators next kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst February 1974, seeking a ransom and attention. Police pressure rose. During a shootout with law enforcement in Los Angeles, DeFreeze committed suicide by gunshot when he and five SLA members made a stand in a burning house. A private investigation before this last assault suggested that DeFreeze may have been a police informant and agent provocateur from before the founding days of the SLA. His remains were returned to Cleveland, where the funeral was organized at the family's request by members of the Sunni Orthodox Moslem sect.


title: Donald DeFreeze

text: DeFreeze was born in Cleveland, Ohio, to African-American parents Louis and Mary DeFreeze; he was the eldest of eight children. His mother was a registered nurse at a convalescent home. His father was a violent man who punished DeFreeze frequently; he broke both of the boy's arms three times when he was a child.


title: Donald DeFreeze

text: DeFreeze dropped out of school in the ninth grade at age 14 and ran away from home. He moved to Buffalo, New York, where he lived with the Rev. William L. Foster, a fundamentalist minister, and his family. He became a street gang member in Buffalo. The Rev. Foster would say of him later:


title: Donald DeFreeze

text: He was a get up and go kid... he had a heart that was as big as a house. But some of the boys he used to hang around with, I didn't care for. You just knew they were 99 and 44/100 percent bad.


title: Donald DeFreeze

text: In his first brush with the law, DeFreeze was arrested for stealing from parking meters and stealing a car. He was sent to the state reformatory in Elmira, New York. In 1970, DeFreeze wrote of his time there, which he called a prison or a mental institution:


title: Donald DeFreeze

text: Life in the prison, as we called it, was nothing, but fear and hate, day in and day out... I would not be part of any of the gangs, black or white... I didn't hate anyone, black or white, and they hated me for it.


title: Donald DeFreeze

text: Following his release, DeFreeze moved to the Newark, New Jersey area. In 1963, at the age of 20, he married Gloria Thomas, who had three children from a previous marriage. DeFreeze and Thomas had a total of three children together. In 1964 his wife had him arrested for desertion.


title: Donald DeFreeze

text: They reconciled. After having some gun charges dropped, in 1965 DeFreeze moved with his family from the Northeast to California, where they settled in Los Angeles. He said that the worries of trying to support the children engulfed him. He wrote, "I just couldn't take it anymore. I was slowly becoming a nothing".


title: Donald DeFreeze

text: During his period away from his family, in 1964, police stopped DeFreeze while he was hitchhiking on the San Bernardino Freeway near West Covina, California. They found him carrying a tear-gas pencil bomb, a sharpened butter knife, and a sawed-off rifle in his suitcase.


title: Donald DeFreeze

text: In 1965, having returned to Newark, DeFreeze was arrested for firing a gun in the basement of his home. "I started playing with guns and fireworks," he would later write. "Just anything to get away from life and how unhappy I was". The charges were dropped and DeFreeze took his family to California.


title: Donald DeFreeze

text: In 1967, the police stopped DeFreeze for running a red light on his bicycle. The police said that when they searched him, they found a homemade bomb in his pocket. The bicycle basket held another bomb and a pistol. DeFreeze said he had found them and was trying to sell them because of his family's needs. He was given three years of probation. The probation officer who interviewed DeFreeze wrote that the youth was "deeply troubled by this case".


title: Donald DeFreeze

text: ...The difficulties which the defendant has encountered in his life are real and serious. He feels his responsibilities deeply and is overcome when he cannot meet them. He appears to have a warm relationship with his wife and children... The type of behavior encountered in the present offense appears to be the defendant's way of compensating for feelings of inadequacy and powerlessness... The defendant is potentially dangerous if he again encounters such severely threatening circumstances as he was encountering at the time of the offense.


title: Donald DeFreeze

text: An early probation report described DeFreeze as, "a schizoid personality with strong schizophrenic potential" who had "a fascination with firearms and explosives." Psychiatric officials at the prison testing center where he was briefly sent recommended that he be jailed "because his fascination with firearms and explosives made him dangerous". Despite these recommendations, he was given a further five years probation.


title: Donald DeFreeze

text: In 1969, DeFreeze and an accomplice were arrested in New Jersey for the kidnapping of a caretaker of a synagogue. His accomplice was tried and acquitted. A memorandum from the prosecutor's office said that they decided to drop charges against DeFreeze since by the time of trial, he was jailed in California.


title: Donald DeFreeze

text: On October 11, 1969, Cleveland, Ohio, police spotted DeFreeze on the roof of a bank carrying two pistols and an 8-inch dagger. Police said they found a burglar's tool kit and a hand grenade nearby. He paid the $5,000 bond money and then left for Los Angeles.


title: Donald DeFreeze

text: On November 17, 1969, DeFreeze was injured in a gun battle with police outside a bank in Los Angeles. He was convicted in 1970 of having stolen a $1,000 negotiable cashier's check and was sentenced to 6-to-14 years; he was sent to Vacaville Prison.