title: Consett

text: Regeneration in the 1990s, through Project Genesis, went only some way towards repairing the damage done to the local economy by these closures. Unemployment came down to the national average, but this was partly due to outward migration and economic inactivity due to long-term illness, neither of which were included in the government statistics. In 2011 Durham County Council, which provides a lot of employment for local people, commenced a three-year plan to reduce its workforce by 1600.


title: Consett

text: Alongside the public sector, small and medium-sized businesses now provide jobs in the area. The Phileas Fogg Company (County Durham), with its factory in Consett, were mildly famous for a few years from 1988 for their snack food "Made in Medomsley Road, Consett" television adverts. It is now owned by KP Snacks (originally part of United Biscuits). The Explorer Group, based in Consett, is the United Kingdom's second-largest manufacturer of caravans. Elddis Transport Limited is based in the town.


title: Consett

text: Since 2000, there have been several new housing developments on the former steelworks site and surrounding areas. Derwentside College, formerly sited at Park Road, moved to a new campus at Berry Edge in September 2002 and more recently, major retailers have moved in and the site which once made steel for Blackpool Tower and Britain's nuclear submarines is now home to rival Tesco and Morrisons stores, a string of high street outlets and fast food restaurants.


title: Consett

text: New industrial units are also to be built on the former steel works site, after the Project Genesis Trust secured investment of £358,968 from the Rural Growth Network (RGN) to develop bespoke business premises and offices on part of the site. (The Project Genesis Trust is a body created to regenerate the former steelworks site).


title: Consett

text: The population soared to 39,000, higher than in the days of steel, and unemployment plummeted. In August 2015, only 420 people were receiving Jobseekers' Allowance, with an official unemployment rate of 1.7 per cent, markedly lower than the rest of County Durham. The wider claimant count of people on out-of-work benefits was 6.3 per cent, half the County Durham average, although it omits those receiving disability benefits, which will be a significant number, given the town's industrial legacy.


title: Consett

text: A large area formerly used by Shotley Bridge Hospital was sold to a property developer, which began to build a further 400 homes in 2013–2014. This development has now become the multi-award-winning Woodlands Estate. This has further aided Consett's recovery as a top commuter town due to its convenient location between Durham and Newcastle.


title: Consett

text: Along with the housing developments of the last few years (some still ongoing), there has also been major investment in local amenities, such as a £44-million sports complex in Medomsley Road, near the old sports facilities. This is shared with Consett Academy, which was given a brand new £5.7 million building.


title: Consett

text: In June 2020, the MP for North West Durham, Richard Holden, sponsored a bid to the "Ideas Fund" of the Department for Transport's "Restoring Your Railway Fund", hoping to access up to £50,000 to cover the cost of an initial study into the feasibility of restoring a rail link between Consett and Blaydon. In November 2020 it was announced that the requested funds would be provided for such a study into reinstating a rail service between Consett and , although it was unclear where the Consett terminus of such a rail link would be located and whether this study would focus on the former Derwent Valley Railway or also include the former route via Birtley.


title: Consett

text: Consett's secondary school is Consett Academy. However, near to Consett in Lanchester is St Bede's Catholic School and Sixth Form College and in Stanley North Durham Academy, which along with Consett Academy is part of the New College Durham Academies Trust (NCDAT) managed by New College Durham.


title: Consett

text: Consett is home to the Empire Theatre, one of County Durham's oldest theatres. Recently refurbished, it stages variety acts, plays and a Christmas pantomime. It also screens films at times when there are no live performances.


title: Consett

text: Several pubs have taken names that reflect the town's steel-making past: "The Works", "The Company", and "The Company Row". From Consett's bygone days as a steel town with a strong reliance on rail, next to where the main railway station used to be, is a club named the Station Club, now opposite a health centre. With views over the Derwent Valley, Consett is becoming a popular place to live for commuters from Durham and Tyne and Wear.


title: Consett

text: Consett was the first in the world to have a Salvation Army Corps Band, formed in December 1879 to play on the streets at Christmas. The original four players were Edward Lennox and his bandsmen George Storey, James Simpson and Robert Greenwood.


title: Varahi

text: Varahi (, ) is one of the Matrikas, a group of seven mother goddesses in the Hindu religion. Bearing the head of a sow, Varahi is the shakti (feminine energy) of Varaha, the boar avatar of the god Vishnu. In Nepal, she is called Barahi. In Rajasthan and Gujarat, she is venerated as Dandini.


title: Varahi

text: Varahi is more commonly venerated in the sect of the Goddess-oriented Shaktism, but also in Shaivism (devotees of Shiva) and Vaishnavism (devotees of Vishnu). She is usually worshipped at night, using secretive Vamamarga Tantric practices. The Buddhist goddesses Vajravārāhī and Marichi have their origins in the Hindu goddess Varahi.


title: Varahi

text: According to the Shumbha-Nishumbha story of the "Devi Mahatmya" from the "Markandeya Purana" religious texts, the Matrikas goddesses appears as "shakti"s (feminine powers) from the bodies of the gods. The scriptures say Varahi was created from Varaha. She has a boar form, wields a chakra (discus) and fights with a sword. After the battle described in the scripture, the Matrikas dancedrunk on their victim's blood.


title: Varahi

text: According to a latter episode of the "Devi Mahatmya" that deals with the killing of the demon Raktabija, the warrior-goddess Durga creates the Matrikas from herself and with their help slaughters the demon army. When the demon Shumbha challenges Durga to single combat, she absorbs the Matrikas into herself. In the "Vamana Purana", the Matrikas arise from different parts of the Divine Mother Chandika; Varahi arises from Chandika's back.


title: Varahi

text: The "Markendeya Purana" praises Varahi as a granter of boons and the regent of the Northern direction, in a hymn where the Matrikas are declared as the protectors of the directions. In another instance in the same Purana, she is described as riding a buffalo. The "Devi Bhagavata Purana" says Varahi, with the other Matrikas, is created by the Supreme Mother. The Mother promises the gods that the Matrikas will fight demons when needed. In the Raktabija episode, Varahi is described as having a boar form, fighting demons with her tusks while seated on a preta (corpse).


title: Varahi

text: In the "Varaha Purana", the story of Raktabija is retold, but here each of Matrikas appears from the body of another Matrika. Varahi appears seated on Shesha-nāga (the serpent on which the god Vishnu sleeps) from the posterior of Vaishnavi, the Shakti of Vishnu. Varahi is said to represent the vice of envy ("asuya") in the same Purana.


title: Varahi

text: The "Matsya Purana" tells a different story of the origin of Varahi. Varahi, with other Matrikas, is created by Shiva to help him kill the demon Andhakasura, who has the ability – like Raktabija – to regenerate from his dripping blood.


title: Varahi

text: The "Devi Purana" paradoxically calls Varahi the mother of Varaha ("Varahajanani") as well as "Kritantatanusambhava", who emerges from Kritantatanu. Kritantatanu means "death personified" and could be an attribute of Varaha or a direct reference to Yama, the god of death. Elsewhere in the scripture, she is called "Vaivasvati" and described as engrossed in drinking from a skull-cup. Pal theorizes that the name "Vaivasvati" means that Varahi is clearly identified with Yami, the shakti of Yama, who is also known as Vivasvan. Moreover, Varahi holds a staff and rides a buffalo, both of which are attributes of Yama; all Matrikas are described as having the form of the gods, they are shaktis of.


title: Varahi

text: In the context of the Matrikas' association to the Sanskrit alphabet, Varahi is said to govern the "pa" "varga" of consonants, namely "pa, pha, ba, bha, ma". The "Lalita Sahasranama", a collection of 1,000 names of the Divine Mother, calls Varahi the destroyer of demon Visukaran. In another context, Varahi, as "Panchami", is identified with the wife of Sadashiva, the fifth "Brahma", responsible for the regeneration of the Universe. The other "Panch Brahmas" ("five Brahmas") are the gods Brahma, Govinda, Rudra and Isvara, who are in charge of creation, protection, destruction and dissolution respectively. In yet another context, Varahi is called "Kaivalyarupini", the bestower of Kaivalya ("detachment of the soul from matter or further transmigrations") – the final form of mukti (salvation). The Matrikas are also believed to reside in a person's body. Varahi is described as residing in a person's navel and governs the manipura, svadhisthana and muladhara chakras.


title: Varahi

text: Haripriya Rangarajan, in her book "Images of Varahi—An Iconographic Study", suggests that Varahi is none other than Vak devi, the goddess of speech.


title: Varahi

text: Varahi's iconography is described in the "Matsya Purana" and agamas, such as the "Purva-karnagama" and the "Rupamandana". The Tantric text "Varahi Tantra" mentions that Varahi has five forms: Svapna Varahi, Canda Varahi, Mahi Varahi (Bhairavi), Krcca Varahi and Matsya Varahi. The Matrikas, as shaktis of gods, are described to resemble those gods in form, jewellery and mount, but Varahi inherits only the boar-face of Varaha.


title: Varahi

text: Varahi is usually depicted with her characteristic sow face on a human body with a black complexion comparable to a storm cloud. The scholar Donaldson informs us that the association of a sow and a woman is seen as derogatory for the latter, but the association is also used in curses to protect "land from invaders, new rulers and trespassers". Occasionally, she is described as holding the Earth on her tusks, similar to Varaha. She wears the "", a conical basket-shaped crown. Varahi can be depicted as standing, seated, or dancing. Varahi is often depicted as pot-bellied and with full breasts, while most all other Matrikas – except Chamunda – are depicted as slender and beautiful. One belief suggests that since Varahi is identified with the Yoganidra of Vishnu, who holds the universe in her womb ("Bhugarbha Paranmesvari Jagaddhatri"), she should be shown as pot-bellied. Another theory suggests that the pot-belly reflects a "maternal aspect", which Donaldson describes as "curious" because Varahi and Chamunda "best exemplify" the terrible aspect of the Divine Mother. A notable exception is the depiction of Varahi as human-faced and slender at the sixth-century Rameshvara cave (Cave 21), the Ellora Caves. She is depicted here as part of the group of seven Matrikas. A third eye and/or a crescent moon is described to be on her forehead.


title: Varahi

text: Varahi may be two, four, six or eight-armed. The "Matsya Purana", the "Purva-karnagama" and the "Rupamandana" mention a four-armed form. The "Rupamandana" says she carries a ghanta (bell), a chamara (a yak's tail), a chakra (discus) and a gada (mace). The "Matsya Purana" omits the ghanta and does not mention the fourth weapon. The "Purva-Karanagama" mentions that she holds the Sharanga (the bow of Vishnu), the "hala" (plough) and the "musula" (pestle). The fourth hand is held in the Abhaya ("protection gesture") or the Varada Mudra ("blessing gesture"). The "Devi Purana" mentions her attributes as being sword, iron club and noose. Another description says her hair is adorned with a garland with red flowers. She holds a staff and drinking skull-cup (kapala). The "Varahini-nigrahastaka-stotra" describes her attributes as a plough, a pestle, a skull-cup and the abhaya mudra. The "Vamana Purana" describes her seated on Shesha while holding a chakra and a mace. The "Agni Purana" describes her holding the gada, shankha, sword and ankusha (goad). The "Mantramahodadhi" mentions she carries a sword, shield, noose and goad. In Vaishnava images, since she is associated with Vishnu, Varahi may be depicted holding all four attributes of Vishnu – Shankha (conch), chakra, Gada and Padma (lotus). The "Aparajitapriccha" describes her holding a rosary, a khatvanga (a club with a skull), a bell, and a kamandalu (water-pot).


title: Varahi

text: The "Vishnudharmottara Purana" describes a six-armed Varahi, holding a danda (staff of punishment), khetaka (shield), khadga (sword) and pasha (noose) in four hands and the two remaining hands being held in Abhaya and Varada Mudra ("blessing gesture"). She also holds a "shakti" and "hala" (plough). Such a Varahi sculpture is found at Abanesi, depicted with the dancing Shiva. She may also be depicted holding a child sitting on her lap, as Matrikas are often depicted.


title: Varahi

text: Matsya Varahi is depicted as two-armed, with spiral-coiled hair and holding a fish ("matsya") and a kapala. The fish and wine-cup kapala are special characteristics of Tantric Shakta images of Varahi, the fish being exclusive to Tantric descriptions.


title: Varahi

text: The vahana (vehicle) of Varahi is usually described as a buffalo ("Mahisha"). In Vaishnava and Shakta images, she is depicted as either standing or seated on a lotus pitha (pedestral) or on her vahana (a buffalo) or on its head, or on a boar, the serpent Shesha, a lion, or on Garuda (the eagle-man vahana of Vishnu). In Tantric Shakta images, the vahana may be specifically a she-buffalo or a corpse ("pretasana"). An elephant may be depicted as her vahana. The goddess is also described as riding on her horse, Jambini. Garuda may be depicted as her attendant. She may also be depicted seated under a "kalpaka" tree.


title: Varahi

text: When depicted as part of the Sapta-Matrika group ("seven mothers"), Varahi is always in the fifth position in the row of Matrikas, hence called Panchami ("fifth"). The goddesses are flanked by Virabhadra (Shiva's fierce form) and Ganesha (Shiva's elephant-headed son and wisdom god).


title: Varahi

text: Varahi is worshipped by Shaivas, Vaishnavas and Shaktas. Varahi is worshipped in the Sapta-Matrikas group ("seven mothers"), which are venerated in Shaktism, as well as associated with Shiva.


title: Varahi

text: Varahi is a "ratri devata" (night goddess) and is sometimes called Dhruma Varahi ("dark Varahi") and Dhumavati ("goddess of darkness"). According to Tantra, Varahi should be worshipped after sunset and before sunrise. "Parsurama Kalpasutra" explicitly states that the time of worship is the middle of the night. Shaktas worship Varahi by secretive Vamamarga Tantric practices, which are particularly associated with worship by panchamakara – wine, fish, grain, meat and ritual copulation. These practices are observed in the Kalaratri temple on the bank of the Ganges, where worship is offered to Varahi only in the night; the shrine is closed during the day. Shaktas consider Varahi to be a manifestation of the goddess Lalita Tripurasundari or as "Dandanayika" or "Dandanatha" – the commander-general of Lalita's army. The Sri Vidya tradition of Shaktism elevates Varahi to the status of Para Vidya ("transcendental knowledge"). The Devi mahatmya suggests evoking Varahi for longevity. Thirty yantras and thirty mantras are prescribed for the worship of Varahi and to acquire siddhis by her favour. This, according to the scholar Rath, indicates her power. Some texts detailing her iconography compare her to the Supreme Shakti.


title: Varahi

text: Prayers dedicated to Varahi include "Varahi Anugrahashtakam", for her blessing, and "Varahi Nigrahashtakam", for destruction of enemies; both are composed in Tamil.


title: Varahi

text: Apart from the temples in which Varahi is worshipped as part of the Sapta-Matrika, there are notable temples where Varahi is worshipped as the chief deity.


title: Varahi

text: A 9th-century Varahi temple exists at Chaurasi about 14 km from Konark, Orissa, where Varahi is installed as Matysa Varahi and is worshipped by Tantric rites. In Varanasi, Varahi is worshipped as Patala Bhairavi. In Chennai, there is a Varahi temple in Mylapore, while a larger temple is being built near Vedanthangal. Ashadha Navaratri, in the Hindu month of Ashadha (June/July), is celebrated as a nine-day festival in honour of Varahi at the Varahi shrine at Brihadeeswarar temple (a Shaiva temple), Thanjavur. The goddess is decorated with different types of "alankarams" (ornaments) every day, during festivals while full moon days are also considered auspicious. An ancient temple of the goddess is also found at Uthirakosamangai. Ashta-Varahi temple with eight forms of Varahi is situated in Salamedu near Villupuram.


title: Varahi

text: A Barahi temple is situated in the middle of Phewa Lake, Nepal. Here, Barahi, as she is known as in Nepal, is worshipped in the Matysa Varahi form as an incarnation of Durga and an Ajima ("grandmother") goddess. Devotees usually sacrifice male animals to the goddess on Saturdays. Jaya Barahi Mandir, Bhaktapur, is also dedicated to Barahi.


title: Varahi

text: Vajravarahi ("vajra-hog" or Buddhist Varahi), the most common form of the Buddhist goddess Vajrayogini, originated from the Hindu Varahi. Vajravarahi is also known as Varahi in Buddhism. Vajravarahi inherits the fierce character and wrath of Varahi. Both are invoked to destroy enemies. The sow head of Varahi is also seen as the right-side head attached to the main head in one of Vajravarahi's most common forms. The hog head is described in Tibetan scriptures as representing the sublimation of ignorance ("moha"). According to Elizabeth English, Varahi enters the Buddhist pantheon through the yogatantras. In the "Sarvatathagatatattvasamgaraha", Varahi is described initially as a Shaiva "sarvamatr" ("all-mother") located in hell, who is converted to the Buddhist mandala by Vajrapani, assuming the name Vajramukhi ("vajra-face"). Varahi also enters the Heruka-mandala as an attendant goddess. Varahi, along with Varttali (another form of Varahi), appears as the hog-faced attendant of Marichi, who also has a sow face – which may be an effect of the Hindu Varahi.


title: Asif Ghafoor

text: Asif Ghafoor (Urdu: آصِف غفور ) is a Lieutenant General in the Pakistan Army. Currently serving as Quetta Corps Commander, he was previously appointed as Inspector General for Communication & Information Technology. He was the 20th Director General of the ISPR


title: Asif Ghafoor

text: Ghafoor graduated at the Command & Staff College in Quetta, Command & Staff College Bandung in Indonesia and the National Defence University in Islamabad. He holds a master's degree in Strategic Studies.


title: Asif Ghafoor

text: He was commissioned on 9 September 1988 in the 87 SP Medium Regiment Artillery after four years of training (1984-1988) as a Cadet in the Junior Cadet Battalion at PMA Kakul (1986–88). He had participated in the Kargil War as a Major, operations against terrorists in tribal areas of FATA and Swat during 2008-10 as a Lieutenant Colonel and has commanded a Division at Swat, Malakand in 2016 as a Major General. Asif has also served as Director Military Operations at Army Headquarters GHQ as a Brigadier commanded Divisional Artillery deployed along the Line of Control and infantry brigade along eastern border. He has been on faculty of Command and Staff College Quetta.


title: Asif Ghafoor

text: The General has served on various staff, instructional and command assignments including Brigade Major Infantry Brigade, Assistant Military Secretary MS Branch, GSO-I Military Operations Directorate, GHQ, Director Military Operations in Military Operations Directorate, GHQ. He has been on the faculty of Command and Staff College, Quetta. He has commanded his parent unit in Operation al-Mizan, Artillery Brigade on Line of Control, Infantry Brigade on Eastern Border and a Division at Swat, Malakand.<ref name="dawn/15dec2016"></ref><ref name="tribune/15dec2016"></ref> The General is recipient of COAS Commendation Card<ref name="ispr/dg-ispr"></ref> for operations in Bajaur during 2008 and Hilal-i-Imtiaz (Military).


title: Asif Ghafoor

text: In January 2020, Ghafoor was appointed as the General Officer Commanding 40 Division in Okara. On 25 November 2020, he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant General and appointed as Inspector General Communications and Information Technology and now serving as Quetta Corps Commander.


title: Rebecca (Better Call Saul)

text: "Rebecca" is the fifth episode of the second season of the American television drama series "Better Call Saul", the spinoff series of "Breaking Bad". Written by Ann Cherkis and directed by John Shiban, "Rebecca" aired on AMC in the United States on March 14, 2016. Outside of the United States, the episode premiered on streaming service Netflix in several countries.


title: Rebecca (Better Call Saul)

text: In a flashback to 1992, Chuck McGill is shown to not yet have experienced the symptoms of electromagnetic hypersensitivity, as he easily changes a light bulb in his dining room chandelier. Jimmy McGill visits Chuck's house shortly after moving to Albuquerque, where he meets Chuck's wife, Rebecca Bois. During dinner, Rebecca is charmed by Jimmy's personality and charisma, which makes Chuck obviously uncomfortable.


title: Rebecca (Better Call Saul)

text: Jimmy meets Kim Wexler in the HHM document review room, where she is relegated to entry-level work and proposes that she sue HHM for discrimination and creating a hostile work environment. Kim rejects this idea, suggesting it would be career suicide because no one would ever hire her again. She tells Jimmy to worry about his own job while she worries about hers. Throughout his day, Jimmy is accompanied by junior associate Erin Brill, who claims to want to help Jimmy fit in better at D&M, though Jimmy realizes Clifford Main directed her to "babysit" him in the wake of the controversy over his TV ad.


title: Rebecca (Better Call Saul)

text: Kim decides that bringing a major new client to HHM is her best course of action for escaping document review, so she spends her free time calling law schools, law firms, and business contacts. Kim capitalizes on one of these relationships to land Mesa Verde Bank as a client, meaning the potential of millions of dollars in revenue for HHM. Howard Hamlin is happy to have the new client, but gives Kim no credit, and keeps her working in document review.


title: Rebecca (Better Call Saul)

text: Chuck promises to work on Kim's transfer out of document review and tells her a story about when Jimmy and Chuck's late father ran a store in Cicero, Illinois. According to Chuck, Jimmy embezzled money, which eventually led to the store's failure. As a result, Chuck is always skeptical of Jimmy's schemes and plans.


title: Rebecca (Better Call Saul)

text: Mike Ehrmantraut is approached by Hector Salamanca, the leader of the Salamanca drug cartel and Tuco Salamanca's uncle. Hector has no issue with Tuco spending time in prison as a learning experience, but objects to the length of the sentence he will receive for assault with a deadly weapon. He offers Mike $5,000 to tell police the gun at the scene of the fight between Tuco and Mike was Mike's, which will result in a reduction to Tuco's sentence.


title: Rebecca (Better Call Saul)

text: The episode received positive reviews from critics. It holds a 93% positive rating with an average score of 8.42 out of 10 on the review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes. The critics' consensus reads: "The effectively subtle and refined "Rebecca" sheds light on the McGill brothers' relationship while focusing on the ways Kim is affected by the fallout from Jimmy's mistakes."


title: Rebecca (Better Call Saul)

text: Terri Schwartz of IGN gave the episode a 9.0 rating, writing ""Better Call Saul" took the focus off Jimmy for a great Kim and Chuck episode."


title: Rebecca (Better Call Saul)

text: For her work on this episode, Kelley Dixon was nominated for Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Drama Series at the 68th Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards.


title: Blue Collar Comedy Tour

text: The Blue Collar Comedy Tour was an American comedy troupe, featuring Jeff Foxworthy with three of his comedian friends, Bill Engvall, Ron White, and Larry the Cable Guy, who had replaced fellow comedian Craig Hawksley, who performed in the first 26 shows on the tour. The troupe toured together for six years beginning in January 2000 at Omaha, Nebraska, before finishing in 2006 at the Warner Theatre in Washington D.C. The troupe also created the CMT show "Bounty Hunters".


title: Blue Collar Comedy Tour

text: Jeff Foxworthy had already established himself as a well known, Grammy Award-winning comedian, best known for his jokes and stories about life as a redneck. According to Foxworthy, he got inspired to make the tour when he read a review for the movie "The Original Kings of Comedy", and noting that the review considered the movie appealing to more of an "urban, hip" audience, which Foxworthy felt left out his usual demographic of rural audiences.


title: Blue Collar Comedy Tour

text: Foxworthy had cast best friend Engvall in the NBC version of "The Jeff Foxworthy Show", White was brought on as his comedy is based around personal experiences retold in his smoking, drinking Southern United States persona, as well as being a former opener for Foxworthy. According to White, when he was presented with the original tour concept, he admitted that he thought the idea "was retarded." Originally, Craig Hawksley was the fourth member of the tour, but after the original tour, was uncomfortable about performing in front of large audiences and chose to leave the tour. Foxworthy then asked Larry, who he had featured on his nationally syndicated, weekly, country radio show "The Foxworthy Countdown", to join.


title: Blue Collar Comedy Tour

text: Each show initially featured White and Larry each doing 15-minute sets, followed by Engvall and Foxworthy each doing 30-minute sets, then the four comedians would gather together, sitting on stools on stage, doing varying comedy routines and jokes (such as Engvall's "Here's Your Sign" jokes and Foxworthy's "You Might Be A Redneck" routine) to close the show. Foxworthy, due to his high popularity at the time, was always the last performer. By 2004, with Larry's popularity growing, the order was shifted to Engvall, followed by White, followed by Foxworthy, then Larry, though now all of the comedians had more equal length sets.


title: Blue Collar Comedy Tour

text: The tour that featured these four "good ole boys" proved to be such a hit that they recorded a live album in November 2001 and the first DVD called "Blue Collar Comedy Tour: The Movie" in the spring of 2003. The movie underperformed at the box office, but gained high ratings when aired on Comedy Central. The movie would spawn two direct-to-video sequels: "The Blue Collar Comedy Tour Rides Again", and "The Blue Collar Comedy Tour: One For the Road". By 2006, each of the comedians had become so popular, that they became too busy with their own individual comedy specials and other media to keep the tour going.


title: Blue Collar Comedy Tour

text: After the success of the tour, album and live DVD, the comedians recorded a second live DVD called "Blue Collar Comedy Tour Rides Again" and a series on The WB called "Blue Collar TV". Ron White was on the second DVD, and although he was not a regular on the TV show, he did make guest appearances. A third Blue Collar movie was produced for Comedy Central titled "Blue Collar Comedy Tour: One for the Road", which premiered on the channel in June 2006. "Blue Collar Comedy Tour: One for The Road" was released on DVD in June 2006.


title: Blue Collar Comedy Tour

text: In March 2006, the group started a Blue Collar Comedy channel on Sirius Satellite Radio titled "Blue Collar Radio". The station features not only various stand-up acts from the four members but various acts from other working class-esque comedians such as Brian Regan, Rodney Carrington, Kathleen Madigan, John Caponera, Rodney Dangerfield, Ray Romano, and others as well. When Sirius Satellite Radio merged with XM Satellite Radio, this brought more coverage of the channel.


title: Blue Collar Comedy Tour

text: As of 2011, Foxworthy, Engvall and Larry still do comedy tours together under the title "Them Idiots Whirled Tour". This is keeping true to their claim that "One for the Road" was the last "Blue Collar" tour, thus respecting the fact that Ron White is not part of it. A CD and DVD of the new show from the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania was released on March 13, 2012.


title: Flygsystem 2020

text: The Flygsystem 2020 ("Flight System 2020", abbreviated FS 2020) is an ongoing project by the Swedish Air Force to develop a fifth-generation low-observable fighter jet by 2035. Little public information exists about the project; there are no official statements about the current stage of development, although a video claims to show a miniature prototype test. In 2012, Lieutenant Colonel Lars Helmrich of the Swedish Air Force asked members of the Riksdag to consider the development of a new jet fighter or to upgrade all present JAS 39 multirole fighters to the NG model, claiming the early versions of the aircraft will be obsolete by 2020.


title: Flygsystem 2020

text: During a State visit of the President of Turkey to Sweden on the 13th of March 2013, Türk Havacılık ve Uzay Sanayii AŞ (Turkish Aerospace Industries, TAI) signed an agreement with Sweden's Saab to provide design support services to Turkey for the TAI TFX program.


title: Flygsystem 2020

text: However, the project is under pressure, due to Turkey's possible end of participation in the Joint Strike Fighter program. To tackle this, it was reported in July 2019 that the Swedish government was about to join the British BAE Systems Tempest stealth sixth-generation fighter program; the goal for Sweden is to repose on the British Tempest program to integrate some of its technology to its own Flygsystem 2020.


title: All Good Things... (Star Trek: The Next Generation)

text: "All Good Things..." is the series finale of the syndicated American science fiction television series "". It comprises the 25th and 26th episodes of the and is the 177th and 178th episodes of the series overall. It aired on May 23, 1994. The title is derived from the expression "All good things must come to an end", a phrase used by the character Q during the episode itself.


text: Set in the 24th century, the series follows the adventures of the Starfleet crew of the Federation starship "Enterprise-D". The plot involves Captain Jean-Luc Picard jumping through time and the formation of an anomaly that defies causality, the whole situation being a test that allows Picard to demonstrate human potential to the Q Continuum by making an intuitive jump of thought to understand the cause of, and how to eliminate, the anomaly before it destroys humanity.


text: The finale was generally well received, and marked the transition of the cast to films featuring the show's cast and settings, as well as passing the television audience to "Star Trek" spin-offs based on similar settings to "The Next Generation".


text: Capt. Jean-Luc Picard inexplicably finds his mind jumping among three points in time: the present (stardate 47988); seven years earlier, just prior to the starship USS "Enterprise"-D's first mission during the episode "Encounter at Farpoint"; and over twenty-five years into the future, where an aged Picard has retired to the family vineyard in La Barre, France. These jumps occur without warning, and the resulting discontinuity in Picard's behavior leaves him and those around him confused and concerned about his mental health.


text: In the present, Picard is ordered to take the "Enterprise" to the edge of the Romulan Neutral Zone to investigate a spatial anomaly. In the future, he convinces his ex-wife, Dr. Beverly Picard, to take him on the USS "Pasteur" to find the anomaly. In the past, despite having "Enterprise"s mission to Farpoint Station cancelled by Starfleet to investigate the anomaly, Picard insists on continuing, believing the impending encounter with the omnipotent being Q to be more important. After reaching the place where he had first encountered Q, Picard finds himself back in Q's courtroom as seen in the first episode. Q reveals that the trial never concluded, and the current situation is humanity's last chance to prove themselves to the Q Continuum, but he secretly reveals that he is the cause of Picard's time jumping. Q challenges Picard to solve the mystery of the anomaly, cryptically stating that Picard will destroy humanity.


text: As Picard arrives at the anomaly in all three time periods, he discovers that the anomaly is much larger in the past, but does not exist at all in the future. As the past and present "Enterprise"s scan the anomaly with inverse tachyon pulse beams, the "Pasteur" is attacked by Klingon ships, but the crew is saved due to the timely arrival of the "Enterprise" under the command of Admiral William Riker. Q once again appears to Picard and takes him to Earth 3.5 billion years ago, where the anomaly, growing larger as it moves backwards in time, has enveloped the whole of the Alpha Quadrant and has prevented the formation of life on Earth. When Picard returns to the future, he discovers the anomaly has just appeared, created as a result of his orders, and the tachyon pulses from the three eras are sustaining it. Data and Geordi determine that they can stop the anomaly by having all three "Enterprise"s fly into the center of it and create static warp shells. Picard relays the orders to each "Enterprise". Each ship suffers catastrophic damage, with Q telling the future Picard that "all good things must come to an end" just before the future "Enterprise" explodes.


text: Picard finds himself facing Q in the courtroom as before. Q congratulates Picard for being able to think in multiple timelines simultaneously to solve the puzzle, which is proof that humanity can still evolve, much to his surprise. Q admits to helping Picard solve it with the time jumping, since he was the one that put them in this situation, and then goes on to explain that the anomaly has been stopped and that his past and present have been restored. He then withdraws from the courtroom and bids farewell to Picard by saying "See you ... out there". Picard then returns to the "Enterprise" of the present, no longer jumping through time.


text: As the senior staff members play their regular poker game, they reflect on the details of the future the captain related to prevent them from drifting apart. For the first time, Picard decides to join the game, expressing regret he had not done so before, and being reminded that he was always welcome.


text: Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga expected Michael Piller, the show's head writer and one of its executive producers, or Jeri Taylor would write the finale; consequently, they wound up writing "All Good Things..." concurrently with "Star Trek Generations", often confusing aspects of the two. The finale took a month to write.


text: The idea of what the series finale should be about had been a matter of discussion in the writers' room for a year or two prior to the finale being written. The writers knew early on they wanted to do an episode featuring Q, to "bookend" his key role in the pilot. An early draft of the script for the episode included a section with Captain Picard as , but was cut on the insistence of Piller, who thought the show worked best with fewer timelines to jump between. According to Braga, Hugh, the rescued Borg from "I, Borg" would have appeared, rescuing Picard from the Borg Collective. Also cut from the script was a segment where the crew had to steal the "Enterprise" from a Starfleet museum (similar to events in the movie ""). The final scene, in which the crew play a hand of poker together, was the last scene shot for the show.


text: John de Lancie returned for his recurring role as Q. Former cast members Denise Crosby (whose regular character Tasha Yar had died in the first season, and who had made two guest appearances since) and Colm Meaney (who had left the series during the sixth season, when his recurring character Miles O'Brien became a regular on ""), reprised their roles for scenes set in the past.


text: The vineyard scene was shot at Callaway Vineyard and Winery in Temecula in southern California, in the United States.


text: As the final scenes were filmed on the last day, the support staff and production crew came down to the set to see the end of the shoot on the series.


text: A behind-the-scenes retrospective documentary called "Journey's End: The Saga of Star Trek: The Next Generation", hosted by Jonathan Frakes, was filmed at the same time as the finale was being produced.


text: The finale was said to be written as a "valentine" to the show's fans, and is often regarded as one of the series' best episodes.


text: Both parts of "All Good Things..." were first broadcast on May 21, 1994, in broadcast syndication. It received Nielsen ratings of 17.4 percent, placing it in first place in its timeslot. This was the highest ratings received by any episode of the season, and of the series. Until the broadcast of the episodes, the previously highest rated broadcast of "The Next Generation" had been the pilot episode, "Encounter at Farpoint", with Nielsen ratings of 15.7 percent.


text: Contemporary reviews were positive. In 1994, "USA Today" called the two-part finale a "picture-perfect" ending to the series, giving it 3 1/2 stars out of 4. "All Good Things..." won the 1995 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, and helped the show earn a 1994 Emmy nomination for Outstanding Drama Series.


text: The episode ranked fifth in "Entertainment Weekly"s list of top 10 "Star Trek: The Next Generation" ("TNG") episodes in 2007. In 2011, Zack Handlen of "The A.V. Club" gave both parts of the two-hour finale an 'A' rating. Writing for Tor.com, Keith DeCandido lauded the episode; comparing it favorably against other "Star Trek" series finales, he felt that "All Good Things..." is "the perfect ending to ["The Next Generation"]", bringing events full circle back to series premiere "Encounter at Farpoint", showcasing the talents of the entire cast, as well as keeping its optimistic "Roddenberrian view of humanity." He also compared the show favorably with the best episodes of the seventh season, including "", "", and "".


text: In 2015, "The Hollywood Reporter", noted this episode's scene where Picard sits down at the card game table, as one of the top ten "most stunning" moments of "TNG". In 2016, SyFy ranked "All Good Things..." as the 4th best time travel plot of all "Star Trek" television episodes, and "Radio Times" ranked the final scene the 8th best moment in all "Star Trek", noting Troi's line about Picard having been welcome to join their traditional card-game, and Picard's line "The Sky's the limit" with the camera pulling away on the group before credits roll. IGN ranked this the 7th best episode of all "Star Trek" series prior to "".


text: Marcus Berkmann's book "Set Phasers to Stun: 50 Years of Star Trek" said of the episode, "[it] is about symmetry, squaring the circle, giving shape to the series and also to the universe in which the series exists." In 2017, "Den of Geek" ranked this episode as one of top 25 "must watch" episodes of "TNG" when paired with the series pilot "Encounter at Farpoint." In 2017, "Nerdist" ranked this finale the tenth best episode of "TNG".


text: Io9/Gizmodo ranked the fictional spacecraft design shown in this episode, Admiral Riker's "Enterprise"-D from the future, as the 6th of 11 "Enterprises" in the "Star Trek" franchise. CBR ranked this episode the fifth best time-travel episode of all "Star Trek". ThoughtCo ranked the episode as the 4th best episode of this series, pointing out that it is rare for a finale of a television show to be as well received by audiences as this one was. Also in 2019, "The Hollywood Reporter" ranked "All Good Things..." among the top twenty five episodes of "TNG". "Screen Rant" ranked "All Good Things..." the seventh best episode of "TNG". They also ranked it as the most important episode to watch in preparation for the series "".


text: "The Digital Fix" said this was the third best episode of "TNG". "SciFiPulse.net" ranked this episode one of the top seven about Picard. "ScreenRant" said this was the best "Star Trek" series finale, stating that it's the "well-known, beloved king of finales." "Cinemablend" ranked this one of the top ten episodes of "TNG". "Tom's Guide" said that this was the best episode for Q, and a great send-off for the character.


text: "All Good Things..." was originally released on VHS in the UK as a two part episode taken from the repeated split version of the episode. It was later released in its original form a few months later with a retrospective documentary "Journey's End: The Saga Of Star Trek: The Next Generation" as well as trailers for all seven "Star Trek" feature films. It was later released as a standalone Blu-ray with exclusive features.


text: On July 7, 1997 "All Good Things..." was released on a PAL-format LaserDisc in the United Kingdom, for 19.98 pounds.


text: This was released in Japan on LaserDisc on October 9, 1998, as part of the half-season collection "Log.14: Seventh Season Part.2". This set included episodes from "Lower Decks" to Part II of "All Good Things", with English and Japanese audio tracks.


text: A novelization of the episode was published by Pocket Books in June 1994. It was written by Michael Jan Friedman in two weeks. It was published in hardcover and as a result, Friedman looked to expand on the episode to warrant the release. Scenes featuring Katherine Pulaski, Lwaxana Troi and Wesley Crusher were added. He suggested that the inclusion of further scenes with other characters made the novelization more of an ensemble piece rather than the actual episode which is very Picard focused. It was one of five novelizations to be made of "The Next Generation" episodes, alongside "Encounter at Farpoint", "", "" and "".


text: Writers for the TV show "Lost" cited Picard's time travel in the episode "All Good Things..." as a reference for how characters traveled through time in their 2008 episode "The Constant".


text: After, and even during the time film shooting wrapped up for "TNG", work also focused on the film "Generations" which was released later that year in 1994. Meanwhile, a successor to "TNG", "" was in development and was shooting by later in 1994, and aired in January 1995 for the launch of UPN. The launch episode, one of the most expensive in TV history at $23 million, was watched by about 21.3 million people.


text: The 1995 "Star Trek" novel "Crossover" by Michael Jan Friedman is set after this episode but before the movie "Generations".


text: According to producer Kevin Feige, "All Good Things..." served as an inspiration for character evolution in "".


title: Money shot

text: A money shot is a moving or stationary visual element of a film, video, television broadcast, or print publication that is disproportionately expensive to produce or is perceived as essential to the overall importance or revenue-generating potential of the work.


title: Money shot

text: Originally a broad term used generally in film-making, the "money shot" was simply the scene that cost the most money to produce. In general, a money shot (also called a "money-making shot") is a provocative, sensational, or memorable sequence in a film, on which the film's commercial performance is perceived to depend. The scene may or may not be a special-effects sequence, but may be counted on to become a selling point for the film. For example, in an action thriller, an expensive special-effects sequence of a dam bursting might be considered the money shot of the film. Many filmmakers read a script and look for the most dramatic or climactic moment—the money shot—in the proposed film. Even though the costs or technical challenges of filming such an impressive scene may be huge, producers and directors will do whatever it takes to get that shot completed. It is because of its box-office importance and expensive set-up, that this climactic scene is often referred to as a money shot.


title: Money shot

text: More broadly, it can be any notably dramatic or emotional footage. Conversely, Rich Evans of Red Letter Media, offered up the term "coupon shot" for money shots that are anticlimactic or otherwise poorly executed on the channel's Best of the Worst series.


title: Money shot

text: The term has become known in its narrower, genre specific context, namely meaning cum shot in pornography, both film and photo. Referring to the ejaculation scene as a 'money shot' has been attributed to producers paying the male actors extra for it. According to Steven Ziplow, author of "The Film Maker's Guide to Pornography", "the cum shot, or, as some refer to it, 'the money shot', is the most important element in the movie and that everything else (if necessary) should be sacrificed at its expense." It has also been argued that this is the filmed moment that the audience has paid to see. In her book "Hard Core", Linda Williams argues that the money shot is not simply desired in and of itself, but proves to the audience that the sex is real.


title: Trimaran

text: A trimaran (or double-outrigger) is a multihull boat that comprises a main hull and two smaller outrigger hulls (or "floats") which are attached to the main hull with lateral beams. Most modern trimarans are sailing yachts designed for recreation or racing; others are ferries or warships. They originated from the traditional double-outrigger hulls of the Austronesian cultures of Maritime Southeast Asia; particularly in the Philippines and Eastern Indonesia, where it remains the dominant hull design of traditional fishing boats. Double-outriggers are derived from the older catamaran and single-outrigger boat designs.


title: Trimaran

text: The word "trimaran" is a portmanteau of "tri" and "(cata)maran", a term that is thought to have been coined by Victor Tchetchet, a pioneering, Ukrainian-born modern multihull designer. Trimarans consist of a main hull connected to outrigger floats on either side by a crossbeam, wing, or other form of superstructure—the traditional Polynesian terms for the hull, each float and connector are "vaka", "ama" and "aka", respectively (although trimarans are not traditionally Polynesian, since they instead use single-outrigger and catamaran configurations).


title: Trimaran

text: The first double-outrigger boats were developed by the Austronesian people and are still widely used today by traditional fishermen in maritime Southeast Asia. It developed from the more ancient single-outrigger boats as a way to deal with the problem of the instability of the latter when tacking leeward. Double-outrigger boats, however, did not develop among Austronesians in Micronesia and Polynesia (although it exists in western Melanesia), where single-outrigger boats and catamarans are used instead.


title: Trimaran

text: Warships with double-outriggers were used widely in Maritime Southeast Asia since ancient times up until the early modern period, with examples like the "karakoa", "lanong" "kora kora", "knabat bogolu", and the Borobudur ships . These were often referred to by Europeans during the colonial era as "proas", a general term which can also refer to single-outriggers and even to native ships without outriggers.


title: Trimaran

text: Recreational sailing catamarans and trimarans gained popularity during the 1960s and 1970s. Amateur development of the modern sailing trimaran started in 1945 with the efforts of Victor Tchetchet, a Ukrainian émigré to the US, who built two trimarans made of marine plywood, which were about 24 feet (7 metres) long. He is credited with coining the term, "trimaran." In the 1950s and 60s, Arthur Piver designed and built plywood kit trimarans, which were adopted by other homebuilders, but were heavy and not sea-kindly by modern standards. Some of these achieved ocean crossings, nonetheless. Other designers followed, including Jim Brown, Ed Horstman, John Marples, Jay Kantola, Chris White, Norman Cross, Derek Kelsall and Richard Newick, thus bringing the trimaran cruiser to new levels of performance and safety.


title: Trimaran

text: Following the homebuilt movement, production models became available. Some trimarans in the are designed as "day-sailers" which can be transported on a road trailer. These include the original Farrier – Corsair folding trimarans, such as the F-27 Sport Cruiser – and original John Westell swing-wing folding trimaran (using the same folding system later adopted also on Quorning Dragonfly) and like trimarans.


title: Trimaran

text: Modern western-built trimarans typically do not use Austronesian rigging like tanja or crab claw sails. Instead they use a standard Bermuda rig. Trimarans are also typically significantly wider. In addition, trimaran floats are much more buoyant than those of outrigger canoes to support a large sailplan. They contribute to drag when heavily immersed, and their level of immersion indicates when to reef. In terms of performance, an objective comparison by Doran (1972) in terms of maximum progress against the wind, maximum speed, and speed downwind concluded that both the traditional double-outrigger "vinta" of the Philippines and the single-outrigger "wa" of the Caroline Islands, respectively, are still superior to the modern trimaran.


title: Trimaran

text: Several manufacturers build trimarans in which the floats can be removed, repositioned, or folded near to the main hull. This allows them to be trailerable and/or to fit in a normal monohull space in a marina. Several mechanisms allow the amas or outriggers to be stored compactly:


title: Trimaran

text: Trimaran safety features include amas with multiple sealed partitions, controls that all run to the cockpit, a collision bulkhead, partial or full cockpit coverings or windshields, and drain holes in the cockpit that can adequately drain the cockpit quickly, among other things.


title: Trimaran

text: Trimaran capsizes are more likely to be of the pitchpole type than a roll to one side due to their higher sideways stability and speeds. Capsized trimarans are harder to turn upright after they have turtled than monohull boats. While some capsized trimarans righted by sideways rotation may suffer heavy damage to mast and rigging, many modern and ancient trimarans are explicitly designed for this method of righting. Harnesses pulling on the stern toward the bow, or from the bow toward the stern of capsized trimarans have been shown to be able to successfully turn them end-over-end. Several design features reduce the chance of pitch-pole capsize; these include having wing nets with an open weave designed to reduce windage and decks and nets that shed water easily. The best way to avoid capsize is to reduce sail in heavy weather.


title: Trimaran

text: Thomas Coville holds the world record of 49 days and 3 hours for sailing solo around the world in the trimaran "Sodebo Ultim", finishing on December 25, 2016. The previous record was set by Francis Joyon on January 20, 2008. The 51-year-old Frenchman circled the planet alone in 57 days, 13 hours, 34 minutes, 6 seconds in a trimaran. He beat British sailor Ellen MacArthur's record set in February 2005 for which she spent just over 71 days at sea.


title: Trimaran

text: Francis Joyon and a crew of five in the maxi trimaran "IDEC SPORT" set the absolute (wind or mechanically powered) time for the fastest maritime circumnavigation, in 40 days 23 hours 30 minutes 30 seconds of sailing between Dec 2016 and Jan 2017. Their average speed was 26.85 knots (30.71 MPH) over a total distance of 26,412 nautical miles (48,915 km; 30,394 mi). In early 2020, the same boat won a race retracing the tea clipper route from Hong Kong to London in just under 32 days – one-third the time it took the clippers to sail the route.


title: Trimaran

text: "Hydroptère", an experimental sailing hydrofoil trimaran, briefly reached near Fos-sur-Mer, but capsized and turtled shortly thereafter.


title: Trimaran

text: Competing with a giant trimaran the BMW Oracle Racing team won the 2010 America's Cup for the Golden Gate Yacht Club on February 14, 2010, off Valencia, Spain. The team beat the giant catamaran Alinghi 2-0 in the best-of-three series, becoming the first American syndicate to win the cup since 1992. The large rigid wing sail of the USA 17 trimaran provided a decisive advantage and the trimaran won the America's Cup by a considerable margin in each race.


title: Trimaran

text: "Earthrace" broke the world record for circumnavigating the globe in a motorized boat in 2008 in just under 61 days.


title: Trimaran

text: The trimaran configurations has also been used for both passenger ferries and warships. The Australian ship-building company, Austal, investigated the comparative merits of trimaran ships, catamarans and monohulls. It found that there was an optimum location for the outer hulls in terms of minimizing wave generation and consequent power requirements for operating at high speeds with a payload of 1,000 tonnes. It further found that such a trimaran configuration was superior to a catamaran for roll and lateral force in a beam sea and superior in suppressing motion sickness resulting from a head sea.


title: Trimaran

text: Between 2005 and 2020, Austal had built 14 aluminum high-speed trimaran ships, 11 of which were for the US Navy. In 2020, they had 11 trimarans under construction or under order. In addition to shipyards in Australia and the US, the company had shipyards in Vietnam and the Philippines.


title: Trimaran

text: In 2005 Austal delivered the "Benchijigua Express" to Spanish ferry operator Fred Olsen, S.A. for service in the Canary Islands. Capable of carrying 1,280 passengers and 340 cars, or equivalents, at speeds up to 40 knots, this boat was the longest aluminum ship in the world at the time of delivery. A modern warship, the RV "Triton" was commissioned by British defence contractor QinetiQ in 2000. In October 2005, the United States Navy commissioned for evaluation the construction of a General Dynamics litoral combat ship trimaran designed and built by Austal.


title: Trimaran

text: High-speed craft are governed by a code that applies to those designed for international passenger voyages that are shorter than four hours from a port of refuge, or cargo craft of 500 gross tonnage no more than eight hours from a port of refuge. All passengers are provided with a seat and there are no enclosed sleeping berths.


title: Trimaran

text: The demand for high-speed ferries started in the late 1970s for ferries built mostly in Norway. Ultimately, two Australian shipyards came to prominence, Incat and Austal. They were initially built by many shipyards, but by the turn of the century only two companies were still building larger vessels of over 70 metres and 3,000 Gross Tons. While Incat has specialized in wave-piercing catamarans, Austal has developed high-speed trimarans.


title: Trimaran

text: In 2010 Austal built the 102 metre Hull 270, although they were unable to find a buyer for the ship until it was sold to Condor Ferries in 2015 when it was named HSC Condor Liberation and began operating to the Channel Islands. Prospects for trimaran ferries picked up in 2017 when Fred. Olsen Express ordered two 118-metre trimarans for their Canary Islands services, named "Bajamar Express" and "Bañaderos Express". In 2018 a Japanese company ordered an 83 metre trimaran ferry.


title: Trimaran

text: The first use of trimaran hull designs in modern navies was in the RV "Triton", a Research Vessel for the Royal Navy. She was built as a technology demonstrator ship for the Royal Navy's Future Surface Combatant, and has been used to prove the viability of the hull form. Since 2007 the ship has been used by the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service's Customs Marine Unit.


title: Trimaran

text: Littoral combat ships built by General Dynamics at Bath Iron Works are of a trimaran design. USS "Independence" (LCS-2) is the first of these ships. Littoral combat ships built by Lockheed are of a monohull design.


title: Trimaran

text: First launched on August 31, 2012, at Bali Strait, 63M Carbon Fibre Composite Trimaran Fast Missile Boat (Indonesian: Kapal Cepat Rudal [KCR]) named Klewang-class fast attack craft (Klewang- means a traditional Indonesian single edge sword), was the first stealth trimaran of the Indonesian Navy built by North Sea Boats at Banyuwangi, East Java, Indonesia. This ship combined a number of existing advance technologies into a single, unique platform; a wave-piercer trimaran hull from, constructed exclusively of infused vinylester carbon fibre cored sandwich materials for all structural elements, with external "stealth" geometry and features intended to reduce detection. The KRI Klewang (625) caught fire because of an electrical short-circuit in the engine room during a maintenance period on September 28, 2012, and was a total loss.


title: Trimaran

text: 43-meter "Ocean Eagle " trimarans from CMN wharf with design from Nigel Irens und Prolarge based on the "Ocean Adventurer" concept will provide coastal protection for Mozambique.


title: Steve McCurry

text: Steve McCurry (born April 23, 1950) is an American photographer, freelancer, and photojournalist. His photo "Afghan Girl", of a girl with piercing green eyes, has appeared on the cover of "National Geographic" several times. McCurry has photographed many assignments for "National Geographic" and has been a member of Magnum Photos since 1986.


title: Steve McCurry

text: McCurry is the recipient of numerous awards, including Magazine Photographer of the Year, awarded by the National Press Photographers Association; the Royal Photographic Society's Centenary Medal; and two first-place prizes in the World Press Photo contest (1985 and 1992).


title: Steve McCurry

text: McCurry was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and attended Penn State University. He originally planned to study cinematography and filmmaking, but instead gained a degree in theater arts and graduated in 1974. He became interested in photography when he started taking pictures for the Penn State newspaper "The Daily Collegian".


title: Steve McCurry

text: After a year working in India, McCurry traveled to northern Pakistan where he met two Afghans who told him about the war across the border in Afghanistan.


title: Steve McCurry

text: McCurry's career was launched when, disguised in Afghani garb, he crossed the Pakistan border into rebel-controlled areas of Afghanistan just before the Soviet invasion. "As soon as I crossed the border, I came across about 40 houses and a few schools that were just bombed out," he says. He left with rolls of film sewn into his turban and stuffed in his socks and underwear. These images were subsequently published by "The New York Times", "Time" and "Paris Match" and won him the Robert Capa Gold Medal for Best Photographic Reporting from Abroad.


title: Steve McCurry

text: McCurry covered more armed conflicts like the Iran–Iraq War, Lebanon Civil War, the Cambodian Civil War, the Islamic insurgency in the Philippines, the Gulf War and the Afghan Civil War. McCurry came close to losing his life twice. He was almost drowned in India, and he survived an airplane crash in Yugoslavia. McCurry has had his work featured in magazines worldwide and he is a frequent contributor to National Geographic.


title: Steve McCurry

text: McCurry concentrates on the toll war takes on humans. He intends to show what war does to not only the landscape, but to the people who inhabit that land. "Most of my images are grounded in people. I look for the unguarded moment, the essential soul peeking out, experience etched on a person’s face. I try to convey what it is like to be that person, a person caught in a broader landscape, that you could call the human condition." What McCurry wants his viewers to take away from his photographs is the "human connection between all of us." He believes there is always some common thing between all humans despite the differences in religion, language, ethnicity, etc. McCurry also states, "I have found that I get completely consumed by the importance of the story I am telling, the feeling that the world has got to know. It's never about the adrenaline. It's about the story." However, sometimes McCurry has witnessed some "horrific" and "distressing" sights. In times like these, he uses his camera as a "shield" because it's easier to witness these events through a viewfinder.


title: Steve McCurry

text: On September 10, 2001, McCurry had just gotten back from Tibet. The morning of September 11, McCurry received a call saying the World Trade Center was on fire. He went up to the roof of his building and started taking photographs, unaware that it was a plane that had hit the towers. McCurry was on the roof when both of the towers fell, "they were just gone. It didn’t seem possible. Like you’re seeing something but you don’t really believe what you’re seeing." After the fall of the towers, McCurry ran to Ground Zero with his assistant. He describes the scene, "there was this very fine white powder everywhere and all this office paper, but there was no recognizable office equipment—no filing cabinets, telephones, computers. It seemed like the whole thing had been pulverized." McCurry left later that night and went back early on September 12, he didn't have any press credentials and had to sneak past security. He was eventually caught and escorted off Ground Zero; he did not go back again.


title: Steve McCurry

text: McCurry is portrayed in a TV documentary "The Face of the Human Condition" (2003) by Denis Delestrac.


title: Steve McCurry

text: McCurry switched from shooting color slide film to digital capture in 2005 for the convenience of editing in the field and transmitting images to photo editors. He said that he had no nostalgia about working in film in an interview with "The Guardian." "Perhaps old habits are hard to break, but my experience is that the majority of my colleagues, regardless of age, have switched over... The quality has never been better. You can work in extremely low light situations, for example."


title: Steve McCurry

text: McCurry shoots in both film and digital, but says he prefers shooting with transparency film. Eastman Kodak gifted him the last roll of Kodachrome film to ever be produced by Kodak. McCurry shot the roll, which was processed in July 2010 by Dwayne's Photo in Parsons, Kansas. Most of these photos were published on the Internet by Vanity Fair. McCurry states, "I shot it for 30 years and I have several hundred thousand pictures on Kodachrome in my archive. I'm trying to shoot 36 pictures that act as some kind of wrap up – to mark the passing of Kodachrome. It was a wonderful film."


title: Steve McCurry

text: In 2015, he was hired by Microsoft to take photographs in areas of New Zealand, which were used as wallpapers in Windows 10.


title: Steve McCurry

text: In 2019, his book "Steve McCurry. Animals" was published by Taschen and is a compilation of his favorite photographs of animals.


title: Steve McCurry

text: McCurry took "Afghan Girl" in December 1984. It portrays an approximately 12-year-old Pashtun orphan in the Nasir Bagh refugee camp near Peshawar, Pakistan. McCurry found the girl when he heard "unexpected laughter" coming from children inside a one-room school tent for girls. "I noticed this one little girl with these incredible eyes, and I instantly knew that this was really the only picture I wanted to take," he says. This was the first time the girl had ever been photographed. The image was named as "the most recognized photograph" in the history of the "National Geographic" magazine, and was used as the cover photograph on the June 1985 issue. The photo has also been widely used on Amnesty International brochures, posters, and calendars. The identity of the "Afghan Girl" remained unknown for over 17 years until McCurry and a "National Geographic" team located the woman, Sharbat Gula, in 2002. McCurry said, "Her skin is weathered; there are wrinkles now, but she is as striking as she was all those years ago."


title: Steve McCurry

text: In 2019, a vlogger and professional photographer by the name of Tony Northrup released a research documentary accusing McCurry of obtaining the photograph under false pretenses, and endangering Gula's wellbeing in doing so. McCurry's publicity team responded by accusing Northrup of slander, and the clip was removed. Shortly thereafter, however, it was re-uploaded with a number of corrections, with an accompanying document that detailed a number of sources Northrup had obtained. Sharbat Gula herself had also previously provided some commentary on the photograph, published by BBC News in 2017.


title: Steve McCurry

text: In 2016 McCurry was accused of extensively manipulating his images with Photoshop and by other means, removing individuals and other elements.


title: Steve McCurry

text: In a May 2016 interview with PetaPixel, McCurry did not specifically deny making major changes, indicating that he now defines his work as "visual storytelling" and as "art". However, he subsequently added that others print and ship his images while he is travelling, implying that they were responsible for the significant manipulation. "That is what happened in this case. It goes without saying that what happened with this image was a mistake for which I have to take responsibility," he concluded.


title: Steve McCurry

text: When discussing the issue with a writer for "Time"s Lightbox website, McCurry provided similar comments about being a "visual storyteller", though without suggesting that the manipulation was done by others without his knowledge. In fact, the "Time" writer made the following statement, "Faced with mounting evidence of his own manipulations, McCurry has been forced to address his position in photography." In neither interview did he discuss when the heavy photo manipulation began, or which images have been manipulated. However, considering the controversy it has created, he said that "going forward, I am committed to only using the program in a minimal way, even for my own work taken on personal trips." McCurry also offered the following conclusion to "Time" Lightbox, "Reflecting on the situation... even though I felt that I could do what I wanted to my own pictures in an aesthetic and compositional sense, I now understand how confusing it must be for people who think I'm still a photojournalist."


title: Steve McCurry

text: In 2016 French comic writer Jean-David Morvan and South Korean artist Kim Jung Gi published a biographical graphic novel about Steve McCurry, titled "McCurry, NYC, 911".


title: Steve McCurry

text: In 2021, the documentary biopic entitled "McCurry: The Pursuit of Color", directed by Denis Delestrac, produced by Intrepido Films and Polar Star Films and distributed by Dogwoof and Karma Films, was officially selected at the Doc NYC film festival (USA), Festival de Malaga (Spain), and Glasgow Film Festival (Scotland) amongst others. The Spanish cinema release was in June 2022.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: The American Federation of Labor (A.F. of L.) was a national federation of labor unions in the United States that continues today as the AFL-CIO. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio, in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions eager to provide mutual support and disappointed in the Knights of Labor. Samuel Gompers was elected the full-time president at its founding convention and reelected every year, except one, until his death in 1924. He became the major spokesperson for the union movement.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: The A.F. of L. was the largest union grouping, even after the creation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) by unions that were expelled by the A.F. of L. in 1935. The Federation was founded and dominated by craft unions. especially the building trades. In the late 1930s craft affiliates expanded by organizing on an industrial union basis to meet the challenge from the CIO. The A.F. of L. and CIO competed bitterly in the late 1930s, but then cooperated during World War II and after. In 1955, the two merged to create the AFL–CIO, which has comprised the longest lasting and most influential labor federation in the United States to this day.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: The American Federation of Labor (A.F. of L.) was organized as an association of trade unions in 1886. The organization emerged from a dispute with the Knights of Labor (K of L) organization, in which the leadership of that organization solicited locals of various craft unions to withdraw from their International organizations and to affiliate with the K of L directly, an action which would have moved funds from the various unions to the K of L. The Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions also merged into what would become the American Federation of Labor.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: One of the organizations embroiled in this controversy was the Cigar Makers' International Union (CMIU), a group subject to competition from a dual union, a rival "Progressive Cigarmakers' Union," organized by members suspended or expelled by the CMIU. The two cigar unions competed with one another in signing contracts with various cigar manufacturers, who were at this same time combining themselves into manufacturers' associations of their own in New York City, Detroit, Cincinnati, Chicago, and Milwaukee.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: In January 1886, the Cigar Manufacturers' Association of New York City announced a 20 percent wage cut in factories around the city. The Cigar Makers' International Union refused to accept the cut and 6,000 of its members in 19 factories were locked out by the owners. A strike lasting four weeks ensued. Just when it appeared that the strike might be won, the New York District Assembly of the Knights of Labor leaped into the breach, offering to settle with the 19 factories at a lower wage scale than that proposed by the CMIU, so long as only the Progressive Cigarmakers' Union was employed.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: The leadership of the CMIU was enraged and demanded that the New York District Assembly be investigated and punished by the national officials of the Knights of Labor. The committee of investigation was controlled by individuals friendly to the New York District Assembly, however, and the latter was exonerated. The American Federation of Labor was thus originally formed as an alliance of craft unions outside the Knights of Labor as a means of defending themselves against this and similar incursions.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: On April 25, 1886, a circular letter was issued by Adolph Strasser of the Cigar Makers and P. J. McGuire of the Carpenters, addressed to all national trade unions and calling for their attendance of a conference in Philadelphia on May 18. The call stated that an element of the Knights of Labor was doing "malicious work" and causing "incalculable mischief by arousing antagonisms and dissensions in the labor movement." The call was signed by Strasser and McGuire, along with representatives of the Granite Cutters, the Iron Molders, and the secretary of the Federation of Trades of North America, a forerunner of the A.F. of L. founded in 1881.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: Forty-three invitations were mailed, which drew the attendance of 20 delegates and letters of approval from 12 other unions. At this preliminary gathering, held in Donaldson Hall on the corner of Broad and Filbert Streets, the K of L was charged with conspiring with anti-union bosses to provide labor at below going union rates and with making use of individuals who had crossed picket lines or defaulted on payment of union dues. The body authored a "treaty" to be presented to the forthcoming May 24, 1886, convention of the Knights of Labor, which demanded that the K of L cease attempting to organize members of International Unions into its own assemblies without permission of the unions involved and that K of L organizers violating this provision should suffer immediate suspension.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: For its part, the Knights of Labor considered the demand for the parcelling of the labor movement into narrow craft-based fiefdoms to be anathema, a violation of the principle of solidarity of all workers across craft lines. Negotiations with the dissident craft unions were nipped in the bud by the governing General Assembly of the K of L, however, with the organization's Grand Master Workman, Terence V. Powderly refusing to enter into serious discussions on the matter. The actions of the New York District Assembly of the K of L were upheld.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: Convinced that no accommodation with the leadership of the Knights of Labor was possible, the heads of the five labor organizations which issued the call for the April 1886 conference issued a new call for a convention to be held December 8, 1886, in Columbus, Ohio, in order to construct "an American federation of alliance of all national and international trade unions." Forty-two delegates representing 13 national unions and various other local labor organizations responded to the call, agreeing to form themselves into an American Federation of Labor.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: Revenue for the new organization was to be raised on the basis of a "per-capita tax" of its member organizations, set at the rate of one-half cent per member per month (i.e. six cents per year, equal to $ today). Governance of the organization was to be by annual conventions, with one delegate allocated for every 4,000 members of each affiliated union. The founding convention voted to make the President of the new federation a full-time official at a salary of $1,000 per year (equal to $ today), and Samuel Gompers of the Cigar Makers' International Union was elected to the position. Gompers would ultimately be re-elected to the position by annual conventions of the organization for every year save one until his death nearly four decades later.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: Although the founding convention of the A.F. of L. had authorized the establishment of a publication for the new organization, Gompers made use of the existing labor press to generate support for the position of the craft unions against the Knights of Labor. Powerful opinion-makers of the American labor movement such as the Philadelphia "Tocsin," "Haverhill Labor," the "Brooklyn Labor Press," and the "Denver Labor Enquirer" granted Gompers space in their pages, in which he made the case for the unions against the attacks of employers, "all too often aided by the K of L."


title: American Federation of Labor

text: Headway was made in the form of endorsement by various local labor bodies. Some assemblies of the K of L supported the Cigar Makers' position and departed the organization: in Baltimore, 30 locals left the organization, while the membership of the Knights in Chicago fell from 25,000 in 1886 to just 3,500 in 1887. Factional warfare broke out in the K of L, with Terence Powderly blaming the organization's travails on "radicals" in its ranks, while those opposing Powderly called for an end to what they perceived as "autocratic leadership."


title: American Federation of Labor

text: In the face of the steady disintegration of its rival, the fledgling American Federation of Labor struggled to maintain itself, with the group showing very slow and incremental growth in its first years, only cracking the 250,000 member mark in 1892. The group from the outset concentrated upon the income and working conditions of its membership as its almost sole focus. The A.F. of L.'s founding convention declaring "higher wages and a shorter workday" to be "preliminary steps toward great and accompanying improvements in the condition of the working people." Participation in partisan politics was avoided as inherently divisive, and the group's constitution was structured to prevent the admission of political parties as affiliates.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: This fundamentally conservative "pure and simple" approach limited the A.F. of L. to matters pertaining to working conditions and rates of pay, relegating political goals to its allies in the political sphere. The Federation favored pursuit of workers' immediate demands rather than challenging the property rights of owners, and took a pragmatic view of politics which favored tactical support for particular politicians over formation of a party devoted to workers' interests. The A.F. of L.'s leadership believed the expansion of the capitalist system was seen as the path to betterment of labor, an orientation making it possible for the A.F. of L. to present itself as what one historian has called "the conservative alternative to working class radicalism."


title: American Federation of Labor

text: The A.F. of L. faced its first major reversal when employers launched an open shop movement in 1903, designed to drive unions out of construction, mining, longshore and other industries. Membership in the A.F. of L.'s affiliated unions declined between 1904 and 1914 in the face of this concerted anti-union drive, which made effective use of legal injunctions against strikes, court rulings given force when backed with the armed might of the state.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: At its November 1907 Convention in Norfolk, Virginia, the A.F. of L. founded the future North America's Building Trades Unions (NABTU) as "Department of Building Trades".


title: American Federation of Labor

text: Ever the pragmatist, Gompers argued that labor should "reward its friends and punish its enemies" in both major parties. However, in the 1900s (decade), the two parties began to realign, with the main faction of the Republican Party coming to identify with the interests of banks and manufacturers, while a substantial portion of the rival Democratic Party took a more labor-friendly position. While not precluding its members from belonging to the Socialist Party or working with its members, the A.F. of L. traditionally refused to pursue the tactic of independent political action by the workers in the form of the existing Socialist Party or the establishment of a new labor party. After 1908, the organization's tie to the Democratic party grew increasingly strong.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: Some unions within the A.F. of L. helped form and participated in the National Civic Federation. The National Civic Federation was formed by several progressive employers who sought to avoid labor disputes by fostering collective bargaining and "responsible" unionism. Labor's participation in this federation, at first tentative, created internal division within the A.F. of L. Socialists, who believed the only way to help workers was to remove large industry from private ownership, denounced labor's efforts at cooperation with the capitalists in the National Civic Federation. The A.F. of L. nonetheless continued its association with the group, which declined in importance as the decade of the 1910s drew to a close.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: By the 1890s, Gompers was planning an international federation of labor, starting with the expansion of A.F. of L. affiliates in Canada, especially Ontario. He helped the Canadian Trades and Labour Congress with money and organizers, and by 1902, the A.F. of L. came to dominate the Canadian union movement.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: The A.F. of L. vigorously opposed unrestricted immigration from Europe for moral, cultural, and racial reasons. The issue unified the workers who feared that an influx of new workers would flood the labor market and lower wages. Nativism was not a factor because upwards of half the union members were themselves immigrants or the sons of immigrants from Ireland, Germany and Britain. Nativism was a factor when the A.F. of L. even more strenuously opposed all immigration from Asia because it represented (to its Euro-American members) an alien culture that could not be assimilated into American society. The A.F. of L. intensified its opposition after 1906 and was instrumental in passing immigration restriction bills from the 1890s to the 1920s, such as the 1921 Emergency Quota Act and the Immigration Act of 1924, and seeing that they were strictly enforced.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: Mink (1986) concludes that the link between the A.F. of L. and the Democratic Party rested in part on immigration issues, noting the large corporations, which supported the Republicans, wanted more immigration to augment their labor force.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: Prohibition gained strength as the German American community came under fire. The A.F. of L. was against prohibition as it was viewed as cultural right of the working class to drink.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: Child labor was an issue on which the A.F. of L. found common ground with middle class reformers who otherwise kept their distance. The A.F. of L. joined campaigns at the state and national level to limit the employment of children under age 14. In 1904 a major national organization emerged, the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC). In state after state reformers launched crusades to pass laws restricting child labor, with the ultimate goals of rescuing young bodies and increasing school attendance. The frustrations included the Supreme Court striking down two national laws as unconstitutional, and weak enforcement of state laws due to the political influence of employers.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: The A.F. of L. and its affiliates were strong supporters of the war effort. The risk of disruptions to war production by labor radicals provided the A.F. of L. political leverage to gain recognition and mediation of labor disputes, often in favor of improvements for workers. The A.F. of L. unions avoided strikes in favor of arbitration. Wages soared as near-full employment was reached at the height of the war. The A.F. of L. unions strongly encouraged young men to enlist in the military, and fiercely opposed efforts to reduce recruiting and slow war production by pacifists, the anti-war Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and the radical faction of Socialists. To keep factories running smoothly, President Wilson established the National War Labor Board in 1918, which forced management to negotiate with existing unions. Wilson also appointed A.F. of L. president Gompers to the powerful Council of National Defense, where he set up the War Committee on Labor.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: The A. F. of L. was strongly committed to the national war aims and cooperated closely with Washington. It used the opportunity to grow rapidly. It worked out an informal agreement with the United States government, in which the A.F. of L. would coordinate with the government both to support the war effort and to join "into an alliance to crush radical labor groups" that opposed the war effort, especially the Industrial Workers of the World and Socialist Party of America.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: Gompers chaired the wartime Labor Advisory Board. He attended the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 as an official advisor on labor issues.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: In 1920, the A.F. of L. petitioned Washington for the release of prisoners who had been convicted under Wartime Emergency Laws. Wilson did not act but President Warren Harding did so.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: 1919--the first year of peace--was one of turmoil in the labor movement. A.F. of L. membership soared to 2.4 million in 1917 and 4.1 million at the end of 1919. The A.F. of L. unions tried to make their gains permanent and called a series of major strikes in meat, steel and other industries. The strikes ultimately failed. Many African Americans had taken war jobs; other became strikebreakers in 1919. Racial tensions were high, with major race riots. The economy was very prosperous during the war but entered a postwar recession. In general, workers lost out and the A.F. of L. lost influence.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: In the pro-business environment of the 1920s, business launched a large-scale offensive on behalf of the so-called "open shop", which meant that a person did not have to be a union member to be hired. A.F. of L. unions lost membership steadily until 1933. In 1924, following the death of Samuel Gompers, UMWA member and A.F. of L. vice president William Green became the president of the labor federation.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: The organization endorsed pro-labor progressive Robert M. La Follette in the 1924 presidential election. He only carried his home state of Wisconsin. The campaign failed to establish a permanent independent party closely connected to the labor movement, however, and thereafter the Federation embraced ever more closely the Democratic Party, despite the fact that many union leaders remained Republicans. Herbert Hoover in 1928 won the votes of many Protestant A.F. of L. members.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: The Great Depression were hard times for the unions, and membership fell sharply across the country. As the national economy began to recover in 1933, so did union membership. The New Deal of president Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat, strongly favored labor unions. He made sure that relief operations like the Civilian Conservation Corps did not include a training component that would produce skilled workers who would compete with union members in a still glutted market. The major legislation was the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, called the Wagner Act. It greatly strengthened organized unions, especially by weakening the company unions that many workers belonged to. It was to the members advantage to transform a company union into a local of an A.F. of L. union, and thousands did so, dramatically boosting the membership. The Wagner Act also set up to the National Labor Relations Board, which used its powers to rule in favor of unions and against the companies.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: In the early 1930s, A.F. of L. president William Green (president, 1924–1952) experimented with an industrial approach to organizing in the automobile and steel industries. The A.F. of L. made forays into industrial unionism by chartering federal labor unions, which would organize across an industry and be chartered by the Federation, not through existing craft unions, guilds, or brotherhoods. As early as 1923, the A.F. of L. had chartered federal labor unions, including six news writer locals that had formerly been part of the International Typographical Union. However, in the 1930s the A.F. of L. began chartering these federal labor unions as an industrial organizing strategy. The dues in these federal labor unions (FLUs) were kept intentionally low to make them more accessible to low paid industrial workers; however, these low dues later allowed the Internationals in the Federation to deny members of FLUs voting membership at conventions. In 1933, Green sent William Collins to Detroit to organize automobile workers into a federal labor union. That same year workers at the Westinghouse plant in East Springfield MA, members of federal labor union 18476, struck for recognition. In 1933, the A.F. of L. received 1,205 applications for charters for federal labor unions, 1006 of which were granted. By 1934, the A.F. of L. had successfully organized 32,500 autoworkers using the federal labor union model. Most of the leadership of the craft union internationals that made up the federation, advocated for the FLU's to be absorbed into existing craft union internationals and for these internationals to have supremacy of jurisdiction. At the 1933 A.F. of L. convention in Washington, DC John Frey of the Molders and Metal Trades pushed for craft union internationals to have jurisdictional supremacy over the FLU's; the Carpenters headed by William Hutchenson and the IBEW also pushed for FLU's to turn over their members to the authority of the craft internationals between 1933 and 1935. In 1934, one hundred FLUs met separately and demanded that the A.F. of L. continue to issue charters to unions organizing on an industrial basis independent of the existing craft union internationals. In 1935 the FLUs representing autoworkers and rubber workers both held conventions independent of the craft union internationals.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: By the 1935 A.F. of L. convention, Green and the advocates of traditional craft unionism faced increasing dissension led by John L. Lewis of the coal miners, Sidney Hillman of the Amalgamated, David Dubinsky of the Garment Workers, Charles Howard of the ITU, Thomas McMahon of the Textile Workers, and Max Zaritsky of the Hat, Cap, and Millinery Workers, in addition to the members of the FLU's themselves. Lewis argued that the A.F.of L. was too heavily oriented toward traditional craftsmen, and was overlooking the opportunity to organize millions of semiskilled workers, especially those in industrial factories that made automobiles, rubber, glass and steel. In 1935 Lewis led the dissenting unions in forming a new Congress for Industrial Organization (CIO) within the A.F. of L. Both the new CIO industrial unions, and the older A.F. of L. crafts unions grew rapidly after 1935. President Franklin D. Roosevelt became a hero to them. He won reelection in a landslide in 1936, and by a closer margin in 1940. Labor unions gave strong support in 1940, compared to very strong support in 1936. The Gallup Poll showed CIO voters declined from 85% in 1935 to 79% in 1940. A.F. of L. voters went from 80% to 71%. Other union members went from 74% to 57%. Blue collar workers who were not union members went 72% to 64%.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: The A.F. of L. retained close ties to the Democratic machines in big cities through the 1940s. Its membership surged during the war and it held on to most of its new members after wartime legal support for labor was removed. Despite its close connections to many in Congress, the A.F. of L. was not able to block the Taft–Hartley Act in 1947. Also in 1947, the union supported the strike efforts of thousands of switchboard operators by donating thousands of dollars.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: During its first years, the A.F. of L. admitted nearly anyone. Gompers opened the A.F. of L. to radical and socialist workers and to some semiskilled and unskilled workers. Women, African Americans, and immigrants joined in small numbers. By the 1890s, the Federation had begun to organize only skilled workers in craft unions and became an organization of mostly white men. Although the Federation preached a policy of egalitarianism in regard to African American workers, it actively discriminated against black workers. The A.F. of L. sanctioned the maintenance of segregated locals within its affiliates—particularly in the construction and railroad industries—a practice which often excluded black workers altogether from union membership and thus from employment in organized industries.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: In 1901, the A.F. of L. lobbied Congress to reauthorize the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, and issued a pamphlet entitled "Some reasons for Chinese Exclusion. Meat vs. Rice. American Manhood against Asiatic Coolieism. Which shall survive?". The A.F. of L. also began one of the first organized labor boycotts when they began putting white stickers on the cigars made by unionized white cigar rollers while simultaneously discouraging consumers from purchasing cigars rolled by Chinese workers.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: In most ways, the AFL's treatment of women workers paralleled its policy towards black workers. The AFL never adopted a strict policy of gender exclusion and, at times, even came out in favor of women's unionism. But despite such rhetoric, the Federation only half-heartedly supported women's attempts to organize and, more often, took pains to keep women out of unions and the workforce altogether. Only two national unions affiliated with the AFL at its founding openly included women, and others passed by-laws barring women's membership entirely. The AFL hired its first female organizer, Mary Kenney O'Sullivan, only in 1892, released her after five months, and it did not replace her or hire another woman national organizer until 1908. Women who organized their own unions were often turned down in bids to join the Federation, and even women who did join unions found them hostile or intentionally inaccessible. AFL unions often held meetings at night or in bars when women might find it difficult to attend and where they might feel uncomfortable, and male unionists heckled women who tried to speak at meetings.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: Generally the AFL viewed women workers as competition, as strikebreakers, or as an unskilled labor reserve that kept wages low. As such, the Federation often opposed women's employment entirely. When it did organize women workers, most often it did so to protect men's jobs and earning power and not to improve the conditions, lives, or wages of women workers. In response, most women workers remained outside the labor movement. In 1900, only 3.3% of working women were organized into unions. In 1910, even as the AFL surged forward in membership, the number had dipped to 1.5%. And while it improved to 6.6% over the next decade, women remained mostly outside of unions and practically invisible inside of them into the mid-1920s.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: Attitudes gradually changed within the AFL due to the pressure of organized female workers. Female-domination began to emerge in the first two decades of the 20th century, including particularly the International Ladies Garment Workers' Union. Women organized independent locals among New York hat makers, in the Chicago stockyards, and among Jewish and Italian waist makers, to name only three examples. Through the efforts of middle class reformers and activists, often of the Women's Trade Union League, these unions joined the AFL.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: From the beginning, unions affiliated with the AFL found themselves in conflict when both unions claimed jurisdiction over the same groups of workers: both the Brewers and Teamsters claimed to represent beer truck drivers, both the Machinists and the International Typographical Union claimed to represent certain printroom employees, and the Machinists and a fledgling union known as the "Carriage, Wagon and Automobile Workers Union" sought to organize the same employees—even though neither union had made any effort to organize or bargain for those employees. In some cases the AFL mediated the dispute, usually favoring the larger or more influential union. The AFL often reversed its jurisdictional rulings over time, as the continuing jurisdictional battles between the Brewers and the Teamsters showed.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: Affiliates within the AFL formed "departments" to help resolve these jurisdictional conflicts and to provide a more effective voice for member unions in given industries. The Metal Trades Department engaged in some organizing of its own, primarily in shipbuilding, where unions such as the Pipefitters, Machinists and Iron Workers joined through local metal workers' councils to represent a diverse group of workers. The Railway Employes' Department dealt with both jurisdictional disputes between affiliates and pursued a common legislative agenda for all of them.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: The A.F. of L. made efforts in its early years to assist its affiliates in organizing: it advanced funds or provided organizers or, in some cases, such as the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the Teamsters and the American Federation of Musicians, helped form the union. The A.F. of L. also used its influence (including refusal of charters or expulsion) to heal splits within affiliated unions, to force separate unions seeking to represent the same or closely related jurisdictions to merge, or to mediate disputes between rival factions where both sides claimed to represent the leadership of an affiliated union. The A.F. of L. also chartered "federal unions"—local unions not affiliated with any international union—in those fields in which no affiliate claimed jurisdiction.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: The A.F. of L. also encouraged the formation of local labor bodies (known as central labor councils) in major metropolitan areas in which all of the affiliates could participate. These local labor councils acquired a great deal of influence in some cases. For example, the Chicago Federation of Labor spearheaded efforts to organize packinghouse and steel workers during and immediately after World War I. Local building trades councils also became powerful in some areas. In San Francisco, the local Building Trades Council, led by Carpenters official P. H. McCarthy, not only dominated the local labor council but helped elect McCarthy mayor of San Francisco in 1909. In a very few cases early in the A.F. of L.'s history, state and local bodies defied A.F. of L. policy or chose to disaffiliate over policy disputes.


title: American Federation of Labor

text: Though Gompers had contact with socialists and such as A.F. of L. co-founder Peter J. McGuire, the A.F. of L. adopted a philosophy of "business unionism" that emphasized unions' contribution to businesses' profits and national economic growth. The business unionist approach also focused on skilled workers' immediate job-related interests, while refusing to "rush to the support of any one of the numerous society-saving or society destroying schemes" involved in larger political issues.