Katerina and Sergei get married. A peasant finds Zinovy's body in the cellar and goes to fetch the police. The police arrive, Katerina and Sergei try to escape but are caught and sent to prison in Siberia. On the way there Sergei makes love to another girl Sonyetka. When Katerina finds out she pushes Sonyetka into a river to her death and finally jumps in herself.
It is hard to know why Stalin decided he did not like the opera. It may have been because the police are made to look silly. It may have been because it showed people being sent to Siberia. Maybe it was because Katerina sings a lot of beautiful music, while the other characters have music which often made them look stupid and grotesque. He may have thought that Shostakovich was being critical of the leaders of the Soviet Union.
Adoption
In English, adopt may mean 1) to take something up, such as an opinion ('we adopt the view that ...'), or 2) for a grown person to care for another person's child as if it was their own. This article is about the adoption of children.
Before adoption laws there was trouble when people gave their children away, and later wanted them back again. These days, children may be put in foster care for a short time, and after, the child may go back to the parents again. But legal adoption lasts for ever. After legal adoption the adoptive parent(s) have all rights and responsibilities to the child. The biological parents have no legal rights or responsibilities to the child at all. Legal adoptions may only be cancelled if they were not done as the law says.
In the West, till not long ago, public opinion was that people should only have children if they were married. Everything else meant shame, not only for the parents, but also for a child whose parents were not married. Many children of unmarried parents were given for adoption, and adoptive parents would make out they were biological parents and try to keep secret that their child was adopted.
Today there is still secrecy about adoption. General opinion is that all adoptions are good, but even so, experts know that adoption can be trouble. Some ask questions about the family love for an adopted child. Almost one out of three people asked say that adopted children have trouble behaving, have more illness, and are more easily addicted to drugs and alcohol. But adoptive parents were described by almost 90 percent as “lucky, advantaged, and unselfish”
In many countries there are strong opinions on adoption. In some places single women may adopt a child, but single men may not. Some people say men are more likely to abuse children than women Opinions are changing fast, and many places these days homosexual couples may adopt children.
Many adopted people are pleased with their adoption. But many others are not. For example, experts have looked into adopted people's identity problems - their idea of self. Though the law says adoption lasts for ever, people from troubled adoptions want to know about their biological parents more than people from happy adoptions. Inter-racial adoption may also have problems for the adopted child's idea of self, of culture, and of where they come from.
Many grown people who had a troubled adoption look into their family history. Even some people who were happily adopted want to know more about where they came from. In some countries, people can read about their adoption at a public records office. In other countries adoption records are kept secret.
In England and Wales, people adopted after 1975 may easily read parts of their adoption records. For people adopted earlier than 1975 there are more complex rules. In Scotland, adopted people have always been able to find their birth records with details of their biological mother, and possibly their father. But all over the United Kingdom there are rules that limit the details which public records may give out about living people.
Meetings between adopted people and their biological parents have different effects. In England and Wales, about 40% of these meetings do not lead to a long lasting relationship.
Many women are sad after giving a child up for adoption. Some women never forget, and remember the child on birthdays, and some even say they think of the child every day. Many feel they were forced to give their child away, and that they did not get any help. Many can not take in what happened to them. They want people to know what happened, and to make sure that it does not happen again.
Border dispute
A border dispute is when two governments or more do not agree on the location of the border between their lands. An example is Pakistan and India over the territory of Kashmir and Kosovo which Serbia believe is theirs. An historical example is the Honey War between Iowa and Missouri.
Wars are sometimes fought over border disputes. Irredentism is often a border dispute.
Ambiguity
Ambiguity means that what a thing is, is not clear. Literally, the word refers to a choice between two different things. In the proper sense it should mean “two different meanings” because “ambi” comes from the Greek word for “two”.
We see things happen, and then we decide what they mean. If we cannot decide what is going on, the event is ambiguous. This is an extension of the original use of the word.
Words or sentences that are ambiguous can lead to misunderstandings (people get the wrong meaning). This can sometimes be serious, but it can also be funny. Jokes often rely on ambiguity.
The sentence “The peasants are revolting” is ambiguous because it could mean:
The British comedian Ronnie Barker said that he loved the English language because there are so many jokes you can make using ambiguity. He gave this example:
A mother says to her little boy: “Johnny, go over the road and see how old Mrs Jones is”. The boy comes back and says to his mother: “Mrs Jones says it is none of my business”.
The mother meant “old” in a friendly way (“dear old Mrs Jones”), but the sentence could also mean: find out Mrs Jones’s age. This is obviously how Johnny understood his mother's instruction.
The opposite of ambiguous is unambiguous (meaning that something is perfectly clear and can only have one meaning).
Ambiguity is not the same as vagueness, which means that there is so little detail given that a statement can mean almost anything.
Qantas
Qantas is the flag carrier airline of Australia with its headquarters close to Kingsford Smith Airport in Sydney. It is the second oldest continuously operating airline in the world. Qantas is commonly known as the "Flying Kangaroo" because of its logo, which is identified as a white kangaroo on a red right-angle triangle.
Qantas began in Winton, Queensland on 16 November 1920 as "Queensland and Northern Territorial Aerial Service Limited". It flew air mail services for the Australian government. In 1934, QANTAS Limited and Britain's Imperial Airways formed a new company, Qantas Empire Airways Limited.
Qantas Empire Airways started services between Brisbane and Singapore using de Havilland DH-86 Commonwealth aeroplanes.
In June 1959, Qantas' first jet airliner was delivered, which was a Boeing 707-138.
Qantas has 18 domestic destinations (destinations within Australia) and 23 international destinations in 15 countries.
Domestic Destinations
International Destinations
The table below shows how many different types of aircraft Qantas have operating and on order as of December 2019.
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a loud, aggressive style of rock music. The bands who play heavy-metal music usually have one or two guitars, a bass guitar and drums. In some bands, electronic keyboards, organs, or other instruments are used. Heavy metal songs are loud and powerful-sounding, and have strong rhythms that are repeated. There are many different types of heavy metal, some of which are described below.
Common features of heavy metal include slackened (downtuned) instruments and unusual key changes and time signatures (metre).