Derek and the Dominos was an American blues rock band. The band's members were Eric Clapton, Carl Radle, Bobby Whitlock, Jim Gordon, and Duane Allman. They made the album "Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs". "Layla", with the well-known guitar riff, came from that same album. The band broke up after one album.
Carl Radle
Carl Dean Radle (born June 18, 1942 Tulsa, Oklahoma, died May 30, 1980) was an American musician, best known for being the bassist in Derek and the Dominos. Radle worked with many well-known artists and worked on many gold and platinum singles and albums. Radle is thought by many to have been the best bass guitar sideman in the music business.
In May 30, 1980, Radle died at age 37, of problems from a kidney infection caused by his alcoholism and drug addiction.
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four is a novel written by George Orwell in 1948. The book is about what Orwell thought the world could have looked like in the year 1984. It describes a terrifying world where governments control and watch everyone's lives. The main character is Winston Smith. He lives in a country that is ruled by a powerful "Party" and its leader Big Brother, and dreams of changing this. He falls in love with Julia, who agrees with him, and is led into rebellion against the government.
The book is very famous. Many of its ideas are also famous. Among these are "Big Brother", "Newspeak", "Room 101" and "unperson". In 2005, "Time" (a magazine) called it one the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005.
In the year 1984, the world is divided into three massive countries that are in endless war with each other: Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia. Each country has a totalitarian government, meaning that the government tries to control everything that its people do. Great Britain is now named "Airstrip One" and is part of Oceania. Oceania is ruled by "the Party". They use the "Thought Police" and "telescreens" (two-way televisions) to spy on people. People also have to show love for the Party and its leader, Big Brother. While pictures of Big Brother are everywhere, he is never seen for real, and he may not even exist.
Winston Smith is an ordinary member of the Party. He works for the "Ministry of Truth". His job is to re-write history when the Party wants him to. The Party kills anyone whom it thinks threatens its grip on power, sometimes for reasons that make no sense. When these people are killed, the Party also hides any sign that they existed. Winston works hard and pretends to love the Party. His secret is that he hates the Party and dreams of fighting them. Winston buys a diary from a shopkeeper called Mr Charrington.
He hides the diary in his room, where he writes about his secrets. He falls in love with a woman called Julia. The Party will not allow this, so they go out into the countryside to meet in secret. Later, they start meeting in a room at Mr Charrington's shop. O'Brien, an important member of the Party, tells Winston that he also hates the Party. Winston and Julia meet O'Brien at his home, where he gives them a book. The book is about how the Party stays in power. It says that the Party can be stopped if ordinary people rise up against it.
Winston and Julia are betrayed. Winston is taken to the "Ministry of Love". This is the prison of Oceania. O'Brien tells Winston that he was only pretending to be his friend. Winston is hurt badly and told he must stop hating the Party and do everything they want him to do, even if he has to say that "2 + 2 = 5". O'Brien says that once this is finished, Winston will leave the Ministry of Love and will return to a normal life for some months or years. After this, they will shoot him. But first, they want to make him turn against Julia.
In the end, Winston is taken to "Room 101", where he must face his worst fear: rats. As a cage of hungry rats is pushed against his face, Winston tells them to "Do it to Julia!" After Winston leaves the Ministry of Love, he meets Julia. He says he turned against her in Room 101, and she says she did the same. Winston then sits alone in a café. The last words of the story are: "He loved Big Brother."
Orwell got the idea for the book when he saw in the newspapers of London that they listed how much the country's supplies increased (more supplies) during World War II when they were actually very low on supplies and were getting smaller. He started writing a political satire of the possible condition of Britain in 50 years. He wrote it in 1948, mostly during a visit to Jura, Scotland. He sent the writing to his publishers in December 1948.
The main character, Winston Smith, lives in the town of London, United Kingdom (although in the novel, the United Kingdom is called "Airstrip One"). Airstrip One is only a small part of the mega state (big country) of Oceania. Oceania is a very large country. The Americas, Greenland, Iceland, South Africa, Madagascar, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Papua New Guinea, all come together to create the country of Oceania. There are two other countries in the novel - Eurasia, and Eastasia. Europe (not including the United Kingdom), Russia, and half of Mongolia, make up the country of Eurasia. China, Japan, Korea, and some north-west countries in Asia, make up the country of Eastasia. The equatorial countries (the Middle East, North Africa, etc.) are not part of any of these three countries, as Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia are always fighting over these places.
People in Oceania belong to three groups:
Party workers belong to four "ministries":
The leader of Ocenia is Big Brother. His picture is seen everywhere, along with the words "Big Brother is watching you." However, it is not clear if he is a real person. Emmanuel Goldstein and O'Brien both say that the main role of Big Brother is to be a symbol for the Party. O'Brien also says that Big Brother will never die.
The book was an attack on totalitarianism (when a government tries to control people's lives) and dictatorship (rule by one person). George Orwell was a democratic socialist who was against any form of dictatorship. He once wrote: Later he repeated that idea, writing about "1984"
Newspeak is a fictional language (artlang) that appears in the book "Nineteen Eighty-Four". It is the official language of Oceania. At the end of his book, George Orwell described Newspeak. It started out as the English language, but the number of words gets smaller each year. The Party are trying to stop people from rebelling, so it destroys words like "freedom" and "love", saying that people can not think of it if there is no word for it. In the society, this is supposed to prevent thoughtcrime, which is thinking against the Party, or thinking about the past. For example, a person could not say "I want to be free", because there was no word for "free" any more, so the person could not describe what he or she was feeling. At the time, it was supposed to make fun of what was later called "politically correct" speech, and "thoughtcrime" made fun of censorship. "Newspeak" is also used for military reasons, such as Oceania's Ministry of Peace (in Newspeak: "Minipax"), really the war department. Words like "Peace", "Truth", "Love", and "Plenty" were used in Newspeak a lot to mean their exact opposites. Another "Newspeak" word, "joycamp", means "forced labor camp". Other "Newspeak" words were used for political reasons. Words like ""crimethink"" were defined by the "Party", and became laws of the land.
"Book" magazine ranked the character of Big Brother as #59 on its "100 Best Characters in Fiction Since 1900" list.
Grover Cleveland
Stephen Grover Cleveland (March 18, 1837 - June 24, 1908) was the 22nd (1885–1889) and also the 24th (1893–1897) President of the United States. He was the only president to serve a second term that did not begin as soon as the first had ended. Cleveland was the first Democrat elected as President after the Civil War.