title: Simple living

text: The idea of food miles, the number of miles a given item of food or its ingredients has travelled between the farm and the table, is used by simple living advocates to argue for locally grown food. This is now gaining mainstream acceptance, as shown by the popularity of books such as "The 100-Mile Diet," and Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life." In each of these cases, the authors devoted a year to reducing their carbon footprint by eating locally.


title: Simple living

text: City dwellers can also produce fresh home-grown fruit and vegetables in pot gardens or miniature indoor greenhouses. Tomatoes, lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard, peas, strawberries, and several types of herbs can all thrive in pots. Jim Merkel says "A person could sprout seeds. They are tasty, incredibly nutritious, and easy to grow... We grow them in wide-mouthed mason jars with a square of nylon window screen screwed under a metal ring". Farmer Matt Moore spoke on this issue: "How does it affect the consumer to know that broccoli takes 105 days to grow ahead? [...] The supermarket mode is one of plenty—it's always stocked. And that changes our sense of time. How long it takes to grow food—that's removed in the marketplace. They don't want you to think about how long it takes to grow, because they want you to buy right now". One way to change this viewpoint is also suggested by Mr. Moore. He placed a video installation in the produce section of a grocery store that documented the length of time it took to grow certain vegetables. This aimed to raise awareness in people of the length of time actually needed for gardens.


title: Simple living

text: The do it yourself ethic refers to the principle of undertaking necessary tasks oneself rather than having others, who are more skilled or experienced, complete them for you.


title: Simple living

text: People who practice simple living have diverse views on the role of technology. The American political activist Scott Nearing was skeptical about how humanity would use new technology, citing destructive inventions such as nuclear weapons. Those who eschew modern technology are often referred to as Luddites or neo-Luddites. Although simple living is often a secular pursuit, it may still involve reconsidering personal definitions of appropriate technology, as Anabaptist groups such as the Amish or Mennonites have done.


title: Simple living

text: Technology is a way to make a simple lifestyle within mainstream culture easier and more sustainable. The internet can reduce an individual's carbon footprint through remote work and lower paper usage. Some have also calculated their energy consumption and have shown that one can live simply and in an emotionally satisfying way by using much less energy than is used in Western countries. Technologies they may embrace include computers, photovoltaic systems, wind turbines, and water turbines.


title: Simple living

text: Technological interventions that appear to simplify living may actually induce side effects elsewhere or at a future point in time. Evgeny Morozov warns that tools like the internet can facilitate mass surveillance and political repression. The book "Green Illusions" identifies how wind and solar energy technologies have hidden side effects and can actually increase energy consumption and entrench environmental harms over time. Authors of the book "Techno-Fix" criticize technological optimists for overlooking the limitations of technology in solving agricultural problems.


title: Simple living

text: Advertising is criticised for encouraging a consumerist mentality. Many advocates of simple living tend to agree that cutting out, or cutting down on, television viewing is a key ingredient in simple living.


title: Simple living

text: Contrastingly to other diet forms, such as plant-based, ketogenic, and Mediterranean diet, among others, the simplified diet focuses on a number of principles rather than having a set of rules. It is common for individuals to use less sophisticated and cheaper ingredients, and tends to promote dishes considered as "comfort food", including home-cooked dishes. Simple diets are usually considered as "healthy", since they include a significant amount of fruit and vegetables. A simple diet usually avoids highly processed foods and fast-food eating. A simple diet, since it belongs to a lifestyle, also entails taking time to be present while eating, such as by following rituals, avoiding multitasking when eating, and putting time aside to consume food mindfully and gratefully, potentially in the company of others. Moreover, it is common to cook one's own food, by following simple recipes that are not particularly time consuming, in an attempt to reduce the amount of energy necessary for cooking.


title: Simple living

text: Overall however, a simple diet looks different from person to person and can be adapted to suit individual needs and desires. For instance, in the United Kingdom, the Movement for Compassionate Living was formed by Kathleen and Jack Jannaway in 1984 to spread the message of veganism and promote simple living and self-reliance as a remedy against the exploitation of humans, animals, and the planet.


title: Simple living

text: Environmentalism is inspired by simple living, as harmony with nature is intrinsically dependent on a simple lifestyle. For example, Green parties often advocate simple living as a consequence of their "four pillars" or the "Ten Key Values" of the Green Party of the United States. This includes, in policy terms, their rejection of genetic engineering and nuclear power and other technologies they consider to be hazardous. The Greens' support for simplicity is based on the reduction in natural resource usage and environmental impact. This concept is expressed in Ernest Callenbach's "green triangle" of ecology, frugality and health.


title: Simple living

text: Many with similar views avoid involvement even with green politics as compromising simplicity, however, and advocate forms of green anarchism that attempt to implement these principles at a smaller scale, e.g. the ecovillage. Deep ecology, a belief that the world does not exist as a resource to be freely exploited by humans, proposes wilderness preservation, human population control and simple living.


title: Simple living

text: The alleged relationship between economic growth and war, when fought for control and exploitation of natural and human resources, is considered a good reason for promoting a simple living lifestyle. Avoiding the perpetuation of the resource curse is a similar objective of many simple living adherents.


title: Simple living

text: Opposition to war has led peace activists, such as Ammon Hennacy and Ellen Thomas, to a form of tax resistance in which they reduce their income below the tax threshold by taking up a simple living lifestyle. These individuals believe that their government is engaged in immoral, unethical or destructive activities such as war, and paying taxes inevitably funds these activities.


title: Simple living

text: The term Bohemianism has been used to describe a long tradition of both voluntary and involuntary poverty by artists who devote their time to artistic endeavors rather than paid labor. The phase Bohemianism was coined by the French bourgeoisie as a way to describe the "non-conformists" of society. Generally, Bohemians appeared to express their unorthodoxy through simplistic art; this behavior was notably seen by Amedeo Modigliani. Amedeo Modigliani was known for his paintings and sculptures depicting nudity in a provocative yet unambiguous interpretation. Later, this form of minimalistic art transcended in many countries, inspiring "rebel" artistic movements into the 20th century.


title: Simple living

text: In May 2014, a story on NPR suggested that positive attitudes towards living in poverty for the sake of art are becoming less common among young American artists, and quoted one recent graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design as saying "her classmates showed little interest in living in garrets and eating ramen noodles."


title: Simple living

text: A new economics movement has been building since the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in 1972, and the publications that year of "Only One Earth", "The Limits to Growth", and "Blueprint For Survival", followed by "Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered" in 1973"."


title: Simple living

text: Recently, David Wann has introduced the idea of "simple prosperity" as it applies to a sustainable lifestyle. From his point of view, and as a point of departure for what he calls real sustainability, "it is important to ask ourselves three fundamental questions: what is the point of all our commuting and consuming? What is the economy for? And, finally, why do we seem to be unhappier now than when we began our initial pursuit for rich abundance?"


title: Simple living

text: A reference point for this new economics can be found in James Robertson's "A New Economics of Sustainable Development," and the work of thinkers and activists, who participate in his "Working for a Sane Alternative" network and program. According to Robertson, the shift to sustainability is likely to require a widespread shift of emphasis from raising incomes to reducing costs.


title: Dogon people

text: The Dogon are an ethnic group indigenous to the central plateau region of Mali, in West Africa, south of the Niger bend, near the city of Bandiagara, and in Burkina Faso. The population numbers between 400,000 and 800,000. They speak the Dogon languages, which are considered to constitute an independent branch of the Niger–Congo language family, meaning that they are not closely related to any other languages.


title: Dogon people

text: The Dogon are best known for their religious traditions, their mask dances, wooden sculpture, and their architecture. Since the twentieth century, there have been significant changes in the social organisation, material culture and beliefs of the Dogon, in part because Dogon country is one of Mali's major tourist attractions.


title: Dogon people

text: The principal Dogon area is bisected by the Bandiagara Escarpment, a sandstone cliff of up to high, stretching about 150 km (90 miles). To the southeast of the cliff, the sandy Séno-Gondo Plains are found, and northwest of the cliff are the Bandiagara Highlands. Historically, Dogon villages were established in the Bandiagara area a thousand years ago because the people collectively refused to convert to Islam and retreated from areas controlled by Muslims.


title: Dogon people

text: Dogon insecurity in the face of these historical pressures caused them to locate their villages in defensible positions along the walls of the escarpment. The other factor influencing their choice of settlement location was access to water. The Niger River is nearby and in the sandstone rock, a rivulet runs at the foot of the cliff at the lowest point of the area during the wet season.


title: Dogon people

text: Among the Dogon, several oral traditions have been recorded as to their origin. One relates to their coming from Mande, located to the southwest of the Bandiagara escarpment near Bamako. According to this oral tradition, the first Dogon settlement was established in the extreme southwest of the escarpment at Kani-Na. Archaeological and ethnoarchaeological studies in the Dogon region have been especially revealing about the settlement and environmental history, and about social practices and technologies in this area over several thousands of years.


title: Dogon people

text: Over time, the Dogon moved north along the escarpment, arriving in the Sanga region in the 15th century. Other oral histories place the origin of the Dogon to the west beyond the river Niger, or tell of the Dogon coming from the east. It is likely that the Dogon of today are descendants of several groups of diverse origin who migrated to escape Islamization.


title: Dogon people

text: It is often difficult to distinguish between pre-Muslim practices and later practices. But Islamic law classified the Dogon and many other ethnicities of the region (Mossi, Gurma, Bobo, Busa and the Yoruba) as being within the non-canon "dar al-harb" and consequently fair game for slave raids organized by merchants. As the growth of cities increased, the demand for slaves across the region of West Africa also increased. The historical pattern included the murder of indigenous males by raiders and enslavement of women and children.


title: Dogon people

text: For almost 1000 years, the Dogon people, an ancient ethnic group of Mali had faced religious and ethnic persecution—through jihads by dominant Muslim communities. These jihadic expeditions formed themselves to force the Dogon to abandon their traditional religious beliefs for Islam. Such jihads caused the Dogon to abandon their original villages and moved up to the cliffs of Bandiagara for better defense and to escape persecution—often building their dwellings in little nooks and crannies.


title: Dogon people

text: Dogon art consists primarily of sculptures. Dogon art revolves around religious values, ideals, and freedoms (Laude, 19). Dogon sculptures are not made to be seen publicly, and are commonly hidden from the public eye within the houses of families, sanctuaries, or kept with the Hogon (Laude, 20). The importance of secrecy is due to the symbolic meaning behind the pieces and the process by which they are made.


title: Dogon people

text: Themes found throughout Dogon sculpture consist of figures with raised arms, superimposed bearded figures, horsemen, stools with caryatids, women with children, figures covering their faces, women grinding pearl millet, women bearing vessels on their heads, donkeys bearing cups, musicians, dogs, quadruped-shaped troughs or benches, figures bending from the waist, mirror-images, aproned figures, and standing figures (Laude, 46–52).


title: Dogon people

text: Signs of other contacts and origins are evident in Dogon art. The Dogon people were not the first inhabitants of the cliffs of Bandiagara. Influence from Tellem art is evident in Dogon art because of its rectilinear designs (Laude, 24).


title: Dogon people

text: Today, at least 35% of the Dogon practice Islam. Another 10% practices Christianity. Dogon society is organized by a patrilineal kinship system. Each Dogon village, or enlarged family, is headed by one male elder. This chief head is the oldest living son of the ancestor of the local branch of the family.


title: Dogon people

text: The blind Dogon elder Ogotemmeli taught the main symbols of the Dogon religion to French anthropologist Marcel Griaule in October 1946. Griaule had lived amongst the Dogon people for fifteen years before this meeting with Ogotemmeli took place. Ogotemmeli taught Griaule the religious stories in the same way that Ogotemmeli had learned them from his father and grandfather; oral instruction which he had learned over the course of more than twenty years. What makes the record so important from a historical perspective is that the Dogon people were still living in their oral culture at the time their religion was recorded. They were one of the last people in West Africa to lose their independence and come under French rule.


title: Dogon people

text: The Dogon people with whom French anthropologists Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen worked during the 1930s and 1940s had a system of signs which ran into the thousands, including "their own systems of astronomy and calendrical measurements, methods of calculation and extensive anatomical and physiological knowledge, as well as a systematic pharmacopoeia". The religion embraced many aspects of nature which are found in other traditional African religions.


title: Dogon people

text: The key spiritual figures in the religion were the Nummo/Nommo twins. According to Ogotemmêli's description of them, the Nummo, whom he also referred to as "Water", had green skinned covered in green hair, and in form were like human from the loins up, but serpent below. Their eyes were red, their tongues forked, and their arms flexible and unjointed.


title: Dogon people

text: Ogotemmêli classified the Nummo as hermaphrodites. Their images or figures appeared on the female side of the Dogon sanctuary. They were primarily symbolized by the sun, which was a female symbol in the religion. In the Dogon language, the sun's name ("nay") had the same root as "mother" ("na") and "cow" ("nā"). They were symbolized by the colour red, a female symbol.


title: Dogon people

text: The problem of "twin births" versus "single births", or androgyny versus single-sexed beings, was said to contribute to a disorder at the beginning of time. This theme was fundamental to the Dogon religion. "The jackal was alone from birth," said Ogotemmêli, "and because of this he did more things than can be told." Dogon males were primarily associated with the single-sexed male Jackal and the Sigui festival, which was associated with death on the Earth. It was held once every sixty years and allegedly celebrated the white dwarf star, Sirius B. There has been extensive speculation about the origin of such astronomical knowledge. The colour white was a symbol of males. The ritual language, "Sigi so" or "language of the Sigui", which was taught to male dignitaries of the Society of the Masks ("awa"), was considered a poor language. It contained only about a quarter of the full vocabulary of "Dogo so", the Dogon language. The "Sigi so" was used to tell the story of creation of the universe, of human life, and the advent of death on the Earth, during both funeral ceremonies and the rites of the "end of mourning" ("dama").


title: Dogon people

text: Because of the birth of the single-sexed male Jackal, who was born without a soul, all humans eventually had to be turned into single-sexed beings. This was to prevent a being like the Jackal from ever being born on Earth again. "The Nummo foresaw that the original rule of twin births was bound to disappear, and that errors might result comparable to those of the jackal, whose birth was single. Because of his solitary state, the first son of God acted as he did." The removal of the second sex and soul from humans is what the ritual of circumcision represents in the Dogon religion. "The dual soul is a danger; a man should be male, and a woman female. Circumcision and excision are once again the remedy."


title: Dogon people

text: The Dogon religion was centered on this loss of twinness or androgyny. Griaule describes it in this passage:


title: Dogon people

text: The birth of human twins was celebrated in the Dogon culture in Griaule's day because it recalled the "fabulous past, when all beings came into existence in twos, symbols of the balance between humans and the divine". According to Griaule, the celebration of twin-births was a cult that extended all over Africa. Today, a significant minority of the Dogon practice Islam. Another minority practices Christianity.


title: Dogon people

text: The vast majority of marriages are monogamous, but nonsororal polygynous marriages are allowed in the Dogon culture. However, even in polygynous marriages, it is rare for a man to have more than two wives. In a polygynous marriage, the wives reside in separate houses within the husband's compound. The first wife, or "ya biru," holds a higher position in the family relative to any wives from later marriages. Formally, wives join their husband's household only after the birth of their first child. The selection of a wife is carried out by the man's parents. Marriages are endogamous in that the people are limited to marry only persons within their clan and within their caste.


title: Dogon people

text: Women may leave their husbands early in their marriage, before the birth of their first child. After a couple has had children together, divorce is a rare and serious matter, and it requires the participation of the whole village. Divorce is more common in polygynous marriages than in monogamous marriages. In the event of a divorce, the woman takes only the youngest child with her, and the rest remain as a part of the husband's household. An enlarged family can count up to a hundred persons and is called "guinna".


title: Dogon people

text: The Dogon are strongly oriented toward harmony, which is reflected in many of their rituals. For instance, in one of their most important rituals, the women praise the men, the men thank the women, the young express appreciation for the old, and the old recognize the contributions of the young. Another example is the custom of elaborate greetings whenever one Dogon meets another. This custom is repeated over and over, throughout a Dogon village, all day.


title: Dogon people

text: During a greeting ritual, the person who has entered the contact answers a series of questions about his or her whole family, from the person who was already there. The answer is "sewa", which means that everything is fine. Then the Dogon who has entered the contact repeats the ritual, asking the resident how his or her whole family is. Because the word "sewa" is so commonly repeated throughout a Dogon village, neighboring peoples have dubbed the Dogon the "sewa people".


title: Dogon people

text: The Hogon is the spiritual and political leader of the village. He is elected from among the oldest men of the dominant lineage of the village.


title: Dogon people

text: After his election, he has to follow a six-month initiation period, during which he is not allowed to shave or wash. He wears white clothes and nobody is allowed to touch him. A virgin who has not yet had her period takes care of him, cleans his house, and prepares his meals. She returns to her home at night.


title: Dogon people

text: After initiation, the Hogon wears a red fez. He has an armband with a sacred pearl that symbolises his function. The virgin is replaced by one of his wives, and she also returns to her home at night. The Hogon has to live alone in his house. The Dogon believe the sacred snake Lébé comes during the night to clean him and to transfer wisdom.


title: Dogon people

text: The Dogon are primarily agriculturalists and cultivate millet, sorghum and rice, as well as onions, tobacco, peanuts, and some other vegetables. Griaule encouraged the construction of a dam near Sangha and persuaded the Dogon to cultivate onions. The economy of the Sangha region has doubled since then, and its onions are sold as far as the market of Bamako and those of the Ivory Coast. Grain is stored in granaries.


title: Dogon people

text: In addition to agriculture, the women gather wild fruits, tubers, nuts, and honey in the bush outside of village borders. Some young men will hunt for small game, but wild animals are relatively scarce near villages. While the people keep chickens or herds of sheep and goats in Dogon villages, animal husbandry holds little economic value. Individuals with high status may own a small number of cattle.


title: Dogon people

text: Since the late 20th century, the Dogon have developed peaceful trading relationships with other societies and have thereby increased variety in their diets. Every four days, Dogon people participate in markets with neighboring tribes, such as the Fulani and the Dyula. The Dogon primarily sell agricultural commodities: onions, grain, cotton, and tobacco. They purchase sugar, salt, European merchandise, and many animal products, such as milk, butter, and dried fish.


title: Dogon people

text: There are two endogamous castes in Dogon society: the smiths and the leather-workers. Members of these castes are physically separate from the rest of the village and live either at the village edge or outside of it entirely. While the castes are correlated to profession, membership is determined by birth. The smiths have important ritual powers and are characteristically poor. The leather-workers engage in significant trade with other ethnic groups and accumulate wealth. Unlike norms for the rest of society, parallel-cousin marriage is allowed within castes. Caste boys do not get circumcised.


title: Dogon people

text: In Dogon thought, males and females are born with both sexual components. The clitoris is considered male, while the foreskin is considered female. (Originally, for the Dogon, man was endowed with a dual soul. Circumcision is believed to eliminate the superfluous one.) Rites of circumcision enable each sex to assume its proper physical identity.


title: Dogon people

text: Boys are circumcised in age groups of three years, counting for example all boys between 9 and 12 years old. This marks the end of their youth, and they are initiated. The blacksmith performs the circumcision. Afterwards, the boys stay for a few days in a hut separated from the rest of the village people, until the wounds have healed. The circumcision is celebrated and the initiated boys go around and receive presents. They make music on a special instrument that is made of a rod of wood and calabashes that makes the sound of a rattle.


title: Dogon people

text: The newly circumcised youths, now considered young men, walk around naked for a month after the procedure so that their achievement in age can be admired by the tribe. This practice has been passed down for generations and is always followed, even during winter.


title: Dogon people

text: Once a boy is circumcised, he transitions into young adulthood and moves out of his father's house. All of the men in his age-set live together in a "duñe" until they marry and have children.


title: Dogon people

text: The Dogon are among several African ethnic groups that practice female genital mutilation, including a type I circumcision, meaning that the clitoris is removed.


title: Dogon people

text: The village of Songho has a circumcision cave ornamented with red and white rock paintings of animals and plants. Nearby is a cave where music instruments are stored.


title: Dogon people

text: The "Awa" is a masked dance society that holds ritual and social importance. It has a strict code of etiquette, obligations, interdicts, and a secret language ("sigi so"). All initiated Dogon men participate in Awa, with the exception of some caste members. Women are forbidden from joining and prohibited from learning sigi so. The 'Awa' is characterized by the intricate masks worn by members during rituals. There are two major events at which the Awa perform: the 'sigi' ritual and 'dama' funeral rituals.


title: Dogon people

text: 'Sigi' is a society-wide ritual to honor and recognize the first ancestors. Thought to have originated as a method to unite and keep peace among Dogon villages, the 'sigi' involves all members of the Dogon people. Starting in the northeastern part of Dogon territory, each village takes turns celebrating and hosting elaborate feasts, ceremonies, and festivities. During this time, new masks are carved and dedicated to their ancestors. Each village celebrates for around a year before the 'sigi' moves to the next village. A new 'sigi' is started every 60 years.


title: Dogon people

text: Dogon funeral rituals come in two parts. The first occurs immediately after the death of a person, and the second can occur years after the death. Due to the expense, the second traditional funeral rituals, or "damas", are becoming very rare. Damas that are still performed today are not usually performed for their original intent, but instead are performed for tourists interested in the Dogon way of life. The Dogon use this entertainment to earn income by charging tourists money for the masks they want to see and for the ritual itself (Davis, 68).


title: Dogon people

text: The traditional dama consists of a masquerade intended to lead the souls of the departed to their final resting places, through a series of ritual dances and rites. Dogon damas include the use of many masks, which they wore by securing them in their teeth, and statuettes. Each Dogon village may differ in the designs of the masks used in the dama ritual. Similarly each village may have their own way of performing the dama rituals. The dama consists of an event, known as the Halic, that is held immediately after the death of a person and lasts for one day (Davis, 68).


title: Dogon people

text: According to Shawn R. Davis, this particular ritual incorporates the elements of the "yingim" and the "danyim." During the "yincomoli" ceremony, a gourd is smashed over the deceased's wooden bowl, hoe, and "bundukamba" (burial blanket). This announces the entrance of persons wearing the masks used in this ceremony, while the deceased's entrance to his home in the family compound is decorated with ritual elements (Davis, 72–73).


title: Dogon people

text: Masks used during the yincomoli ceremony include the "Yana Gulay", "Satimbe", "Sirige", and "Kanaga". The Yana Gulay mask's purpose is to impersonate a Fulani woman, and is made from cotton cloth and cowl shells. The Satimbe mask represents the women ancestors, who are said to have discovered the purpose of the masks by guiding the spirits of the deceased into the afterlife (Davis, 74). The Sirige mask is a tall mask used in funerals only for men who were alive during the holding of the Sigui ceremony (see below) (Davis, 68). The Kanaga masqueraders, at one point, dance and sit next to the bundkamba, which represents the deceased.


title: Dogon people

text: The yingim and the danyim rituals each last a few days. These events are held annually to honor the elders who have died since the last Dama. The yingim consists of both the sacrifice of cows, or other valuable animals, and mock combat. Large mock battles are performed in order to help chase the spirit, known as the "nyama," from the deceased's body and village, and towards the path to the afterlife (Davis, 68).


title: Dogon people

text: The danyim is held a couple of months later. During the danyim, masqueraders perform dances every morning and evening for any period up to six days, depending on that village's practice. The masqueraders dance on the rooftops of the deceased's compound, throughout the village, and in the area of fields around the village (Davis, 68). Until the masqueraders have completed their dances, and every ritual has been performed, any misfortune can be blamed on the remaining spirits of the dead (Davis, 68).


title: Dogon people

text: Villages are built along escarpments and near a source of water. On average, a village contains around 44 houses organized around the 'ginna', or head man's house. Each village is composed of one main lineage (occasionally, multiple lineages make up a single village) traced through the male line. Houses are built extremely close together, many times sharing walls and floors.


title: Dogon people

text: Dogon has been frequently referred to as a single language. There are at least five distinct groups of dialects. The most ancient dialects are "dyamsay" and "tombo", the former being most frequently used for traditional prayers and ritual chants. The Dogon dialects are highly distinct from one another and many varieties are not mutually intelligible, actually amounting to some 12 dialects and 50 sub-dialects. There is also a secret ritual language "sigi sǫ" (language of Sigi), which is taught to dignitaries ("olubarū") of the Society of the Masks during their enthronement at the "Sigui" ceremony. Women have no right to learn "Sigui So".


title: Dogon people

text: It is generally accepted that the Dogon language belongs to the Niger–Congo language family, though the evidence is weak. They have been linked to the Mande subfamily but also to Gur. In a recent overview of the Niger–Congo family, Dogon is treated as an independent branch.


title: Dogon people

text: The Dogon languages show few remnants of a unique noun class system, an example of which is that human nouns take a distinct plural suffix. This leads linguists to conclude that Dogon is likely to have diverged from Niger–Congo very early. Another indication of this is the subject–object–verb basic word order, which Dogon shares with such early Niger–Congo branches as Ijoid and Mande.


title: Dogon people

text: About 1,500 ethnic Dogon in seven villages in southern Mali speak the Bangime language, which is unrelated to the other Dogon languages and presumed by linguists to be an ancient, pre-Dogon language isolate, although a minority of linguists (most notably Roger Blench) hypothesise that it may be related to Proto-Nilo-Saharan.


title: Dogon people

text: Starting with the French anthropologist Marcel Griaule, several authors have claimed that Dogon traditional religion incorporates details about extrasolar astronomical bodies that could not have been discerned from naked-eye observation. The idea has entered the New Age and ancient astronaut literature as evidence that extraterrestrial aliens visited Mali in the distant past. Other authors have argued that previous 20th-century European visitors to the Dogon are a far more plausible source of such information and dispute whether Griaule's account accurately describes Dogon myths at all.


title: Dogon people

text: From 1931 to 1956, Griaule studied the Dogon in field missions ranging from several days to two months in 1931, 1935, 1937 and 1938 and then annually from 1946 until 1956. In late 1946, Griaule spent a consecutive 33 days in conversations with the Dogon wiseman Ogotemmeli, the source of much of Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen's future publications. They reported that the Dogon believe that the brightest star in the night sky, Sirius ("Sigi Tolo" or "star of the Sigui"), has two companion stars, "Pō Tolo" (the Digitaria star), and "ęmmę ya tolo", (the female Sorghum star), respectively the first and second companions of Sirius A. Sirius, in the Dogon system, formed one of the foci for the orbit of a tiny star, the companionate Digitaria star. When Digitaria is closest to Sirius, that star brightens: when it is farthest from Sirius, it gives off a twinkling effect that suggests to the observer several stars. The orbit cycle takes 50 years. They also claimed that the Dogon appeared to know of the rings of Saturn, and the moons of Jupiter.


title: Dogon people

text: Griaule and Dieterlen were puzzled by this Sudanese star system, and prefaced their analysis with the disclaimer, "The problem of knowing how, with no instruments at their disposal, men could know the movements and certain characteristics of virtually invisible stars has not been settled, nor even posed."


title: Dogon people

text: More recently, doubts have been raised about the validity of Griaule and Dieterlen's work. In a 1991 article in "Current Anthropology", anthropologist Wouter van Beek concluded after his research among the Dogon that, "Though they do speak about "Sigu Tolo" [which is what Griaule claimed the Dogon called Sirius] they disagree completely with each other as to which star is meant; for some it is an invisible star that should rise to announce the sigu [festival], for another it is Venus that, through a different position, appears as "Sigu Tolo". All agree, however, that they learned about the star from Griaule."


title: Dogon people

text: Griaule's daughter Geneviève Calame-Griaule responded in a later issue, arguing that Van Beek did not go "through the appropriate steps for acquiring knowledge" and suggesting that van Beek's Dogon informants may have thought that he had been "sent by the political and administrative authorities to test the Dogon's Muslim orthodoxy". An independent assessment is given by Andrew Apter of the University of California.


title: Dogon people

text: In a 1978 critique, skeptic Ian Ridpath concluded: "There are any number of channels by which the Dogon could have received Western knowledge long before they were visited by Griaule and Dieterlen." In his book "Sirius Matters", Noah Brosch postulates that the Dogon may have had contact with astronomers based in Dogon territory during a five-week expedition, led by Henri-Alexandre Deslandres, to study the solar eclipse of 16 April 1893.


title: Dogon people

text: Robert Todd Carroll also states that a more likely source of the knowledge of the Sirius star system is from contemporary, terrestrial sources who provided information to interested members of the tribes. James Oberg, however, citing these suspicions notes their completely speculative nature, writing that, "The obviously advanced astronomical knowledge must have come from somewhere, but is it an ancient bequest or a modern graft? Although Temple fails to prove its antiquity, the evidence for the recent acquisition of the information is still entirely circumstantial." Additionally, James Clifford notes that Griaule sought informants best qualified to speak of traditional lore, and deeply mistrusted converts to Christianity, Islam, or people with too much contact with whites.


title: Dogon people

text: Oberg points out a number of errors contained in the Dogon beliefs, including the number of moons possessed by Jupiter, that Saturn was the furthest planet from the sun, and the only planet with rings. Interest in other seemingly falsifiable claims, namely concerning a red dwarf star orbiting around Sirius (not hypothesized until the 1950s), led him to entertain a previous challenge by Temple, asserting that "Temple offered another line of reasoning. 'We have in the Dogon information a predictive mechanism which it is our duty to test, regardless of our preconceptions.' One example: 'If a Sirius-C is ever discovered and found to be a red dwarf, I will conclude that the Dogon information has been fully validated.'


title: Dogon people

text: This alludes to reports that the Dogon knew of another star in the Sirius system, "Ęmmę Ya", or a star "larger than Sirius B but lighter and dim in magnitude". In 1995, gravitational studies indeed showed the possible presence of a brown dwarf star orbiting around Sirius (a Sirius-C) with a six-year orbital period. A more recent study using advanced infrared imaging concluded that the probability of the existence of a triple star system for Sirius is "now low" but could not be ruled out because the region within 5 AU of Sirius A had not been covered.


title: Awake (2021 film)

text: Awake is a 2021 American science fiction thriller film, directed by Mark Raso, from a screenplay he wrote alongside Joseph Raso. It stars Gina Rodriguez, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Barry Pepper, Finn Jones, Shamier Anderson, Ariana Greenblatt, Frances Fisher, Elias Edraki, Lucius Hoyos and Gil Bellows.


title: Awake (2021 film)

text: The film was released by Netflix on June 9, 2021. It reached number one worldwide on the platform when it was released.


title: Awake (2021 film)

text: Former U.S. Army medic and recovering addict, Jill Adams, works as a security guard at a local college where she steals drugs from the research lab to sell. After her shift, she picks up her children, Noah and Matilda, from their grandmother, Doris.


title: Awake (2021 film)

text: While driving, their car loses power and is hit by another car, sending it into a lake. Matilda drowns but is revived by a police officer who reveals that everything that uses electricity is malfunctioning. At the hospital, they learn that the coma patients have awoken. They return home, but Jill, Noah, and Doris are unable to sleep, and Noah says he sees shooting stars which Jill explains are satellites. On her way to work, Jill observes that the whole neighborhood is awake. There, psychiatrist Dr. Murphy explains that people appear to be no longer able to fall asleep. Thus, they will soon suffer from the symptoms of sleep deprivation. The only known exception is an old woman, who is being studied at a military base called The Hub, in the hopes of finding a cure for the condition. Jill remembers that Matilda can also fall asleep and she rushes home to find her, fearing that she will be taken to be studied/experimented on to find the cure as well, only to discover that she's at church. The pastor gives a sermon about Matilda being a beacon of hope and people want to sacrifice her. Jill and Noah arrive to get her but the churchgoers (aside from Doris and the pastor) does not want to give up Matilda. After an officer shoots and kills the doctor with Jill, the people panic and Doris is able to hide Matilda away. Jill, Matilda, and Noah flee to the woods. They rush to a garage to find a car. Jill leaves the two outside while she enters the garage. Jill takes a car after hiding from two men and picks up Noah and Matilda. Noah tells Jill that they should bring Matilda to The Hub and Jill eventually reluctantly agrees.


title: Awake (2021 film)

text: They reach a library and Noah finds a map. Noah and Jill use the map to find out how to get to The Hub. While doing so, an escaped prisoner steals their car with Matilda in it. Other prisoners threaten Jill and Noah but they are saved by the man who stole their car, Dodge. They discover plane wreckage and Noah and Dodge look for items they might need. Jill teaches Matilda to drive because she's the only one who has the energy to and to prepare her for the possibility of living alone when everyone else has died from sleep deprivation. While driving, they are attacked by people but manage to escape.


title: Awake (2021 film)

text: They reach The Hub. Dodge offers to stay but Jill gives him the car and tells him to leave. Jill splits up with her children and enters The Hub. She sneaks in disguised as a lab worker to find the other woman who can sleep. She finds her in very ill condition. The woman states she should have been dead months ago. Jill is convinced there is no cure so she begs the woman to raise Matilda. Jill is seen by Murphy and lies about wanting to be there to help. Jill asks if there is a cure and Murphy replies that it has been five days and there is no cure and that the lab workers have been using a drug that helps the brain function to keep them going but it is only temporary and causes neurological damage. The army confronts Jill and her children and Matilda tearfully admits she can sleep.


title: Awake (2021 film)

text: The next day, Matilda asks if she can help and the doctor responds that they need to find out what makes her special. She sees an ape who has been experimented on and sees that the ape doesn't fall asleep when given anesthetic gas. The doctor says that chimps were the only animals besides humans that can't sleep due to their biological closeness to us. They test the gas on Matilda and she falls asleep. Jill is handcuffed in a room where she experiences delirium.


title: Awake (2021 film)

text: Murphy asks Jill why her daughter can sleep and Jill begs Murphy to let Matilda go but she insists that humanity's survival depends on her. She explains that the sleep disorder was caused by the same solar flare that knocked out power affecting humans' (and chimps') brains. Dodge is taken as a guard and is given stimulants. The woman who can sleep goes into cardiac arrest and dies. Jill hallucinates that Noah is threatening to kill her. The real Noah is taken away to see if his brain is different than his sister's.


title: Awake (2021 film)

text: The soldiers then go insane and begin shooting everyone. Jill goes to rescue her daughter and the two run off together. Noah is hallucinating and cuts a wire, electrocuting himself. Jill and Matilda try resuscitating him using a defibrillator but are unsuccessful. Noah suddenly wakes up the next morning, saying that he was dreaming. Noah tells Jill that she was right about not wanting to go to The Hub and that he knows she loves them and needs them. Matilda realizes the reason that she and Noah could sleep was because they had both temporarily died. They drown Jill in a lake. They resuscitate her and she awakens just as the camera zooms in on her eye and cuts to the credits.


title: Awake (2021 film)

text: In May 2019, it was announced Gina Rodriguez had joined the cast of the film, with Mark Raso directing from a screenplay by himself and Joseph Raso and with Netflix distributing. In August 2019, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Barry Pepper, Finn Jones, Shamier Anderson, Ariana Greenblatt, Frances Fisher, Lucius Hoyos and Gil Bellows joined the cast of the film.


title: Awake (2021 film)

text: On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, of critics' reviews of the film are positive, with an average rating of . The website's critics consensus reads: "A scattered and shallow disaster flick, "Awake" will have audiences reaching for the snooze button." According to Metacritic, which assigned a weighted average score of 35 out of 100 based on 13 critics, the film received "generally unfavorable reviews".


title: Awake (2021 film)

text: Nick Allen at "The Playlist" called it "abysmal" gave the film a "D." He wrote that the movie "proves it has no idea how to present its one original idea with visual thrills, and it foolishly underestimates how performance is key to horror like this."


title: Children of a Lesser God (film)

text: Children of a Lesser God is a 1986 American romantic drama film directed by Randa Haines from a screenplay written by Hesper Anderson and Mark Medoff based on Medoff's 1979 play of the same name. It stars William Hurt, Marlee Matlin (in her film debut), Piper Laurie, and Philip Bosco. The film's narrative follows two employees at a school for the deaf: a deaf custodian and a hearing speech teacher, whose conflicting ideologies on speech and deafness create tension and discord in their developing romantic relationship.


title: Children of a Lesser God (film)

text: "Children of a Lesser God" premiered at the 37th Berlin International Film Festival, where it competed for the Golden Bear, while Haines received a Special Silver Bear. It was theatrically released on October 3, 1986, by Paramount Pictures to critical and commercial success. Reviewers praised Haines's direction, the screenplay, and particularly the performances of Hurt, Matlin, and Laurie. The film grossed $101.5 million worldwide on a $10.5 million budget. It received five nominations at the 59th Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Actor (for Hurt), Best Supporting Actress (for Laurie), Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Actress (for Matlin). At age 21, Matlin became the youngest Best Actress winner as well as the first deaf winner in Oscar history.


title: Children of a Lesser God (film)

text: An energetic new teacher, James Leeds (William Hurt), arrives at a school for the deaf and hard of hearing in New England. He soon sees a young deaf woman working as a janitor. The woman, Sarah Norman (Marlee Matlin), a former top student, is not well-regarded by the hearing staff, but seems to integrate well with the deaf students. James begins to try to talk with her, arranging a meeting through her boss, pursuing her after school while she is attempting to clean, and persisting despite being rejected several times. She eventually agrees to go to dinner, and he watches her dance from the sidelines.


title: Children of a Lesser God (film)

text: Sarah does not want to vocalize, and James eventually agrees not to try to force her to—a promise he later breaks. He finds out that Sarah refuses to visit her home, and assumes her mother (Piper Laurie) has stopped reaching out. Through her mother, James finds out that Sarah and her sister Ruth were popular, and according to her mother her peers treated Sarah as if she weren't different from other women. Unfortunately, Sarah later reveals that she was sorely used by the unnamed "boys", and may have been a victim of sex abuse. Such treatment has led Sarah to mistrust men and resist interacting with anyone. Later, in a pool scene, he walks in on her swimming nude. James confesses that he is falling in love with Sarah. She seems to be afraid. He falls into the pool on purpose, which changes the mood of the interaction. They share a passionate kiss in the water, then James undresses. It is implied that they had sex that night for the first time.


title: Children of a Lesser God (film)

text: The relationship between James and Sarah develops. The school superintendent warns James that he doesn't believe the relationship will work, but James is adamant that he will stay with Sarah because he loves her. James choreographs a dance with his deaf students, in which they lip-sync to a song on a stage in front of their parents. Sarah sees this performance and becomes upset. The conflict between James and Sarah persists as she thinks James hates her for not speaking. James convinces Sarah to leave her job and move in with him, although it is not clear what her plans for the future are. James's determination to hear Sarah speak and his inability to help her to develop individual pursuits frustrates her, and she feels he is patronizing her. They split up shortly after.


title: Children of a Lesser God (film)

text: Sarah leaves James and goes to live with her estranged mother, reconciling with her in the process. James chases her, but she refuses to see him. After inquiring about her, James learns Sarah is working as a manicurist. Eventually, she and James reconcile at the school prom. They decide to learn how to stay connected in-between the world of silence and the world of sound.


title: Children of a Lesser God (film)

text: After meeting deaf actress Phyllis Frelich in 1977 at the University of Rhode Island's New Repertory Project, playwright Medoff wrote the play "Children of a Lesser God" to be her star vehicle. Based partially on Frelich's relationship with her hearing husband Robert Steinberg, the play chronicles the tumultuous relationship and marriage between a reluctant-to-speak deaf woman and an unconventional speech pathologist for the deaf. With Frelich starring, "Children of a Lesser God" opened on Broadway in 1980, received three Tony Awards, including Best Play, and ran for 887 performances before closing in 1982.


title: Children of a Lesser God (film)

text: Following the vast success of his Broadway debut, Medoff, with fellow writer Anderson, penned a screenplay adapted from the original script. Though many changes were made, the core love story remained intact. The title of the film comes from the eleventh chapter ("The Passing of Arthur") of Alfred Lord Tennyson's "Idylls of the King".


title: Children of a Lesser God (film)

text: The movie was shot primarily in and around Saint John, New Brunswick, during the autumn of 1985, with the Rothesay Netherwood School serving as the main set. Aside from locations in Saint John and Rothesay Netherwood School, sets were constructed by Saint John local Keith MacDonald.


title: Children of a Lesser God (film)

text: The adaptation premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 13, 1986, and was released widely in the United States on October 3 of the same year. Like its source material, the film generally gained praise from the hearing and deaf communities alike.


title: Children of a Lesser God (film)

text: The film opened at number 5 at the box office in the United States and Canada with an opening weekend gross of $1,909,084. The film stayed in the top 10 for eight weeks and grossed a total of $31,853,080. Internationally it grossed $69.6 million for a worldwide total of $101.5 million.


title: Children of a Lesser God (film)

text: "Children of a Lesser God" received generally positive reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, "Children of a Lesser God" holds an approval rating of 80% based on 35 reviews, with an average rating of 7.10/10. The site's critical consensus reads, ""Children of a Lesser God" transcends its transparently noble goals thanks to a pair of absorbing performances from William Hurt and Marlee Matlin." Particular praise was given to the film's two leads. Richard Schickel of "Time" magazine said of Matlin, "she has an unusual talent for concentrating her emotions--and an audience's--in her signing. But there is something more here, an ironic intelligence, a fierce but not distancing wit, that the movies, with their famous ability to photograph thought, discover in very few performances." Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film 3 out of a possible 4 stars, describing the subject matter as "new and challenging", saying he was "interested in everything the movie had to tell me about deafness." He continued, "The performances are strong and wonderful - not only by Hurt, one of the best actors of his generation, but also by Matlin, a deaf actress who is appearing in her first movie. She holds her own against the powerhouse she's acting with, carrying scenes with a passion and almost painful fear of being rejected and hurt, which is really what her rebellion is about." Paul Attanasio of "The Washington Post" said of the film, "This is romance the way Hollywood used to make it, with both conflict and tenderness, at times capturing the texture of the day-to-day, at times finding the lyrical moments when two lovers find that time stops." He goes on to say of Matlin, "The most obvious challenge of the role is to communicate without speaking, but Matlin rises to it in the same way the stars of the silent era did -- she acts with her eyes, her gestures."


title: Children of a Lesser God (film)

text: There was some criticism that the film was told entirely from a hearing perspective, for a hearing audience. The film is not subtitled (neither the spoken dialogue nor the signing); instead, as Ebert observed, the signed dialogue is repeated aloud by Hurt's character, "as if to himself".


title: Children of a Lesser God (film)

text: The film received five Academy Award nominations, with Marlee Matlin winning for Best Actress. Marlee Matlin was 21 years-old when she won, making her the youngest Best Actress winner to date and the first deaf Academy Award winner. "Children of a Lesser God" was the first ever female-helmed film to be nominated for Best Picture.


title: Sara Evans

text: Sara Lynn Evans (; born February 5, 1971) is an American country music singer and songwriter. She is also credited as a record producer, actress, and author. She had five songs reach the number one spot on the "Billboard" country songs chart and has sold over six million albums. Nine additional singles have reached the top ten of the "Billboard" country chart, including "I Could Not Ask for More", "I Keep Looking" and "Cheatin'". Among her top 20 charting singles are "Saints & Angels", "Backseat of a Greyhound Bus" and "As If". She has won accolades from the Academy of Country Music and the Country Music Association. She has also been nominated for several more accolades from both associations, including Female Vocalist of the Year and Single of the Year.


title: Sara Evans

text: Evans was raised in New Franklin, Missouri and started performing alongside her siblings in The Evans Family Band. The group performed throughout her childhood and early teenage years in her local area. During her teenage years, Evans and her older brother Matt formed their own band before moving to Nashville, Tennessee in 1991 to pursue a country music career. In Nashville, Evans met her first husband Craig Schelske and briefly moved to Aumsville, Oregon before returning to Nashville. Upon moving back to Nashville, Evans found work as a demo singer, which led to her signing a recording contract with RCA Records. Her first album "Three Chords and the Truth" was released in 1997. It was followed by "No Place That Far" (1998), whose second single of the same name topped the "Billboard" country chart.


title: Sara Evans

text: Evans reached her peak success in the 2000s with the albums "Born to Fly" (2000), "Restless" (2003) and "Real Fine Place" (2005). The discs sold over one million copies each and included the number one country singles "Born to Fly", "Suds in the Bucket" and "A Real Fine Place to Start". In 2006, Evans appeared as a contestant on "Dancing with the Stars" before subsequently dropping out. Evans took steps back from her recording career to focus on her family life, only releasing a "Greatest Hits" package in 2008. She re-launched her career in 2011 with her sixth studio album "Stronger". It was supported by the two-week number one single "A Little Bit Stronger". After the release of "Slow Me Down" (2014), Evans left RCA and formed her own record label. In 2017, she released her first album through the label, "Words". Evans's music was originally influenced by honky tonk and neotraditional country, but shifted to an increasing focus on country pop ballads after her second album. While critical reception to her body of work has been mixed, many critics have noted the strength and twang of her singing voice.


title: Sara Evans

text: Sara Lynn Evans was born in Boonville, Missouri, on February 5, 1971. She was raised in New Franklin, Missouri by parents Pat and Jack Evans. She was one of seven children (which also included her half siblings after her mother remarried). The Evans family was raised on a 400-acre farm that included several crops and livestock. To make ends meet, her mother became a school bus driver while her father became a pressman for the "Columbia Daily Tribune" newspaper. Evans's family discovered she had a natural singing ability after she started singing along with her two older brothers who were taking guitar lessons. This prompted Evans's mother to put her siblings into a band which they later called The Evans Family Band. Evans started performing lead vocals in the band when she was six years old. She later learned to perform guitar, mandolin and drums.


title: Sara Evans

text: When she was eight years old, Evans was hit by a car after crossing the highway that faced her family's farm. She was thrown onto the hood of the car and eventually landed in a grassy field along the highway. She had suffered a concussion and a leg injury. Due to the severity of her injuries, Evans was sent to the University of Missouri Hospital, located 30 miles from her hometown. To avoid having a deformed left leg, doctors had to drill pins into Evans's knee. She was unable to move from her hospital bed for six weeks. According to Evans, the accident itself and being tied to the hospital bed resulted in her having Post-traumatic stress disorder. "I had severe PTSD and anxiety, but it was the '80s, and I didn't have a name for it," she explained.


title: Sara Evans

text: In 1983, Evans's parents divorced. Her mother remarried in 1985 and the couple had two more children (Evans's half sisters). After her mother remarried, the family moved to a tobacco farm, also located in New Franklin. The Evans Family Band continued performing as well. The group often performed on weekends and later had a manager. When she was about ten years old, Evans recorded a song called "I'm Gonna Be the Only Female Fiddle Player in Charlie Daniels Band". She then traveled to Nashville, Tennessee alongside her manager to promote the song at Fan Fair. Evans later performed on a local program called Country Stampede and briefly formed a band with her brother Matt. In 1989, Evans graduated high school. She accepted a full scholarship to study music at Central Methodist University in Fayette, Missouri. However, she left after one semester once realizing she wanted to pursue a country music career. She returned to her mother's New Franklin farm where she got a job at the Holiday Inn as a waitress. With the money saved from waiting tables, Evans and her brother Matt moved to Nashville in 1991.


title: Sara Evans

text: Once moving to Nashville, Evans got a job waiting tables during the breakfast shift at another Holiday Inn restaurant. At the restaurant she would meet her first husband who was also a waiter at the Holiday Inn. The couple started dating and temporarily moved to Aumsville, Oregon in 1992. In Oregon, she performed billed as Sara Evans & North Santiam. The couple married while in Oregon and spent three years there before returning to Nashville in the mid-1990s. Through her lawyer, Evans got a job as a demo singer. Among the demos she recorded was a cover of Buck Owens's "I've Got a Tiger by the Tail", which was originally intended to be sent to Patty Loveless. Her demo was heard by Nashville songwriter Harlan Howard who was impressed by Evans's traditional country singing style. Howard convinced executives at RCA Records to hear Evans sing. In a live audition for RCA executive Joe Galante, Evans sang three songs. The same day, Evans was offered a recording contract from RCA Records. She accepted and signed a seven-album deal with the label.


title: Sara Evans

text: Evans quit her job following the signing of her contract. She chose to have her album produced by Pete Anderson, a producer and guitarist best known for his work with Dwight Yoakam. To record the album, she moved to Los Angeles, California. In July 1997, "Three Chords and the Truth" was released on RCA. The album's sound centered around traditional honky tonk country and drew critical acclaim. Allmusic's James Chrispell positively commented, "This disc rings out with an air of originality helped along by great tunes and solid backup musicianship." "Billboard" commented, "At once a preserver of the best of country's history and a progressive writer and singer forging a timeless contemporary country sound, she invites favorable comparisons to the best country divas." However, the album was not commercially successful. The disc peaked at number 56 on the "Billboard" country albums chart. Its three singles in order of release, True Lies, the title track, and "Shame About That"peaked outside the "Billboard" country songs top 40. According to Evans, country radio refused to play the singles, claiming they were "too country". "It was the most disheartening experience of my life–at least to this point," she reflected in her memoir.


title: Sara Evans

text: In an effort to have commercial success, Evans went back into the studio to record her next album. She intended to cut an album that was contemporary yet "without compromising" her musical interests. The result was "No Place That Far", released in October 1998 on RCA. The project peaked at number 11 on the "Billboard" country albums chart. While its lead single ("Cryin' Game") peaked outside the country top 40, its second single (the title track) reached the number one spot on the "Billboard" country songs chart. Its success was due to the buy-in from country radio programmers who were invited to a private showcase of her new repertoire in Cincinnati, Ohio. "By the end of the show, they were all eating out of my hands and singing my praises," Evans recounted. The album's final single "Fool, I'm a Woman" only reached number 32 on the country songs chart, which disappointed Evans. "It felt like I was constantly starting over, like in "Groundhog Day", with these people at country radio," she commented. To rebuild career momentum, Evans hired a co-manager. Evans also discovered she was pregnant with her first child during this time. This caused friction with her record label who encouraged her to "lose the baby weight as soon as possible".


title: Sara Evans

text: Evans was motivated to make shifts in her career after watching Faith Hill's "Breathe" music video. "I'm going to lose this weight, grow my hair long, and make the best album Nashville has ever heard," she recounted. She was drawn to the bluegrass sound by Dixie Chicks and sought out their producer, Paul Worley. She also sought out rock session musician Matt Chamberlain to play drums. Together, they would craft Evans's third studio album. In October 2000, "Born to Fly" was released on RCA Nashville. Evans co-produced the project with Worley. The disc became Evans's breakout album, certifying double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for sales of over two million copies in the United States. Critic Thom Jurek took notice of the record. He described Evans as having the "confidence and authority of a seasoned veteran who is in control of her work." "Born to Fly" peaked at number six on the "Billboard" country albums chart and number 55 on the "Billboard" 200.


title: Sara Evans

text: Four singles were released from "Born to Fly". First was the title track, which Evans co-wrote with Marcus Hummon. This reached the number one spot on the "Billboard" country singles chart and number 34 on the Hot 100. Next was a cover of Edwin McCain's "I Could Not Ask for More", followed by "Saints & Angels" and "I Keep Looking", the latter a top-five country hit in 2002. In 2001, Evans received five nominations from the Country Music Association Awards. This included Female Vocalist of the Year and Album of the Year. She later won Music Video of the Year for "Born to Fly"'s title track. The Academy of Country Music Awards also nominated her for Top Female Vocalist. With her new success, Evans joined Reba McEntire, Martina McBride, Jamie O'Neal, and Carolyn Dawn Johnson on the all-women headlining Girls Night Out Tour in 2001.


title: Sara Evans

text: In August 2003, her fourth studio album "Restless" was released, with Evans and Worley continuing to co-produce. "Restless" was met with mixed reviews. Writer Edward Morris described it as being "more pop than country in sound and attitude". James Christopher Monger found it to be "slick and predictable". "Restless" debuted at number three on the Top Country Albums chart reached number 20 on the "Billboard" 200 and certified platinum in the United States. While the lead single "Backseat of a Greyhound Bus", reached the top 20, its second single, "Perfect", climbed to the number two spot on "Billboard" country chart. The album's third single was the traditionally-sounding "Suds in the Bucket". The song was not intended to be part of the project's track list but Evans pushed for its inclusion. It became her third number one song on the "Billboard" country chart. The fourth and final single "Tonight" was less successful, peaking outside the top 40 of Hot Country Songs in 2005. Evans was subsequently nominated for several awards by the Academy of Country Music in both 2003 and 2004 She received similar nominations from the Country Music Association. In 2004, she co-headlined the Mud & Suds Tour with Brad Paisley.


title: Sara Evans

text: In 2005, Evans released a cover of Radney Foster's "A Real Fine Place to Start". It became her fourth number one song on the "Billboard" country survey and her fourth song to chart in the Hot 100 top 40. It would serve as the title track to her fifth studio album "Real Fine Place", which was released in October 2005. Unlike her previous albums, Evans co-produced with Mark Bright. Sue Keough of BBC called it "the perfect balance between radio-friendly country pop and the rootsy sounds she offered with her 1997 debut "Three Chords And The Truth"." Meanwhile, "Slant Magazine"'s Jonathan Keefe gave it 2.5 stars, calling its notoriety in her catalog "less than essential". Despite mixed reviews, the disc was her first to top the "Billboard" country albums chart. It also debuted at number three on the "Billboard" 200. Like its predecessors, it also certified platinum in sales. "Real Fine Place" also included the single "Cheatin'", which reached the number nine spot on the country chart. While the followup single "Coalmine" faltered on the charts, follow-up "You'll Always Be My Baby" reached number 13 in 2006. She would also win the Top Female Vocalist award from the Academy of Country Music.


title: Sara Evans

text: By 2006, Evans had reached the height of her career. She was headlining her own tours, and made almost 300 appearances in one year. In August of that year, Evans joined the cast of "Dancing with the Stars" which aired on the ABC network. She made her first appearance on the show in September alongside dancing partner Tony Dovolani. Evans moved her family to Beverly Hills, California, where the show rented her a home while she competed on the program. "It was absolutely exhausting and totally invigorating at the same time," she reflected in her memoir. At the same time, Evans's marriage to husband Craig Schelske was ending. The stress in her personal life caused Evans to suffer from anxiety and panic attacks. A month following her first appearance, she announced her departure from the show after filing for divorce from Schelske. "I had to quit working altogether, focus on my children, and really figure out what I was going to do," she later explained.


title: Sara Evans

text: Evans's divorce received widespread media attention between 2006 and 2007. These personal events delayed plans for the recording of a studio album for several years. However, Evans did continue to sporadically release new music. In 2007, RCA released her first compilation album of "Greatest Hits". The project reached number three on the "Billboard" country albums chart and number eight on the "Billboard" 200. The disc featured twelve of her most popular recordings, along with four new tracks co-written by Evans. AllMusic's Thom Jurek gave the album three stars, criticizing its production and choice of material. Three of its new songs were released as singles. Its lead single "As If" reached number 11 on the "Billboard" country songs chart. It was followed by the top 40 entry "Some Things Never Change". Later that year, she co-hosted the Country Music Association Awards.


title: Sara Evans

text: In May 2008, Evans appeared on "CMT Crossroads", a music show on CMT which paired country music artists with pop music artists for collaborative performance. On her episode, she collaborated with pop band Maroon 5 to sing songs from both artists' catalogs. In September 2008, Evans recorded the theme song to film "". Released as a single, "Low" briefly charted on the Hot Country Songs chart. In June 2009, ABC Daytime and SOAPnet sponsored a tour, headlined by Evans, that featured performances throughout the middle of the year. Evans's next single was "Feels Just Like a Love Song", which only peaked at number 59 on the country songs chart. She ended 2009 by releasing an extended play of Christmas music titled "I'll Be Home for Christmas". The release coincided with a two-month holiday tour.


title: Sara Evans

text: In 2010, Evans collaborated with author Rachel Hauck to write "The Sweet By and By". Its follow up book, "Softly and Tenderly", was released in January 2011. Both novels focused on Christian themes and the main characters explored their religious relationships. Evans also returned to music in 2011. She enlisted record producer Nathan Chapman to help re-launch her career. Evans also started searching for material and eventually found the song "A Little Bit Stronger". The song was co-written by Lady Antebellum lead singer Hillary Scott, who allowed Evans to record the song after that band did not cut it. It was issued as a single in 2010 and topped the Hot Country Songs chart in 2011. "A Little Bit Stronger" became her first number one single since 2005 and spent two weeks at the top. It was released on Evans's corresponding sixth studio album, "Stronger". The album debuted at number one on the "Billboard" Top Country Albums list and number six on the "Billboard" 200. "Stronger" later certified gold in the United States.


title: Sara Evans

text: In mid-2011, Evans served as the opening act for Rascal Flatts on their Flatts Fest tour. The duo continued touring through 2012. Also in 2011, "A Little Bit Stronger" was nominated for Single of the Year by the Country Music Association Awards. The program also nominated Evans for Female Vocalist of the Year. The Academy of Country Music Awards also nominated Evans for Female Vocalist of the Year in 2011.


title: Sara Evans

text: Evans felt pressure to sustain the commercial success from her comeback. "I've worked my ass off," she told "Country Music Television". Evans had hoped to have "two or three big hits" off of "Stronger". The follow-up single, a cover of Rod Stewart's "My Heart Can't Tell You No", only reached number 21 on the "Billboard" country chart. It was followed by a third single, "Anywhere", which peaked outside the top 40 in 2012. Evans also released her third novel in 2012 titled "Love Lifted Me". The book was co-written again with Rachel Hauck and followed a similar story to that of her previous book releases. Evans also sang the National Anthem at Game two of the 2012 NBA Finals. Evans also sang the National Anthem at the start of Game 2 of the 2015 World Series between the Kansas City Royals and the New York Mets


title: Sara Evans

text: In November 2012, Evans went back into the recording studio alongside Mark Bright to prepare for her next album project. A year later RCA released the single "Slow Me Down". According to Evans, the single required more promotion due to the popularity of Bro-country which had taken chart positions away from women. "I did something like forty-four free shows that year, on top of my regular touring dates," her memoir recalled. Nevertheless, "Slow Me Down" peaked in the top 20, climbing to number 19 on the "Billboard" country songs chart and number 17 on the "Billboard" Country Airplay chart. Her seventh album of the same name was released in March 2014 on RCA. The album reached number two on the Country Albums list and number nine on the "Billboard" 200. It was named among the "Best of 2014" in AllMusic's year-end ranking and ranked number ten on "Billboard"'s "Best Country Albums of 2014".


title: Sara Evans

text: In October 2014, Evans appeared on ABC's "Nashville", playing herself. She performed a duet version of her next single, "Put My Heart Down", with Will Chase, who performed in-character as Luke Wheeler. Evans herself helped inspire the creation of the series lead Rayna Jaymes, as the writers consulted with her about her experiences as a working mother in the country music industry so that Rayna's character would come across as authentic. In November 2014, Evans released her first full studio album of Christmas music titled "At Christmas". The project featured covers of Christmas songs along with original tunes. She later promoted the project on ABC's annual "CMA Country Christmas" television special. In August 2015, Evans made a second appearance on "CMT Crossroads", this time performing alongside rock band REO Speedwagon.


title: Sara Evans

text: After spending her entire recording career on RCA, Evans left the label in February 2016. Six months later, she announced that she would be signing a contract with Sugar Hill Records. However, the label underwent a restructuring and Evans ultimately decided to leave the contract. The same year, Evans appeared on the season finale of USA Network's "Chrisley Knows Best". She performed a new track called "Infinite Love". The song was a duet with one of the show's cast members, Todd Chrisley. A recording by the pair appeared in 2016 that charted in the top 40 of the "Billboard" country chart. Evans and several of her siblings also competed against the Chrisley family on the 2016 season finale of ABC's game show "Celebrity Family Feud".


title: Sara Evans

text: Evans had become increasingly frustrated with the country radio's lack of support for female artists. "No one seemed to respect all my previous success that I'd worked years to achieve," her memoir recalled. The frustration prompted Evans to launch her own label titled Born to Fly Records. Sony RED partnered with the label to distribute the company's music. "Now I'm in the driver's seat, and every decision is made between my managers and me," she commented. The label released her ninth studio record in July 2017 called "Words". All fourteen of the album's tracks included credits from female songwriters. AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine commented that, ""Words" offers a sharp and welcome contrast to the bustling digital era." Mark Kennedy of the "Associated Press" praised the album and concluded, "Artistic freedom has never sounded so good." "Words" peaked at number four on the "Billboard" country albums chart and number 46 on the "Billboard" 200. Despite heavy promotion, its lead single ("Marquee Sign") failed to make a chart appearance.


title: Sara Evans

text: In 2019, Evans collaborated with her son and daughter to release an EP named "The Barker Family Band". The project featured harmonies from Evans and her children performing covers of songs by Aretha Franklin and Fleetwood Mac. A corresponding live album was recorded at City Winery in Nashville, Tennessee. Both projects were promoted through a mini tour that included five show dates in May 2019. In May 2020, Evans released her tenth studio project titled "Copy That". The project was a collection of classic country and pop covers from different decades. The album received mixed reviews. AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine commented, ""Copy That" is a clever title for a covers album, but it also raises the question of whether these new cover versions are mere Xeroxes of the original." Meanwhile Jeffrey B. Remz of "Country Standard Time" found it to be "just too syrupy" in his review. In September 2020, Evans released a memoir that discussed highlights from her life and career. The book was published by Howard Books.


title: Sara Evans

text: Evans stated in mid-2022 that she intended to begin work on a followup album to "Copy That". She stated that the album would have a more neotraditional country sound similar to "Suds in the Bucket", and also cited Patty Loveless as one of the influences for the upcoming project.


title: Sara Evans

text: Evans has embedded different styles of country music throughout her career. In her early career, Evans incorporated a traditional country sound onto the albums "Three Chords and the Truth" and "No Place That Far". Box Paxman explained that, "Evans was hailed for her neo-traditional vocal style and obvious respect for country's past". When Evans released 2000's "Born to Fly", her sound shifted towards a contemporary country musical identity. ""Born to Fly" marks an uptown shift in Evans' musical landscape. With Worley at the helm, the singer has made a much more contemporary record than her previous outings," commented Lisa Young of "CMT". Thom Jurek found a similar theme when reviewing the disc: ""Born to Fly" emphasizes the more contemporary sounds on the recording, while placing some of the rootsy bluegrass back in the mix."


title: Sara Evans

text: When the genre shifted back to a traditional country style, Evans followed suit with 2005's "Real Fine Place". Writer Jacquilynne Schlesier found Evans to be a "natural choice to lead the parade" considering the acclaim she received from her debut album. Critic Johnny Loftus also found a traditional element to her 2005 transition, commenting that, ""Real Fine Place" is sure to lure traditional country fans with Evans' rich vocal presence and the album's assertion that the simplest things in life are its truest."


title: Sara Evans

text: As the genre shifted towards a pop and rock-inspired sound, Evans's music also made the shift. In his review of 2011's "Stronger", AllMusic's Thom Jurek highlighted that Evans was attentive to the changing trends: "Contemporary country music has undergone a tumultuous shift in terms of its production style and songwriting trends. Though her life experiences -- good and bad -- have kept her from recording, Evans reveals here she's been paying close attention." Ken Tucker of "NPR" found Evans to have fondness for pop and that she found more confidence singing it her later career: "It's undeniable that on her last album, 2011's "Stronger", and this new one [2014's] "Slow Me Down", Evans has located a new undercurrent of steely firmness that has only strengthened her singing." After leaving RCA Records, Evans began experimenting with other musical styles, particularly on the 2020 album "Copy That". Reflecting on her current musical style, Evans commented, "For the first time in my career, I felt like I didn't have to stay in any certain genre".


title: Sara Evans

text: Writers and critics have highlighted the power of Evans's voice. Ken Tucker of "NPR" commented, "Sara Evans is a singer with a big voice who knows what to do with it. Her phrasing is conversational; she rarely tries to goose the emotion in a song by stretching out syllables or leaping registers." In reviewing a live show, Emily Yahr of "The Washington Post" described Evans has having a "crystal-clear powerhouse twang." Other journalists have noted that Evans's singing has a specific identity. AllMusic's John Bush described her as having "an instantly recognizable contralto" while "The Boot" wrote, "Evans has built a hugely successful career on the strength of her song choices, as well as her readily identifiable voice."


title: Sara Evans

text: Evans married Craig Schelske in 1993. At the time of their marriage, Schelske was an aspiring musician. In 2002, Schelske ran for congress in the fifth district in his home state of Oregon as a Republican candidate. After Evans became commercially successful, the couple moved into a home located in Franklin, Tennessee. They also had a residence outside Aumsville, Oregon and a residence in Missouri. In 1999, Evans gave birth to their first son, Avery Jack. She had a daughter named Olivia Margaret in 2003, and a second daughter named Audrey Elizabeth one year later. Evans's children are also musical; both Avery and Olivia have performed in her touring band, the former as a guitarist and the latter as a vocalist. Her daughter released her first music in 2021 while her son currently tours as part of Thomas Rhett's band.


title: Sara Evans

text: Following her 2006 departure from "Dancing with the Stars", it was disclosed that Evans had filed for divorce from Schelske. In court documents, Evans accused Schelske of unemployment, alcoholism, infidelity, watching adult entertainment with their children present, maintaining sexually explicit photographs of himself and others, and verbal abuse. Schelske denied all of his wife's claims. He explained that the "interrupted adult entertainment viewing" was inadvertent and involved both Schelske and Evans. Schelske also claimed that his explicit photograph collection was limited to images of the married couple, and counterclaimed that Evans had numerous personal problems. Schelske accused Evans of having multiple affairs with fellow musicians, including Kenny Chesney. A representative for Chesney called the allegations "ridiculous".


title: Sara Evans

text: On September 28, 2007, the divorce between Evans and Schelske became final. Evans was ordered to pay Schelske $500,000 in alimony over a ten-year period, and was awarded primary custody of their three children. Subsequently, Evans' ex-nanny sued her for $3 million, claiming that Evans had smeared her name by accusing her of an affair with Schelske. The lawsuit was settled in July 2009 for $500,000. Following their divorce, Evans obtained two temporary restraining orders against Schelske in 2010 and 2011, restricting him from making any derogatory statements to the media about Evans or their former marriage.


title: Sara Evans

text: Schelske also sued Evans's Nashville attorney John Hollins Sr. and his firm (Hollins, Wagster, Yarbrough, Weatherly & Raybin, P.C.) for "slander, false light and other damages" after Hollins gave an October 2006 interview to "People" magazine regarding Evans' divorce claims. That lawsuit resulted in an undisclosed financial settlement and a written apology from Hollins in 2011, which stated in part: "My firm and I represented Sara Evans in a highly contested divorce from Craig Schelske... to the best of my ability. I regret that my actions on behalf of Sara Evans caused Mr. Schelske harm in any way." Schelske issued a public statement thanking God, family, and friends for staying alongside during the period, and stating: "Sara is not my enemy... Hollins... he's the one who did this."


title: Sara Evans

text: Through her marriage counselor, Evans would meet her second husband Jay Barker. The pair first began exchanging emails in 2007 and started a romantic relationship shortly afterward. Barker was a former University of Alabama quarterback, and at the time of their meeting was a radio host. The pair married on June 14, 2008 in Franklin, Tennessee, with their children as their attendants. Barker shared custody of four children with his ex-wife, which would total to seven kids when both families were present. "We are truly a family. We don't think of it as 'blended'; they are just our kids. But we also understand our roles. If I'm around when Sara's kids' father is around, I give him his place as their dad," Barker explained in 2011. The family later settled in Mountain Brook, Alabama, a suburb near Birmingham.


title: Sara Evans

text: In 2019, the family returned to Nashville so that Evans could live in closer proximity to the country music business. On January 15, 2022, Barker was arrested for aggravated assault, after he allegedly attempted to use his car to hit Evans while she was a passenger in a friend's car after leaving a party. The arrest affidavit has the couple listed as separated, and that Evans had filed for divorce prior to the incident in August 2021, citing "irreconcilable differences and inappropriate marital conduct". Barker responded on social media to his arrest claiming that the reports "do not adequately capture the full context and complex fabric of our lives". Barker was released from the Davidson County Jail on a $10,000 bond and was scheduled for a court appearance in March 2022. In June 2022, Barker entered a plea deal and was sentenced to a year of probation. A divorce between Evans and Barker is still "in progress", according to "Billboard".


title: Sara Evans

text: Evans has suffered from panic attacks and anxiety during different points in her life. In her memoir, Evans described having a "meltdown" in December 2005 once realizing her first marriage was ending. She recounted having "terrifying thoughts" of being kidnapped and losing control of herself. For ten days, Evans refused to leave her Nashville home and was afraid to "walk from one room to another". She was also briefly brought into the hospital and was diagnosed with "exhaustion". Evans found solace in her Christian faith and began working with a pastor who helped her gain control of her mental health. "He encouraged me to just stay home for the time being and get rest and let God do the rest," she remembered. Evans also met with a doctor who prescribed her anti-anxiety medication.


title: Sara Evans

text: In December 2012, Evans was nearly killed in a plane crash in Minnesota. Following a successful takeoff, the aircraft's gyroscope malfunctioned, causing her private plane to fly upside down. "I knew we had not been in the air long, so we were probably seconds from dying. I completely accepted it. It was so strange and peaceful," her memoir recalled. The pilots were able to recenter the plane despite its one wing breaking. The pilots then made an emergency landing in Fargo, North Dakota.


title: Sara Evans

text: Evans is a spokesperson for the National Eating Disorders Association and has spoken out widely on this subject. She was influenced to become their spokesperson after having a close friend suffer from anorexia. "Thankfully, I have never suffered from an eating disorder but am well aware of our society’s obsession with body image," she told "CMT". She also hosted a charity event, Fashion for Every Body, which featured a fashion show, silent auction and performance by Evans. A libertarian Republican, Evans also showed support for Texas Congressman Ron Paul in the 2008 Presidential election and was the headliner at his "Rally For The Republic" on September 2, 2008, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the same day as the Republican National Convention in neighboring St. Paul.


title: Sara Evans

text: Evans has won several awards for her work as a music artist. This includes one accolade from the Academy of Country Music and one accolade from the Country Music Association.


title: Rib eye steak

text: The rib eye or ribeye (known as Scotch fillet in Australia and New Zealand) is a boneless rib steak from the rib section.


title: Rib eye steak

text: Ribeye steaks are mostly composed of the longissimus dorsi muscle but also contain the complexus and spinalis muscles. The longissimus dorsi is also referred to as the "eye of the ribeye". The spinalis is also referred to as the "ribeye cap" and the complexus is a small muscle at the front of the ribeye which may be trimmed off by the butcher.


title: Rib eye steak

text: It is both flavoursome and tender, coming from the lightly worked upper rib cage area which spans from the sixth to twelfth ribs of the cattle. Its marbling of fat makes it very good for fast and hot cooking.


title: Sophie Duker

text: Duker was born in London to first-generation immigrants from West Africa. Her mother is from Cameroon and her father is from Ghana. She studied French and English at Wadham College, Oxford. She joined the Oxford Imps in her first year at university.


title: Sophie Duker

text: An alumna of the Pleasance Comedy Reserve, Duker was shortlisted for the Funny Women award in 2015. She founded and hosted the "Manic Pixie Dream Girls" show as part of Edinburgh's Free Festival in 2016 and 2017.


title: Sophie Duker

text: She has written for the "Huffington Post" and she was an assistant producer for "Frankie Boyle's New World Order" and a researcher for "8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown". In 2019, she appeared on "8 Out of 10 Cats", "Frankie Boyle's New World Order", "Dave Gorman: Terms and Conditions Apply", and "Mock the Week", and in 2020 in "8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown".


title: Sophie Duker

text: In 2017, Duker appeared in a Turtle Canyon short entitled "The Dates", which explores bisexual dating culture.


title: Sophie Duker

text: In 2018, Duker set up the comedy night "Wacky Racists", which currently has a monthly residency at 2Northdown in Kings Cross, London, and performs spin-off shows at festivals and events across the UK. In December 2019, Soho Theatre hosted a seasonal Christmas "Wacky Racists" special.


title: Sophie Duker

text: Duker co-starred in the pilot for a hidden camera sketch show on Channel 4 called "Riot Girls" as well as on the Comedy Central UK comedy show "What I Wish I’d Said" in 2018.


title: Sophie Duker

text: Her first stand-up show, "Diet Woke", premiered in 2018. She took her 2019 show, "Venus", to the Brighton Fringe and the Edinburgh Fringe, performing at the Edinburgh Pleasance from 31 July to 25 August 2019. In 2019, Duker appeared on Hip-Hop Comedy Panel Show, "Don't Hate the Playaz".


title: Sophie Duker

text: In September 2020, during one of Duker's appearances on "Frankie Boyle's New World Order", the host Frankie Boyle proposed the motion "Black Lives Matter Glosses Over The Complexities Of A World Where We All Need To Come Together And Kill Whitey". A clip of Duker making a joke which repeated the phrase "kill whitey"—a phrase pre-approved by the BBC, according to Duker—was widely spread online. Duker joked about the phrase in the context of discussing her views on whiteness and capitalism in response to a 1970s clip of James Baldwin talking about black power. Duker described that "far-right blogs to mainstream tabloids" began covering the story six days after the episode aired, with the "Daily Mail"s Sarah Vine criticising the comments as "hateful dogma", subsequent to which 1,300 complaints were made to the BBC. The BBC responded that the content was "within audience expectations for a post-watershed, topical, satirical programme from a comedian whose style and tone are well-established", later dismissing the complaints. A Greater Manchester police hate crime investigation was opened after a report in early January and closed a week later with no action. Duker was subject to racist harassment on social media over the comments.


title: Sophie Duker

text: In 2021, she was hired by Rumpus Media to co-present a new female-led topical panel show on Comedy Central called "Yesterday, Today and The Day Before" alongside fellow comedians Suzi Ruffell and Maisie Adam. However, Duker quit after the first episode in protest over cuts to her monologue about conflict between Israel and Palestine, with assistant producer Saima Ferdows and comedian Kemah Bob also quitting the show alongside her.


title: Sophie Duker

text: Duker's first gig after lockdown was a fundraiser for Reclaim These Streets in July 2021. In 2022, she won the thirteenth season of the comedy panel game show "Taskmaster", and the quiz show "Celebrity Mastermind". She won her episode of the latter with the specialist subject of Alan Bennett's play "The History Boys". She returned to the Edinburgh Festival line-up in 2022 with a show titled "Hag".


title: Georgian scripts

text: The Georgian scripts are the three writing systems used to write the Georgian language: Asomtavruli, Nuskhuri and Mkhedruli. Although the systems differ in appearance, their letters share the same names and alphabetical order and are written horizontally from left to right. Of the three scripts, Mkhedruli, once the civilian royal script of the Kingdom of Georgia and mostly used for the royal charters, is now the standard script for modern Georgian and its related Kartvelian languages, whereas Asomtavruli and Nuskhuri are used only by the Georgian Orthodox Church, in ceremonial religious texts and iconography.


title: Georgian scripts

text: Georgian scripts are unique in their appearance and their exact origin has never been established; however, in strictly structural terms, their alphabetical order largely corresponds to the Greek alphabet, with the exception of letters denoting uniquely Georgian sounds, which are grouped at the end. Originally consisting of 38 letters, Georgian is presently written in a 33-letter alphabet, as five letters are obsolete. The number of Georgian letters used in other Kartvelian languages varies. Mingrelian uses 36: thirty-three that are current Georgian letters, one obsolete Georgian letter, and two additional letters specific to Mingrelian and Svan. Laz uses the same 33 current Georgian letters as Mingrelian plus that same obsolete letter and a letter borrowed from Greek for a total of 35. The fourth Kartvelian language, Svan, is not commonly written, but when it is, it uses Georgian letters as utilized in Mingrelian, with an additional obsolete Georgian letter and sometimes supplemented by diacritics for its many vowels.


title: Georgian scripts

text: The "living culture of three writing systems of the Georgian alphabet" was granted the national status of intangible cultural heritage in Georgia in 2015 and inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2016.


title: Georgian scripts

text: The origin of the Georgian script is poorly known, and no full agreement exists among Georgian and foreign scholars as to its date of creation, who designed the script, and the main influences on that process.


title: Georgian scripts

text: The first attested version of the script is "Asomtavruli", which dates back to the 5th century; the other scripts were formed in the following centuries. Most scholars link the creation of the Georgian script to the process of Christianization of Iberia (not to be confused with the Iberian Peninsula), a core Georgian kingdom of Kartli. The alphabet was therefore most probably created between the conversion of Iberia under King Mirian III (326 or 337) and the Bir el Qutt inscriptions of 430, contemporaneously with the Armenian alphabet. It was first used for translation of the Bible and other Christian literature into Georgian, by monks in Georgia and Palestine. Professor Levan Chilashvili's dating of fragmented "Asomtavruli" inscriptions, discovered by him at the ruined town of Nekresi, in Georgia's easternmost province of Kakheti, in the 1980s, to the 1st or 2nd century has not been accepted.


title: Georgian scripts

text: A Georgian tradition first attested in the medieval chronicle "Lives of the Kings of Kartli" (ca. 800), assigns a much earlier, pre-Christian origin to the Georgian alphabet, and names King Pharnavaz I (3rd century BC) as its inventor. This account is now considered legendary, and is rejected by scholarly consensus, as no archaeological confirmation has been found. Rapp considers the tradition to be an attempt by the Georgian Church to rebut the earlier tradition that the alphabet was invented by the Armenian scholar Mesrop Mashtots, and is a Georgian application of an Iranian model in which primordial kings are credited with the creation of basic social institutions. Georgian linguist Tamaz Gamkrelidze offers an alternative interpretation of the tradition, in the pre-Christian use of foreign scripts (alloglottography in the Aramaic alphabet) to write down Georgian texts.


title: Georgian scripts

text: Another point of contention among scholars is the role played by Armenian clerics in that process. According to medieval Armenian sources and a number of scholars, Mesrop Mashtots, generally acknowledged as the creator of the Armenian alphabet, also created the Georgian and Caucasian Albanian alphabets. This tradition originates in the works of Koryun, a fifth-century historian and biographer of Mashtots, and has been quoted by Donald Rayfield and James R. Russell, but has been rejected by Georgian scholarship and some Western scholars who judge the passage in Koryun unreliable or even a later interpolation. In his study on the history of the invention of the Armenian alphabet and the life of Mashtots, the Armenian linguist Hrachia Acharian strongly defended Koryun as a reliable source and rejected criticisms of his accounts on the invention of the Georgian script by Mashtots. Acharian dated the invention to 408, four years after Mashtots created the Armenian alphabet (he dated the latter event to 404). Some Western scholars quote Koryun's claims without taking a stance on its validity or concede that Armenian clerics, if not Mashtots himself, must have played a role in the creation of the Georgian script.


title: Georgian scripts

text: Another controversy regards the main influences at play in the Georgian alphabet, as scholars have debated whether it was inspired more by the Greek alphabet, or by Semitic alphabets such as Aramaic. Recent historiography focuses on greater similarities with the Greek alphabet than in the other Caucasian writing systems, most notably the order and numeric value of letters. Some scholars have also suggested certain pre-Christian Georgian cultural symbols or clan markers as a possible inspiration for particular letters.


title: Georgian scripts

text: Asomtavruli (; ) is the oldest Georgian script. The name means "capital letters", from () "letter" and () "principal/head". It is also known as Mrgvlovani () "rounded", from () "round", so named because of its round letter shapes. Despite its name, this "capital" script is unicameral.


title: Georgian scripts

text: The oldest Asomtavruli inscriptions found so far date from the 5th century and are Bir el Qutt and the Bolnisi inscriptions.