title: Crew resource management

text: For example, the "central line bundle" of best practices recommends using a checklist when inserting a central venous catheter. The observer checking off the checklist is usually lower-ranking than the person inserting the catheter. The observer is encouraged to communicate when elements of the bundle are not executed; for example if a breach in sterility has occurred.


title: Crew resource management

text: The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), a division of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, also provides training based on CRM principles to healthcare teams. This training, called Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety (TeamSTEPPS), and the program is currently being implemented in hospitals, long-term care facilities, and primary care clinics around the world. TeamSTEPPs was designed to improve patient safety by teaching healthcare providers how to better collaborate with each other by using tools such as huddles, debriefs, handoffs, and check-backs. Implementing TeamSTEPPS has been shown to improve patient safety. There is evidence TeamSTEPPS interventions are difficult to implement and are not universally effective. There are strategies healthcare leaders can use to improve their chance of implementation success, such as using coaching, supporting, empowering, and supporting behaviors.


title: Russian Ark

text: Russian Ark (, "Russkij Kovcheg") is a 2002 experimental historical drama film directed by Alexander Sokurov. In "Russian Ark", an unnamed narrator wanders through the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, and implies that he died in some horrible accident and is a ghost drifting through the palace. In each room, he encounters various real and fictional people from various periods in the city's 300-year history. He is accompanied by "the European", who represents the Marquis de Custine, a 19th-century French traveler.


title: Russian Ark

text: The film was recorded entirely in the Winter Palace of the Russian State Hermitage Museum on 23 December 2001 using a one-take single 96-minute Steadicam sequence shot. "Russian Ark" uses the fourth wall device extensively, but repeatedly broken and re-erected. At times the narrator and the companion interact with the other performers, whilst at other times they pass unnoticed. The film was entered into the 2002 Cannes Film Festival.


title: Russian Ark

text: On a winter's day, a small party of men and women arrive by horse-drawn carriage to a minor, side entrance of the Winter Palace, dressed in the style of the early 19th century to attend a ball hosted by the Emperor Alexander I. The narrator (whose point of view is always in first-person) meets another spectral but visible outsider, "the European", and follows him through numerous rooms of the palace. "The European", a 19th-century French diplomat who appears to be the Marquis de Custine, has nothing but contempt for Russians; he tells the narrator that they are unable to create or appreciate beauty as Europeans do, as demonstrated by the European treasures around him. Each room manifests a different period of Russian history, although the periods are not in chronological order.


title: Russian Ark

text: Featured are Peter the Great harassing and striking one of his generals; a spectacular presentation of operas and plays in the era of Catherine the Great; an imperial audience in which Tsar Nicholas I is offered a formal apology by the Shah of Iran, represented by his grandson Khosrow Mirza, for the death of ambassador Alexander Griboyedov in 1829; the idyllic family life of Tsar Nicholas II's children; the ceremonial changing of the various regiments of the Imperial Guard; people touring the palace in the present; the museum's director whispering the need to make repairs during the rule of Joseph Stalin; and a desperate Leningrader making his own coffin during the 900-day siege of the city during World War II.


title: Russian Ark

text: A grand ball follows, held in the Nicholas Hall, with many of the participants in spectacular period costume and a full orchestra conducted by Valery Gergiev featuring music by Mikhail Glinka, then a long final exit with a crowd down the grand staircase. The European tells the narrator that he belongs here, in the world of 1913 where everything is still beautiful and elegant, and does not want to go any further. The narrator then walks backwards out the hallway and sees many people from different time periods exiting the building together. As he watches them, the narrator quietly departs the procession, leaves the building through a side door and looks out upon the River Neva.


title: Russian Ark

text: The film displays 33 rooms of the museum, which are filled with a cast of over 2,000 actors and three orchestras. "Russian Ark" was recorded in uncompressed high-definition video using a Sony HDW-F900 camera. The information was not recorded compressed to tape as usual, but uncompressed onto a hard disk which could hold 100 minutes which was carried behind the cameraman as he traveled from room to room, scene to scene. According to "In One Breath: Alexander Sokurov's Russian Ark", the documentary on the making of the film, four attempts were made. The first failed at the five-minute mark. After two more failed attempts, they were left with only enough battery power for one final take. The four hours of daylight available were also nearly gone. Fortunately, the final take was a success and the film was completed at 90 minutes. Tilman Büttner, the director of photography and Steadicam operator, executed the shot on 23 December 2001.


title: Russian Ark

text: In a 2002 interview, Büttner said that film sound was recorded separately. "Every time I did the take, or someone else made a mistake, I would curse, and that would have gotten in, so we did the sound later." Lighting directors of photography on the film were Bernd Fischer and Anatoli Radionov. The director later rejected Büttner's nomination for a European Film Academy award, believing that only the whole film should gain an award.


title: Russian Ark

text: In post-production the uncompressed HD 87-minute one-shot could be reworked in detail: besides many object removals (mainly cables and other film equipment), compositings (e.g. additional snow or fog), stabilisations, selective colour-corrections and digitally added focus changes, the whole film was continuously and dynamically reframed (resized) and for certain moments even time-warped (slowed down and sped up). This work took several weeks and was mainly executed by editor Patrick Wilfert under supervision of lead editor Sergei Ivanov on Discreet Logic's Inferno system. Avoiding any playouts and using framestore to framestore transfers only, the picture was left uncompressed, before being reprinted onto filmstock for theatrical distribution.


title: Russian Ark

text: The narrator's guide, "the European", is based on the book by the French aristocrat Marquis de Custine, who visited Russia in 1839 and wrote "La Russie en 1839", in which he depicted Russia in extremely unflattering terms. A few biographical elements from Custine's life are shown in the film. Like the European, the Marquis' mother was friends with the Italian sculptor Canova and he himself was very religious. Custine's book mocks Russian civilization as a thin veneer of Europe on an Asiatic soul. For Custine, Europe was "civilization" while Asia was "barbarism", and his placing of Russia as a part of Asia rather than Europe was meant to deny that Russians had any sort of civilization worthy of the name. Echoing this sentiment, the film's European comments that Russia is a theater and that the people he meets are actors. The Marquis's family fortune came from a porcelain works, hence the European's interest in the Sèvres porcelain waiting for the diplomatic reception. At the end of the film, which depicts the last imperial ball in 1913, the European appears to accept Russia as a European nation.


title: Russian Ark

text: "In One Breath", a documentary about the making of "Russian Ark", written and directed by Knut Elstermann, gives more insight into the single long shot tracking techniques and formidable organization behind the making of the film.


title: Russian Ark

text: The film was not a huge commercial success, though as an arthouse film it performed strongly in many territories. These include the UK, Japan, Korea, Argentina, and especially the US, where the film remains one of the most successful of both German and Russian movies of recent decades.


title: Russian Ark

text: "Russian Ark" is a German-Russian co-production. The film grossed $3,048,997 in the United States and Canada, with $5,641,171 internationally, for a worldwide total of $8,690,168.


title: Russian Ark

text: "Russian Ark" received high critical acclaim. Roger Ebert wrote, "Apart from anything else, this is one of the best-sustained ideas I have ever seen on the screen... [T]he effect of the unbroken flow of images (experimented with in the past by directors like Hitchcock and Max Ophüls) is uncanny. If cinema is sometimes dreamlike, then every edit is an awakening. "Russian Ark" spins a daydream made of centuries."


title: Russian Ark

text: Rotten Tomatoes reported that 89% of critics gave the film a positive review based on 109 reviews, with an average rating of 7.90/10. The consensus review summary reads, "As successful as it is ambitious, "Russian Ark" condenses three centuries of Russian history into a single, uninterrupted, 87-minute take." On Metacritic, which uses an average of critics' reviews, the film has an 86/100 rating based on 32 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".


title: Russian Ark

text: "Slant Magazine" ranked the film 84th in its list of the best films of the 2000s. In a critics' and readers' poll by "Empire" magazine, it was voted the 358th greatest film of all time.


title: Russian Ark

text: "Russian Ark" received the Visions Award at the 2002 Toronto International Film Festival, a Special Citation at the 2003 San Francisco Film Critics Circle Awards and the 2004 Silver Condor Award for Best Foreign Film from the Argentine Film Critics Association; it was also nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival, the Golden Hugo at the 2002 Chicago International Film Festival and the 2004 Nika Award for Best Film. In addition, Alexander Sokurov was named Best Director at Fancine in 2003 and was nominated for the 2002 European Film Award for Best Director. Cinematographer Tilman Büttner was also nominated for various awards for his work on the film, including a European Film Award and a German Camera Award.


title: Commission on Elections (Philippines)

text: The Commission on Elections (), abbreviated as , is one of the three constitutional commissions of the Philippines. Its principal role is to enforce all laws and regulations relative to the conduct of elections in the Philippines.


title: Commission on Elections (Philippines)

text: According to Article IX-C, Section 2 of the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines, the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) shall exercise the following powers and functions:


title: Commission on Elections (Philippines)

text: The was created by a 1940 amendment to the 1935 Constitution of the Philippines. Prior to the creation of the , supervision over the conduct of elections was vested by law in the Executive Bureau under the Department of Interior and, later directly by the same department. The secretary of interior saw to it that local authorities performed the ministerial duties assigned to them by the Election Code. He decided administrative questions concerning elections. The courts, however, exercised exclusive and final jurisdiction over questions affecting the right to vote as well as contested elections of local elective officials. Elections contests involving members of the National Assembly were judged solely by an electoral commission composed of three justices of the Supreme Court and six members of the National Assembly.


title: Commission on Elections (Philippines)

text: In view, however, of the close official ties between the president and the secretary of interior, there was always the danger of a partisan secretary of the interior exploiting his powers and influence to ensure the victory of his party at the polls. As a consequence, the constitution was amended in 1940 to create an independent Commission on Elections, composed of a chairman and two other members, to take over the functions of the secretary of the interior relative to the elections. but since the amendments could not be effective in time for the 1940 elections, the National Assembly, by Commonwealth Act No. 607, created a Commission on Elections, giving thereto the same powers which the Commission on Elections could have under the amended constitution. The statutory commission supervised the conduct of the December 10, 1940, local Philippine elections.


title: Commission on Elections (Philippines)

text: The constitutional amendment creating the Commission on Elections was finally approved on December 2, 1940. On June 21, 1941, Commonwealth Act No. 657 was enacted reorganizing the Commission on Elections as a constitutional entity. The members of the statutory commission continued as members of the constitutional commission.


title: Commission on Elections (Philippines)

text: The chairman and members of the commission had a fixed term of nine years each – a member being replaced every three years except in the first commission. They could be removed from office only by impeachment. They were provided with fixed salaries which could neither be increased nor diminished during their term of office. These were safeguards to ensure the independence of the commission.


title: Commission on Elections (Philippines)

text: The administrative control of elections exercised by the secretary of interior was transferred to the Commission on Elections. The commission was vested with the exclusive charge of enforcing and administering all laws relative to elections and power to decide all questions affecting elections, except those involving the right to vote, which were left to final judicial determination. The courts and electoral tribunals retained their original powers over election contests.


title: Commission on Elections (Philippines)

text: The 1973 Constitution enlarged the membership of the commission from three to nine members but reduced their term of office from nine years to seven years. As in the 1935 Constitution, the chairman and commissioners have staggered terms of office and could be removed from office only by impeachment.


title: Commission on Elections (Philippines)

text: First to serve in the Commission on Elections under the 1973 Constitution were former Senator Leonardo B. Perez, as chairman, and Venacio S. Duque, Flores A. Bayot, Jose M. Mendoza, Fernando R. Veloso, Lininding Pangandaman, Venancio L. Yaneza and Casimiro R. Madarang Jr. as commissioners. Commissioner Pangandaman, the first Muslim commissioner of the , was appointed ambassador by President Ferdinand Marcos even before the expiration of his term. His unexpired term was taken over by Commissioner Hashim R. Abubakar.


title: Commission on Elections (Philippines)

text: On May 17, 1980, Chairman Perez (who was later appointed minister on political affairs by President Marcos) and Commissioners Duque and Bayot, after completing their seven-years term, retired. Commissioner Santiago succeeded Perez, and the following were appointed commissioners: Domingo C. Pabalete; Victorino A. Savellano; Jaime C. Opinion; Noli Sagadraca; Romeo Firme: Luis Lardizabal and Ide C. Tillah. With Commissioner Lardizabal the membership of the commission was thus increased to eight, one short of the full complement of nine.


title: Commission on Elections (Philippines)

text: Upon the retirement of Commissioners Firme, Tillah and Lardizabal on May 17, 1983, the Commission on Elections was composed of only five members. On March 21, 1983, two new members were appointed by President Marcos, namely: Froilan Bacungan and Ramon H. Felipe Jr. With the retirement of Chairman Santiago and Commissioners Pabalete and Sagadraca on May 17, 1984, Savellano was appointed chairman. Three new members were appointed on July 27, 1985, namely: Commissioners Quirino A. Marquinez, Mangontawar Guro and Mario D. Ortiz. On January 31, 1986, Commissioners Ruben C. Agpalo and Jaime Layosa were appointed to finally complete the required membership of nine.


title: Commission on Elections (Philippines)

text: After the tumultuous February 7, 1986 snap elections and the People Power Revolution, Chairman Savellano and all the commissioners of the tendered their courtesy resignations which, except those of Commissioners Bacungan and Felipe, were accepted by President Corazon C. Aquino.


title: Commission on Elections (Philippines)

text: On April 11, 1986, Commissioner Felipe was appointed acting chairman. On July 23, 1986, he took his oath of office as permanent chairman, together with Commissioners Leopoldo Africa, Haydee Yorac, Andres Flores, Anacleto Badoy, and Dario Rama as members of the "new" Commission on Elections. On February 15, 1988, Hilario G. Davide Jr. was appointed chairman, with Alfredo E. Abueg Jr., Haydee B. Yorac, Leopoldo L. Africa, Andres R. Flores, Dario C. Rama and Magdara B. Dimaampao as commissioners. Commissioner Haydee B. Yorac was appointed as acting chairman when Hilario G. Davide Jr. was appointed chairman of the Presidential Fact Finding Commission in December 1989, pursuant to Administrative Order No. 146. On June 6, 1991 Christian Monsod was appointed by President Aquino as chairman of the commission to serve the unexpired term of Davide.


title: Commission on Elections (Philippines)

text: When Monsod retired on February 15, 1995, President Fidel V. Ramos appointed Court of Appeals Justice Bernardo Pardo as chairman of the commission. Pardo's term was cut short when he was appointed by President Joseph Estrada as associate justice of the Supreme Court in October 1998. Commissioner Luzviminda Tancangco was appointed acting chairman of the commission.


title: Commission on Elections (Philippines)

text: On January 11, 1999, President Estrada appointed Sandiganbayan Justice Harriet Demetriou as chairman of the commission. After the events of January 17 to 20, 2001 that led to the ouster and resignation of President Estrada from power, Demetriou tendered her courtesy resignation which was accepted by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.


title: Commission on Elections (Philippines)

text: On February 19, 2001, President Arroyo appointed Justice Alfredo Benipayo as chairman of the commission. However, the Commission on Appointments did not confirm his appointment due to opposition of some commissioners led by Luzviminda Tancangco. On June 5, 2002, President Arroyo appointed Metropolitan Manila Development Authority chairman and former Mandaluyong mayor Benjamin S. Abalos Sr. to replace Benipayo. On January 26, 2008, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo appointed former Supreme Court associate justice Jose Melo, 77, to replace Chair Abalos. The United Opposition (Koalisyon ng Nagkakaisang Pilipino) opposed Melo's appointment. However, Melo needed to be confirmed by the Commission on Appointments (CA), so Commissioner Romeo A. Brawner was appointed ad interim acting chairman on February 2, 2008, and stayed as chairman until Melo was confirmed by the CA. On March 25, 2008, former Supreme Court justice Jose Melo was sworn in as new chairman of the by acting chair Romeo A. Brawner. Melo's ad interim appointment (Congress was not in session) was sent by Malacañang to the Commission on Appointments.


title: Commission on Elections (Philippines)

text: On May 29, 2008, Romeo A. Brawner died from a massive heart attack. Brawner, appointed to the to replace the controversial Virgilio Garcillano, was supposed to end his term on February 2, 2011. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, on July 2, 2008, appointed former acting judge (Br. 74, RTC, Malabon) Leonardo Leonida and retired justice of the Court of Appeals Lucenito Tagle as commissioners of the Commission on Elections. On November 7, 2008, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo appointed Armando Velasco as new election commissioner, and reappointed bypassed commissioners Leonardo L. Leonida and Lucenito N. Tagle. Eduardo Ermita stated "Velasco replaced commissioner and former Iligan City Judge Moslemen Macarambon Jr. whose appointment had been bypassed several times by the Commission on Appointments (CA)."


title: Commission on Elections (Philippines)

text: On September 27, 2007, Iloilo Vice Governor Rolex Suplico filed a 69-page impeachment complaint (3:00 p.m.) against COMELEC chairman Benjamin Abalos Sr. before the House of Representatives of the Philippines regarding the ZTE national broadband network (NBN) deal. It was endorsed by Representatives Teofisto Guingona III of Bukidnon and Teodoro Casiño of Bayan Muna (People First), and Zamboanga City Representative Ma. Isabelle Climaco. Affidavits of Romulo Neri and Jose de Venecia III supported the complaint. On October 1, 2007, chairman Benjamin Abalos Sr. faced with an impending impeachment case, resigned in a press conference. The COMELEC appointed Resurreccion Z. Borra as acting chairman. Abalos stated: "I'm resigning... effective immediately." "However," Abalos added during the news conference, "let not my detractors feast on this declaration. I'm not admitting guilt for any wrongdoing." An impeachment complaint against chairman Abalos was formally filed before the House of Representatives after Neri, former chief of the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA), accused Abalos of attempting to bribe him.


title: Commission on Elections (Philippines)

text: The commission proper is the policy-making body composed of the chairman and six commissioners who must be natural-born citizens of the Philippines; at least thirty-five years of age at the time of their appointment; holders of a college degree, with a majority of them, including the chairman, members of the Philippine Bar who have been engaged in the practice of law for at least ten years; and must not have been a candidate for any elective position in the immediate preceding elections. The chairman and the commissioners are appointed by the president, with the consent of the Commission on Appointments and hold office for seven years, without reappointment. Since 1987, the terms start and end on February 2. Among the first appointees in 1987, three members served for seven years (ended in 1994), two others served for five years (ended in 1992), and two others served for three years (ended in 1989).


title: Commission on Elections (Philippines)

text: The chairman acts as the presiding officer and chief executive officer of the commission. Assisting the commission are an executive director and deputies, 17 regional election directors, provincial election supervisors and election officers in cities and municipalities. The has more than 15,000 employees.


title: Commission on Elections (Philippines)

text: The commissioners exercise quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial functions either "en banc" or in division. They also perform such other functions as may be assigned by the commission or the chairman.


title: Commission on Elections (Philippines)

text: During the 1935 constitution, the commission was composed of three members, with one chairman and two commissioners, each having nine-year terms with no reappointments. Among the first three members appointed, the first had a nine-year term, the second had a six-year term, and the last had a three-year term, all starting in the commission's reorganization on June 21, 1941, via Commonwealth Act No. 657.


title: Commission on Elections (Philippines)

text: Starting with the 1973 constitution, the commission was composed of nine members, with one chairman and eight commissioners, each having seven-year terms with no reappointments. Among the first nine members appointed, the first three had seven-year terms, the next three had five-year terms, and the last three had three-year terms, all starting in 1973. The commission never reached its full complement of nine members during the operation of the 1973 constitution until January 1986, a few weeks before the People Power Revolution.


title: Commission on Elections (Philippines)

text: In August 2007, Nueva Vizcaya Rep. Carlos Padilla delivered a privilege speech alleging that Comelec chairman Benjamin Abalos brokered for the national broadband network (NBN) project. Padilla claimed that Abalos met with officials of the Chinese firm ZTE Corp., which got the US$329 million contract for the broadband project.


title: Commission on Elections (Philippines)

text: Abalos denied brokering for the National Broadband Network project despite admitting he knew some officials in ZTE Corp. He admitted making four trips to China and playing golf there. He also admitted that ZTE officials, whom he said were his golf buddies, hosted and paid for the trips.


title: Commission on Elections (Philippines)

text: Jose de Venecia III, son of House Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr., alleged that Abalos offered him US$10 million to withdraw his proposal on the NBN project. De Venecia is a majority shareholder of Amsterdam Holdings Inc., a company that submitted an unsolicited proposal on the NBN project. De Venecia also claimed that Abalos asked for money from the ZTE Corp. officials.


title: Commission on Elections (Philippines)

text: Abalos was mentioned in the "Hello Garci" tape, which refers to the alleged wiretapped conversations where vote rigging in the 2004 elections was discussed by, among others, a woman presumed to be President Gloria Arroyo and a man presumed to be Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano.


title: Commission on Elections (Philippines)

text: Abalos was the chair when the election body approved a P1.3-billion contract with the Mega Pacific Consortium for the purchase of automated counting machines, which the Supreme Court in January 2004 declared as void because of "clear violation of law and jurisprudence" and "reckless disregard of 's own bidding rules and procedure."


title: Commission on Elections (Philippines)

text: On January 21, 2004, Senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr. filed criminal and administrative charges before the Ombudsman against Abalos and other commissioners in connection with the deal. Abalos described the charges as a "demolition job."


title: Commission on Elections (Philippines)

text: Pimentel accused Abalos and the other commissioners of committing an act of impropriety when they and their wives traveled to Seoul, South Korea to visit the plant of the maker of the counting machines a few months before the bidding for the contract started. Pimentel said he received information that the Korean company paid for the plane tickets and hotel accommodations for the trip.


title: Commission on Elections (Philippines)

text: However, Abalos claimed that the expenses for the trip were paid for out of the P1 million he won in a golf tournament in Wack Wack Golf and Country Club.


title: Commission on Elections (Philippines)

text: On September 27, 2006, the Ombudsman, in a resolution, absolved all respondents involved in the Mega Pacific controversy of all administrative and criminal liabilities "for lack of probable cause." It also reversed its June 28 resolution which contained factual findings that can be used by the House of Representatives to initiate impeachment proceedings against Commissioner Resureccion Borra.


title: Commission on Elections (Philippines)

text: Just six weeks before the 2016 Philippine general election, the website was hacked by a group called "Anonymous Philippines" on the night of March 27, 2016. Anonymous Philippines asked the poll body to implement security on Precinct Count Optical Scanners (PCOS)—automated voting machines. Another group calling itself "LulzSec Pilipinas", claimed to have hacked 's website, and posted its database on their Facebook account shortly after "Anonymous Philippines" compromised 's website. These exploits exposed voter data and the vulnerability of both voter registration data and the functionality of their website. LulzSec posts 3 mirror links on their Facebook account that can be downloaded. The incident was considered the biggest private leak data in the Philippine history and leaving millions of registered voters at risk.


title: Commission on Elections (Philippines)

text: The sensitive information, which included the full name, complete address, and passport number of at least 55–70 million Filipino registered voters, was leaked publicly on a website called "wehaveyourdata", allegedly created by hacker "LulzSec Philippines". Anyone who had access to this website could type the first name, surname, and middle name of the compromised registered voters on the search bar provided and the sensitive information would be revealed. The website was taken down by the NBI on April 22. COMELEC spokesperson James Jimenez warned the public not to use the website, warning this could be a phishing site. On April 21, COMELEC apologized for the privacy attacks by the hackers.


title: Commission on Elections (Philippines)

text: On April 23, 2022, a few weeks before the 2022 Philippine general election, COMELEC commissioner Rey Bulay threatened with arrest individuals who would publicly state that COMELEC was biased towards a certain candidate or might be involved in election fraud."“Iyon pong nagko-comment ng public opinion na ang Comelec ay may sina-side-an, may kinakampihan, at mandadaya, ako po ay nagwawarning sa inyo, we will not hesitate to call upon the AFP na sa panahong ito ay nasa ilalim ng control ng Comelec para patulan at ipahuli at ipakulong kayo,”"


title: Commission on Elections (Philippines)

text: “To those issuing public opinion that Comelec is biased or that it would cause election fraud, I am warning you that we would not hesitate to call upon the Armed Forces of the Philippines, which is now under Comelec control, to round you up and have you jailed”


title: Commission on Elections (Philippines)

text: - Commissioner Rey Bulay said during a press briefing.The statement was made allegedly in support of a different statement by COMELEC Commissioner Socorro Inting who in turn was commenting on a statement released by supporters of then Presidential Candidate and Vice-President Leni Robredo who called for COMELEC to remain nonpartisan for the sake of the elections. Commissioner Inting commented that it was simply unnecessary to call on the COMELEC to hold a “nonpartisan” election. The commissioner also noted how such statements are liable to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the commission and by extension the elections themselves. Local news agency Rappler noted that it was unclear why Commissioner Inting took offense to this statement released by the supporters of Leni Robredo, which simply reminded the commission to hold fair and safe elections.


title: Commission on Elections (Philippines)

text: Several lawmakers and concerned groups slammed the statement by the Comelec. Detained Senator Leila de Lima called the threat by Commissioner Bulay "uncalled for and illegal". She noted that the Armed Force of the Philippines are only allowed to arrest individuals during times of lawless violence while under orders from the Commander-in-Chief. She noted that while COMELEC has expansive powers during an election season, this "does not include the power to use the AFP in stifling criticisms and suppressing free speech”. In a separate statement, House Assistant Minority Leader and party-list Rep. France L. Castro called on COMELEC to withdraw its statement, calling the commission hypersensitive to criticisms thrown at it by the populace. The representative stated that citizens are well within their rights to call for "orderly, peaceful and credible elections”.


title: Commission on Elections (Philippines)

text: Following the backlash, Commissioner Bulay commented that his statement was only a warning, and that he was only reminding people to follow the law.


title: Self-reference

text: Self-reference occurs in natural or formal languages when a sentence, idea or formula refers to itself. The reference may be expressed either directly—through some intermediate sentence or formula—or by means of some encoding. In philosophy, it also refers to the ability of a subject to speak of or refer to itself, that is, to have the kind of thought expressed by the first person nominative singular pronoun "I" in English.


title: Self-reference

text: Self-reference is studied and has applications in mathematics, philosophy, computer programming, second-order cybernetics, and linguistics, as well as in humor. Self-referential statements are sometimes paradoxical, and can also be considered recursive.


title: Self-reference

text: In classical philosophy, paradoxes were created by self-referential concepts such as the omnipotence paradox of asking if it was possible for a being to exist so powerful that it could create a stone that it could not lift. The Epimenides paradox, 'All Cretans are liars' when uttered by an ancient Greek Cretan was one of the first recorded versions. Contemporary philosophy sometimes employs the same technique to demonstrate that a supposed concept is meaningless or ill-defined.


title: Self-reference

text: In mathematics and computability theory, self-reference (also known as impredicativity) is the key concept in proving limitations of many systems. Gödel's theorem uses it to show that no formal consistent system of mathematics can ever contain all possible mathematical truths, because it cannot prove some truths about its own structure. The halting problem equivalent, in computation theory, shows that there is always some task that a computer cannot perform, namely reasoning about itself. These proofs relate to a long tradition of mathematical paradoxes such as Russell's paradox and Berry's paradox, and ultimately to classical philosophical paradoxes.


title: Self-reference

text: In game theory, undefined behaviors can occur where two players must model each other's mental states and behaviors, leading to infinite regress.


title: Self-reference

text: In computer programming, self-reference occurs in reflection, where a program can read or modify its own instructions like any other data. Numerous programming languages support reflection to some extent with varying degrees of expressiveness. Additionally, self-reference is seen in recursion (related to the mathematical recurrence relation) in functional programming, where a code structure refers back to itself during computation. 'Taming' self-reference from potentially paradoxical concepts into well-behaved recursions has been one of the great successes of computer science, and is now used routinely in, for example, writing compilers using the 'meta-language' ML. Using a compiler to compile itself is known as bootstrapping. Self-modifying code is possible to write (programs which operate on themselves), both with assembler and with functional languages such as Lisp, but is generally discouraged in real-world programming. Computing hardware makes fundamental use of self-reference in flip-flops, the basic units of digital memory, which convert potentially paradoxical logical self-relations into memory by expanding their terms over time. Thinking in terms of self-reference is a pervasive part of programmer culture, with many programs and acronyms named self-referentially as a form of humor, such as GNU ('GNU's not Unix') and PINE ('Pine is not Elm'). The GNU Hurd is named for a pair of mutually self-referential acronyms.


title: Self-reference

text: Tupper's self-referential formula is a mathematical curiosity which plots an image of its own formula.


title: Self-reference

text: The biology of self-replication is self-referential, as embodied by DNA and RNA replication mechanisms. Models of self-replication are found in Conway's Game of Life and have inspired engineering systems such as the self-replicating 3D printer RepRap.


title: Self-reference

text: Self-reference occurs in literature and film when an author refers to his or her own work in the context of the work itself. Examples include Miguel de Cervantes' "Don Quixote", Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream", "The Tempest" and "Twelfth Night", Denis Diderot's "Jacques le fataliste et son maître", Italo Calvino's "If on a winter's night a traveler", many stories by Nikolai Gogol, "Lost in the Funhouse" by John Barth, Luigi Pirandello's "Six Characters in Search of an Author", Federico Fellini's "8½" and Bryan Forbes's "The L-Shaped Room". Speculative fiction writer Samuel R. Delany makes use of this in his novels "Nova" and "Dhalgren". In the former, Katin (a space-faring novelist) is wary of a long-standing curse wherein a novelist dies before completing any given work. Nova ends mid-sentence, thus lending credence to the curse and the realization that the novelist is the author of the story; likewise, throughout Dhalgren, Delany has a protagonist simply named The Kid (or Kidd, in some sections), whose life and work are mirror images of themselves and of the novel itself. In the sci-fi spoof film Spaceballs, Director Mel Brooks includes a scene wherein the evil characters are viewing a VHS copy of their own story, which shows them watching themselves "watching themselves", ad infinitum. Perhaps the earliest example is in Homer's "Iliad", where Helen of Troy laments: "for generations still unborn/we will live in song" (appearing in the song itself).


title: Self-reference

text: Self-reference in art is closely related to the concepts of breaking the fourth wall and meta-reference, which often involve self-reference. The short stories of Jorge Luis Borges play with self-reference and related paradoxes in many ways. Samuel Beckett's "Krapp's Last Tape" consists entirely of the protagonist listening to and making recordings of himself, mostly about other recordings. During the 1990s and 2000s filmic self-reference was a popular part of the rubber reality movement, notably in Charlie Kaufman's films "Being John Malkovich" and "Adaptation", the latter pushing the concept arguably to its breaking point as it attempts to portray its own creation, in a dramatized version of the Droste effect.


title: Self-reference

text: Various creation myths invoke self-reference to solve the problem of what created the creator. For example, the Egyptian creation myth has a god swallowing his own semen to create himself. The Ouroboros is a mythical dragon which eats itself.


title: Self-reference

text: The surrealist painter René Magritte is famous for his self-referential works. His painting "The Treachery of Images", includes the words "this is not a pipe", the truth of which depends entirely on whether the word "ceci" (in English, "this") refers to the pipe depicted—or to the painting or the word or sentence itself. M.C. Escher's art also contains many self-referential concepts such as hands drawing themselves.


title: Self-reference

text: A word that describes itself is called an "autological word" (or "autonym"). This generally applies to adjectives, for example sesquipedalian (i.e. "sesquipedalian" is a sesquipedalian word), but can also apply to other parts of speech, such as TLA, as a three-letter abbreviation for "three-letter abbreviation".


title: Self-reference

text: There is a special case of meta-sentence in which the content of the sentence in the metalanguage and the content of the sentence in the object language are the same. Such a sentence is referring to itself. However some meta-sentences of this type can lead to paradoxes. "This is a sentence." can be considered to be a self-referential meta-sentence which is obviously true. However "This sentence is false" is a meta-sentence which leads to a self-referential paradox. Such sentences can lead to problems, for example, in law, where statements bringing laws into existence can contradict one another or themselves. Kurt Gödel claimed to have found such a paradox in the US constitution at his citizenship ceremony.


title: Self-reference

text: Self-reference occasionally occurs in the media when it is required to write about itself, for example the BBC reporting on job cuts at the BBC. Notable encyclopedias may be required to feature articles about themselves, such as Wikipedia's article on Wikipedia.


title: Self-reference

text: Fumblerules are a list of rules of good grammar and writing, demonstrated through sentences that violate those very rules, such as "Avoid cliches like the plague" and "Don't use no double negatives". The term was coined in a published list of such rules by William Safire.


title: Self-reference

text: Several constitutions are self-referential, making it more difficult to amend themselves than a simple law.


title: Lilian Garcia

text: Lilián Annette Garcia (born August 19, 1966) is a Spanish-American ring announcer, singer and podcaster best known for her time with WWE. She is currently announcing for the Professional Fighters League (PFL).


title: Lilian Garcia

text: García was born on August 19, 1966, in Madrid, Spain. She spent the first eight years of her life in Spain due to her Puerto Rican father's employment with the American Embassy, and was educated on an American military base, leading her to describe herself as a "military brat". She is fluent in English and Spanish.


title: Lilian Garcia

text: Upon returning to the United States, Garcia graduated from Irmo High School in Columbia, South Carolina. She went on to attend the University of South Carolina, graduating "cum laude".


title: Lilian Garcia

text: García was a top-ten finalist in the Miss South Carolina beauty pageant. Garcia was also one-half of a popular morning show on radio station WYYS,"YES 97" in Columbia, South Carolina, with Chuck Finley in the early '90s and later had her own drive time show. She was a VJ in Atlanta, Georgia for WTLK-TV. She also served as karaoke host at the Nitelites nightclub in the Embassy Suites Hotel in Columbia, South Carolina.


title: Lilian Garcia

text: García began singing when she was a child in Madrid, Spain. She participated in singing contests with her sister starting when she was five years old. In her early teens, she sang with a band at clubs around Columbia, South Carolina. Garcia's mother chaperoned so she could sing. She appeared in the 1990 film "Modern Love" as a singer.


title: Lilian Garcia

text: In addition to her announcing duties with WWE, García sang the national anthem of the United States of America before most "Monday Night Raw" shows from February 14, 2000, until her departure on August 1, 2017. She sang "America the Beautiful" at "WrestleMania 2000", "WrestleMania 21" and "WrestleMania XXVIII", joining a list of recording artists that includes Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Reba McEntire, Gladys Knight and Willie Nelson. With her performance at "WrestleMania XXVIII", she surpassed Franklin for most musical performances at "WrestleMania". Garcia now holds the record for most musical performances at "WrestleMania" with three.


title: Lilian Garcia

text: After joining WWE, García became a fixture in professional sports with performances for the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League and Major League Baseball. She also performed at the 1996 Summer Olympics, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, "Live with Regis and Kathie Lee", "Dancing with the Stars" and as an opening act for James Brown.


title: Lilian Garcia

text: García's first single, "Shout", debuted at No. 69 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 in October 2002. On her reaction to the news, Garcia said in 2007, "When my single came out years ago, and it was just a single, I remember the very first week it charted No. 69, and I was screaming as I grabbed "Billboard", running down the streets of New York, holding it up and screaming, 'I made "Billboard"! I made "Billboard"!' I'm dreaming for that moment again."


title: Lilian Garcia

text: Garcia recorded Torrie Wilson's entrance theme, "Need A Little Time", for "WWE Anthology", a compilation album WWE released in November 2002. She co-wrote "You Just Don't Know Me At All" with producers Doug Kistner and Anthony Krizan, which WWE released in January 2004 on the "WWE Originals" album and became her entrance theme.


title: Lilian Garcia

text: García began work on a solo album in 2005 with Grammy award-winning record producers George Noriega and Tim Mitchell, who worked with multi-platinum artists such as Shakira, Ricky Martin and Jennifer Lopez. Her album "¡Quiero Vivir!", which is Spanish for "I Want to Live!," got released on October 9, 2007, via Universal Music Latino. Garcia co-wrote 11 songs on the album, including three with Jon Secada, who she duets with on "Adonde". The album features 10 Spanish language tracks, and two English translations; "Under in Love" ("Desenamorada") and "Where Did Love Go?" ("Adonde"). The title track, "¡Quiero Vivir!", became her entrance theme.


title: Lilian Garcia

text: After leaving WWE in August 2016, García began work on a follow-up album. She reunited with Noriega and Mitchell to record the first song in Miami, Florida in February 2011. Garcia also recorded tracks with Grammy-nominated producer Oh, Hush!. On August 17, 2012, Garcia released an EP titled "My Time". The EP features six English tracks: "U Drive Me Loca", "Ur Girl (til the end of the world)", "Fix You", "Over & Over", "Tell Me", and "My Time." To promote the release of "My Time", Garcia made her music video debut in December 2011 with "U Drive Me Loca." The second song off the album, "Ur Girl ('Til the End of the World)", was her entrance theme during her return to WWE. She released a music video for the track in March 2012. In January 2013, Garcia released a music video for "Over & Over".


title: Lilian Garcia

text: Garcia appeared at the 53rd annual Grammy Awards on February 13, 2011, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. Her appearance on the red carpet got shown the following night on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!".


title: Lilian Garcia

text: On May 27, 2014, Garcia announced that she and her band, The Fuse, would be performing at Club Madrid in the Sunset Station Casino in Henderson, Nevada, near Las Vegas. She performed her first show on June 14, 2014.


title: Lilian Garcia

text: García was hired by the World Wrestling Federation as a ring announcer in 1999. She made her debut on the August 23, 1999, episode of "Raw is War" in Ames, Iowa. She was involved in her first angle on the September 13 episode of "Raw is War", when Jeff Jarrett applied a figure four leglock to her after she angered him by announcing his loss by disqualification to Luna Vachon.


title: Lilian Garcia

text: Garcia's second angle occurred on the December 13, 1999, episode of "Raw". Lilian introduced Miss Kitty for a Women's Championship chocolate pudding pool match. After Lilian announced her, Miss Kitty grabbed the mic and informed Lilian that she was now to be known as "The Kat". Her opponent, Tori, came out for their match and right after the two women began, X-Pac came poolside in a skin diving suit complete with snorkel, flippers, and goggles. As he was adjusting his goggles Tori jumped on his back causing both of them to fall into the pool with X-Pac landing up on top of Tori, giving Miss Kitty an easy pinfall. Lilian announced the winner as "Miss Kitty", which infuriated The Kat, who threw Lilian into the pool of pudding.


title: Lilian Garcia

text: Garcia sang the national anthem of the United States of America for the first time on February 11, 2000, at a house show in Denver, Colorado. After hearing that she did a great job, Chairman and CEO Vince McMahon had her sing the anthem before "Raw" went on the air on February 14, 2000, in San Jose, California. Impressed with her performance, McMahon then had Garcia sing the anthem every week before "Raw". Her first televised performance aired on April 2, 2000, where she opened "WrestleMania 2000" in Anaheim, California.


title: Lilian Garcia

text: Following the September 11 attacks, Garcia sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" on the September 13, 2001, episode of "SmackDown!". In the course of the evening, Garcia commented on the attacks, saying "Well, to say the least, this has been a real roller coaster of a week. And especially because I live in New York City. I have loved ones there, and I'm just very fortunate and very glad that a specific one didn't get to go to his meeting at 8:30 in the morning that he was supposed to be at the Twin Towers, and so I thank God for that, and I still don't know about a lot of my friends. I have, we'll be finding out, I guess, little by little. I pray for everybody there..."


title: Lilian Garcia

text: In August 2002, García briefly feuded with rival announcer Howard Finkel after Finkel left her to be decimated by 3-Minute Warning, culminating in an "evening gown versus tuxedo match" that Garcia won with the assistance of Stacy Keibler and Trish Stratus.<ref name="Raw 2/26/02"></ref>


title: Lilian Garcia

text: During the Memorial Day episode of "Raw" on May 26, 2003, Garcia was singing "America the Beautiful" to the crowd when she was interrupted by La Résistance members Sylvain Grenier and René Duprée as they insulted America saying they should've been more like the French and they mocked the American people by calling them "fat and ugly". Just then, Garcia's friend, co-general manager Stone Cold Steve Austin came down to the ring and tossed Grenier out of the ring and delivered a Stunner to Duprée. After the two Frenchmen walked out of the ring, Austin sang "America the Beautiful" with Garcia and the two celebrated with a beer bash.


title: Lilian Garcia

text: During the November 24 episode of "Raw", Garcia announced Trish Stratus as the winner of a bra and panties match over Jackie Gayda. Infuriated, Gayda stripped Garcia down to her black bra.


title: Lilian Garcia

text: In June 2005, García began an on-screen romance with wrestler Viscera. The angle saw García propose to Viscera, stating that she wanted to marry him during the Vengeance pay-per-view on June 26. The angle ended at "Vengeance" when Viscera rejected Garcia in favor of The Godfather's Hos. The angle was briefly resurrected eleven months later when Viscera proposed to Garcia on the May 22, 2006, episode of "Raw", but was interrupted by Umaga before receiving an answer.


title: Lilian Garcia

text: García took part in her first major Diva publication in 2005 with the release of the "Divas 2005" swimsuit magazine and related DVD "Viva Las Divas of the WWE".


title: Lilian Garcia

text: On the June 5, 2006, episode of "Raw", Garcia (legitimately) suffered a sprained wrist when wrestler Charlie Haas inadvertently knocked her to the ground as she stood on the ring apron. One week later, the accident was metamorphosed into a storyline, with Haas incurring the wrath of Viscera. The storyline ended on the July 10, 2006, episode of "Raw", when Viscera accidentally performed a Samoan drop on Garcia while confronting Haas. Garcia was removed from television for several weeks in order to sell the Samoan drop.


title: Lilian Garcia

text: García took part in her second major Diva publication in 2007 with the release of "WWE Divas Do San Antonio", in honor of the WWE being in San Antonio for the Royal Rumble.


title: Lilian Garcia

text: On the April 2, 2007, episode of Raw, García was humiliated in the ring when her blue satin frilled skirt was torn off by Bobby Lashley, revealing her black lycra bikini panties after Vince McMahon attempted to hide his newly shaven bald head under her skirt. The incident resulted in a large surge in searches for Garcia on the Internet, with searches for "Lilian Garcia" jumping 301% and becoming the fourth most searched-for term on the search engine Yahoo!.


title: Lilian Garcia

text: She returned to announcing on the July 2, 2007, episode of "Raw" after taking time off to recover from a skiing injury in which she tore the ACL in her right knee. She was not fully recovered as was evident from her only announcing the first two matches from the ring and the rest from the floor.


title: Lilian Garcia

text: On the August 6, 2007, episode of "Raw", Garcia announced her new album entitled "Quiero Vivir". Lilian then started a feud with Jillian Hall, who claimed to be a better singer than Lilian. The next week, she competed in "WWE Idol", a parody of American Idol, in which she sang "New York, New York" by Frank Sinatra before being interrupted by Santino Marella.


title: Lilian Garcia

text: In addition to announcing on "Raw" and pay-per-view matches, Garcia also announced on "WWE Superstars", making her first appearance on April 23, 2009.


title: Lilian Garcia

text: During the last week of August 2009, Garcia celebrated ten years with WWE, becoming the organization's first and only "Decade Diva".


title: Lilian Garcia

text: On the September 21, 2009, episode of "Raw" from Little Rock, Arkansas, Jerry Lawler announced to the live audience that it was Garcia's final night with WWE. Garcia then made an emotional speech in the ring, thanking the fans and all of her colleagues. The final match she announced live featured Randy Orton, Chris Jericho, and Big Show taking on the team of John Cena, Montel Vontavious Porter, and Mark Henry, although a match between Primo and Chris Masters was taped earlier that evening and aired three days later on "WWE Superstars", marking her final television appearance.


title: Lilian Garcia

text: Garcia made a special appearance before the Madison Square Garden audience on November 16, 2009, singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" prior to the evening's "Raw" telecast. Garcia filled in for Raw ring announcer Justin Roberts on April 19, 2010, due to being stranded in Europe with other WWE Superstars and crew as a result of the Eyjafjallajökull volcanic eruption. Her appearance caused a surge in online searches, resulting in the term "Lilian Garcia" becoming the eighth most searched-for term on Google that evening and into the next day.


title: Lilian Garcia

text: On December 5, 2011, WWE announced that Garcia would be returning to ring announcing full-time, appearing on "SmackDown". She returned at the December 6 tapings of the show. She also served as the ring announcer for "Main Event" and pay-per-views.


title: Lilian Garcia

text: Garcia suffered accidents prior to "SmackDown" tapings in 2012. While heading to the ring prior to the March 13 taping in Columbus, Ohio, the strap on her left shoe broke. One month later, during the April 17 taping in London, England, she tripped over pyrotechnic equipment on the top of the stage and fell down on the ramp, landing on her knees. On the April 19, 2013, episode of "SmackDown", Garcia was instructed dance steps by Fandango and insulted.


title: Lilian Garcia

text: On the June 6, 2014, episode of "SmackDown", she was involved in a confrontation with Alicia Fox after Fox lost a match to Natalya. On October 20, 2014, after Justin Roberts was released from WWE, Garcia returned as the full-time ring announcer for "Raw". Lilian returned from knee surgery on May 31 at Elimination Chamber.


title: Lilian Garcia

text: On August 1, 2016, Garcia announced her departure from WWE due to wanting to care for her ailing father, who was battling two different unidentified types of cancer. On December 26, she announced that her father had died on Christmas Day.


title: Lilian Garcia

text: Garcia made a one-night return on December 14, 2016, at "WWE Tribute to the Troops" where she sang the American national anthem.


title: Lilian Garcia

text: She made another special appearance before the Talking Stick Resort Arena audience in Phoenix, Arizona, on July 4, 2017, singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" prior to the evening's "SmackDown Live" telecast.


title: Lilian Garcia

text: On January 22, 2018, in the "Raw" 25 Years special episode, Garcia was honored as part of a segment involving women considered legends that contributed to the company's success, including Bella Twins, Maryse, Kelly Kelly, Torrie Wilson, Michelle McCool, Terri Runnels, Maria Kanellis and the Hall of Famers Jacqueline and Trish Stratus.


title: Lilian Garcia

text: She announced the first-ever WrestleMania Women's Battle Royal in WrestleMania 34's pre-show on April 8, 2018.


title: Lilian Garcia

text: On October 28, 2018, she announced the first-ever WWE Women's Pay Per View WWE Evolution. On the July 22, 2019, episode of "Raw", Garcia made a special appearance at the Raw Reunion.


title: Lilian Garcia

text: Around the end of May 2019, Lilian Garcia announced on her "Chasing Glory" podcast that she had joined the mixed martial arts organization, the Professional Fighters League (PFL), as a ring announcer.


title: Lilian Garcia

text: After leaving WWE, Garcia began hosting two podcasts, "Making Their Way to the Ring" and the Spanish-language "Luchando Con Lilian Garcia", distributed by Maria Menounos' AfterBuzz TV network. On July 31, 2017, Garcia debuted her new podcast "Chasing Glory with Lilian Garcia" on PodcastOne.


title: Lilian Garcia

text: On March 31, 2017, Garcia appeared on CBS daytime game show "The Price Is Right" as a contestant during the show's College Rivals special (taped February 12, 2017, aired on March 31, 2017) representing her alma mater University of South Carolina. She won a trip to London along with some fashion accessories.


title: Lilian Garcia

text: Garcia is a devout Catholic. She was previously married for thirteen years, but had the marriage annulled by the Catholic Church. Garcia married her second husband, Christopher Jozeph, on September 28, 2009.


title: Lilian Garcia

text: On March 17, 2007, García twisted her knee in heavy snow while skiing in Killington, Vermont, incurring a torn anterior cruciate ligament. She underwent surgery on her knee on April 5, 2007, in New York City under Armin Tehrany. She returned to "Raw" on July 2.


title: Lilian Garcia

text: On November 6, 2009, Garcia almost got robbed during the New York Yankees' 2009 World Series ticker-tape parade. She said that a "punk kid" came up to her and tried to steal her phone. When Garcia wouldn't relinquish the phone, the assailant threw her to the ground and ran away. Garcia suffered a scraped elbow.


title: Lilian Garcia

text: On October 26, 2012, Garcia was struck by a car in Los Angeles, causing multiple contusions and lacerations on the left side of her body. Doctors immobilized Garcia's neck, after which she was said to be in a stable condition. She was released from the hospital two days later.


title: Denys Finch Hatton

text: The Honourable Denys George Finch Hatton MC (24 April 1887 – 14 May 1931) was an English aristocratic big-game hunter and the lover of Baroness Karen Blixen (also known by her pen name, Isak Dinesen), a Danish noblewoman who wrote about him in her autobiographical book "Out of Africa", first published in 1937. In the book, his name is hyphenated: "Finch-Hatton".


title: Denys Finch Hatton

text: Born in Kensington, Finch Hatton was the second son and third child of Henry Finch-Hatton, 13th Earl of Winchilsea, by his wife, the former Anne "Nan" Codrington, daughter of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Henry Codrington. He was educated at Eton and Brasenose College, Oxford. At Eton, he was Captain of the cricket Eleven, Keeper of the Field and the Wall (two major sports played at Eton), President of the Prefects Society called "Pop", and Secretary of the Music Society.


title: Denys Finch Hatton

text: In 1910, after a trip to South Africa, he travelled to British East Africa and bought some land on the western side of the Great Rift Valley near what is now Eldoret. He turned over the investment to a partner and spent his time hunting. In Kenya, Finch Hatton was a close friend of the Hon. Reginald Berkeley Cole (1882–1925), an Anglo–Irish aristocrat, born into a prominent Ulster family, who had also settled in the colony. Cole was very well connected in Kenya, being the brother-in-law of Hugh Cholmondeley, 3rd Baron Delamere, the effective leader of the White settlers in the country.


title: Denys Finch Hatton

text: In September 1914, Finch Hatton was commissioned as a temporary lieutenant during the First World War, attached to the East African Protectorate forces fighting in the East African campaign. He served with his friend Berkeley Cole, a former officer in the 9th Lancers and a temporary captain in command of an eponymous irregular force known as Cole's Scouts. The irregular unit was made up of Somali soldiers and regular British soldiers from the 2nd Battalion Loyal Regiment (North Lancashire). After this unit was disbanded, Finch Hatton was given a staff appointment as aide-de-camp to General Hoskins. On the 1st February 1917, he was awarded the Military Cross.


title: Denys Finch Hatton

text: In Channel 4's "", it was revealed that in 1928 and 1930, Finch Hatton played host to the Prince of Wales, later Edward VIII, in a safari that switched from hunting to photography. This relationship led to Edward VIII's taking up Finch Hatton's causes, such as abandoning the use of cars for hunting safaris, and shifting towards filming big game, wildlife photography, and the founding of the Serengeti National Park.


title: Denys Finch Hatton

text: Finch Hatton was not known to have had any serious romances before he met Baroness Blixen. They were introduced at the Muthaiga Club on 5 April 1918. Soon afterwards he was assigned to military service in Egypt. On his return to Kenya after the Armistice, he developed a close friendship with Blixen and her Swedish husband, Baron Bror von Blixen-Finecke. He left Africa again in 1920 but returned in 1922, investing in a land development company.


title: Denys Finch Hatton

text: By this time, Karen Blixen had separated from her husband, and after their divorce in 1925, Finch Hatton moved into her house and began leading safaris for wealthy sportsmen. Among his clients were Marshall Field Jr and Edward, Prince of Wales. According to a highly sympathetic biography of Beryl Markham by author Mary S. Lovell, in 1930 Finch Hatton succumbed to a love affair with Markham, who was working as a race-horse trainer in Nairobi and the surrounding area. Markham had had a series of lovers, both single and married, and she had apparently had an attraction to Finch Hatton for years, but had not acted on it while Blixen, who gave Markham shelter and support over the years, was most deeply involved with Finch Hatton. During this period, however, he was also still seeing Blixen. Later, she became known as a pioneer flyer herself (Markham attributed her interest in flying to her association with Tom Campbell Black).


title: Denys Finch Hatton

text: On the morning of 14 May 1931, Finch Hatton's Gipsy Moth took off from Voi Airport, circled the airport twice, then plunged to the ground and burst into flames. Finch Hatton and his Kĩkũyũ servant Kamau were killed. His final flight is recounted by fellow pilot Beryl Markham in her memoir "West with the Night".


title: Denys Finch Hatton

text: In accordance with his wishes, Finch Hatton was buried in the Ngong Hills, some five miles to the west of the present-day Nairobi National Park. Karen Blixen had chosen the site. "There was a place in the hills, on the first ridge in the Game Reserve that I myself, at the time I thought that I was to live and die in Africa, had pointed out to Denys as my future burial-place. In the evening while we looked at the hills from my home, he remarked that then he would like to be buried there himself as well. Since then, sometimes when we drove out in the hills, Denys had said; ‘Let us drive as far as our graves." Later, his brother erected an obelisk at the gravesite upon which he placed a simple brass plaque inscribed with Finch Hatton's name, the dates of his birth and death and an extract from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's narrative poem "the Rime of the Ancient Mariner": "He prayeth well, who loveth well both man and bird and beast". The co-ordinates of the gravesite are: .


title: Denys Finch Hatton

text: According to "Out of Africa", there is a memorial plaque on a footbridge at Eton. The bridge is inscribed with the words "Famous in these fields and by his many friends greatly beloved. Denys Finch Hatton 1900–1906"—the dates refer to his attendance at Eton.


title: Peggy Wood

text: Mary Margaret Wood (February 9, 1892 – March 18, 1978) was an American actress of stage, film, and television. She is best remembered for her performance as the title character in the CBS television series "Mama" (1949–1957), for which she was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series; her starring role as Naomi, Ruth's mother-in-law, in "The Story of Ruth" (1960); and her final screen appearance as Mother Abbess in "The Sound of Music" (1965), for which she received an Academy Award nomination and a Golden Globe Award.


title: Peggy Wood

text: Mary Margaret Wood was born in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Eugene Wood, a journalist, and Mary Gardner, a telegraph operator. She studied voice in France with soprano Emma Calvé. Wood was an early member of the Actors' Equity Association, spending nearly 50 years onstage, beginning in the chorus and becoming known as a Broadway singer and star. Wood made her stage debut in 1910, as part of the chorus for "Naughty Marietta". In 1917, she starred in "Maytime", in which she introduced the song "Will You Remember". She starred in several other musicals before playing the role of Portia in a 1928 production of "The Merchant of Venice". From the late 1920s until the late 1930s, Wood had lead roles in musicals staged in London and New York. She was selected by Noël Coward to star in the original London production of his wildly successful operetta "Bitter Sweet".


title: Peggy Wood

text: According to a 1920 profile, Wood also wrote plays "in collaboration with her father and with Samuel Merwin." She was a member of the Algonquin Round Table.


title: Peggy Wood

text: In 1941, she starred in the New York premiere of "Blithe Spirit" as Ruth Condomine, whose husband is tormented by the ghost of his deceased first wife. Wood did not star in many films. Her few film appearances include roles in "Jalna", "A Star Is Born", "Call It a Day", "The Housekeeper's Daughter", "The Bride Wore Boots", "Magnificent Doll", and "Dream Girl". From 1949 to 1957, she played matriarch Marta Hansen on the popular series "Mama", based on the 1943 Broadway play and 1948 film "I Remember Mama". When General Foods cancelled the program, there was so much protest that CBS brought it back on Sunday afternoon, this time as a filmed series. As the network did not have all the affiliate station clearances that were needed, the show was put into syndication, where it was a huge success. Producers filmed 26 episodes.


title: Peggy Wood

text: Following "Mama", Wood was seen in episodes of "Zane Grey Theatre" and "The Nurses". She co-starred with comedian Imogene Coca on Broadway in "The Girls in 509". In October 1963, she and Ruth Gates appeared in the one-act play "Opening Night", which played in off-Broadway. Wood portrayed Fanny Ellis, a once famous star who prepares for a performance; the play lasted 47 performances. Gates played "Aunt Jenny" on "Mama", which starred Wood.


title: Peggy Wood

text: Wood returned to movies in the 1960 CinemaScope production "The Story of Ruth" in a co-starring role as the mother-in-law, Naomi, of the title character, although she pointed out the lack of verisimilitude in her own casting as a biblical matriarch, i.e. a "blonde, blue-eyed Jewess". Her final screen appearance was as the Mother Abbess in "The Sound of Music" (1965), for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture. She was thrilled to be in the movie, but she knew she could no longer sing "Climb Ev'ry Mountain". She was dubbed (for singing) by Margery McKay. In her autobiography, Marni Nixon, who appeared in the film as Sister Sophia, said Peggy especially liked McKay's singing voice because she sounded as Peggy did in her younger days. In 1969, Wood joined the cast of "One Life to Live" as Dr. Kate Nolan, and had a recurring role until the end of the year.


title: Peggy Wood

text: Her first autobiography "How Young You Look" was published by Farrar and Rinehart in 1941. The updated version "Arts and Flowers" appeared in 1963. She wrote a biography of actor John Drew, Jr. and a novel titled "The Star Wagon" as well as co-wrote the play "Miss Quis". Wood received numerous awards for her theatrical work and for a while was president of the American National Theater and Academy (ANTA).


title: Peggy Wood

text: Wood was married and widowed twice. Her first husband (poet/writer John Van Alstyne Weaver) died at the age of 44. She gave birth to their son (David Weaver) in 1927 at the age of 35. Her second husband (William H. Walling, whom she wed in 1946) was an executive in the printing business who died in 1973. They were married for 27 years. She was a devout Episcopalian and a member of the Episcopal Actors Guild.


title: BT tank

text: The BT tanks (, lit. "fast moving tank" or "high-speed tank") were a series of Soviet light tanks produced in large numbers between 1932 and 1941. They were lightly armoured, but reasonably well-armed for their time, and had the best mobility of all contemporary tanks. The BT tanks were known by the nickname "Betka" from the acronym, or its diminutive "Betushka". The successor of the BT tanks was the famous T-34 medium tank, introduced in 1940, which would replace all of the Soviet fast tanks, infantry tanks, and medium tanks in service.


title: BT tank

text: The BT tanks were "convertible tanks". This was a feature that was designed by J. Walter Christie to reduce wear of the unreliable tank tracks of the 1930s. In about thirty minutes, the crew could remove the tracks and engage a chain drive to the rearmost road wheel on each side, allowing the tank to travel at very high speeds on roads. In wheeled mode, the tank was steered by pivoting the front road wheels. Soviet tank forces soon found the convertible option of little practical use; in a country with few paved roads, it consumed space and added needless complexity and weight. The feature was dropped from later Soviet designs.


title: BT tank

text: Christie, a race car mechanic and driver from New Jersey had failed to convince the U.S. Army Ordnance Bureau to adopt his Christie tank design. In 1930, Soviet agents at Amtorg, ostensibly a Soviet trade organization, used their New York political contacts to persuade U.S. military and civilian officials to provide plans and specifications of the Christie tank to the Soviet Union. At least two of Christie's M1931 tanks (without turrets) were later purchased in the United States and sent to the Soviet Union under false documentation, in which they were described as "agricultural tractors". Both tanks were delivered to the Kharkov Komintern Locomotive Plant (KhPZ). The original Christie tanks were designated "fast tanks" by the Soviets, abbreviated to BT (later referred to as BT-1). Based both on them and on other plans obtained earlier, three unarmed BT-2 prototypes were completed in October 1931 and mass production began in 1932. Most BT-2s were equipped with a 37 mm gun and a machine gun, but a shortage of 37 mm guns led to some early examples being fitted with three machine guns. The sloping front hull (glacis plate) armor design of the Christie M1931 prototype was retained in later Soviet tank hull designs, later adopted for side armor as well. The BT-5 and later models were equipped with 45 mm guns.


title: BT tank

text: BT tanks saw service in the Second Sino-Japanese War, Spanish Civil War, Battles of Khalkhin Gol (also known as the Nomohan Incident), the Winter War in Finland, and in World War II.


title: BT tank

text: In the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), a regiment of 50 BT-5s fought on the Republican side. They were manned by the members International Brigades trained in USSR and by some Soviet tankists. Their first combat on 13 October 1937 during the Zaragoza Offensive was disastrous: 13 tanks were lost due to bad tactics. Later, 12 more were lost from December 1937 to February 1938 during the Battle of Teruel. A few captured BT-5s were also used by the Nationalist side.


title: BT tank

text: The Chinese Nationalist Army had four BT-5s which fought against the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945).


title: BT tank

text: During the Battles of Khalkhin Gol (also known as the Nomonhan Incident), which lasted from May to September in 1939, BT tanks were easily attacked by Japanese "close quarter" teams (tank killer squads) which were – in lieu of anti-tank weapons – armed with petrol (gasoline) bottles (later called "Molotov cocktails"). The BT-5s and BT-7s, operating in temperatures greater than on the Mongolian plains, easily caught fire when a Molotov cocktail ignited their gasoline engines. General Georgy Zhukov made it one of his "points" when briefing Joseph Stalin, that his "...BT tanks were a bit fireprone..." Conversely, many Japanese tank crews held the Soviet 45mm gun of the BT-5 and BT-7 in high esteem, noting, "...no sooner did they see the flash from a Russian gun, than they'd notice a hole in their tank, adding that the Soviet gunners were accurate too!"


title: BT tank

text: After the Battles of Khalkhin Gol, the Soviet military broke into two camps; one side was represented by Spanish Civil War veterans General Pavel Rychagov of the Soviet Air Force, Soviet armour expert General Dimitry Pavlov, and Stalin's favorite, Marshal Grigory Kulik, Chief of Artillery Administration. The other side consisted of the Khalkhin Gol veterans led by Generals Zhukov and Grigory Kravchenko of the Soviet Air Force. The lessons of Russia's "first real war on a massive scale using tanks, artillery, and airplanes" at Khalkhin Gol went unheeded.


title: BT tank

text: During the Winter War against Finland in 1939–1940, BT-2, BT-5 and BT-7 tanks had less success against Finnish Army forces than they had against the Japanese at Khalkin Gol.


title: BT tank

text: During the Second World War in Europe, BT-5 and BT-7 tanks were used in the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland. The Red Army planned to replace the BT tank series with the T-34 and had just begun doing so when Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, began on 22 June 1941. BT-series tanks took part in large numbers in the battles that followed during 1941, during which thousands were abandoned or destroyed. A few remained in use in 1942, but rarely saw combat against German forces after that time.


title: BT tank

text: During the final weeks of World War II, a significant number of BT-7 tanks took part in the Soviet invasion of Manchuria in August 1945, seeing combat against Japanese occupation forces in Northeast China. This was the last combat action for the BT tanks.


title: BT tank

text: The BT tank series was numerous, forming the cavalry tank arm of the Red Army in the 1930s and had much better mobility than other contemporary tank designs. For these reasons, there were many experiments and derivatives of the design, mostly conducted at the KhPZ factory in Kharkov.


title: BT tank

text: The most important legacy of the BT tank was the T-34 medium tank. In 1937, a new design team was formed at the KhPZ to create the next generation of BT tanks. Initially, the chief designer was Mikhail Koshkin and after his death, Morozov. The team built two prototypes. The light one was called the "A-20". The more heavily armed and armoured BT derivative, the "A-32", was a "universal tank" to replace all the T-26 infantry tanks, BT cavalry tanks and T-28 medium tanks. Such a plan was controversial, but concerns about tank performance under the threat of the German blitzkrieg led to the approval for production of a still more heavily armoured version, the T-34 medium tank.


title: BT tank

text: Along the way, an important technical development was the "BT-IS" and "BT-SW-2" testbed vehicles, concentrating on sloped armour. This proof-of-concept led directly to the armour layout of the T-34. BT tank chassis were also used as the basis for engineering support vehicles and mobility testing vehicles. A bridgelayer variant had a T-38 turret and launched a bridge across small gaps. Standard tanks were fitted as fascine carriers. The RBT-5 hosted a pair of large artillery rocket launchers, one on each side of the turret. Several designs for extremely wide tracks, including, oddly, wooden 'snowshoes' were tried on BT tanks.


title: BT tank

text: The "KBT-7" was a thoroughly modern armoured command vehicle that was in the prototype stage when World War II broke out. The design was not pursued during the war.


title: BT tank

text: In the Kiev manoeuvres of 1936, foreign military observers were shown hundreds of BT tanks roll by a reviewing stand. In the audience were British Army representatives, who returned home to advocate for use of Christie suspension on British cruiser tanks, which they incorporated from the Cruiser Mk III onwards. The pointed shape of the hull front armor on the BT tank also influenced the design of the British Matilda tank.


title: Asiya

text: Asiya bint Muzahim () was, according to the Qur'an and Islamic tradition, the wife of the Pharaoh of the Exodus and adoptive mother of Moses, identified as Bithiah in the Jewish tradition. She is revered by Muslims as one of the four greatest women of all time, and according to a prophetic narration in Sahih al-Bukhari, the second ever.


title: Asiya

text: She is believed to have secretly accepted monotheism after witnessing the miracle of Moses. The tradition holds that Asiya worshipped God in secret and prayed in disguise fearing her husband. She adopted Moses and convinced her husband not to kill him. She died while being tortured by her husband, who had discovered her monotheism and retaliated to her rebellion against his tyranny.


title: Asiya

text: Asiya's marriage to the Pharaoh was arranged. Unlike her husband, she was humble and accepted the faith that Moses and Aaron were preaching. Although she had exceeding wealth, she was not arrogant like the Pharaoh. She realized that faith was far more important and was thus exalted by God amongst the women of her generation.


title: Asiya

text: Asiya and her maids found a crate floating in the Nile river. Asiya ordered that the crate be drawn ashore. The maids thought there was a treasure inside, but instead found a baby boy, Moses. Asiya instantly felt motherly love towards him. She told the Pharaoh about the baby. The incident has been described in the Quran.


title: Asiya

text: Asiya offered Moses's biological mother to live in their household as his wet nurse and paid her for her services, unaware of their relationship.


title: Asiya

text: When she witnessed the death of a believing woman under her husband's torture, Asiya declared her faith before the Pharaoh. He tried to turn her away from the faith, but Asiya refused to reject the God and the teaching of Moses. On Pharaoh's orders, she was tortured to death.


title: Asiya

text: Asiya is one of the four most respected women of all time, and is highly honored by Muslims. It is said that Asiya was a sincere believer and that she fully submitted herself to Allah, despite being the wife of Pharaoh. According to Hadith, she will be among the first women to enter Paradise because she accepted Moses's monotheism over Pharaoh's beliefs. The Qur'an mentions Asiya as an example to all Muslims: Her supplication is mentioned in the Quran.


title: Landmark Worldwide

text: Landmark Worldwide (known as Landmark Education before 2013), or simply Landmark, is a company, headquartered in San Francisco, that offers personal-development programs.


title: Landmark Worldwide

text: Landmark Education started in 1991 with the licensing of rights to use intellectual property owned by Werner Erhard, who had originated the "est" (Erhard Seminars Training) system in the 1970s. Landmark has developed and delivered multiple follow-up and additional programs. Its subsidiary, the Vanto Group, markets and delivers training and consulting to organizations.


title: Landmark Worldwide

text: Landmark Education, founded in January 1991 by several of the presenters of a training program known as "the Forum", licensed the intellectual property rights to the Forum from Werner Erhard and Associates.


title: Landmark Worldwide

text: The new company offered similar courses and employed many of the same staff. The Forum was updated and reduced in length from four days to three, and this revised course, named "the Landmark Forum", has been further revised by Landmark's program leaders over the years.


title: Landmark Worldwide

text: According to Landmark, Werner Erhard (creator of the est training which ran from 1971 to 1984, when it was superseded by the Forum) consults from time to time with its research and design team.


title: Landmark Worldwide

text: The business traded as Landmark Education Corporation from May 1991. In June 2003 it was re-structured as Landmark Education LLC, and in July 2013 it was renamed Landmark Worldwide LLC.


title: Landmark Worldwide

text: Landmark has stated it never paid royalties to Erhard under the licensing agreement and that it purchased outright the intellectual property in the Forum and other courses by 2002.


title: Landmark Worldwide

text: , Landmark Worldwide's core business operation is the delivery of seminars and training courses which aim to offer improvements in personal productivity, vitality, communication skills, and decision-making. Some of these are intensive two- or three-day courses. Landmark structures others as weekly three-hour seminars over a three-month period. The organization also advertises six- and twelve-month training programs in topics such as leadership, teamwork, and public speaking. Some of the courses require participants to start a community project, and those courses are structured to support them in the design and implementation of such projects.


title: Landmark Worldwide

text: Since March 2020 the company switched its operations to online delivery in webinar format, due to precautions in the light of the Covid pandemic. As restrictions have been eased, in-person events have been gradually reintroduced, and it is expected that in future there will be a mix of online and in-person courses offered.


title: Landmark Worldwide

text: Landmark Worldwide operates as an employee-owned for-profit private company. According to Landmark's website, its employees own all the stock of the corporation, with no individual holding more than 3%. The company states that it invests its surpluses into making its programs, initiatives, and services more widely available.


title: Landmark Worldwide

text: The company has reported that more than 2.4 million people had participated in its programs since 1991. Landmark holds seminars in approximately 115 locations in more than 21 countries. Landmark's revenue surpassed $100 million in 2018, with profits of about $5 million, and had 500 employees as well as large numbers of volunteers who lead the training programs and assist with their production.


title: Landmark Worldwide

text: Vanto Group, Inc., founded in 1993 as Landmark Education Business Development (LEBD), a wholly owned subsidiary, uses the Landmark methodology to provide consulting services to businesses and to other organizations. The University of Southern California (USC) Marshall School of Business carried out a case study in 1998 into the work of LEBD with BHP New Zealand Steel. The report concluded that the set of interventions in the organization produced a 50% improvement in safety, a 15% to 20% reduction in key benchmark costs, a 50% increase in return on capital, and a 20% increase in raw steel production.


title: Landmark Worldwide

text: Companies such as Panda Express, and previously Lululemon Athletica, have paid for and encourage employees to take part in the Landmark Forum.


title: Landmark Worldwide

text: Organizations including Nasa, Apple, Microsoft, GlaxoSmithKline, Reebok, and Panda Express have employees who have participated in Landmark's programs through its corporate division, Vanto Group.


title: Landmark Worldwide

text: Landmark's entry course, the Landmark Forum, is the default first course for new participants and provides the foundation of all Landmark's other programs. The Landmark Forum takes place over three consecutive days plus an evening session (generally Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Tuesday evening.) Forum attendance varies in size between 75 and 250 people. Landmark arranges the course as a dialogue in which the Forum leader presents a series of proposals and encourages participants to take the floor to relate how those ideas apply to their own individual lives. Course leaders set up rules at the beginning of the program and Landmark strongly encourages participants not to miss any part of the program.


title: Landmark Worldwide

text: During the course, participants are encouraged to call friends and family members with whom they feel they have unresolved tensions,


title: Landmark Worldwide

text: The evening session follows closely on the three consecutive days of the course and completes the Landmark Forum. During this final session, the participants share information about their results and bring guests to learn about the Forum.


title: Landmark Worldwide

text: Landmark emphasizes the idea that there is a difference between the facts of what happened in a situation, and the meaning, interpretation, or story about those facts. It proposes that people frequently confuse those facts with their own story about them, and, as a consequence, are less effective or experience suffering in their lives.


title: Landmark Worldwide

text: Meaning is something that human beings invent in language, Landmark suggests – it's not inherent in events themselves. Therefore, if people change what they say, they can alter the meaning they associate with events and be more effective in dealing with them.


title: Landmark Worldwide

text: Landmark suggests that as people see these invented meanings, they discover that much of what they had assumed to be their "identity" is actually just a limiting social construct that they had made up in conversations in response to events in the past. From this realization, participants in Landmark's programs create new perspectives for what they now see as possible. They are then trained in sharing these with family members, friends, and workmates, so that the new possibilities live in the social realm, rather than just in their own minds. In other words, Landmark suggests that the more one's social environment supports one's goals, the easier it will be to accomplish those goals. When Landmark uses the term "new possibilities", it does so differently from the everyday sense of something that might happen in the future, instead using it to refer to a present-moment opportunity to be and act differently, free from interpretations from the past.


title: Landmark Worldwide

text: The ideas found in Landmark's programs, as well as in those of Landmark's predecessor "est", are identified by some writers as being among the most influential in the development of the modern coaching industry.


title: Landmark Worldwide

text: After completing a Landmark program, Gavin Larkin started RUOK? Day, an Australian national day of awareness about depression and suicide-prevention.


title: Landmark Worldwide

text: Landmark's "Self-Expression and Leadership Program" (SELP) requires participants to undertake a community project; some such undertakings have become nationally recognized.


title: Landmark Worldwide

text: Some scholars have categorized Landmark or its predecessor organizations as a "self religion" or a (broadly defined) "new religious movement" (NRM).


title: Landmark Worldwide

text: Landmark maintains that it is an educational foundation and denies being a religious movement. Landmark has threatened or pursued lawsuits against people who call it a cult.


title: Landmark Worldwide

text: In his review of the Landmark Forum, "New York Times" reporter Henry Alford wrote that he "resented the pressure" placed on him during a session, but also noted that "two months after the Forum, I'd rate my success at 84 percent." "Time" reporter Nathan Thornburgh, in his review of The Landmark Forum, said "At its heart, the course was a withering series of scripted reality checks meant to show us how we have created nearly everything we see as a problem" and "I benefited tremendously from the uncomfortable mirror the course had put in front of me."


title: Landmark Worldwide

text: Amber Allison, writing in "The Mayfair Magazine" describes Landmark's instructors as "enthusiastic and inspiring". Her review says that after doing The Landmark Forum, "Work worries, relationship dramas all seem more manageable", and that she "let go of almost three decades of hurt, anger and feelings of betrayal" towards her father.


title: Landmark Worldwide

text: Journalist Amelia Hill with "The Observer" witnessed a Landmark Forum and concluded that, in her view, it is not religious or a cult. Hill wrote, "It is ... simple common sense delivered in an environment of startling intensity." Karin Badt from "The Huffington Post" criticized the organisation's emphasis on spreading the word' of the Landmark forum as a sign of the participants' 'integrity in recounting her personal experience of an introductory "Landmark Forum" course, but noted, "at the end of the day, I found the Forum innocuous. No cult, no radical religion: an inspiring, entertaining introduction of good solid techniques of self-reflection, with an appropriate emphasis on action and transformation (not change)".


title: Landmark Worldwide

text: Reporter Laura McClure with "Mother Jones" attended a three and a half-day forum, which she described as "My lost weekend with the trademark happy, bathroom-break hating, slightly spooky inheritors of est."


title: Landmark Worldwide

text: In 2004, the French channel France 3 aired a television documentary on Landmark in their investigative series "Pièces à Conviction". The episode, called "Voyage Au Pays des Nouveaux Gourous" ("Journey to the land of the new gurus") was highly critical of its subject.


title: Landmark Worldwide

text: Shot in large part with a hidden camera, it showed attendance at a Landmark course and a visit to Landmark offices. In addition, the program included interviews with former course participants, anti-cultists, and commentators. Landmark left France following the airing of the episode and a subsequent site visit by labor inspectors that noted the activities of volunteers,


title: Landmark Worldwide

text: The episode was uploaded to a variety of websites, and in October 2006 Landmark issued subpoenas pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to Google Video, YouTube, and the Internet Archive demanding details of the identity of the person(s) who had uploaded those copies. These organizations challenged the subpoenas and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) became involved, planning to file a motion to quash Landmark's DMCA subpoena to Google Video. Landmark eventually withdrew its subpoenas.


title: Airstream

text: Airstream is an American brand of travel trailer ("caravan" in British English) easily recognized by the distinctive shape of its rounded and polished aluminum coachwork. This body shape dates back to the 1930s and is based on the Bowlus Road Chief, an earlier all-aluminum travel trailer designed and built by Hawley Bowlus, the same designer and engineer who also oversaw the construction of the "Spirit of St. Louis".


title: Airstream

text: Airstream trailers and recreational vehicles are manufactured in Jackson Center, Ohio, United States. The company, now a division of Thor Industries, employs more than 800 people, and is the oldest in the industry.


title: Airstream

text: The company was created by Wally Byam who began building trailers out of Masonite in his backyard in Los Angeles during the late 1920s. Byam published a magazine selling "how-to" kits to customers wishing to build their own trailers. In 1936, Byam introduced the "Airstream Clipper", which was essentially a rebadged 1935 Bowlus Road Chief, with the door relocated from the front to the side. The design cut down on wind resistance and thus improved fuel efficiency. It was the first of the now familiar sausage-shaped, silver aluminum Airstream trailers. In 1936, the first Airstream was introduced. Named the Clipper, after the first trans-Atlantic flying boat. Sold for $1,200 it was able to house four people, had electric lights and a water supply. Of more than 400 travel trailer builders operating in 1936, Airstream was the sole survivor of the Depression.


title: Airstream

text: During World War II, travel became a luxury most could not afford and non-military industries faced an acute aluminum shortage. When World War II ended, the economy boomed, and people's attention once again turned towards leisure travel. Byam's company went back into production in 1948. In July 1952, a new facility in Jackson Center, Ohio, was established. 1979 saw the last Airstreams to be manufactured in California.


title: Airstream

text: In 1974, Airstream began manufacturing a Class A motorhome, badged "Argosy". They began as painted models, and were followed in 1979 by the first examples of the Classic model motorhome, with an unpainted aluminum body much like the trailers.


title: Airstream

text: Airstream-badged Class A motorhomes began as models in 1979, and in the 1980s and 1990s, models ranging from were marketed. The aluminum motorhomes were followed by more traditional-looking fiberglass models in the 1990s. Airstream discontinued manufacture of Class A motorhomes in 2006. One bus model, the Skydeck, featured interior stairs leading to a deck on the roof.


title: Airstream

text: In 1981, Airstream's Commercial Vehicle Division marketed a Class A motorhome as a funeral coach. It was designed to transport family, flowers and the deceased from the funeral home to the cemetery.


title: Airstream

text: Starting in 1989, Airstream built Class B motorhomes based on the Ford Econoline chassis and the Dodge B-series van chassis. Production ceased after the 1999 model year. In 2004, Airstream introduced the Westfalia and Interstate, built on the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter chassis. The Westfalia was discontinued in 2006.


title: Airstream

text: Airstream, still based in Jackson Center, is a division of Thor, Inc. Airstream produces several models — Basecamp, Bambi, Caravel, Flying Cloud, International, and Classic. 2020 trailer sizes range between .


title: Airstream

text: In February 2022, the company unveiled a concept all-electric Airstream with the ability to recharge in multiple ways from electric outlets at campgrounds to regenerative braking. The vehicle also has the option for five 180-watt semi-flexible solar panels for a total of 900 watts of power. The concept also has the ability for remotely or autonomously backing up the vehicle. The e-RV would offer 5G connectivity, Wi-Fi hotspot, voice commands, and touch screens for manipulating all onboard activities.


title: Airstream

text: Airstream are distributed in the United Kingdom and Ireland by Lowdhams Airstream Direct (Lowdham Leisure World Ltd) with four models made for Europe and specifically tuned for the British market. The International "534", "604", "684" and the new "25" have been created with smaller dimensions to accommodate narrower European roads. The International are still entirely manufactured at the headquarters in Ohio and shipped over for final fit of market specific items. Airstream are also popular amongst the European market for takeaway diners and business stands.


title: Airstream

text: As of January 2015, Airstream was producing 50 trailers per week or about 2,600 per year. The company was expanding its capacity with plans to increase production by at least 50% over 2014 levels. By April 2016, the "Dayton Business Journal" reported that Airstream was producing 72 trailers per week--an annual rate of 3,744 assuming consistent production all year. The same article said they were aiming to increase to 77 trailers per week in 2016.


title: Airstream

text: In 2016, Airstream acquired Nest Caravans, which was an Oregon-based company which had one product in development, at the prototype stage. Nest trailers are made of molded fiberglass. The Nest is a smaller and lower priced trailer than any in the Airstream line, but at the upper end of prices for its market segment, that was to be sold for $29,995 before the acquisition. Airstream CEO, Bob Wheeler said "Nest is a product that conveys sophistication, simplicity, and upscale modernity, so it made sense for us to partner and help bring this design to market." Airstream moved the company to Ohio and expanded staff for production which is underway. Airstream Nest trailers were scheduled to be available in early 2018. The Airstream Nest was withdrawn from the market in September 2020.


title: Airstream

text: There are more than a dozen Airstream parks throughout the United States. These are RV resorts or campgrounds where owners of Airstream-manufactured units are allowed to buy, rent or lease a site. Some of these facilities welcome non-Airstream products, while others are more strict in their admission. Some of the parks require membership in the WBCCI (Wally Byam Caravan Club International) to be admitted. Several of the resorts are owned and operated by the local unit of the WBCCI.


title: Airstream

text: Airstreamers are a group of "RV-ers" who share a community spirit because of their common love of the trailers. In the early 1950s, Airstream company founder Wally Byam began leading groups of owners on travels to many portions of the world, where the towed trailers were quite remarkable. Photos taken of the trailers in front of many famous tourist sites were common. This promoted a mystique which surrounded Airstreams and persists to this day.


title: Airstream

text: The Wally Byam Caravan Club was formed in Kentville, Nova Scotia, Canada during the 1955 Eastern Canada Caravan. Later, the word "International" was added to the club name, resulting in the acronym "WBCCI". On August 17, 2005, a commemorative plaque was dedicated on the site. The club continues to offer RV caravans all over the USA, Canada, and Mexico (contracted) each year. Club members join together for one large international rally each summer, and hundreds of smaller local rallies are held coast-to-coast by "units" (chapters). The club even has a very active "unit" in Europe. Airstreams are still popular, and restoration of older models is a passion shared by many.