title: Mantle plume

text: The eruption of continental flood basalts is often associated with continental rifting and breakup. This has led to the hypothesis that mantle plumes contribute to continental rifting and the formation of ocean basins.


title: Mantle plume

text: The chemical and isotopic composition of basalts found at hotspots differs subtly from mid-ocean-ridge basalts. These basalts, also called ocean island basalts (OIBs), are analysed in their radiogenic and stable isotope compositions. In radiogenic isotope systems the originally subducted material creates diverging trends, termed mantle components. Identified mantle components are DMM (depleted mid-ocean ridge basalt (MORB) mantle), HIMU (high U/Pb-ratio mantle), EM1 (enriched mantle 1), EM2 (enriched mantle 2) and FOZO (focus zone). This geochemical signature arises from the mixing of near-surface materials such as subducted slabs and continental sediments, in the mantle source. There are two competing interpretations for this. In the context of mantle plumes, the near-surface material is postulated to have been transported down to the core-mantle boundary by subducting slabs, and to have been transported back up to the surface by plumes. In the context of the Plate hypothesis, subducted material is mostly re-circulated in the shallow mantle and tapped from there by volcanoes.


title: Mantle plume

text: Stable isotopes like Fe are used to track processes that the uprising material experiences during melting.


title: Mantle plume

text: The processing of oceanic crust, lithosphere, and sediment through a subduction zone decouples the water-soluble trace elements (e.g., K, Rb, Th) from the immobile trace elements (e.g., Ti, Nb, Ta), concentrating the immobile elements in the oceanic slab (the water-soluble elements are added to the crust in island arc volcanoes). Seismic tomography shows that subducted oceanic slabs sink as far as the bottom of the mantle transition zone at 650 km depth. Subduction to greater depths is less certain, but there is evidence that they may sink to mid-lower-mantle depths at about 1,500  km depth.


title: Mantle plume

text: The source of mantle plumes is postulated to be the core-mantle boundary at 3,000  km depth. Because there is little material transport across the core-mantle boundary, heat transfer must occur by conduction, with adiabatic gradients above and below this boundary. The core-mantle boundary is a strong thermal (temperature) discontinuity. The temperature of the core is approximately 1,000 degrees Celsius higher than that of the overlying mantle. Plumes are postulated to rise as the base of the mantle becomes hotter and more buoyant.


title: Mantle plume

text: Plumes are postulated to rise through the mantle and begin to partially melt on reaching shallow depths in the asthenosphere by decompression melting. This would create large volumes of magma. This melt rises to the surface and erupts to form hotspots.


title: Mantle plume

text: The most prominent thermal contrast known to exist in the deep (1000 km) mantle is at the core-mantle boundary at 2900 km. Mantle plumes were originally postulated to rise from this layer because the hotspots that are assumed to be their surface expression were thought to be fixed relative to one another. This required that plumes were sourced from beneath the shallow asthenosphere that is thought to be flowing rapidly in response to motion of the overlying tectonic plates. There is no other known major thermal boundary layer in the deep Earth, and so the core-mantle boundary was the only candidate.


title: Mantle plume

text: The base of the mantle is known as the D″ layer, a seismological subdivision of the Earth. It appears to be compositionally distinct from the overlying mantle and may contain partial melt.


title: Mantle plume

text: Two very broad, large low-shear-velocity provinces exist in the lower mantle under Africa and under the central Pacific. It is postulated that plumes rise from their surface or their edges. Their low seismic velocities were thought to suggest that they are relatively hot, although it has recently been shown that their low wave velocities are due to high density caused by chemical heterogeneity.


title: Mantle plume

text: Some common and basic lines of evidence cited in support of the theory are linear volcanic chains, noble gases, geophysical anomalies, and geochemistry.


title: Mantle plume

text: The age-progressive distribution of the Hawaiian-Emperor seamount chain has been explained as a result of a fixed, deep-mantle plume rising into the upper mantle, partly melting, and causing a volcanic chain to form as the plate moves overhead relative to the fixed plume source. Other hotspots with time-progressive volcanic chains behind them include Réunion, the Chagos-Laccadive Ridge, the Louisville Ridge, the Ninety East Ridge and Kerguelen, Tristan, and Yellowstone.


title: Mantle plume

text: While there is evidence that the chains listed above are time-progressive, it has been shown that they are not fixed relative to one another. The most remarkable example of this is the Emperor chain, the older part of the Hawaii system, which was formed by migration of the hotspot in addition to the plate motion. Another example is the Canary Islands in the northeast of Africa in the Atlantic Ocean.


title: Mantle plume

text: Helium-3 is a primordial isotope that formed in the Big Bang. Very little is produced, and little has been added to the Earth by other processes since then. Helium-4 includes a primordial component, but it is also produced by the natural radioactive decay of elements such as uranium and thorium. Over time, helium in the upper atmosphere is lost into space. Thus, the Earth has become progressively depleted in helium, and He is not replaced as He is. As a result, the ratio He/He in the Earth has decreased over time.


title: Mantle plume

text: Unusually high He/He have been observed in some, but not all, hotspots. This is explained by plumes tapping a deep, primordial reservoir in the lower mantle, where the original, high He/He ratios have been preserved throughout geologic time.


title: Mantle plume

text: Other elements, e.g. osmium, have been suggested to be tracers of material arising from near to the Earth's core, in basalts at oceanic islands. However, so far conclusive proof for this is lacking.


title: Mantle plume

text: The plume hypothesis has been tested by looking for the geophysical anomalies predicted to be associated with them. These include thermal, seismic, and elevation anomalies. Thermal anomalies are inherent in the term "hotspot". They can be measured in numerous different ways, including surface heat flow, petrology, and seismology. Thermal anomalies produce anomalies in the speeds of seismic waves, but unfortunately so do composition and partial melt. As a result, wave speeds cannot be used simply and directly to measure temperature, but more sophisticated approaches must be taken.


title: Mantle plume

text: Seismic anomalies are identified by mapping variations in wave speed as seismic waves travel through Earth. A hot mantle plume is predicted to have lower seismic wave speeds compared with similar material at a lower temperature. Mantle material containing a trace of partial melt (e.g., as a result of it having a lower melting point), or being richer in Fe, also has a lower seismic wave speed and those effects are stronger than temperature. Thus, although unusually low wave speeds have been taken to indicate anomalously hot mantle beneath hotspots, this interpretation is ambiguous. The most commonly cited seismic wave-speed images that are used to look for variations in regions where plumes have been proposed come from seismic tomography. This method involves using a network of seismometers to construct three-dimensional images of the variation in seismic wave speed throughout the mantle.


title: Mantle plume

text: Seismic waves generated by large earthquakes enable structure below the Earth's surface to be determined along the ray path. Seismic waves that have traveled a thousand or more kilometers (also called teleseismic waves) can be used to image large regions of Earth's mantle. They also have limited resolution, however, and only structures at least several hundred kilometers in diameter can be detected.


title: Mantle plume

text: Seismic tomography images have been cited as evidence for a number of mantle plumes in Earth's mantle. There is, however, vigorous on-going discussion regarding whether the structures imaged are reliably resolved, and whether they correspond to columns of hot, rising rock.


title: Mantle plume

text: The mantle plume hypothesis predicts that domal topographic uplifts will develop when plume heads impinge on the base of the lithosphere. An uplift of this kind occurred when the north Atlantic Ocean opened about 54 million years ago. Some scientists have linked this to a mantle plume postulated to have caused the breakup of Eurasia and the opening of the north Atlantic, now suggested to underlie Iceland. Current research has shown that the time-history of the uplift is probably much shorter than predicted, however. It is thus not clear how strongly this observation supports the mantle plume hypothesis.


title: Mantle plume

text: Basalts found at oceanic islands are geochemically distinct from mid-ocean ridge basalt (MORB). Ocean island basalt (OIB) is more diverse compositionally than MORB, and the great majority of ocean islands are composed of alkali basalt enriched in sodium and potassium relative to MORB. Larger islands, such as Hawaii or Iceland, are mostly tholeiitic basalt, with alkali basalt limited to late stages of their development, but this tholeiitic basalt is chemically distinct from the tholeiitic basalt of mid-ocean ridges. OIB tends to be more enriched in magnesium, and both alkali and tholeiitic OIB is enriched in trace incompatible elements, with the light rare earth elements showing particular enrichment compared with heavier rare earth elements. Stable isotope ratios of the elements strontium, neodymium, hafnium, lead, and osmium show wide variations relative to MORB, which is attributed to the mixing of at least three mantle components: HIMU with a high proportion of radiogenic lead, produced by decay of uranium and other heavy radioactive elements; EM1 with less enrichment of radiogenic lead; and EM2 with a high Sr/Sr ratio. Helium in OIB shows a wider variation in the He/He ratio than MORB, with some values approaching the primordial value.


title: Mantle plume

text: The composition of ocean island basalts is attributed to the presence of distinct mantle chemical reservoirs formed by subduction of oceanic crust. These include reservoirs corresponding to HUIMU, EM1, and EM2. These reservoirs are thought to have different major element compositions, based on the correlation between major element compositions of OIB and their stable isotope ratios. Tholeiitic OIB is interpreted as a product of a higher degree of partial melting in particularly hot plumes, while alkali OIB is interpreted as a product of a lower degree of partial melting in smaller, cooler plumes.


title: Mantle plume

text: In 2015, based on data from 273 large earthquakes, researchers compiled a model based on full waveform tomography, requiring the equivalent of 3 million hours of supercomputer time. Due to computational limitations, high-frequency data still could not be used, and seismic data remained unavailable from much of the seafloor. Nonetheless, vertical plumes, 400 C hotter than the surrounding rock, were visualized under many hotspots, including the Pitcairn, Macdonald, Samoa, Tahiti, Marquesas, Galapagos, Cape Verde, and Canary hotspots. They extended nearly vertically from the core-mantle boundary (2900 km depth) to a possible layer of shearing and bending at 1000 km. They were detectable because they were 600–800 km wide, more than three times the width expected from contemporary models. Many of these plumes are in the large low-shear-velocity provinces under Africa and the Pacific, while some other hotspots such as Yellowstone were less clearly related to mantle features in the model.


title: Mantle plume

text: The unexpected size of the plumes leaves open the possibility that they may conduct the bulk of the Earth's 44 terawatts of internal heat flow from the core to the surface, and means that the lower mantle convects less than expected, if at all. It is possible that there is a compositional difference between plumes and the surrounding mantle that slows them down and broadens them.


title: Mantle plume

text: Mantle plumes have been suggested as the source for flood basalts. These extremely rapid, large scale eruptions of basaltic magmas have periodically formed continental flood basalt provinces on land and oceanic plateaus in the ocean basins, such as the Deccan Traps, the Siberian Traps the Karoo-Ferrar flood basalts of Gondwana, and the largest known continental flood basalt, the Central Atlantic magmatic province (CAMP).


title: Mantle plume

text: Many continental flood basalt events coincide with continental rifting. This is consistent with a system that tends toward equilibrium: as matter rises in a mantle plume, other material is drawn down into the mantle, causing rifting.


title: Mantle plume

text: In parallel with the mantle plume model, two alternative explanations for the observed phenomena have been considered: the plate hypothesis and the impact hypothesis.


title: Mantle plume

text: Beginning in the early 2000s, dissatisfaction with the state of the evidence for mantle plumes and the proliferation of ad hoc hypotheses drove a number of geologists, led by Don L. Anderson, Gillian Foulger, and Warren B. Hamilton, to propose a broad alternative based on shallow processes in the upper mantle and above, with an emphasis on plate tectonics as the driving force of magmatism.


title: Mantle plume

text: The plate hypothesis suggests that "anomalous" volcanism results from lithospheric extension that permits melt to rise passively from the asthenosphere beneath. It is thus the conceptual inverse of the plume hypothesis because the plate hypothesis attributes volcanism to shallow, near-surface processes associated with plate tectonics, rather than active processes arising at the core-mantle boundary.


title: Mantle plume

text: Lithospheric extension is attributed to processes related to plate tectonics. These processes are well understood at mid-ocean ridges, where most of Earth's volcanism occurs. It is less commonly recognised that the plates themselves deform internally, and can permit volcanism in those regions where the deformation is extensional. Well-known examples are the Basin and Range Province in the western USA, the East African Rift valley, and the Rhine Graben. Under this hypothesis, variable volumes of magma are attributed to variations in chemical composition (large volumes of volcanism corresponding to more easily molten mantle material) rather than to temperature differences.


title: Mantle plume

text: While not denying the presence of deep mantle convection and upwelling in general, the plate hypothesis holds that these processes do not result in mantle plumes, in the sense of columnar vertical features that span most of the Earth's mantle, transport large amounts of heat, and contribute to surface volcanism.


title: Mantle plume

text: Under the umbrella of the plate hypothesis, the following sub-processes, all of which can contribute to permitting surface volcanism, are recognised:


title: Mantle plume

text: In addition to these processes, impact events such as ones that created the Addams crater on Venus and the Sudbury Igneous Complex in Canada are known to have caused melting and volcanism. In the impact hypothesis, it is proposed that some regions of hotspot volcanism can be triggered by certain large-body oceanic impacts which are able to penetrate the thinner oceanic lithosphere, and flood basalt volcanism can be triggered by converging seismic energy focused at the antipodal point opposite major impact sites. Impact-induced volcanism has not been adequately studied and comprises a separate causal category of terrestrial volcanism with implications for the study of hotspots and plate tectonics.


title: Mantle plume

text: In 1997 it became possible using seismic tomography to image submerging tectonic slabs penetrating from the surface all the way to the core-mantle boundary.


title: Mantle plume

text: For the Hawaii hotspot, long-period seismic body wave diffraction tomography provided evidence that a mantle plume is responsible, as had been proposed as early as 1971. For the Yellowstone hotspot, seismological evidence began to converge from 2011 in support of the plume model, as concluded by James et al., "we favor a lower mantle plume as the origin for the Yellowstone hotspot." Data acquired through Earthscope, a program collecting high-resolution seismic data throughout the contiguous United States has accelerated acceptance of a plume underlying Yellowstone.


title: Mantle plume

text: Although there is thus strong evidence that at least these two deep mantle plumes rise from the core-mantle boundary, confirmation that other hypotheses can be dismissed may require similar tomographic evidence for other hotspots.


title: Path (computing)

text: A path is a string of characters used to uniquely identify a location in a directory structure. It is composed by following the directory tree hierarchy in which components, separated by a delimiting character, represent each directory. The delimiting character is most commonly the slash ("/"), the backslash character ("\"), or colon (":"), though some operating systems may use a different delimiter. Paths are used extensively in computer science to represent the directory/file relationships common in modern operating systems and are essential in the construction of Uniform Resource Locators (URLs). Resources can be represented by either "absolute" or "relative" paths.


title: Path (computing)

text: Multics first introduced a hierarchical file system with directories (separated by ">") in the mid-1960s.


title: Path (computing)

text: In 1981, the first version of Microsoft DOS was released. MS-DOS 1.0 did not support file directories. Also, a major portion of the utility commands packaged with MS-DOS 1.0 came from IBM and their command line syntax used the slash character as a 'switch' prefix. For example, codice_1 runs the codice_2 command with the wide list format option.


title: Path (computing)

text: This use of slash can still be found in the command interface under Microsoft Windows. By contrast, Unix uses the dash ("-") character as a command line switch prefix.


title: Path (computing)

text: When directory support was added to MS-DOS in version 2.0, "/" was kept as the switch prefix character for backwards compatibility. Microsoft chose the backslash character ("\") as a directory separator, which looks similar to the slash character, though more modern version of Windows are slash-agnostic, allowing mixage of both types of slashes in a path.


title: Path (computing)

text: An absolute or full path points to the same location in a file system, regardless of the current working directory. To do that, it must include the root directory.


title: Path (computing)

text: By contrast, a relative path starts from some given working directory, avoiding the need to provide the full absolute path. A filename can be considered as a relative path based at the current working directory. If the working directory is not the file's parent directory, a file not found error will result if the file is addressed by its name.


title: Path (computing)

text: Japanese and Korean versions of Windows may often display the '¥' character or the '₩' character instead of the directory separator. In such cases the code for a backslash is being drawn as these characters. Very early versions of MS-DOS replaced the backslash with these glyphs on the display to make it possible to display them by programs that only understood 7-bit ASCII (other characters such as the square brackets were replaced as well, see ISO 646, Windows Codepage 932 (Japanese Shift JIS), and Codepage 949 (Korean)). Although even the first version of Windows supported the 8-bit ISO-8859-1 character set which has the Yen sign at U+00A5, and modern versions of Windows supports Unicode which has the Won sign at U+20A9, much software will continue to display backslashes found in ASCII files this way to preserve backwards compatibility.


title: Path (computing)

text: Mac OS X, as a derivative of UNIX, uses UNIX paths internally. However, to preserve compatibility for software and familiarity for users, many portions of the GUI switch "/" typed by the user to ":" internally, and switch them back when displaying filenames (a ":" entered by the user is also changed into "/" but the inverse translation does not happen).


title: Path (computing)

text: Programming languages also use paths. E.g.: When a file is opened. Most programming languages use the path representation of the underlying operating system:


title: Path (computing)

text: This direct access to the operating system paths can hinder the portability of programs. To support portable programs Java uses "File.separator" to distinguish between / and \ separated paths. Seed7 has a different approach for the path representation. In Seed7 all paths use the Unix path convention, independent of the operating system. Under windows a mapping takes place (e.g.: The path "/c/users" is mapped to "c:\users").


title: Path (computing)

text: The Microsoft Windows UNC, short for Universal Naming Convention or Uniform Naming Convention, specifies a common syntax to describe the location of a network resource, such as a shared file, directory, or printer. The UNC syntax for Windows systems has the generic form:


title: Path (computing)

text: Some Microsoft Windows interfaces also allow or require UNC syntax for WebDAV share access, rather than a URL. The UNC syntax is extended with optional components to denote use of SSL and TCP/IP port number, a WebDAV URL of codice_5 becomes


title: Path (computing)

text: When viewed remotely, the "SharedFolder" may have a name different from what a program on the server sees when opening "\SharedFolder". Instead, the SharedFolder name consists of an arbitrary name assigned to the folder when defining its "sharing".


title: Path (computing)

text: In versions of Windows prior to Windows XP, only the APIs that accept "long" device paths could accept more than 260 characters.


title: Path (computing)

text: The shell in Windows XP and Windows Vista, explorer.exe, allows path names up to 248 characters long.


title: Path (computing)

text: Since UNCs start with two backslashes, and the backslash is also used for string escaping and in regular expressions, this can result in extreme cases of leaning toothpick syndrome: an escaped string for a regular expression matching a UNC begins with 8 backslashes – codice_12 – because the string and regular expression both require escaping. This can be simplified by using raw strings, as in C#'s codice_13 or Python's codice_14, or regular expression literals, as in Perl's codice_15.


title: Path (computing)

text: Many applications on Unix-like systems (for example, scp, rcp and rsync) use resource definitions such as:


title: Path (computing)

text: The following worked example discusses the behavior of a Unix-style file system as it would appear from a terminal or terminal application (command-line window):


title: Path (computing)

text: Given "bobapples" as the relative path for the directory wanted, the following may be typed at the command prompt to change the current working directory to bobapples:


title: Path (computing)

text: Two dots ("") point upwards in the hierarchy, to indicate the parent directory; one dot ("") represents the current directory itself. Both can be components of a complex relative path (e.g., ""), where "" alone or as the first component of such a relative path represents the working directory. (Using "" to refer to a file "" in the current working directory can sometimes usefully distinguish it from a resource "" to be found in a default directory or by other means; for example, to view a specific version of a manual page instead of the one installed in the system.)


title: Path (computing)

text: Contrary to popular belief, the Windows system API accepts slash, and thus all the above Unix examples should work. But many applications on Windows interpret a slash for other purposes or treat it as an invalid character, and thus require you to enter backslash – notably the cmd.exe shell (often called the "terminal" as it typically runs in a terminal window). Note that many other shells available for Windows, such as tcsh and Windows PowerShell, allow the slash.


title: Path (computing)

text: In addition "\" does not indicate a single root, but instead the root of the "current disk". Indicating a file on a disk other than the current one requires prefixing a drive letter and colon. No ambiguity ensues, because colon is not a valid character in an MS-DOS filename, and thus one cannot have a file called "A:" in the current directory.


title: Path (computing)

text: The following examples show MS-DOS/Windows-style paths, with backslashes used to match the most common syntax:


title: Path (computing)

text: This path points to a file with the name , located in the directory , which in turn is located in the root directory of the drive .


title: Path (computing)

text: This path refers to a file called located in the parent directory of the current directory on drive .


title: Path (computing)

text: This path denotes a file called located in directory which in turn is located in directory which is located in the current directory of the current drive (since this example gives no drive-specification).


title: Path (computing)

text: This rather simple path points to a file named codice_16 located in the current directory (since the path lacks a directory-specification) on the current drive (since no drive specification is present).


title: Path (computing)

text: This example uses a path containing slashes as directory separator. The command redirects the content of the file to the codice_17 command.


title: Path (computing)

text: A path containing forward slashes often needs to be surrounded by double quotes to disambiguate it from command line switches.


title: Path (computing)

text: CD "[drive letter]:/Program Files" will only work from the root ([drive letter]:\) directory. This appears to treat all forward slashes the same as .\.


title: Path (computing)

text: If there is no relative path to the directory name specified with forward slashes you will get the following error:


title: Path (computing)

text: For setting environment variables, it is sometimes necessary to provide a path that does not contain spaces in it, for instance defined as "C:\Program Files\Java..." can cause scripts to halt when they encounter the space in the path name. To get the eight-character name Windows assigns to any directory for substitution in environment variables, use the directory listing command with the /x option one level up from the target directory. For instance, the following will get you the eight character name for all directories directly under root:


title: Chupke Chupke (film)

text: Chupke Chupke () is a 1975 Indian Hindi-language comedy film. A remake of the Bengali film "Chhadmabeshi", it was directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee. It stars Dharmendra, Amitabh Bachchan, Sharmila Tagore, Jaya Bachchan, Om Prakash, Usha Kiran, David Abraham Cheulkar, Asrani and Keshto Mukherjee. The music was composed by S.D. Burman. This film is highly remembered for Dharmendra and Amitabh Bachchan's comic act which came in the same year when the all-time blockbuster "Sholay" was released.


title: Chupke Chupke (film)

text: Professor Parimal Tripathi (Dharmendra) is a botany professor who falls in love with Sulekha Chaturvedi (Sharmila Tagore) during a women's college botany excursion. Prof. Parimal Tripathi helps the bungalow watchman to get to his village downhill to enable him to see his grandson who's fallen ill. Meanwhile, he disguises himself as the bungalow watchman to protect the old man's job. Sulekha finds out one day about the cover-up and is charmed on seeing Parimal's real personality. They both get married. Parimal loves playing pranks and is the antithesis of regular professors. Sulekha, on the other hand, is in awe of her jijaji (brother-in-law) Raghavendra (Om Prakash). She considers her jijaji to be highly intellectual and looks upon him as her idol. Parimal develops an inferiority complex thanks to Sulekha's excessive praise of her jijaji and decides to prove that he is in no way a lesser mortal. Jijaji, meanwhile, has written a letter to Haripad bhaiyya (David Abraham Cheulkar) asking him to send a driver who can speak good Hindi because his present driver James D'costa (Keshto Mukherjee) uses improper dialect. This provides the perfect opportunity for Parimal to get to see and interact with jijaji. Parimal becomes Pyare Mohan Ilahabadi, a motor-mouth driver who pretends to hate the English language and so speaks only Hindi. So begins the comedy of errors, as Parimal and Sulekha play prank after prank on the unsuspecting jijaji.


title: Chupke Chupke (film)

text: First they pretend that Sulekha is not happy with her new marriage, then they put across the impression that Sulekha is having an affair with Pyare Mohan, and if that was not enough, they get Parimal's long-time friend Sukumar Sinha (Amitabh Bachchan), a professor of English literature, to temporarily act as Parimal and portray him as a serious and boring lecturer, the complete opposite of Parimal's character. Pyare Mohan's excessively refined Hindi, his habit of correcting Jijaji's usage of the language and his persistence in getting jijaji to teach him English all serve to irk Jijaji to no end and provide for many laughs. Parimal's long-time friend P K Srivastava (Asrani) is also party to the prank. His sister-in-law Vasudha (Jaya Bachchan) suspects fake 'Parimal' - Sukumar Sinha - of infidelity to his wife 'Sulekha' when he tries to get close to her. Sukumar falls in love with Vasudha who at first believed he was Parimal, but Sukumar reveals to her the real drama behind all this mix-up of situations. Lata Srivastava (Lily Chakravarty), P.K. Srivastava's wife, is also angered over the latest 'extra-marital' love affair. But toward the end, Sukumar and Vasudha end up marrying in a temple where Haripat Bhaiyya coerces Pyare Mohan to 'kill' himself so that Parimal could surface. Thus jijaji comes to comprehend the whole enactment, finally admitting that he was truly fooled. The film revolves around the resolution of these funny mishaps.


title: Stanley Lord

text: Stanley Phillip Lord (13 September 1877 – 24 January 1962) was captain of the SS "Californian", the nearest ship to the "Titanic" on the night it sank on 15 April 1912, and, depending on which sources are believed, likely the only ship to see the "Titanic", or at least its rockets, during the sinking.


title: Stanley Lord

text: Lord, and the "Californian" more generally, have been criticised for the fact that the "Californian" did not render timely assistance to the "Titanic" despite being between 5 and 20 miles away, according to the testimony of various witnesses, and the only ship that could have reached "Titanic" before she sank. Two official inquiries were critical of Lord, but did not recommend criminal charges. Subsequent authors have offered differing opinions on Lord's actions, with some defending, and others criticising him. The passion among the two factions has resulted in the labels of "Lordites" and "Anti-Lordites" being applied to the two camps.


title: Stanley Lord

text: Central points of debate typically include the appropriateness of Lord's response to the rockets, whether the "Californian" and "Titanic" were in fact visible to one another (and additionally the visibility of the rockets), the possible presence of one or more "Mystery Ships" that may have been the ships seen by either the "Titanic" or "Californian" (assuming they did not in fact see each other), and whether or not the "Californian" could have saved any additional lives had it attempted to render assistance more quickly.


title: Stanley Lord

text: In February 1901, at the age of 23, Lord obtained his Master's Certificate, and three months later, obtained his Extra Master's Certificate. He entered the service of the West India and Pacific Steam Navigation Company in 1897. The company was taken over by the Leyland Line in 1900, but Lord continued service with the new company, and was awarded his first command in 1906.


title: Stanley Lord

text: Lord was married and had a son. His wife, Mabel, died in 1957, and Lord died in 1962. It was suggested that the stress of attempts to exonerate himself had contributed to the deterioration of his own health after his wife's death. Their son, Stanley Tutton Lord (1908–1994), worked as a banker in Liverpool; he never married or had children. He lived as a bachelor until his death from natural causes in 1994. He rarely spoke of his father, except to say he believed in his innocence. In 1965 he wrote a preface to a book by Peter Padfield, "The Titanic and the Californian", which supported the case for Lord having been judged unfairly.


title: Stanley Lord

text: On the night of 14 April 1912, as the "Californian" approached a large ice field, Captain Lord decided to stop around 10:21 p.m. (ship's time) and wait out the night. Before turning in for the night, he ordered his sole wireless operator, Cyril Evans, to warn other ships in the area about the ice. When reaching the "Titanic", Evans tapped out "I say old man, we are stopped and surrounded by ice." The "Californian" was so close to the "Titanic" that the message was very loud in the ears of "Titanic" First Wireless Operator Jack Phillips, who angrily replied "Keep out! Shut up! I am working ["i.e.", communicating with] Cape Race." Earlier in the day the wireless equipment aboard the "Titanic" had broken down and Phillips, along with Second Wireless Operator Harold Bride, had spent the better part of the day trying to repair it. Now they were swamped with outgoing messages that had piled up during the day and Phillips was exhausted after such a long day. Evans listened in for a while longer as Phillips sent routine traffic through the Cape Race relaying station before finally turning in for bed at around 11:30 p.m.


title: Stanley Lord

text: Over the course of the night, officers and seamen on the deck of "Californian" witnessed eight white rockets fired into the air over a strange ship off in the distance.


title: Stanley Lord

text: Fatigued after 17 hours on duty, Captain Stanley Lord was awakened twice during the night and told about the rockets, to which he replied that they may be "company rockets", to help ships identify themselves to liners of the same company.


title: Stanley Lord

text: Meanwhile, on the "Titanic", for an hour after the collision, no other ships were noticed until the lights of a ship were seen in the distance. Fourth Officer Joseph Boxhall and Quartermaster Rowe tried in vain to contact the strange ship by Morse lamp. Nobody on the deck of the "Californian" saw these signals; however, they had also tried to signal the mystery ship, but were unable to get a response.


title: Stanley Lord

text: Authors Tim Maltin and Eloise Aston attribute Captain Lord's belief that the nearby ship was not the "Titanic" to visual distortions caused by cold-water mirages. Not able to understand any messages coming from the strange ship, "Californian"'s officers eventually concluded that signals were merely the masthead flickering and not signals at all.


title: Stanley Lord

text: Throughout the night, no one on board the "Californian" attempted to wake their wireless operator, and ask him to contact the ship to ask why they were firing rockets and trying to signal them, until 5:30 a.m. By then, however, it was too late — the "Titanic" had gone down at 2:20 a.m. When she had slipped below the water, the sudden disappearance of lights was interpreted by the "Californian" crew to mean that she had simply steamed away.


title: Stanley Lord

text: On the morning of 15 April 1912, Captain Lord was notified by the "Frankfurt" that the "Titanic" had gone down early that morning. At 8:45 a.m, the "Californian" pulled up alongside the "Carpathia" and stayed behind to search for additional bodies after the "Carpathia" steamed towards New York.


title: Stanley Lord

text: While Lord was never tried or convicted of any offence, he was still viewed publicly as a pariah after the "Titanic" disaster. His attempts to fight for his exoneration gained him nothing, and the events of the night of 14–15 April 1912 would haunt him for the rest of his life.


title: Stanley Lord

text: Lord was dismissed by the Leyland Line in August 1912. So far as any negligence of the SS "Californian"'s officers and crew was concerned, the conclusions of both the American and British inquiries seemed to disapprove of Lord's actions but stopped short of recommending charges. While both inquiries censured Lord, they did not make any recommendations for an official investigation to ascertain if he was guilty of offences under the Merchant Shipping Acts. Lord was not allowed to be represented at either the U.S. or British inquiry.


title: Stanley Lord

text: In February 1913, with help from a Leyland director who believed he had been unfairly treated, Lord was hired by the Nitrate Producers Steamship Co., where he remained until March 1927, resigning for health reasons. In 1958, Lord contacted the Mercantile Marine Service Association in Liverpool in an effort to clear his name. The association's general secretary, Mr. Leslie Harrison, took up the case for him and petitioned the Board of Trade on his behalf for a re-examination of the facts, but there had been no finding by the time of Lord's death in 1962. In 1965, largely because Lord had offered no new evidence, his petition was rejected, but in the same year Peter Padfield's book "The Titanic and the Californian" was published, defending Lord's reputation, with a preface by his son Stanley Tutton Lord. This was followed by a second petition, in 1968, which was also rejected.


title: Stanley Lord

text: In 1957, Lord's wife died. It was a devastating loss to him, and precipitated a decline in his health. In 1958 the film "A Night To Remember" was released, based on a 1955 book of the same title by Walter Lord (no relation). Stanley Lord, now 81 years old, never saw the film, but purportedly read the "Liverpool Echo" newspaper reviews of the film. Lord was very disappointed, and it brought back memories of the "Titanic" tragedy, and was upset over his negative portrayal by the Australian-British actor Russell Napier, which depicted him as a captain in his forties, in a warm cabin in his pyjamas in bed asleep when "Titanic" was sinking. In reality, Lord was 34 years old at the time and was asleep in the chart room with his uniform on at the time of the disaster. Lord's son Stanley Tutton Lord saw the film, and was upset how his father was treated after the "Titanic" tragedy. In 1959 Stanley helped fight to get his father's name cleared from the records of the "Titanic" disaster. He continued his attempts after his father's death in 1962, up until his own death in 1994.


title: Stanley Lord

text: The discovery in 1985 of the remains of the "Titanic" on the sea bed made it clear that the S.O.S. position given after the iceberg collision by the "Titanic's" fourth officer, Joseph Boxhall, was wrong by thirteen miles. At both of the 1912 inquiries, there had been some conflict about the true position of the ship when it sank. The conclusions of the inquiries discounted the evidence of uncertainty about the position of the "Titanic". At the time, some assumed that the position which Lord had given for his ship was incorrect and that he was actually much closer to the "Titanic" than he claimed to be. While the entries in the "Californian"'s scrap log (used for recording information before it was written up officially in the ship's logbook) referring to the night in question had mysteriously gone missing, sometimes seen as overwhelming proof that Lord deliberately destroyed evidence in order to cover his crime of ignoring a distress call, destroying the scrap log records was actually normal company practice. While modifying the official ship's log or removing pages is a serious violation of maritime law, this was not the case. A re-appraisal by the British government, instigated informally in 1988 and published in 1992 by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB), further implicated the consequences of Lord's inaction. Among its conclusions were that although the "Californian" was probably out of visual sight, the "Titanic"s rockets had been sighted by the "Californian"s crew. Another conclusion stated that it was unrealistic to assume that Lord could have rushed towards the signals, and that with the "Titanic" reporting an incorrect position, the "Californian" would have arrived at about the same time as the "Carpathia" and fulfilled a similar role – rescuing those who had escaped. The report was critical of the behavior of the other officers of the "Californian" in reaction to the signals. What has never been satisfactorily resolved was why Lord did not simply wake his radio operator and listen for any distress signals.


title: Stanley Lord

text: Daniel Allen Butler, in his 2009 book "The Other Side of Night: The Carpathia, the Californian, and the Night Titanic Was Lost", makes a case that Lord's personality and temperament — his behaviour at both inquiries, his threats towards his crew, his frequent changing of his story, the absence of the scrap log, and odd remarks made by Lord in Boston in a newspaper interview – point to Lord's having some sort of mental illness. His lack of compassion — never once expressing grief at the loss of the "Titanic" or sorrow for those who had lost family when she sank is, according to Butler, compatible with sociopathy.


title: Stanley Lord

text: Butler's claims about Lord have been countered by "Titanic" historian and author, Dr. Paul Lee, who pointed to the numerous testimonials Lord received throughout his career for good conduct and the fact that, in the aftermath of the "Titanic" furore, people were willing to risk their own reputations to help Lord find employment with a new shipping line. Lee further argued that if Lord were such a tyrant, then the officers and sailors who willingly served under him on multiple voyages would surely not have done so. In his book "The Titanic and the Indifferent Stranger", Lee noted the lack of reliable witnesses. Those on the "Titanic" were in the midst of a trauma, while those on board the "Californian" had an obvious reason to want to avoid blame. Navigational techniques of the time meant that the "Titanic"s CQD position being wrong did not necessarily mean that the "Californian" was farther away, since the "Californian"'s position was likely wrong as well. Lee was also critical of both Lord and Stone for not reacting appropriately to the rockets, which should have been easily and universally understood as distress signals. He pointed to Lord's question about what color the rockets were as evidence of his ignorance, since rockets of any color indicated distress. Lee acknowledged that the question of potential "Mystery Ships" is unlikely to ever be resolved, due to both poor record keeping as well as the fact that this issue was not well researched at the time. However Lee points out that this obscures the fact that, even if the rockets did not come from the "Titanic", the "Californian" still ignored some other ship's distress signals. Overall, he was quite critical of Lord and his defenders, especially Leslie Harrison, whom Lee accused of attempting to suppress works critical of Lord. Despite this position, Lee concluded nonetheless that the "Californian" probably would not have saved many, if any, additional lives, pointing out that a rescue by the "Californian" would still have necessitated lowering the lifeboats, but "Titanic"s officers were unable to even launch all of the lifeboats they had. Lee further hypothesized that, given the reluctance of many passengers to leave the ship in the early stages of the evacuation, the sight of an approaching ship might have provided further discouragement to board the lifeboats, leading to more deaths rather than fewer.


title: Stanley Lord

text: Captain Lord died on 24 January 1962, aged 84, almost half a century after the sinking of the "Titanic". He is buried in Rake Lane Cemetery Wallasey.


title: Listen Like Thieves

text: Listen Like Thieves is the fifth studio album by Australian rock band INXS. It was released on 14 October 1985. It spent two weeks at number one on the Australian Kent Music Report Albums Chart. Considered an international breakthrough album for the band, it peaked at No. 11 on the United States "Billboard" 200, No. 24 on the Canadian "RPM" 100 Albums and top 50 in the United Kingdom.


title: Listen Like Thieves

text: The album featured the band's first top 5 single in the U.S., "What You Need", and it also won the group the for 'Best Video' with that single, a sign of the critical acclaim that INXS had achieved. "Listen Like Thieves" also marks the beginning of the group's off-and-on alliance with producer Chris Thomas.


title: Listen Like Thieves

text: "Listen Like Thieves" is the fifth studio album by INXS. The Sydney-based group had formed in 1977 by the three Fariss brothers: Andrew on guitar and keyboards, Jon on percussion and drums, and Tim on guitar, along with Garry Gary Beers on bass guitar, Michael Hutchence as lead vocalist, and Kirk Pengilly on guitar, saxophone, and vocals. Their previous album, "The Swing" (April 1984), had local chart success peaking at number one on the Australian Kent Music Report Albums Chart and No. 6 in New Zealand. Although appearing on international charts – No. 52 on United States "Billboard" 200, and No. 27 on the Canadian "RPM" 100 Albums – INXS wanted to improve their worldwide impact.


title: Listen Like Thieves

text: After recording their last album in New York and Oxfordshire, they returned to Sydney where they worked with Chris Thomas (Sex Pistols, Pretenders, Roxy Music, Elton John) producing at Rhinoceros Studios.


title: Listen Like Thieves

text: "Listen Like Thieves" was recorded over a three-month period at the Rhinoceros studio in Sydney, NSW, Australia. Many of the album's songs were written by the song writing duo of Hutchence and Andrew Farriss.


title: Listen Like Thieves

text: As production came close to completion, Thomas told the band that the album was lacking a crucial hit single, so the band members left the studio having just a few days to come up with one last song. "Chris Thomas told us there was still no 'hit'", Farriss later recalled. "We left the studio that night knowing we had one day left and we had to deliver a 'hit'. Talk about pressure." Both Hutchence and Farriss searched through the demos that Farriss had composed throughout the album's production. Out of the remaining demos, Thomas persuaded the duo to focus on one particular demo titled "Funk Song no 13". "It was great. I thought, 'I could listen to that groove for 10 minutes!' I said, 'Let's work with that groove'", said Thomas. INXS spent the next two days working on the demo track, which would eventually turn out to be the hit single "What You Need", giving the band their first top 5 hit in the U.S.


title: Listen Like Thieves

text: "AllMusic"s Stephen Thomas Erlewine noted that with "Listen Like Thieves" the band "completes its transition into an excellent rock & roll singles band". However "the new configuration only works for three songs", which were its first three singles, "What You Need", "Listen Like Thieves" and "Kiss the Dirt (Falling Down the Mountain)". Despite this commentary, the music critic stated as well that "the album cannot be dismissed" and gave it four out of five stars in his ranking. Australian musicologist Ian McFarlane opined that "Listen Like Thieves" had "a much harder sound than heard on previous INXS records, but somehow it lacked the pop smarts that had made "The Swing" so appealing".


title: Listen Like Thieves

text: "Rolling Stone"s Parke Puterbaugh felt the group were "going for the jugular – or is that the groin?" and with Thomas they "forge an unlikely union between the sonic extremism of Led Zeppelin-style crunch rock and the step-lively beat of disco" such that the album "rocks with passion and seals the deal with a backbeat that'll blackmail your feet".


title: Sad Cypress

text: Sad Cypress is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in March 1940 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. The UK edition retailed at eight shillings and threepence (8/3) – the first price rise for a UK Christie edition since her 1921 debut – and the US edition retailed at $2.00.


title: Sad Cypress

text: The novel was the first novel in the Poirot series set at least partly in the courtroom, with lawyers and witnesses exposing the facts underlying Poirot's solution to the crimes. The title is drawn from a song in Shakespeare's play "Twelfth Night".


title: Sad Cypress

text: The novel was well received at publication. One reviewer remarked "it is economically written, the clues are placed before the reader with impeccable fairness, the red herrings are deftly laid and the solution will cause many readers to kick themselves." Another reviewer found the story to be well told, but did not like that the plot "turns on a legal point" that is misconceived. A later review described it as "Elegiac, more emotionally involving than is usual in Christie, but the ingenuity and superb clueing put it among the very best of the classic titles."


title: Sad Cypress

text: Elinor Carlisle and Roddy Welman are engaged to be married when she receives an anonymous letter claiming that someone is "sucking up" to their wealthy aunt, Laura Welman, from whom Elinor and Roddy expect to inherit a sizeable fortune. Elinor is niece to Mrs Welman, while Roddy is nephew to her late husband. Elinor suspects Mary Gerrard as the topic of the anonymous letter, the lodgekeeper's daughter, whom their aunt likes and supports. Neither guesses who wrote the letter, which is burned. They visit their aunt at Hunterbury. Roddy sees Mary Gerrard for the first time in a decade. Mrs Welman is partially paralyzed after a stroke and dislikes living that way. She tells both her physician Peter Lord and her niece how much she dislikes living without full health, wishing the doctor might end her pain, which he refuses to do. Roddy falls in love with Mary; this provokes Elinor to end their engagement. After a second stroke, Mrs Welman asks Elinor to make provision for Mary. Elinor assumes there is a will her aunt wants modified. Mrs Welman dies before Elinor can call the solicitor. There is no will. She dies intestate, so her considerable estate goes to Elinor outright as her only known surviving blood relative.


title: Sad Cypress

text: Elinor settles two thousand pounds on Mary, which Mary accepts. Elinor sells the house she inherited. Mary dies of morphine poisoning at an impromptu lunch at Hunterbury, as Elinor, at the house, and Mary with Nurse Hopkins, at the lodge, are clearing out private possessions. Everyone at the house had access to the morphine Nurse Hopkins claimed to have lost at Hunterbury while Mrs Welman was ill. Elinor is arrested. Later, after the body is exhumed, it is learned that her aunt died of morphine poisoning. Peter Lord, in love with Elinor, brings Poirot into the case. Poirot speaks to everyone in the village. He uncovers a second suspect when Roddy tells him of the anonymous letter - the writer of that letter. Poirot then focuses on a few elements. Was the poison in the sandwiches made by Elinor, which all three ate, or in the tea prepared by Nurse Hopkins and drunk by Mary and Hopkins, but not by Elinor? What is the secret of Mary's birth? Is there any significance in the scratch of a rose thorn on Hopkins's wrist? The denouement is revealed mainly in the court, as the defence lawyer brings witnesses who reveal what Poirot uncovers.


title: Sad Cypress

text: A torn pharmaceutical label that the prosecution says is from morphine hydrochloride, the poison, is rather a scrap from a label for apomorphine hydrochloride, an emetic, made clear because the m was lower case. The letters Apo had been torn off. Nurse Hopkins had injected herself with the emetic, to vomit the poison that she would ingest in the tea, explaining the mark on her wrist – not from a rose tree that is a thornless variety, Zephirine Drouhin. She went to wash dishes that fateful day for privacy as she vomited, looking pale when Elinor joined her in the kitchen. The motive was money. Mary Gerrard was the illegitimate daughter of Laura Welman and Sir Lewis Rycroft. Had this been discovered sooner, she would have inherited Mrs Welman's estate. Nurse Hopkins knows Mary's true parents because of a letter from her sister Eliza some years earlier. When Hopkins encouraged Mary Gerrard to write a will, Mary named as beneficiary the woman whom she supposes to be her aunt, Mary Riley, the sister of Eliza Gerrard, in New Zealand. Mary Riley's married name is Mary Draper. Mary Draper of New Zealand it turns out "is" Nurse Hopkins in England, as two people from New Zealand who knew Mary Draper both confirm in court. Hopkins leaves the courtroom before the judge can recall her.


title: Sad Cypress

text: Elinor is acquitted, and Peter Lord takes her away from where reporters can find her. Poirot talks with Lord to explain his deductions and actions to him as he gathered information on the true murderer, and how the "quickness of air travel" allowed witnesses from New Zealand to be brought to the trial. Poirot tells Lord he understands his clumsy efforts to get some action in Poirot's investigation. Lord's embarrassment is alleviated by Poirot's assurance that Lord will be Elinor's husband, not Roddy.


title: Sad Cypress

text: The title comes from a song from Act II, Scene IV of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" which is printed as an epigraph to the novel.


title: Sad Cypress

text: The novel is written in three parts: in the first place an account, largely from the perspective of Elinor Carlisle of the death of her aunt, Laura Welman, and the subsequent death of Mary Gerrard; secondly Poirot's account of his investigation in conversation with Dr Lord; and, thirdly, a sequence in court, again mainly from Elinor's dazed perspective.


title: Sad Cypress

text: Maurice Percy Ashley in "The Times Literary Supplement" gave a positive review to the book in the issue of 9 March 1940: "In recent years the detective story-reading public has been so profusely drenched with thrills, 'wisecracks' and perverted psychology that one sometimes wonders whether there is still room for the old-fashioned straight-forward problem in detection. There are, however, a few first-class exponents of this art with us – though now that Miss Sayers has, for the moment at any rate, turned moralist and others have entered the easier field of thriller writing there seem to be increasingly few. Mrs Christie in particular remains true to the old faith; and it is pleasant to be able to record that her hand has not lost its cunning". The reviewer regretted that Poirot had lost some of his 'foibles' and Hastings no longer featured in the plots but he ended on a high note: "Like all Mrs Christie's work, it is economically written, the clues are placed before the reader with impeccable fairness, the red herrings are deftly laid and the solution will cause many readers to kick themselves. Some occasional readers of detective stories are wont to criticize Mrs Christie on the ground that her stories are insufficiently embroidered, that she includes, for instance, no epigrams over the college port. But is it not time to state that in the realm of detective fiction proper, where problems are fairly posed and fairly solved, there is no one to touch her?"


title: Sad Cypress

text: In "The New York Times Book Review" of 15 September 1940, Kay Irvin concluded, "The cast of characters is small, the drama is built up with all this author's sure, economical skill. "Sad Cypress" is not the best of the Christie achievements, but it is better than the average thriller on every count."


title: Sad Cypress

text: In reviewing several crime novels in "The Observer"'s issue of 10 March 1940, Maurice Richardson began, "An outstanding crime week. Not only is Agatha Christie shining balefully on her throne, but the courtiers have made an unusually neat artistic arrangement of corpses up and down the steps." Concentrating on "Sad Cypress" specifically, Richardson concluded, "Characterisation brilliantly intense as ever. In fact, Agatha Christie has done it again, which is all you need to know."


title: Sad Cypress

text: "The Scotsman"'s review in its issue of 11 March 1940 concluded, ""Sad Cypress" is slighter and rather less ingenious than Mrs Christie's stories usually are, and the concluding explanation is unduly prolonged. But it is only with reference to Mrs Christie's own high level that it seems inferior. By ordinary standards of detective fiction it is a fascinating and skilfully related tale."


title: Sad Cypress

text: E R Punshon in "The Guardian"'s issue of 2 April 1940 concluded, "The story is told with all and even more of Mrs Christie's accustomed skill and economy of effect, but it is a pity that the plot turns upon a legal point familiar to all and yet so misconceived that many readers will feel the tale is deprived of plausibility."


title: Sad Cypress

text: Robert Barnard considered this novel to be "A variation on the usual triangle theme and the only time Christie uses the lovely-woman-in-the-dock-accused-of-murder ploy." His commentary on it was strongly positive, calling it "Elegiac, more emotionally involving than is usual in Christie, but the ingenuity and superb clueing put it among the very best of the classic titles. Her knowledge of poison is well to the fore, but the amateur will also benefit from a knowledge of horticulture and a skill in close reading."


title: Sad Cypress

text: Peter Lord says that he has been recommended to consult Poirot by Dr John Stillingfleet on the basis of Poirot's brilliant performance in the case related in the short story, "The Dream", which had been printed two years earlier in issue 566 of "The Strand" (magazine) and later printed in book form in "The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding" in 1960 in the UK and in "The Regatta Mystery" in the US in 1939. The character of Stillingfleet later reappears in "Third Girl" (1966).


title: Sad Cypress

text: One of the witnesses flown to the trial from New Zealand is named Amelia Sedley, a name borrowed from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray in 1847-48.


title: Sad Cypress

text: The novel was adapted as a five-part serial for BBC Radio 4 in 1992. John Moffatt reprised his role of Poirot. The serial was broadcast weekly from Thursday, 14 May to Thursday, 11 June at 10.00am to 10.30pm. All five episodes were recorded in the week of 16 to 20 March 1992.


title: Sad Cypress

text: The book was adapted by London Weekend Television as a one-hundred-minute drama and transmitted on ITV in the UK on Friday 26 December 2003 as a special episode in their series "Agatha Christie's Poirot". The adaptation was quite faithful to the novel, with the time and setting being the two major changes. Whereas the novel took place partly in the criminal court and partly at the Welman estate, the adaptation takes place at the Welman estate. In the end, Nurse Hopkins attempts to kill Poirot with poisoned tea but he pretends to drink it and pours the tea into a sugar bowl.


title: Sad Cypress

text: The novel was adapted as the sixth episode of the French television series "Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie". The episode first aired in 2010.


title: Sad Cypress

text: The book was first serialised in the US in "Collier's Weekly" in ten parts from 25 November 1939 (volume 104, number 22) to 27 January 1940 (volume 105, number 4) with illustrations by Mario Cooper.


title: Sad Cypress

text: The UK serialisation was in nineteen parts in the "Daily Express" from Saturday, 23 March to Saturday, 13 April 1940. The accompanying illustrations were uncredited. This version did not contain any chapter divisions.


title: Japanese calligraphy

text: Written Japanese was originally based on Chinese characters only, but the advent of the hiragana and katakana Japanese syllabaries resulted in intrinsically Japanese calligraphy styles.


title: Japanese calligraphy

text: The term shodō (書道, "way of writing") is of Chinese origin, and is widely used to describe the art of Chinese calligraphy during the medieval Tang dynasty. Early Japanese calligraphy was originated from Chinese calligraphy. Many of its principles and techniques are very similar, and it recognizes the same basic writing styles:


title: Japanese calligraphy

text: During preparation, water is poured into the inkstone and the inkstick is ground against it, mixing the water with the dried ink to liquefy it. As this is a time-consuming process, modern-day beginners frequently use bottled liquid ink called . More advanced students are encouraged to grind their own ink. Paper is usually placed on a desk, while a large piece of paper may be placed on the floor or even on the ground (for a performance).


title: Japanese calligraphy

text: The brushes come in various shapes and sizes, and are usually made using animal hair bristles. Typical animal hair may come from goats, sheep, or horses. The handle may be made from wood, bamboo, plastic or other materials.


title: Japanese calligraphy

text: The Chinese roots of Japanese calligraphy go back to the 13th century BC, to the late Shang dynasty, a time when pictographs were inscribed on bone for religious purposes. When this writing developed into an instrument of administration for the state, the need for a uniform script was felt and Li Si, prime minister in the Chinese dynasty of Qin, standardized a script and its way of being written. He sanctioned a form of script based on squares of uniform size into which all characters could be written from eight strokes. He also devised rules of composition where horizontal strokes are written first and characters are composed starting from top to bottom, left to right. Because the symbols were inscribed with sharp instruments, the lines were originally angular; and in many ways, Li Si's achievements were made obsolete by the appearance of brush and ink (see Chinese calligraphy). The ink-wet brush creates a line quite different from a sharp stylus. It affords variation in thickness and curve of line. Calligraphy retained the block form of Li Si and his eight strokes, but the writer was free to create characters that emphasized aesthetically pleasing balance and form. The way a character was written gave a message of style.


title: Japanese calligraphy

text: Calligraphy in the Chinese tradition was thus introduced to Japan about AD 600 Known as the "karayō" tradition, it has been practiced up to today, rejuvenated continuously through contact with Chinese culture.


title: Japanese calligraphy

text: The oldest existing calligraphic text in Japan is the inscription on the halo of the Medicine Buddha statue in the Hōryū-ji Temple. This Chinese text was written in "Shakyōtai" () style, prominent in the Chinese Six Dynasties period.


title: Japanese calligraphy

text: The Hōryū-ji Temple also holds bibliographic notes on the Lotus Sutra: the was written early in the 7th century and is considered the oldest Japanese text. It is written in Cursive script and illustrates that calligraphy in the Asuka period was already refined to a high degree.


title: Japanese calligraphy

text: The oldest hand-copied sutra in Japan is the Kongō Jōdaranikyō. Copied by the priest Hōrin in AD 686, the calligraphy style shows influences from the work of Ouyang Xun.


title: Japanese calligraphy

text: In the 7th century, the Tang dynasty established hegemony in China. Their second Emperor Taizong esteemed Wang Xizhi's calligraphic texts and this popularity influenced Japanese calligraphers. All of the original texts written by Wang Xizhi have been lost, and copies such as "Gakki-ron" written by the Empress Kōmyō are highly regarded as important sources for Wang Xizhi's style. However Wang's influence can barely be overstated, in particular for the "wayō" style unique to Japan: "Even today, there is something about Japanese calligraphy that retains the unchanged flavour of Wang Xizhi's style".


title: Japanese calligraphy

text: Emperor Kanmu moved the capital from Heijō-kyō in Nara, first to Nagaoka-kyō in 784, and then to Heian-kyō, Kyoto in 794. This marks the beginning of the Heian era, Japan's "golden age". Chinese influences in calligraphy were not changed in the early period. For example, under the Emperor Saga's reign, royalty, the aristocracy and even court ladies studied calligraphy by copying Chinese poetry texts in artistic style.


title: Japanese calligraphy

text: Wang Xizhi's influences remained dominant, which are shown in calligraphies written by Kūkai or Saichō. Some other Chinese calligraphers, such as Ouyang Xun and Yan Zhenqing were also highly valued. Their most notable admirers were Emperor Saga and Tachibana no Hayanari respectively.


title: Japanese calligraphy

text: At the same time, a style of calligraphy unique to Japan emerged. Writing had been popularized, and the "kana" syllabary was devised to deal with elements of pronunciation that could not be written with the borrowed Chinese characters. Japanese calligraphers still fitted the basic characters, called "kanji" , into the squares laid out centuries before. A fragment, "Kara-ai no hana no utagire" (, AD 749) is considered the first text to show a style unique to Japanese calligraphy; it shows a Tanka poem using Man'yōgana, thus deviated from contemporary Chinese calligraphy. Ono no Michikaze (AD 894–966), one of the so-called "sanseki" , "Three Brush Traces"), along with Fujiwara no Sukemasa and Fujiwara no Yukinari, is considered the founder of the authentically Japanese "wayō" style, or "wayō-shodō" . This development resonated with the court: Kūkai said to Emperor Saga, "China is a large country and Japan is relatively small, so I suggest writing in a different way." The , a poem written by Emperor Saga on the occasion of Saichō's death, was one of the examples of such a transformation. Ono no Michikaze served as an archetype for the "Shōren-in" school, which later became the "Oie" style of calligraphy. The "Oie" style was later used for official documents in the Edo period and was the prevailing style taught in the "terakoya" schools of that time.


title: Japanese calligraphy

text: The ascension of Minamoto no Yoritomo to the title of "shōgun", following the Hōgen and Heiji rebellions, and the victory of the Minamoto clan over the Taira, marked the beginning of the Kamakura period (AD 1185–1333), but not quite yet to a return to peace and tranquility. The era is sometimes called "the age of the warriors" and a broad transition from court influences to a leading role of the military establishment pervaded the culture. It is also, however, a time when exchanges with China of the Song dynasty continued and Buddhism greatly flourished. Zen monks such as Shunjo studied in China and the copybooks that he brought with him are considered highly influential for the "karayō" tradition of the time, expressing a clear kaisho style. But this was not the only example, indeed a succession of Chinese monks were naturalized at that time, encouraged by regent Hōjō Tokiyori. Rankei Doryū founded the Kenchō-ji temple in Kamakura and many of his works have been preserved. However, with the rise of the Rinzai school of Zen Buddhism a less technical style appeared, representative of Zen attitudes and exemplified in the works of Musō Soseki who wrote in a refined sosho style, or Shūhō Myōcho (1282–1337; better known as Daito Kokushi), the founder of Daitoku-ji in Kyoto, who had not traveled to China to study. In terms of "wayō" style, the works of Fujiwara no Shunzei and Fujiwara no Teika are considered outstanding examples of the late Heian and early Kamakura.


title: Japanese calligraphy

text: Political and military unrest continued throughout the Muromachi period (AD 1336–1537), characterized by tensions between imperial and civil authority and periods of outright civil war. However, as Ashikaga Takauji had ousted Emperor Go-Daigo from Kyoto to establish his own "bakufu" there, the intermingling of residual members of the imperial court, courtiers, "daimyōs", samurai, and Zen priests resulted in vibrant cultural impulses. The arts prospered, but are not considered as refined as that of earlier times. Of note is the role of Ikkyū Sōjun, a successor of Shūhō Myōcho at Daitoku-ji; Ikkyū was instrumental in elevating the appreciation of calligraphy to an integral part of the tea ceremony in the 15th century.


title: Japanese calligraphy

text: Tokugawa Ieyasu centralized power in his shogunate between 1603 and 1615. This marked the beginning of the Edo period, which brought 250 years of relative stability to Japan, lasting until the second half of the 19th century. The period was marked by seclusion from overseas influences with the policy. Calligraphic studies were essentially limited to the study of "karayō" style works, via Ming-dynasty China. Indigenous developments were contributed by Ingen and the Ōbaku sect of Zen buddhism, and the Daishi school of calligraphy. The latter focused on the study of the , which go back to Wang Xizhi, and the 72 types of "hissei" ("brush energy") expounded by Wang Xizhi's teacher, the Lady Wei. The 1664 reprint of a copybook based on these principles in Kyoto contributed an important theoretical development. Calligraphers such as Hosoi Kotaku, who authored the five-volume "Kanga Hyakudan" in 1735, further advanced the "karayō" style. Very characteristic for the early Edo period was an innovation by Hon'ami Kōetsu (1558–1637) who had paper made to order and painted a backdrop of decorative patterns, butterflies or floral elements that his calligraphy established a poetic correspondence with. Together with Konoe Nobutada (1565–1614) and Shōkadō Shōjō (1584–1639) – the three "Kan'ei Sanpitsu"  – he is considered one of the greatest calligraphers in the "wayō" style at the time, creating examples of "a uniquely Japanese calligraphy".


title: Japanese calligraphy

text: Around 1736 Yoshimune began relaxing Japan's isolation policy and Chinese cultural imports increased, in particular via the port of Nagasaki. Catalogues of imported copybooks testify to a broad appreciation of Chinese calligraphers among the Japanese literati who pursued the "karayō" style: "traditionalists" studied Wang Xizhi and Wen Zhengming, while "reformists" modeled their work on the sōsho style of calligraphers such as Zhang Xu, Huaisu and Mi Fu. In terms of "wayō", Konoe Iehiro contributed many fine kana works but generally speaking, "wayō" style was not as vigorously practised as "karayō" at that time. Nevertheless, some examples have been preserved by scholars of , or poets and painters such as Kaga no Chiyo, Yosa Buson or Sakai Hōitsu.


title: Japanese calligraphy

text: In contemporary Japan, shodo is a popular class for elementary school and junior high school students. Many parents believe that having their children focus and sit still while practicing calligraphy will be beneficial. In high school, calligraphy is one of the choices among art subjects, along with music or painting. It is also a popular high school club activity, particularly with the advent of performance calligraphy. Some universities, such as University of Tsukuba, Tokyo Gakugei University and Fukuoka University of Education, have special departments of calligraphic study that emphasize teacher-training programs in calligraphy.


title: Japanese calligraphy

text: Japanese calligraphy was influenced by, and influenced, Zen thought. For any particular piece of paper, the calligrapher has but one chance to create with the brush. The brush strokes cannot be corrected, and even a lack of confidence shows up in the work. The calligrapher must concentrate and be fluid in execution. The brush writes a statement about the calligrapher at a moment in time (see Hitsuzendō, the Zen way of the brush). Through Zen, Japanese calligraphy absorbed a distinct Japanese aesthetic often symbolised by the ensō or circle of enlightenment.


title: Japanese calligraphy

text: Zen calligraphy is practiced by Buddhist monks and most "shodō" practitioners. To write Zen calligraphy with mastery, one must clear one's mind and let the letters flow out of themselves, not practice and make a tremendous effort. This state of mind was called the by the Japanese philosopher Nishida Kitaro. It is based on the principles of Zen Buddhism, which stresses a connection to the spiritual rather than the physical.


title: Japanese calligraphy

text: Before Japanese tea ceremonies (which are connected to Zen Buddhism), one is to look at a work of "shodō" to clear one's mind. This is considered an essential step in the preparation for a tea ceremony.


title: Final Doom

text: Final Doom is a first-person shooter video game developed by TeamTNT, and Dario and Milo Casali, and was released by id Software and distributed by GT Interactive in 1996. It was released for MS-DOS and Macintosh computers, as well as for the PlayStation, although the latter featured a selection of levels from Final Doom and from "Master Levels for Doom II".


title: Final Doom

text: The third entry in the "Doom" franchise, "Final Doom" consists of two 32-level episodes (or megawads), "TNT: Evilution" and "The Plutonia Experiment". Unlike "TNT: Evilution", which was officially licensed, "The Plutonia Experiment" was made by request of the team at id Software."" The story in both episodes take place after the events of "Doom II"."" "TNT: Evilution" features a new soundtrack not found in "Doom" and "Doom II", while "The Plutonia Experiment" reuses the soundtrack from "Doom".


title: Final Doom

text: "Final Doom" plays identically to "", and even features the same weapons, items, and monsters. The original game is widely considered to be significantly more difficult than its predecessors "Doom" and "Doom II".


title: Final Doom

text: The gameplay in the PlayStation version of "Final Doom" is nearly identical to that found in the PlayStation version of "Doom", and, in addition, it was compatible with the PlayStation Mouse. Compared to the MS-DOS original, the PlayStation version's overall difficulty was significantly reduced. Many of the harder levels were removed and those that remained often had enemies taken out (most noticeably the Cyberdemon being removed from the level 'Baron's Lair'). As in the original PlayStation version of "Doom", many of the larger levels from the original MS-DOS versions of "Final Doom" and "Master Levels for Doom II" were removed, and both the Arch-vile and Spider Mastermind monsters were removed, due to technical constraints. This limited the PlayStation version to 30 levels in total. The more traditional rock tracks featured in "Final Doom" were replaced by a creepier ambient soundtrack by Aubrey Hodges, who later composed the music for "Doom 64" in 1997.


title: Final Doom

text: There are several noticeable alterations to the presentation of "Final Doom" in the PlayStation version compared to the computer versions. The simplistic title screens featured in the computer versions have been replaced by a more elaborate title screen that features the animated flame-filled sky texture from the original PlayStation version of "Doom". Many of the levels' sky textures have been replaced by different ones; some levels' skies are replaced by sky textures seen in previous "Doom" games, whereas others now feature a new starry sky texture. Finally, most of the level layouts are simplified, similar to previous "Doom" console ports, and the frame rate of the game is often lower than it was in the first PlayStation "Doom" game.


title: Final Doom

text: In "TNT: Evilution", the UAC are once again intent on developing and experimenting with dimensional gateway technology. They set up a base on one of the moons of Jupiter, with a solid detachment of space marines for protection. The marines do their job well; when the first experimental gateway is opened, they annihilate the forces of Hell. Research continues with more confidence and all security measures turned at the gateway.


title: Final Doom

text: A few months later, the yearly supply ship comes ahead of schedule, and looks strange and unusually big on the radar. The lax radar operators decide that there is nothing to worry about. The personnel of the base go out to behold the terrible truth: it is a spaceship from Hell, built out of steel, stone, flesh, bone and corruption. The ship's enormous gates open to unleash a rain of demons on the base. Quickly, the entire facility is overrun, and everyone is slain or zombified.


title: Final Doom

text: The main character, the nameless space marine (who was revealed to be the marine commander on the moon) has been away on a walk at that time and thus escapes death or zombification. After being attacked by an imp, he rushes back to the base where he sees the demonic spaceship still hovering above it and realizes what has happened. He then swears that he will avenge his slain troops and sets out to kill as many demons as possible.


title: Final Doom

text: In the end, the marine defeats the Icon of Sin and the game describes "something rumbles in the distance. A blue light glows within the ruined skull of the demon-spitter."


title: Final Doom

text: In "The Plutonia Experiment", after Hell's catastrophic invasion of Earth, the global governments decide to take measures against any possible future invasion, knowing that the powers of Hell still remained strong. The UAC is refounded under completely new management (the old trustees and stockholders were all dead anyway) and aims at developing tools that would prevent demonic invasions.


title: Final Doom

text: The scientists start working on a device known as the "Quantum Accelerator" that is intended to close invasion Gates and stop possible invasions. The experiments are carried out in a secret research complex, with a stationed detachment of marines. The work seems to be going well but the creatures from Outside have their attention drawn towards the new research. A Gate opens in the heart of the complex and unnatural horrors pour out. The Quantum Accelerator performs superbly: the Gate is quickly closed and the invasion is stopped. Research continues more boldly.


title: Final Doom

text: On the next day, a ring of 7 Gates opens and an even greater invasion begins. For one hour the Quantum Accelerators manage to close 6 of the Gates, but the Hellish army has become too numerous and too strong. The complex is overrun. Everyone is slain, or zombified. The last Gate of Hell remains open, guarded by a Gatekeeper: a powerful, enormous and ancient demon that has the power to open Dimensional Gates and control or protect them.


title: Final Doom

text: The government, frantic that the Quantum Accelerator will be destroyed or used against humanity, orders all marines to the site at once. The player, the nameless space marine, was on leave at the beach. He was also closest to the site and gets there first. There he discovers that there is much demonic activity (howling, chanting, machine sounds) within the complex; the Gatekeeper is obviously working on something, and his work would soon reach some awful climax. He also realizes that when the marines arrive, they would not be able to penetrate the heavily infested complex, despite the firepower and support they will have. The marine decides to enter the complex and stop the Gatekeeper alone.


title: Final Doom

text: Work on "TNT: Evilution" was started by TeamTNT, a group of WAD-making hobbyists who were active on the advanced "Doom" editing mailing list. Just days before it was to be released as a free download online, the project was acquired by id Software, and finished in November 1995.


title: Final Doom

text: Brothers Dario and Milo Casali, who had contributed four levels to "TNT: Evilution", were assigned the task of creating what became "The Plutonia Experiment" after having sent an eight-level WAD they had created to American McGee and managing to impress him along with the rest of the id Software crew. They created 16 levels each for "The Plutonia Experiment" in four months time, and submitted them in January 1996. Unlike their contributions to "TNT: Evilution", which were edited after submission (four were also rejected due to being too large to run on the computers of the day), these were the final revisions of the levels, and Dario Casali later commented about the fact that no changes were requested: "Thank God because I was ready to throw my computer out the window at the time."


title: Final Doom

text: Dario Casali acknowledged the difficulty level of "The Plutonia Experiment" in an interview on Doomworld, stating "Plutonia was always meant for people who had finished "Doom 2" on hard and were looking for a new challenge. I always played through the level I had made on hard, and if I could beat it too easily, I made it harder, so it was a challenge for me."


title: Final Doom

text: Reviewing the PC version in "GameSpot", Jim Varner argued that "Final Doom" is a waste of money, since it is essentially just a new set of level maps for "Doom", and there were already thousands of such maps available to download for free on the internet.


title: Final Doom

text: While "GamePro" criticized that "Final Doom" has no new enemies or weapons, and that the PlayStation version includes only 30 levels as compared to the PC version's 64, they were pleased with the "huge, perplexing, and sometimes sadistic levels" and the new scenery, and considered "Doom" still a compelling enough game that simply more of the same was enough to satisfy. "" gave it a score of 9/10, calling it "essential". A reviewer for "Next Generation" was less impressed, remarking that a side-by-side comparison with the PlayStation version of the original "Doom" reveals that "Final Doom" has a much lower frame rate, less precise control, and more visible seams in the textures. Three of the four reviewers of "Electronic Gaming Monthly" said they were tired of seeing ports of "Doom", and that "Final Doom" was simply another such port with new level maps. They also said that the game engine had become severely outdated in the years since "Doom" was first released. Crispin Boyer was the one dissenting voice, expressing enthusiasm for the new level designs.


title: Wi Spa controversy

text: On June 24, 2021, a woman posted a video to Instagram in which she had confronted staff at Wi Spa, a Korean spa in Los Angeles, about the ostensible presence of a nude individual with a penis, most commonly believed to be a trans woman, in the women's section of the spa. The video went viral, attracting significant attention from trans-excluding feminists ( gender-critical feminists or TERFs) online and right-wing media, which led to protests and counter-protests on July 3 and 17 over the alleged access. Some media initially questioned whether the alleged incident had been a hoax.


title: Wi Spa controversy

text: On August 30, 2021, an individual, commonly reported to be a transgender woman, was charged with indecent exposure relating to the alleged incident after four women and one minor girl filed police reports in July. The suspect had previously been convicted of indecent exposure in 2002 and 2003, being obliged to register as a sex offender since 2006 and convicted for failing to register in 2008. The suspect is awaiting trial on seven counts of indecent exposure, according to court documents from 2019. The suspect has denied guilt, claiming harassment over being a trans person.


title: Wi Spa controversy

text: Traditionally, Korean baths and spas that carry the appellation "jjimjilbang" mandate nudity within their gender-segregated areas, and are a "family affair". Wi Spa is a 24-hour, Korean spa located in the Koreatown neighborhood of Los Angeles. It has four floors: a women's floor; a men's floor; one mixed-gender, family-friendly "jjimjilbang" floor; and a rooftop, non-bathing floor. Wi Spa's policies for guests mandate that swimwear not be worn in the gender-segregated floors, while "proper clothing" is required in the mixed-gender floor.


title: Wi Spa controversy

text: Wi Spa has an "Equal Access" policy for customers that covers "age, color, national origin, citizenship status, physical or mental disability, race, religion, creed, gender, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, marital status or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local law".


title: Wi Spa controversy

text: A cisgender woman going by the name "Cubana Angel" posted a video to her Instagram account on June 24, 2021, alleging that Wi Spa had allowed an individual "with a penis" to be nude in the women's floor of the spa, and specifically in the clothes-changing area. Angel, accompanied by two other women, confronted Wi Spa staff claiming "a man with a penis" was in the changing area and accosting staff for several minutes. During this time, Angel repeatedly mentioned the possibility of the individual's penis being exposed to children.


title: Wi Spa controversy

text: According to a subsequent news release from the Los Angeles Police Department, the incident occurred on June 23, the day before the video was uploaded.


title: Wi Spa controversy

text: In July 2021, it was reported that the unknown individual alleged to have acted in this manner had not been confirmed as a trans woman, but that the belief that they were had become common. During the incident video, a masked spa worker also seemed to assume the patron in question was transgender. Another customer questioned Cubana Angel if she was referring to a "transgender person", and she responded "There is no such thing as transgender." In a follow-up comment on the video, Angel posted "REAL WOMEN RIGHTS MATTER". On her personal website, she later said, over a week after the incident, that the individual was "a man who identified as a woman".


title: Wi Spa controversy

text: In a statement to "Los Angeles Magazine" published June 29, 2021, Wi Spa outlined its position: "Like many other metropolitan areas, Los Angeles contains a transgender population, some of whom enjoy visiting a spa. Wi Spa strives to meet the needs of all its customers." The spa pointed out that California Civil Code 51(b) and 51(e)(5) makes it illegal for the spa to "discriminate" against transgender and gender-nonconforming people.


title: Wi Spa controversy

text: On July 3, Precious Child, a Los Angeles trans woman, a musician and activist, was falsely accused online of being the alleged person referred to by the incident video. The accusation spread quickly and she began receiving abusive messages, physical threats (including death threats), and accusations of pedophilia. Child said she had never visited Wi Spa and found the accusations of pedophilia "deeply hurtful," having been a victim of child sexual abuse. The woman who made the incident video posted later on Instagram that Child was not the alleged culprit. While the only notable individual example, other trans individuals in the LA area reported similar online harassment that ostensibly resulted from the incident.


title: Wi Spa controversy

text: In an August 6 interview with "On the Media", Lois Beckett, author of the original report in "The Guardian", paraphrased Child's experience as it was relayed to her, saying that the comments received by Child came from "different demographics". Specifically, "[Child] saw comments from sort of militia group types in the US, then from broader pro-Trump people in the US, then she said that like transphobic feminists in Germany and in Australia were weighing in".


title: Wi Spa controversy

text: On July 7, 2021, the "Los Angeles Blade", a Southern California offshoot of the "Washington Blade", a prominent LGBT newspaper, said anonymous sources from Wi Spa staff and from within the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) had cast significant doubt on the incident as described in the video. The Wi Spa source said that the spa's transgender clients are well known by staff and none of them were recorded as present in the spa the day of the incident. The LAPD source said the department could not at that time evidentially substantiate the incident nor find evidence of any transgender person's presence in the day in question inside Wi Spa. The "Blade" writer speculated that a "cisgender man" could have acted in concert with the woman in the video, recalling a 2015 incident in Washington in which anti-transgender activists had asked cisgender men to enter female-only areas as a form of protest.


title: Wi Spa controversy

text: According to "Los Angeles Magazine", on July 19, "several outlets have questioned whether the video was staged to generate outrage at a time when conservative politicians are weaponizing trans rights for political gain."


title: Wi Spa controversy

text: On July 18, "The Intercept" reported Cubana Angel joined Cure America Action (citing her press conference hosted by the organization) in a campaign to repeal California's anti-discrimination law for trans individuals. This was reflected on the woman's personal website where she was calling for said repeal. Cure America Action is a Washington, D.C.-based, nonprofit organization that claims it "advocates for conservative principles based on Christianity, Capitalism, and the Constitution." Marc Little, a conservative pastor, lawyer, and the organization's executive director, was representing Cubana Angel.


title: Wi Spa controversy

text: During July 2021, four women and one girl filed formal legal complaints with the LAPD. In their complaints, the women alleged that they saw "male genitals exposed in the women's section" of the spa. Cubana Angel was the first to file such a report, on July 6.


title: Wi Spa controversy

text: On August 30, 2021, a 52-year-old individual, mostly reported as a trans woman, was charged by the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office with five counts of felony indecent exposure in connection with the incident, corresponding to the five individuals who'd filed complaints in July. An arrest warrant was issued for said individual.


title: Wi Spa controversy

text: The suspect had previous convictions for the same offense from 2002 and 2003, becoming, as a result, obliged to register as a sex offender in 2006. In 2008, the suspect was convicted for failing to register as a sex offender. The suspect also had an open case from 2018, in which they have pled "not guilty" to seven counts of indecent exposure in front of women and children in a Los Angeles park. Regarding the 2018 case, the LAPD circulated an internal flyer which described the suspect as "homeless" and alleged the suspect "claims to identify as female" in order to gain access to women's locker rooms and showers.


title: Wi Spa controversy

text: In an interview with the "New York Post" published on September 2, 2021, the suspect denied their guilt, stating that they are the victim of "transphobic harassment" and are legally female. The suspect also said that they used the women's section of the spa facilities and were in the hot tub when she encountered Cubana Angel, claiming, "She [Angel] never saw me naked. I was underwater with water all the way up to my chest."


title: Wi Spa controversy

text: Since it was posted, the incident video progressively went viral, peaking most notably on Sunday, June 27, 2021. The video had increasingly circulated online on right-wing and far-right sites, as well as trans-exclusionary feminist spaces. Trans-excluding spaces included Mumsnet, Ovarit, and Spinster. Ian Miles Cheong, a conservative political commentator, posted two videos about the incident on June 27 via his Twitter account that reached hundreds of thousands of views. Andy Ngo, a controversial right-wing journalist, also posted on Twitter about the incident.


title: Wi Spa controversy

text: The controversy was discussed on Fox News beginning from July 28, with commentator Tucker Carlson featuring the story on his show the evening of July 29. Various right-wing media, including Fox News, "The Christian Post", "OneNewsNow", Blaze Media, "The Daily Wire" and RealClearPolitics, ran stories about the incident in a manner that Media Matters for America called "uncritically spread." Media Matters claimed the right was using a "disputed story" to "attack transgender rights." "The Guardian" called the manner in which right-wing media characterized the incident as "distorted".


title: Wi Spa controversy

text: The spa was review bombed on Yelp and Tripadvisor following the extensive public awareness of the incident.


title: Wi Spa controversy

text: On June 30, KCAL-TV, a LA CBS affiliate, posted a story that quoted Bamby Salcedo, CEO of the Los Angeles-based TransLatina Coalition, who said the behavior of the woman in the incident video is not uncommon: "we experience this type of violence every single day of our lives." Salcedo stated that her behavior showed ignorance.


title: Wi Spa controversy

text: On July 5, "The Washington Post" listed multiple statements by LGBTQ individuals reacting to the incident: Zac Boyer, a manager at Stonewall Columbus, an Ohio-based LGBTQ organization, said the community wants to "preserve women-only spaces," but that "women have a variety of genitalia." San Diego Trans Pride organizer Jae Red Rose said of the alleged, trans spa-visitor: "She was within the women's section, which, you know, is exactly where she should be!"


title: Wi Spa controversy

text: On August 6, Julia Serano, an author and trans activist, said, while being interviewed for "On the Media", that the rhetoric used by anti-trans protesters is heavily reminiscent of Anita Bryant's rhetoric from the 1970s, noting that the QAnon slogan "SaveTheChildren" (#SaveOurChildren was also used) "echoes" the name of Bryant's organization, Save Our Children. While Serano did not believe the link to the 1970s anti-gay slogan was originally intentional by QAnon adherents, Serano stated it was "essentially the same usage."


title: Wi Spa controversy

text: Evaluating the composition of demonstrators, the "Los Angeles Blade" described those protesting against the spa itself and transgender access to the spa as "a mix of religious fundamentalist street preachers, QAnon conspiracy theorists chanting 'save our children', and Proud Boys". Counter-protesters were noted as LGBT activists and black bloc, possibly antifa, demonstrators." "Newsweek" corroborated that QAnon and Proud Boy members were present.


title: Wi Spa controversy

text: The involvement of antifa was disputed, with some sources claiming antifa involvement and others being inconclusive. A July 17 report by NBC Los Angeles stated a group using the name "SoCal Antifa" was involved in the July 3 protest, but the station could not determine if the group were involved in the July 17 confrontation. A July 19 article by "Los Angeles Magazine" claimed the black bloc demonstrators were "Antifa-aligned". A July 20 report by the private news-site American Military News stated that the involvement of antifa was alleged by Andy Ngo but could not otherwise be confirmed. A July 31 article by "Los Angeles Magazine" claimed SoCal Antifa was involved in both the July 3 and 17 protests.


title: Wi Spa controversy

text: Outside Wi Spa, anti-trans demonstrators scheduled the protest to begin at 11am, while pro-trans demonstrators had already scheduled for 10am. The opposing groups came to blows repeatedly, after which the Los Angeles Police Department declared that the whole gathering constituted an "unlawful assembly." The LAPD Rampart Division suppressed both groups, with riot control units using physical force, less-than-lethal weapons, and batons. Two people were stabbed, while another was beaten with a pipe. "Slate" magazine claimed that one of the stabbings was committed by an anti-trans protester against a pro-trans protester, while the other was of an anti-trans protester accidentally stabbed by an allied individual. "The Intercept" reported that "the violence was wrongly attributed to left-wing counterprotesters" since journalists Vishal Singh and Rocky Romano had produced "clear visual evidence" that the knife attacks and the metal-pipe assault on Romano were "the work of conservative" persons. One individual was taken to medical facilities following the protest. Police said they were investigating three instances of assault and battery and two instances of assault with a deadly weapon resulting from the July 3 demonstrations. No arrests were made that day.


title: Wi Spa controversy

text: Demonstrators and counter-demonstrators again surrounded Wi Spa in the late morning; however, police presence had been increased compared to the July 3 protest. According to the LAPD, the groups began to scuffle between each other and police around 11:10 a.m., police had smoke grenades and other objects thrown at them, after which an unlawful assembly was declared. After the declaration, LAPD used less-lethal bean bag rounds and 40-mm riot guns, as well as batons, against protesters. One pro-trans protester was pummeled into the pavement with repeated baton strikes, another, a woman, was shot point-blank with a bean bag causing her to collapse, and a journalist had their hand broken by police baton. After the event, police said pepper spray, stun guns, and knives were found on the streets. There were no reported officer injuries or medical transport of any protesters.


title: Wi Spa controversy

text: According to "The Intercept" reportage, police focused primarily on pro-trans left-wing demonstrators, kettling and arresting a significant group "(pictured right)." Overall, 38 were arrested, most of them pro-trans demonstrators. When questioned about the seemingly disparate treatment, police claim that anti-trans/right-wing demonstrators were not arrested due to complying with the dispersion order, however left-aligned activists state that due to the kettling that pro-trans demonstrators weren't allowed by police to disperse.